When he nearly ran into a horse, he looked up at a familiar triangular silhouette. Under his hat Monk Zhu had the frozen look of someone helpless to prevent a past terror from happening again. It was the first time Yuchun had seen him anything less than composed. Yuchun stared up at him, the man leading them who was a Buddhist monk, and felt a disembodied stab of intense clarity: I’m going to die.
A bandit sheared past and Yuchun ducked, but when he came up there was an even taller one in his face. He stumbled backwards—but instead of coming after him, the tall bandit stopped in his tracks at the sight of Monk Zhu.
“Stop!” the bandit yelled, flinging up a commanding hand. “Stop!”
The fighting tailed off into the last clash of steel and the rising mutters of men denied. Nobody was screaming, and the few men on the ground rose slowly to their feet clutching shallow wounds. Strange as it seemed, only a few heartbeats had passed. The Red Turbans and bandits glared at each other, their blood roused.
The tall bandit’s eyes were fixed on Monk Zhu. Under his rags his solid body seemed made for violence. Even his hair had been cut short in a violence against his ancestors. His sword quivered in his hand. To Monk Zhu he said with calm intensity, “Get off that horse.”
After a moment Monk Zhu dismounted. Standing there, unarmed and unarmored, he seemed pathetically small. Out of all the Red Turbans, Yuchun was the one with the longest-standing bet against the monk’s survival. Now, faced with his winning hand, he felt a peculiar hollowness. He could see it already: the monk’s shaven head hitting the ground; the bright arc of blood across his face. That was how it always ended.
The tall bandit lunged at Monk Zhu. Yuchun, who had closed his eyes at the last moment, opened them and stared in astonishment at two bodies locked not in violence, but a ferocious embrace. Monk Zhu’s face was shining with joy as he reached up and took the back of the tall bandit’s head into the palm of his hand, a possessive gesture that aligned strangely with their relative sizes. “Big brother.”
“See?”
Yuchun jumped; it was Jiao. Watching the monk and the bandit, Jiao went on, “He didn’t need to fight to win. Don’t underestimate him because he’s a monk. What someone is means nothing about what kind of person they are. Truth is in actions. And if we consider actions: that monk killed ten thousand men in an instant. So what does that make him?”
Before Yuchun could find his voice, Jiao answered himself: “Someone to be careful of.”
10
ANYANG, FIRST MONTH
This is the moment it all starts, Ouyang told himself as he left his rooms in the quiet outer wing of Esen’s residence. A storm was rising outside, and the lamps did little to banish the dimness along the corridor. The cold black smell of coming rain penetrated the window-paper.
“General,” the servants cried as Ouyang came into Esen’s private quarters. “Lord Esen is out on the training field, but given the weather he will no doubt return soon. May it please you to wait!” and they withdrew in a patter. Ouyang sat, and stood, and sat again. He wanted Esen to come, and it was the last thing he wanted.
Some of that turmoil must have shown on his face, because when Esen came in he gave Ouyang a shocked look and exclaimed, “What news?” He waved dismissal to the servants who had run back into the room to extract him from his armor, and started undoing it himself. His color was high from exercise, and stray hairs from his braids lay damp against his neck. Ouyang could smell the soapy suede of his armor, mixed with metal and the mild odor of his warm male body: a combination as intimate as the inside of a tent.
“Nothing of importance, my lord. A minor query.” Seeing Esen struggling with the lacing under his arm, Ouyang stepped forwards to work the knot. It was only after he’d started that he realized what he was doing.
Esen laughed in surprise. “That a general of the Yuan would lower himself so.”
“Haven’t I done this many times?”
“That was a long time ago. You were just a child.”
