“Commander Zhu.” Taking in the sight of her pale and vomiting men, Chen gave her an ambiguous smile. “I was sorry to hear of the recent deaths among your number. Truly unfortunate.”
Zhu forced herself to focus on Chen rather than the smells and sounds around her. “This unworthy servant gratefully accepts the Minister’s condolences.”
“I mentioned before how impressed the Prime Minister and I are with the quality and dedication of your men.” Behind him, the pile of corpses stared unblinking at the back of his head. “Well, Commander: since Yi is gone, this is your chance. Take his men and turn them into the force we’ll need to take Bianliang.” His black eyes stabbed Zhu. “I trust you’ll do a good job.”
“This servant thanks the Minister for the honor and opportunity!” Zhu bowed and stayed bent over until she was quite sure Chen had gone. Although it hadn’t been what Zhu herself had intended, and it certainly wasn’t what Ma had wanted, she had the ironic realization that it had been the better way after all. There were only two surviving Red Turban commanders, and Zhu was one of them; she now controlled almost half the Red Turbans’ total strength. Chen had no proof that Zhu was anything but loyal, even if he might be keeping his ultimate judgment in reserve, and Zhu’s men suspected nothing.
But as Zhu stood in front of that bloodied stage with Right Minister Guo’s screams still ringing in her ears, she shuddered at the memory of those inhuman voices. Who are you?
She found herself searching desperately inside herself for any alien sensation that might harbor that red spark—the seed of greatness, pressed into her spirit by Heaven itself. But to her despair, there was nothing new to find. There was only the same thing that had always been there: the white core of her determination that had kept her alive all these years, giving her the strength to keep believing she was who she said she was. It wasn’t what she wanted, but it was all she had.
For a moment she felt that old vertiginous pull of fate. But she had already launched herself in pursuit of it; there was no going back. Don’t look down as you’re flying, or you’ll realize the impossibility of it and fall.
17
ANFENG, TENTH MONTH
It was raining outside, and the Prime Minister’s throne room leaked. Zhu knelt quietly alongside Commander Wu on the spongy wooden floor, her robes soaking up the water like a wick. Wu, who hadn’t spent the better part of his youth kneeling for hours, shifted and fidgeted like a wormy horse. The Prince of Radiance smiled unmoving from the dais, the Prime Minister beside him. There was a third of their number up there now. After Guo’s death Chen had retitled himself the Chancellor of State and elevated himself appropriately. However much higher he planned to go, he would take those he trusted with him. But he doesn’t trust me completely, Zhu thought. I stayed out of his action against the Guos. He might not suspect, but neither have I proved myself—
Chen said, “We have to tread carefully with Bianliang. Its governor may not command a strong force, but he has the strategic advantage. Although the outer wall is ruined, the inner wall still stands. If we give the governor a chance to secure that inner wall, I have no doubt he’ll be able to hold us until rescue arrives from the Prince of Henan. The Prince’s army may not be as strong as it was last season, given Yao River and now that Esen-Temur is no longer in the field”—they had received news, albeit belatedly, of old iron-bearded Chaghan-Temur’s death in a hunting accident that past spring—“but if it comes to Bianliang’s defense, then our chances of success will be very small indeed.”
The Prime Minister said curtly, “Then we must take Bianliang swiftly—too swiftly for the governor to turn it into a siege situation.” Unlike the Mongols, who specialized in sieges, the Red Turbans had no siege equipment at all.
“Then it must be a surprise. He must neither be prepared, nor have the eunuch general coming to his aid. We will need a distraction: an attack on something of such importance to the Yuan that they have no choice but to send the eunuch to deal with that instead. The Grand Canal would be the best such target.” The canal, linking the north to the Zhang family’s salt and grain, was Dadu’s lifeblood. “While he’s occupied there, we can launch a surprise assault on Bianliang and take it quickly.”
