Under Heaven (23 page)

CHAPTER XI

H
e was tired. It had been a very long day and his body was telling him as much. Tai was hardened and fit after two years' digging graves by Kuala Nor, but other factors could enter into making someone weary at day's end.
It would also be dishonest to deny that a measure of his languor could be traced to an encounter upstairs in the White Phoenix, just now.
He was aware that the woman's scent was still with him, and that he didn't know her name. That last wasn't unusual. And whatever name he'd learned wouldn't have been her real one. He didn't even know Rain's real name.
That suddenly became a sadness, joining others.
Stepping outside with the most celebrated poet in the empire, his new companion--the reality of
that
was going to take time to settle in--Tai saw someone waiting, and decided he'd be happier if his recently hired Kanlin guard hadn't looked so smugly amused. Registering her expression, he wished he were sober.
Wei Song approached. She bowed. "Your servant trusts you are feeling better, my lord." She spoke with impeccable courtesy--and unmistakable irony.
Tai ignored her for the moment. A useful tactic, when your thoughts offered no good reply. He looked around the night square. Saw the governor's sedan chair behind her. Other soldiers had replaced those who'd taken the would-be assassins. Caution--another new thing--made him hesitate.
"You saw these men arrive?" he asked, gesturing.
Song nodded. "I spoke with the leader. You may safely ride with them." Her tone was proper, her expression barely so. He really wished she hadn't said what she'd said back at Iron Gate, about women waiting for him in Chenyao.
Tai became aware of an extreme delight showing in the face of the rumpled poet beside him. Sima Zian was eyeing Tai's bodyguard with appreciation by the light of the lanterns on the porch.
"This is Wei Song, my Kanlin," he said, briefly. "I mentioned her inside."
"You did," agreed the poet, smiling.
Song smiled back at him, and bowed. "I am honoured, illustrious sir." She hadn't needed an introduction.
Tai looked from one of them to the other. "Let's walk," he said abruptly. "Have the soldiers follow. Song, is there word from the governor? About the men they took?"
"A report will be sent to us as soon as they have something to tell."
Us
. He considered commenting and decided he was too tired for a confrontation, and not sober enough. He didn't want to argue. He was thinking about his sister. And his brother.
"We're leaving at sunrise," he said. "And we'll be riding faster now. Please advise our soldiers from Iron Gate."
"Sunrise?" protested Sima Zian.
Tai looked at him.
The poet grinned wryly. "I'll manage," he said. "Send this one to wake me?"
Wei Song laughed. She actually laughed, flashing white teeth. "I'll do that happily, my lord," she said.
Unable to think of anything to say to that, either, Tai began walking. Sima Zian caught up with him. He showed no evidence of fatigue or the wine he'd drunk. It was unfair. Song walked behind them. Tai heard one of the governor's men snap a command as they lifted the empty sedan chair and hurried to follow.
Something occurred to him.
Without breaking stride or looking back, he said, "Song, how did those two men get inside?"
She said, "I had the same thought, my lord. I was guarding the back. There is an entrance there. I believed that soldiers of Governor Xu could stop anyone at the front. I have spoken with them about this failure. They know I will mention it to their commander."
It was difficult to catch her out, Tai thought. As it should be. She was a Kanlin, after all.
"They will not feel kindly towards you," the poet said. Zian glanced back at Song as they walked.
"I'm certain that is so," she said. Then, after a pause, she murmured, "I saw the fox-woman again, Master Shen. Near the laneway when you fought the soldiers."
"A fox-spirit? Inside the city?" The poet looked at her again. His tone had changed.
"Yes," she said.
"No
,
"
Tai snapped in the same moment. "She saw a fox."
There was silence from the other two. Only their footsteps and distant noises from other streets. The city, Tai thought. He was in a city again, at night. By the waters of Kuala Nor the ghosts would be crying, with none to hear their voices.
"Ah. Well. Yes. A fox. I wonder," the Banished Immortal said thoughtfully, "if it will be possible to find an acceptable wine at this inn. I hope it isn't far."
THERE WAS NO MESSAGE from the governor when they reached the inn. Nor was there a room available for the poet. Song spoke to the attendant in the reception pavilion, and Zian was assigned her chamber.