Sixteen years ago. More than half their lifetimes. “So were you.” He put Esen’s armor on the side table and took the fresh clothes from the clothes tree while Esen finished undressing. He came behind Esen to settle the garment on his shoulders. When his hands touched Esen’s shoulders, the familiarity of that old gesture stunned him. After leaving behind his time as an attendant slave, Ouyang had only served Esen once again during his whole long rise from guard to commander to general. He remembered that time in flashes: Esen’s surprise as he looked down to see his armor and flesh laid open by the spear. How in the physician’s ger, Esen’s blood had coated Ouyang’s hands as he struggled to strip the ruined armor off, not trusting anyone else to do it. He remembered his desperate urge to ease Esen’s pain, as intense as if it were his own body bleeding. And even then, in the moment that their bodies had been joined in a kinship of suffering, a smaller part of Ouyang had remembered his fate.
He smoothed the fabric across Esen’s shoulders and stepped away.
Esen was quiet a moment, as if the weight of memories had stilled him, too. Then he shook himself and said, “Eat with me, my general. I need the company.”
As the servants came in with the midday meal a blow of wind slammed the latticework in the corridor outside, immediately followed by hammering rain. Ouyang heard women’s shrieking from elsewhere in the residence, the sound eerily disembodied and snatched by the wind. Opposite him at the round table, Esen ate with an uncharacteristic drained look. For all he was a lord, in Anyang he always exuded an air of being out of place: a wild plant taken off the steppe and put in a pot for the pleasure of others. All of a sudden he burst out, “How I hate their games and demands!”
Ouyang dipped a piece of jellied pork cheek in black vinegar and said neutrally, “Your wives?”
“Oh, Ouyang. Women are terrible! The politics.” He groaned. “Consider yourself lucky you’ll never have to suffer this kind of torment.”
Esen never meant to hurt, and Ouyang had always taken care to pretend matter-of-fact acceptance about his exclusion from family life. Why should he blame Esen for not reading his mind to see the anger and pain there? But the truth was: he did blame Esen. Blamed him even more than he would a stranger, because it hurt more that someone so beloved should not see the truth of him. And he blamed and hated himself, for hiding that truth.
He said with distaste, “I did run into Lady Borte earlier today. She sends her greetings, and asks when she might have the privilege of hosting you again.” In Ouyang’s opinion all four of Esen’s wives lacked in appearance and personality, and the presence of any of them made his skin crawl. He hated their unmoving faces beneath their thick white makeup, their tiny steps that made them take forever to get from one place to another, and their stupid column hats that towered above their heads further than Ouyang’s hand could have reached. Even their smell was repulsive: a decayed flower scent that clung to Esen for hours after his visits. Ouyang, who knew Esen better than anyone, couldn’t fathom what he found attractive about them. The thought of Esen fucking one of them gave him the same visceral horror as the idea of an interspecies mating.
“If only one of them would bear a son, that would put them in order,” Esen complained. “But at the moment all of them think they have a chance to be on top. It’s a nightmare. When I’m here they treat me like nothing but a breeding stallion.” He added indignantly, “They don’t even serve me tea first!”
Esen’s inability to throw sons was the subject of concern and amusement from the servants; his wives were concerned but certainly not amused; and lately Esen himself had been considering adoption, although he admitted to Ouyang that the suggestion had sent the Prince of Henan (who regretted Lord Wang) into an apoplexy.
Even with the screens drawn the force of the storm was enough to make the lamp flames bob even more wildly than Ouyang’s presence caused. It was the kind of storm that the Nanren believed boded ill for the future of the Great Yuan. But for all that Ouyang was a general of
the Yuan, he didn’t fight for the empire. His efforts had only ever been for Esen. He suddenly felt a deep longing to be back on campaign. Campaign was his and Esen’s world, where the only things that mattered were the pride of carrying oneself honorably in battle, and the love and trust between warriors. The only place where Ouyang was ever happy.
But what bearing did happiness have on how one should live one’s life? He said painfully, “My lord, the matter on which I came—I heard the invitation to the Spring Hunt had come. Will you attend this year?”
Esen grimaced. “I’d rather not, but my father has already conveyed his expectation that I accompany him.”