Hearing this, Zhu tensed. She felt Wu do likewise. Although a decoy mission could be done safely, that safety depended on perfect timing. A Red Turban decoy force would have to engage the eunuch general at the Grand Canal until Bianliang summoned him to its defense, although ideally the speed of the assault would mean it would fall even before he got there. But if there was any delay at all in the assault force getting to Bianliang and starting the attack—then the commander of the decoy force would rapidly find himself running out of delaying tactics, in a very real engagement with the enemy. It was, Zhu realized, a test of trust.
Her stomach gurgled uneasily. A reaction to the idea of such an obviously dangerous mission—but then her unease deepened into a thrumming disquiet, and to her alarm she felt the sensation of inhuman eyes falling upon her from behind. For a moment the urge to bolt was nearly overwhelming. Zhu kept her eyes fixed rigidly on the dais, and counted shallow breaths. Her sinews burned from the effort of holding still. Gradually the feeling faded, until she wasn’t sure whether it had actually been ghosts, or only her own paranoid memory of them. She relaxed, but her skin still crawled.
Chen gave her an avuncular look that made her think he’d seen her moment of fear. To the Prime Minister he said, “Your Excellency, the capture and subsequent defense of Bianliang will be no easy task. Please entrust this unworthy official with the mission of personally leading our forces into Bianliang.” He looked down at Zhu and Wu, and made a show of contemplation. At length he said pleasantly, “Commander Wu will accompany me to Bianliang.” His black eyes jumped back to Zhu. Despite the cruelties of which Zhu knew he was capable, it wasn’t cruelty she saw in his expression, but an amused curiosity. “And Commander Zhu will lead the decoy mission to the Grand Canal.”
It was only what she’d expected. Chen wanted to trust her, because he recognized her talents. But because he was the man he was, he was going to make her prove it. Zhu didn’t know if following in Chen’s wake as he rose to power would lift her to greatness, or if was only an intermediate step—but whichever it was, it was the path she had to take. She kept her head high, instead of bowing it with her usual deference, and let him read her intent. I’ll earn your trust.
Chen smiled in acknowledgment. His small, neat teeth were a predator’s nonetheless. “Don’t worry, Commander. As a loyal, capable commander who has proved his worth to the Red Turbans time and again, I have every faith you’ll succeed.”
He swept out. The others followed, Wu with a look of naked relief. He hadn’t been thrown into the fire. Zhu came last, her mind churning. Then stopped, startled: the Prince of Radiance was at the door.
The child regarded her. Behind his hat’s motionless fall of jade beads, his round cheeks were as gently flushed as a summer peach. He remarked, “What did you do?”
It was the first time Zhu had heard him speak other than to make a public pronouncement. This close, she could hear his voice held the faint metal shiver of wind chimes. Gripped by the sudden terrible image of her own men dying from what she had done to them, Zhu said forbiddingly, “What do you mean?”
As if speaking of what was completely ordinary, he said, “To make the dead watch you.”
Zhu stared at him in shock before she managed to regain control. The unease she’d felt had been real: ghosts had been watching her as she knelt. And he had seen them. In the decade she’d had her strange gift, she had never seen a single person betray a sign they might see what she did. Not a sideways glance, a startle in the dark. Nobody in all those years, except this child.
And, terribly, it made sense for him in a way it never had for her. The Prince of Radiance was a reincarnated divine being who remembered his past lives, and who burned with the power of the Mandate of Heaven. That he could see the spirit world
seemed of a piece. Whereas the one time Zhu had thrilled in her power to see ghosts, the very next moment she had been turned on as an impostor.
A cold flicker ran over Zhu’s skin like the touch of a thousand ghost fingers. She didn’t bother hiding her disturbance. It was probably no different to any normal person’s reaction to being told by a child deity that they were being watched by ghosts. Underneath it, though, her mind raced. What other strange knowledge did the Prince of Radiance have about the world? Could he tell, somehow, that she had the same ability as him?
Suddenly she was seized by the terrible conviction that he was about to say, Who are you? Sweat sprang out on her palms and the soles of her feet. Her body flushed hot and cold in alternating waves of alarm and dread.