She would sleep outside Tai's room again. The staff of the inn were embarrassed by the awkwardness, eager to provide a pallet on the covered portico. It wasn't unusual for guards to sleep outside doorways.
There was little Tai could do about it. The poet invited Song to share his room. She declined, more sweetly than Tai would have expected.
He stared at her as the attendant hurried off to give orders. "This is because of those two men?" he asked.
She hesitated. "Yes, of course. And your friend needs a chamber. It is only proper to--"
"It's the fox, isn't it?"
He couldn't say why that upset him so much. Anger was too easily his portion. He'd gone to Stone Drum Mountain, in part, because of that. He'd left for the same reason, in part.
She met his gaze, eyes defiant. They were still in the reception pavilion, no one else nearby.
"Yes," she said. "It is also that."
Kanlins, he recalled, were enjoined not to lie.
What was he going to say? It was unexpected on her part, given how controlled she was, otherwise. An embracing of folk legends, ancient tales, but she certainly wasn't alone in doing that.
The poet had wandered off through the first courtyard into the nearest pavilion, where music was still playing. As Tai glanced that way, Zian reappeared, grinning, carrying a flask of wine and two cups. He came back up the steps.
"Salmon River wine, if you can believe it! I am very happy."
Tai lifted a warding hand. "You will undo me. No more tonight."
The poet's smile grew wider. He quoted,
"At the very bottom of the last cup, at the end of night, joy is found
.
"
Tai shook his head. "Perhaps, but sunrise will also be found soon."
Sima Zian laughed. "I thought the same, so why go to bed at all?" He turned to Wei Song. "Keep the room, little Kanlin. I'll be with the musicians. I'm sure someone there will offer a pillow if I need one."
Song smiled at him again. "The chamber is yours, sir. Maybe the pillow--or the someone--will prove unsatisfactory. I have my place tonight."
The poet glanced at Tai. He nodded his head. He didn't look nearly intoxicated enough.
"I will instruct that any message from the governor tonight be brought to me." Song had the grace to bow to Tai. "If that is acceptable."
It probably shouldn't have been, but he was weary. Too much of too many things.
It is about your sister.
He nodded. "Thank you, yes. You will wake me if you judge it proper."
"Of course."
Two servants carrying a rolled-up pallet appeared, moving briskly, managing to bow sideways as they passed. They hurried out to the courtyard, past lanterns, towards a building on the left. Zian went out after them, but turned right again, towards
pipa
music and flutes and a ripple of late-night laughter. There was, Tai saw, an eagerness to his stride.
Tai and Song followed the pallet the other way. It was set down on the covered portico of the first building, outside the closed door of his own chamber. The servants bowed again and hurried away, leaving them alone.
There were torches burning at intervals along the portico. Faintly, from the far side of the courtyard, they could hear the music. Tai looked at the stars. He thought about the last time Song had spent a night outside his room. He wondered if there was a bolt on the door.
He remembered that he'd meant to check on Dynlal before retiring. He could ask Song to do it, and she would, but it didn't feel right. She'd been awake as long as he had. It was unlikely to be necessary: one of the Iron Gate soldiers, that first one who'd seen Tai approaching, from up on the wall, hardly ever left the horse. Odds were good he was sleeping in the stables.
He didn't know where the other soldiers were ... sharing one of the larger rooms, most likely. They'd be long asleep by now.
Night clouds, thin moon, stars,
But a promise of the sun
Remaking the world,
Bringing mountains back.
In a way, Sima Zian had the right idea. Tai had spent entire nights drinking before, many times. With Spring Rain, with Yan and the other students and their women. He wasn't up to that tonight.
"You'll wake the men?" he asked Wei Song.
"I'll wake all of you before dawn."
"Just knock, for me," he said. He managed a smile.
She made no reply, just looked at him a moment, hesitating. When she stood so near, he realized how small she was.
"I'll go tell the stable hands to have the horses fed and watered before sunrise. We'll need a horse for Master Sima. And I'll look in on Dynlal." She bowed briefly, walked quickly down the three steps to the courtyard. He watched her crossing it.
She didn't look tired either, he thought.
He went into the room, closed the door. Then he stood, just inside, keeping extremely still.
After a moment he opened the door again. "Wait here," he said to the empty portico. "Come if I call you." He left the door ajar, turned back into the chamber.
