Alert meant remembering Zhou’s face as he read the summons from the palace, as he burned it, as he went away. No good night, or goodbye.
You could describe the first minister in many ways, but he had never been a coward—and he’d looked afraid that night. And Rain had already had enough of a feeling of danger to have hidden jewels in the garden.
It had been enough—she remembers now, in Chenyao, middle of another night, late summer. All these things together, and a sense (her mother had also had it) of when something decisive needed to be done.
Decisive. There’d been only one action she could take. Like a gambler throwing dice in a late-night game in the pleasure district, staking everything he owned.
She’d been a little unkind to Hwan then, trading upon his love for her, the love she’d nurtured for her own reasons. On the other hand, she’d almost certainly saved his life.
Her instructions had been precise, much more assured than she’d felt. Inside, she’d been terrified. He was ordered to go out the gates alone. He was to find a sedan chair in the streets of the ward—there were always one or two of them, even late at night, bearers ready to carry someone to an assignation, or home from one.
He was to get the beggar, Qin, into that sedan chair, and lead it around to the back of the property.
Hwan’s eyes had widened, she remembers.
He was to do this immediately, she’d said coldly, or never find favour in her sight again. If he did do this, she’d said, looking straight at him by the light of the lantern, wearing her night robe, he would find very great favour.
He’d left to do as she’d said.
She rose and dressed by herself, moving quickly now that a decision had been made, as if speed could overmaster second thoughts. The gods alone knew what was to come, but if she was wrong about this she was unlikely to live through the day.
She took more gems from the chest in the room. There was no point leaving them. She walked back alone through the vast and silent garden, past the lake and isle and the small, moored boats and the bamboo grove and the grassy space where Wen Zhou had played at games with others of the court. The path wound through night flowers. She breathed their scent.
She came to the gazebo, found the tree where she’d hidden that small bag. She claimed it (dirtying her hands) and then she climbed the wall herself, using the elm tree at the eastern end.
She’d learned how to climb as a girl in Sardia, had been good at it, better than most boys, treating a skinned knee or elbow as a mark of honour. She still has a scar on her left knee. There’d been little call for climbing in the North District, or here at the compound, but some things the body remembered.
The two Kanlins appeared out of shadow as she dropped down into the street. She hadn’t doubted for a moment that they’d be there.
“I am leaving now,” she said. “Because of the message you brought. Will you stay with me?”
They had stayed with her.
They’d done more than that, through the flight west. For one thing, it was the Kanlins who had gotten them out of the ward in the night. No gate official was going to deny them. It brought bad luck, at the very least. The understanding was, if the black-clad ones were abroad they had reason to be, and so did those they were escorting. That was the way of things.
Because of this, they’d made it all the way across Xinan and to the western gate, were right there before curfew’s end opened the city. While they waited for sunrise and the drums Rain had Hwan arrange a carriage, and two good horses for the Kanlins.
With the coming of morning they were out of Xinan, moving along the western road against the flow of traffic coming in with goods for the markets. They bought food as they went, wine, millet cakes, dried meat, peaches. Hwan had brought cash. She didn’t ask where he’d gotten it. Her jewels weren’t going to help until they reached a market town. You didn’t buy boiled eggs or barley cakes with amber earrings set in gold.
She was to understand later that they had been able to leave the city only because they’d moved so quickly, were out and going west before word spread of the disaster at Teng Pass. And with it, tidings of the emperor’s flight.
Later that day the capital learned of these events, and Ma-wai, and panic erupted in the city, choking every gate and every road with terrified people in flight.
Rain and her party had left the imperial road by then. She’d decided there were too many people who might know her at the well-known posting inn on the road. It was used by the court, which meant by people who might have visited the Pavilion of Moonlight Pleasure House.
They branched off, found another east-west road, kept going all day along that. Stopped the first night at a small inn near a silk farm.
Rain never knew it, no one can ever know such things, but had they stayed on the imperial highway, stopped at the posting inn that first night, her own life, and the lives of many others might have been different, going forward.
This is a reason why we sometimes feel as though existence is fragile, precarious, that a random wind can blow, changing everything. They might have gone to the inn on the imperial road—it was an impulsive thought to leave the road. She might not have been able to sleep, could easily have risen to walk in the garden late, and seen two men in conversation on a bench under a mulberry tree …
THE KANLINS KEPT THEM moving quickly, staying on secondary roads. They changed horses each day until horses became hard to come by. One evening a discussion was started, courteously, by the older of the two. His name was Ssu Tan. They wished to know whether she intended to continue west, or planned to go south, or even north. A perfectly good question.
But it meant she needed to have an idea where she was going.
She’d chosen Chenyao, told them so that night, as much to name a destination as anything else. It was close, by then, large enough to let them melt into the city, sell some jewels. It had roads leading in all directions, was accustomed to travellers coming through, often from far away.