But he only waited, as if genuinely wanting an answer to his question. At length two of the Prime Minister’s assistants appeared in the doorway and, while bowing with every impression of great respect, somehow managed to convey a chiding attitude. The Prince of Radiance smiled gently at Zhu, and left.
* * *
“What?” Even in the single-candle illumination of their barracks room, Zhu could make out Ma’s heartsick look. “You’re going on a mission where the only thing keeping you alive will be Chen Youliang?”
“A decoy mission is probably safer than being part of the Bianliang assault force, so long as he doesn’t deliberately hang me out to dry,” Zhu said, feeling acutely aware of the irony of the situation. “I’m almost positive he won’t. He knows I’ll be useful to have around in the future, as long as he can trust me.”
In Ma’s face Zhu saw the anguished memory of Little Guo and Sun Meng, and all those others whose lives had fallen into Chen’s hands. “What if something happens to change his mind when he’s halfway to Bianliang?” Ma said. “You wouldn’t even know if he decided to delay a day or two! That’s all it would take to wipe your force out. It’s too risky. You can’t.”
Zhu sighed. “And do what, run away? Where would that leave me? Our movement derives its support from the Prince of Radiance. The people believe in him as our true leader: the one who will bring the new era. Without him—without the people—I could perhaps win bits and pieces of the south by force, but I’d never be anything more than a warlord.”
“Why can’t that be enough?” Ma cried. “What else do you want that’s worth risking your life for?” Her perfect willow-leaf eyes were wide with fear on Zhu’s behalf, and Zhu suddenly felt a pang of such overwhelming tenderness that it felt like pain.
She took Ma’s hand and interlaced their fingers. For a moment she saw the two of them as Heaven might: two briefly embodied human spirits, brushing together for a moment during the long dark journey of their life and death and life again. “Once you asked me what I wanted. Remember how I said I wanted my fate? I want my fate because I know it. I feel it out there, and all I have to do is reach it. I’m going to be great. And not a minor greatness, but the kind of greatness that people remember for a hundred generations. The kind that’s underwritten by Heaven itself.” With effort she ignored the gust that blew in through the cracks in the wall and made the candle hiss like an angry cat. The last thing she wanted to see right now was more ghosts. “I’ve wanted and struggled and suffered for that fate my whole life. I’m not going to stop now.”
Ma stared at her, her face still. “You’re not putting your faith in Chen. You’re going to face the eunuch general and trust in fate to keep you alive?”
Zhu was suddenly struck by a vivid recollection of the eunuch general’s stricken expression at Yao River as he realized what she’d done to his army. She had won at the expense of his loss and humiliation. And she knew, as clearly as if it were his own thought ringing in her head, that he would be determined to get his revenge.
She squashed the thought down. “Ah, Yingzi, don’t give yourself a headache! I’m not even going to face him. I’m going to poke and tease and annoy him, and make him so furious that he’ll be glad to be called away to a proper fight. Didn’t you say the first time we met that I cause trouble? Don’t bother trusting Chen or fate, if you find that too hard. Just trust in your first impressions of me.”
Ma gave a watery laugh that broke into a sob. “You are trouble. I’ve never met anyone more trouble than you.” When she looked down at their intertwined hands, her hair fell in two shining sheets around her face. Through it Zhu glimpsed her high nomad cheekbones, and the floating eyebrows signifying future happiness that every mother wanted their daughters to have. Ma was always exquisitely vulnerable in her worry. Zhu felt a bruised sadness that was like the shadow of future regret, from knowing that the pursuit of her desire would cause pain. More than she had already caused. She said gently, “I like that you care.”
Ma threw her head up, her tears overflowing. “Of course I care! I can’t not care. I wish I could. But I’ve cared about all of you. Little Guo. Sun Meng. You.”
“You only like me the same as them? As Little Guo?” Zhu teased. “Don’t I get any special consideration for being your husband?” Ma’s tears caused that peculiar longing ache inside her again. She wiped away the tears with the back of her hand. Then, very carefully, she cupped Ma’s cheek, leaned in, and kissed her. A soft, lingering press of lips against lips. A moment of yielding warmth that generated something infinitely tender and precious, and as fragile as a butterfly’s wing. It was nothing at all like the unrestrained, half-violent passions of the body that Xu Da had described. It felt like something new, something they’d invented themselves. Something that existed only for the two of them, in the penumbral shadow of their little room, for the span of a single kiss.