“You should. When the Prince of Henan is gone, you’ll inherit his titles. It’s important for the court and the Great Khan to know you as more than just your father’s son. This year is your opportunity to impress them.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Esen said, without enthusiasm. “But the thought of being apart from you for so long seems strange to me. As it is, I feel I’ve hardly seen you since coming back. Since—” He had the grace to stop before saying: that moment with the Prince of Henan.
Ouyang realized his hand was clenched around his chopsticks. He laid them down and said, “If that’s the case—my lord, why not ask the Prince of Henan if I can come with you to the Spring Hunt?”
Esen looked up with delight. “Really? I will, gladly. The only reason I haven’t already is because I thought you’d never come. I know how much you hate smiling and making conversation.”
“I suppose I should take my own advice. If the Great Khan knows your name, perhaps he should also know mine.”
“This pleases me. Truly.” Esen attacked the steamed ginseng chicken with renewed vigor, smiling.
The residence’s doors banged and slammed as if by angry ghosts, and Ouyang felt his ancestors’ eyes upon him as he ate with the son of his family’s murderer, the person he held dearest in all the world.
* * *
Ouyang and Shao’s overcoats flapped in the wind as they made their way through the palace grounds. The storm had transformed spring back into winter, and the fallen blossoms in the courtyards had turned brown. Ouyang felt grim: he always suffered in the cold. “I’ll be accompanying the Prince of Henan, Lord Esen, and Lord Wang to the Great Khan’s Spring Hunt. That will be the beginning of it. I need you to make everything ready in my absence.”
“So the time has come. Can you do it?” The cool look Shao gave him was all wrong, coming from inferior to superior, but Ouyang cared not a shred for whether Shao liked him or not, or was disgusted by him or not—only that he did what was needed.
Before he could answer they rounded a corner and saw Lord Wang striding briskly in their direction across the courtyard.
“Greetings, Lord Wang.” Ouyang and Shao made their reverences in unison.
“General,” said the lord, inclining his head fractionally. “A fortuitous meeting. Last night’s rain has flooded and destroyed a number of villages. Send me two battalions of men immediately to rebuild the roads and drainages.” He swept past.
“My lord.” Ouyang bowed in acknowledgment and continued on his way, a remembered pang of sympathy muting his usual annoyance at the lord.
Hurrying after Ouyang, Shao said, “Will you really have our soldiers delay their preparations to dig ditches?”
“Would you rather his enmity for the entire off-season? I have no desire to fill in five pages of paperwork for every extra arrow I need.” Ouyang shook his head impatiently. “Let him take the battalions; we have time enough.”
“You take his disrespect too easily. You’re a general, and he’s a man who won’t even take up a man’s role. Why do you still let him demean you like a servant?”
Ouyang thought that Lord Wang had more respect for him than Shao did. He said, “Why should I care how Lord Wang treats me? He’s only like that because he knows he’s unimportant. Even his own father hates and scorns him.”
“And Lord Esen?”
“Esen doesn’t hate anyone,” Ouyang said, feeling a flash of familiar pain. “But he should. That adoption was a fool’s mistake. Chaghan should have known. Roots are ineradicable. How could Lord Wang have ever brought pride to Chaghan’s line? He has his father’s blood.”
“Our blood,” said Shao.
Blood. His father’s blood in his veins. His ancestors’ blood. Hearing it said out loud shocked him as much as a nearby lightning strike. “Never let anyone hear you say that,” he bit out. “When I’m away, you’ll be in command. Your loyalty is to the Great Yuan; that is all that must ever be seen. Do you understand?”
“Yes, General,” said Shao, and tapped his fist to his chest in acknowledgment. But there was an unrepentant smirk beneath the gesture. Something about it made Ouyang shudder: the ghostly touch of blood and betrayal and fate.
11
OUTSIDE LU, SECOND MONTH
Zhu sat beside Xu Da at their campfire as the men set up camp, and catalogued all the changes in that familiar handsome face. His cheekbones stood out more sharply, and there was a new shadow in his eyes. His grown-out hair puffed around his head like the fur of a Tibetan temple dog. Out of his gray robes, which were the only clothes Zhu had ever seen him in, he seemed like a different person. A dangerous, unknown person. A bandit.