People had stories in Chenyao, and they didn’t have to tell them.
When they arrived, Hwan negotiated the lease of a good-sized house, with a staff to run it. He was apparently skilled at such bargaining, but it had also helped, Rain knows, that both Kanlins went with him and were standing by. No one was inclined to offend the black-clad ones in any possible way, and someone who had two of them serving her was not to be troubled.
An uncharacteristic lack of energy or will had settled on Rain from the time they took the city house. She knew it, knows it tonight, weeks later, lying awake.
She has no clear (or even vague) idea what to do next. Along with everyone else—Chenyao is crowded with refugees from Xinan and elsewhere now—they watch the movements of soldiers from the west and northwest, passing through, riding or marching, grim-faced. Some of the faces seem very young to Rain.
Armies are moving all through Kitai this summer.
They seize on news, or the rumour of news. Qin spends mornings in the market begging for coins, though it is hardly necessary. But he finds that people talk to a crippled beggar and he learns almost as much as the Kanlins do through their own channels.
Rain has never asked what these channels are. She’s too grateful for their presence, unwilling to intrude. At night they gather and share what they know.
They know that the Ta-Ming Palace had seen wholesale slaughter, as did much of Xinan. That it is quieter in the capital now, but strange, tense, a city under occupation. Crouched against another blow, someone said.
They know that the Emperor Taizu is now the father-emperor, reportedly heading southwest, beyond the Great River. Shinzu rules them now, although Xinan and Yenling are held by the rebels, which makes it a fair question if anyone can be said to rule Kitai.
There was a battle in the northwest, not far from the Long Wall. Depending on who tells the tale, it was a victory against the rebels, or a victory for them.
They have known from near the outset of their journey that Zhou i
s dead, and Jian.
Awake at night again because some animal has screamed in the street, Rain thinks about war, the boys’ faces seen in the army ranks, about Kitai, this land that she came to years ago with her pipa, her yellow hair and green eyes, and so young.
In summer darkness, stars in her south-facing window, she makes—or accepts—a decision in her heart. There is fear again with it, and sorrow, but also a kind of easing of disquiet and distress, which is what acceptance is said to bring, is it not?
With that, it seems her clarity returns, the sense that she can sort matters through, make plans, a choice and then the next one. For one thing, none of the four men with her is to be burdened with this. It is her decision, and is to be hers alone, she thinks.
She falls asleep.
IN THE MORNING, when the men are out and about, in the market, buying goods for the household, pursuing information, she has one of the servants call a sedan chair and she makes her way to a merchant’s place of business, alone.
It is almost certain that he cheats her on the price he offers for a jade necklace and a golden brooch in the shape of a dragon, but she doesn’t think he’s been outrageously dishonest, perhaps intimidated by her manner and a casually dropped reference to Kanlins awaiting her at home.
She makes one other stop, conducts another negotiation, and is back at the house before the others.
That evening, in her chamber, she calls for brush and ink and paper and, some time later, by lantern light, writes a single message addressed to the four of them.
Chenyao, she suggests, is a good place for Hwan to remain for now. He and Qin will have money (the point of this morning’s first transaction) to keep the house, to buy food, to live … if the war does not last forever.
The Kanlins, she knows, will not accept money from her. They were hired and paid by Wen Jian. It is another strangeness for Rain, that these two—who have meant so much to her this summer, who have saved her life—she owes not just to Tai (whom she is leaving now) but to the Precious Consort, who is dead.
She thanks them by name: Ssu Tan, and the younger one, Zhong Ma. She asks them to accept her gratitude and to convey it to the leaders at their sanctuary. And also, if they will be so very kind, to convey that same gratitude, and farewell, to Master Shen Tai, who sent them to her, should they encounter him again.
There is sadness, and she doesn’t write this part quickly, or easily. But what woman has ever been promised a life, has ever lived a life, without sadness? And at least she is not sitting above jade stairs in moonlight, waiting, waiting while life recedes.
He had asked her not to do that when he went home after his father died. He had ended up at Kuala Nor among the ghosts. She had ended up with Wen Zhou.
Or, no, she thinks. She has ended up here.
She finishes writing and puts the brush aside, blows on the letter until the ink dries. She leaves it on the writing table and she rises and takes the money she’s received today and places most of it on the table.
They will be all right, she thinks. If the war does not last too long.
She looks out her window. Sees summer stars. It is time. She has not changed into her night robe. She is not going to sleep. She’ll need to be quiet, leaving, but the sedan chair she hired ought to be outside the door by now, and the household is accustomed to her restlessness. It ought to be all right.
She takes the part of the cash she’s kept back for herself, and the small bag with the jewellery she will need for a journey. A long journey. A hard one. She’s hired two guards, paid them a third of the negotiated fee, and she’s arranged to join a good-sized group leaving at sunrise. The two guards are her contribution to their safety. That is how these things are done.