After a moment Zhu pulled back. “Did Little Guo ever do that?”
Ma’s mouth opened and closed. Her lips rested so softly against each other that they seemed an invitation for future kisses. Her cheeks were pink, and she was looking at Zhu’s mouth from under her lowered eyelashes. Did she ache too? “No.”
“Who did?”
“You,” Ma said, and it sounded like a sigh. “My husband. Zhu Chongba—”
Zhu smiled and squeezed her hand. “That’s right. Zhu Chongba, whose greatness has been written in Heaven’s book of fate. I’ll achieve it, Yingzi. Believe me.”
But even as she said it, she remembered the accusing ghosts and the feeling of that awful, uncontrollable momentum: that with each choice and decision, she was slipping further away from the person whose fate that was.
* * *
Jining, their ostensible target on the Grand Canal, lay six hundred li due north of Anfeng on the northern tip of the vast lake that linked Jining to the canal’s southern reaches. Zhu had them go slowly, taking their time to skirt the wetlands along the lake’s western shore: she wanted to give the Yuan as much time as possible to see where they were going. The population fled ahead of them, so it seemed they were always traveling through an empty landscape in which everyone had been spirited away overnight. Coal mines, the industry of the region, lay abandoned with shovels scattered about their entrances. The empty towns they passed through clattered eerily with the sound of mills still turning under wind and water, pumping the bellows of cold forges. Black grime coated the houses and trees, and blew into their faces. Across the marshy plain to the west, hidden in the evening shadows at the base of mountains, were the Yuan’s garrisons in Henan. And somewhere between there and here: the eunuch general and his army.
Zhu was on her rounds of the evening camp when Yuchun rode up. The boy had come a long way since Zhu’s first meeting with the young thief. He had turned out to have an extraordinary talent for the martial arts, and had flourished under Xu Da’s tutelage to become one of Zhu’s best captains. Yuchun said now, “There’s been an accident.”
Contrary to Zhu’s expectations, it actually was an accident, rather than the result of some argument about the kinds of things men usually argued about. The victim was in his tent being treated by the engineer Jiao Yu, who had picked up some medical knowledge through all his book-l
earning. It was an ugly sight, even for someone familiar with battlefield injuries. The man’s face, raw pink with a shiny crust, resembled the chopped pork used to make tiger’s mouth meatballs.
When Jiao was done, they stepped out of the tent. “What happened?” Zhu asked.
Jiao wiped the blood off his hands and started walking. “It’s interesting. Come see.”
They went a short way outside the camp, carefully avoiding one of the large sinkholes that peppered the region. When they came to a rocky outcropping, Zhu saw it: a flame burning inside a small cave, out of a crack in the bare rock.
“That water-brained idiot wanted to see what would happen if he put out the flame and relit it,” Jiao said dourly. “It exploded. See how those rocks fell from the blast? He’s lucky to be alive. He’ll lose the eye, though.”
“How does it work?” Zhu wanted to know.
“I don’t suppose you’ve ever been inside a coal mine. You wouldn’t like it. They’re hot and dusty and wet, and the air is noxious. Take a torch below, the whole place goes up.”
“So it’s the coal dust that explodes?” The project she had given Jiao—to develop more reliable hand cannons—had given her an interest in things that exploded. No Nanren force was ever going to rival the Mongols with bows, but she liked the idea of a weapon that someone as untalented as an ex-monk could pick up and use.
“No. It’s not dust coming out of those rocks, but noxious air. If you let it fill an enclosed space, like a mine—or even have enough of it that you can smell it—it’ll explode if you light it, like fire-powder. But if it leaks out like water from a bucket, it’s more like burning coal: it just makes a little flame like this.”
She Who Became the Sun Page 29