Xu Da said quietly, “Look at us now. A praiseworthy pair of monks, aren’t we?” The shadow in his eyes was in his voice, too. He had always been the most laughing, good-natured monk, but now she saw his recent experiences had wounded him. “I didn’t mean to, you know. Break my vows.”
It was startling coming from him, he who had never been particularly devout. He had first slept with a girl when he was thirteen, and had never felt a pang of conscience about the many women afterwards, as far as Zhu could tell.
As if he knew what she was thinking, he said, “Not that vow. That one doesn’t mean anything. I didn’t mean to kill.” The shadows on his face gathered inwards: regret, bitterness. “At first.”
Water hissed from the green logs in the fire. Zhu watched the bubbles gathering on the cut ends, like the froth on a dead man’s mouth, and had a strange twinned memory of bandits killing her father, as if seen simultaneously from the perspectives of two different people: a boy, and a girl. She wondered if, even now, her father was one of those unmourned ghosts drifting just outside the circle of their firelight.
Xu Da said, “After I found out about the monastery I stayed in one of the tenant villages. I let them keep their rents, since who was I going to take it back to? So they tolerated me for a while. But then bandits came. They knew the monastery’s protection was gone. When they came to the house I was in, they laughed when they saw me. A monk! Harmless, right? But when one grabbed me, I hit him. There was a rock behind him, and when he fell it smashed his head in.” He fell silent for a moment. “I wanted to live, so I took a life. And after I joined the bandits, and they started to follow me—I took more lives. Deliberately. Even though I knew that I’d be reborn into suffering, life after life.”
Zhu looked at his lowered face, burnished and hollowed by the firelight. She thought of praying on the bridge, and Heaven answering her prayer by killing ten thousand men. She hadn’t prayed for those deaths, but they had been because of her, and she had welcomed them. She had broken her vow, too, because she had desired.
She slung her arm around Xu Da’s broad shoulders and pulled him against her. His muscles twitched under his skin like a distressed horse. With her other hand she turned his face towards her, so close that their foreheads touched, and told him fiercely, “All that means is we have to make this life count.”
He stared at her. She saw the moment the relief kindled in him, of having found her again to follow. The shadows on his face were already breaking apart. Through the cracks she saw the boy in him again. He said, wonderingly, “Who did you become, when we were apart?”
She smiled. “The person I was always supposed to be.” And as long as she kept being that per
son in the eyes of Heaven, and even in her own mind, she could keep this precious new feeling: of fate drawing her ever onwards, into the future. Into life. “And one day, I’ll be great.”
The fire crackled, steaming the day’s moisture from her robe and Xu Da’s stained shirt and trousers. He said, “Remember how I always said you wouldn’t become one of those dried-up papayas in the meditation hall? Even as a child, you had the strongest desire of anyone I’d ever met.” His cheek moved against her hand as he spoke, their unselfconscious intimacy springing back like a vine. “From anyone else, I’d think they were just blowing up the cow skin. What does that even mean: to be great? But from you—I believe it.”
People said that a single day without a dear friend could feel like three autumns. For the first time since the destruction of the monastery, Zhu let herself feel how long the months without him had been, and the relief she felt at their reunion. Pulling back and looking at him warmly, she said, “I’ll need your help for it, big brother. Right now, I’m heading for a challenge. I have to take Lu.”
“Lu? The city?” Xu Da stared at her. “And your leaders gave you how many men to do it with—not even a thousand? It has a wall.”
“I said a challenge, didn’t I? Unsurprisingly, one of those leaders would love to see me fail. But I think an assault could still work, if Lu is leaderless.” She filled him in on what Ma had said. “The population will probably panic and surrender without even trying to test us. But before we do anything, we should go and find out exactly what we’re dealing with.”
Xu Da gave her a narrow glance. The shadows were sloughing away, a hint of his old liveliness creeping back into his expression.
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