It was her perfume that had registered.
That, and the amber glow in the room: three lamps were lit, which was extravagant, so late. The servants of the inn would not have done that.
There was another entrance, from the covered porch on the opposite side, a private space from which to look at flowers or the moon. The sliding, slatted doors had been pushed back, the room was open to the night. The gardens of the inn went all the way down to the river. Tai saw a star in the opening, quite bright, flickering.
She had changed her gown. She was wearing red now, gold threads in it, not the green of before. He wished it hadn't been red.
"Good evening," he said quietly to the daughter of Xu Bihai.
It was the older one, the one he'd liked: sideways-falling fashion of her hair, clever look in her eyes, an awareness of the effect she'd had, bending to pour wine. Her jewellery was unchanged, rings on many fingers.
The governor's daughter was sitting on the edge of his canopied bed, alone in the room. She wore gold, open-toed sandals. Her toenails were painted red, Tai saw. She smiled, stood up, moved towards him, exquisite.
It was still unfair, in almost every possible way.
"My Kanlin guard ... she's just outside the door," he lied.
"Then shouldn't we close it?" she asked. Her voice was low, amused. "Would you like me to do that? Is she dangerous?"
"No. No! Your father ... would be very unhappy if his daughter was in a closed bedchamber with a man."
"My father," she murmured, "sent me here."
Tai swallowed.
It was just possible. How urgently, how desperately, did the military leader of two western districts want to keep Tai--and his horses--from rivals? From Roshan, as an example. As the best example. What would he do to achieve that?
He'd given an answer, hadn't he, earlier tonight?
I would sooner kill you
, Xu Bihai had said, over saffron wine.
Was this--a lissome daughter sent to bind him--an alternative short of murder? It would preserve the horses for the empire. And for the Second and Third Military Districts. If Tai was killed the horses were lost. And Governor Xu, if known to have caused that to happen, was likely to be exiled, or ordered to end his life, for all his power and accomplishment.
But a man could be seduced by an elegant daughter with the worldly skills of well-bred women in Ninth Dynasty Kitai. Or he could be compromised, perhaps, forced to behave with honour after a night ... lacking honour, defined by skills. There was that possibility.
And daughters--
like sisters
--could be used as instruments.
He was not, he realized, tired any more.
The governor's daughter, tall, slender, came slowly up to him. Her perfume was delicious, expensive, disturbing, and the red gown was cut as low as the green one had been earlier tonight. A green dragon amulet still hung between her breasts on a golden chain.
Silk brushing against him, she glided past, to close the half-open door.
"Leave it! Please!" Tai said.
She smiled again. She turned towards him, very close. Large eyes, looking up, claimed his. Her painted eyebrows were shaped like moth wings. Her skin was flawless, cheeks tinted with vermilion. She said, softly, "She might become envious or aroused, your Kanlin woman, if we leave the door ajar. Would you like that? Would that add to your pleasure, sir? To imagine her looking in upon us from the dark?"
If, Tai thought, a little desperately, she was doing this on the instructions of her father, she was a very dutiful daughter.
"I ... I have already been to the White Phoenix Pleasure House tonight," he stammered.
Not the most poised or courteous thing to say. Her fingernails were also red, and they had golden extensions, a fashion he remembered from two years ago in Xinan. The fashion had reached this far west. That was ... that was interesting, Tai thought.
It wasn't, really. He wasn't thinking very clearly.
Her breath was sweet, scented with cloves. She said, "I know where you were. They are said to be well trained, the girls there. Worth the cost to any man." She cast her eyes down, as if shyly. "But it is not the same, you know it, my lord, as when you are with a well-born woman you have not bought. A woman who has risked a great deal to come to you, and waits to be taught what you know."
Her right hand moved, and one of those golden fingernails stroked the back of his hand, and then, as if carelessly, moved slowly up the inside of his forearm. Tai shivered. He didn't believe there was a great deal this one needed to be taught. Not by him, not by anyone.
He closed his eyes. Took a steadying breath and said, "I know this is foolish, but are you ... could a
daiji
be within you?"
"That took longer than it should have!"
A third voice--from the small porch leading to the garden and the river.
Tai and the governor's daughter turned, very quickly.
Wei Song stood framed in the space between the sliding doors. One sword was drawn, levelled at the girl.