There are always parties of one sort or another leaving Chenyao. The leaders of this one seemed to know what they were about, talking with her this morning, which is good. It is not truly safe, of course, especially not now, and for a woman, but the world never is. She wishes she had her pipa, a distracted thought.
Perhaps she’ll find one on the way. It is time to go. She crosses the floor silently and opens her door to the dark hallway. She will need to step over the third step on the stairway down, she remembers. It creaks. She’d tested for that earlier today.
As it happens, it doesn’t matter.
All four of them are in the corridor. Hwan, Qin, both Kanlins. They are dressed to travel.
“Ah, good,” says Ssu Tan. “We had just decided to wake you. The chair has been outside for some time. We have to go, if we are to join the caravan before it leaves.”
Her mouth is open. Hwan is holding, shielding with his hand, a single candle. She can see their faces. Amazingly, all of them are smiling.
Rain says, “You can’t … this isn’t a journey I can ask any of you to take!”
“You didn’t ask,” says Qin. When he has a wall to lean against, he can stand for a time. “We have chosen.”
“You can’t!” she says again. “Do you even know where I’m going?”
“Of course we do,” says Ssu Tan. “We thought you’d decide this some time ago. We talked about it.”
“You … you talked about what I’d decide?” She would like to be angry.
Hwan says, quietly, “We talked about what we’d do, my lady, once you made your decision.”
The younger Kanlin, Zhong Ma, has said nothing. His eyes have never left her, and he’s still smiling.
“But I’m going to Sardia!” she cries.
“You are going home,” says Ssu Tan.
“But it isn’t your home.”
“It isn’t,” he agrees. “But Zhong Ma and I had you entrusted to our care, and it would shame us both to let you slip away.”
“You have no duty once I leave Kitai!” she says. She’s begun to cry, however, which makes it difficult to fight well.
“Not so,” says Zhong Ma, quietly.
Tan smiles. “You may argue as to Kanlin duties once we’re on the road. We will have much time, I believe.”
“It is the Tarkan Desert,” Rain says, despairingly. “People die there!”
“The more reason for us to be with you,” says Hwan. And then, “We bought you a pipa in the market this morning. For the journey.”
IT TAKES HALF A YEAR, a little more, the Silk Road journey through the deserts and then up the narrow, climbing mountain passes to Sardia. They do not die. She almost certainly would have, without them. Qin, it emerges, can ride a camel.
They are attacked twice, the attackers are beaten off. There are sandstorms. The second of these costs Ssu Tan his right eye, but there is a physician with them (the party leader is experienced) and he applies an ointment and gauze bandages and Tan survives. He wears a patch over the eye after that. Rain tells him it makes him look like a bandit from ancient days.
He and Zhong Ma no longer wear their black robes by then. They had removed them after they passed through the third and last of the garrisons in the Kanshu Corridor. At that point, really, they had left the empire behind.
Around that same time she’d made another decision.
“My name is Saira,” she told them.
There is a taste in her mouth like spring cherries, saying it. All of them use it, or refer to her that way, surprisingly easily, from then on.
At the end of the very long road, burnt and weary, they arrive past the end of sand and rock to high, green pastureland surrounded by mountains. When she sees the horses for the first time, the Heavenly Horses (they still frighten her a little), she knows she is home.
It has been nine years. Her mother and father are alive. All but one of her brothers and sisters. There is little of glitter and jade, but less dust and noise, entirely. Merchants go both ways, east and often west now (new powers rising there). Over time she is able to sell, piece by piece, her jewels. Kitan work is highly valued west of here, she learns. The sky is blue and the mountain air is entirely unlike what she’d learned to live with in Xinan, with the yellow wind blowin
g and two million souls.
There are young children in her own family, amazingly. There is music. She teaches herself not to be afraid of horses, and eventually she rides one, a moment never to be lost. There is sadness, there are memories.
Qin stays, is made welcome in her father’s home at first, and then in hers. Hwan stays. She is wealthy enough to need a steward to run a household.
Zhong Ma goes home. He is young, proud of his journey, and of being a Kanlin. She gives him a letter to carry back. It takes her time to write this one. Sadness, memory.
Ssu Tan stays. She marries him. One of their children, a green-eyed girl, though with darker hair than her mother, is gifted beyond words at learning music. She masters all twenty-eight tunings of the pipa before she is twelve years old.
The world, Saira thinks, through her days, can bring you surprising gifts.
CHAPTER XXVII
He had not been happy in that small fort above Kuala Nor, but Bytsan sri Nespo could not truthfully say that his self-described “flanking manoeuvre” to get away from there had improved his life yet.
His idea for dealing with the horses given to the Kitan had been approved. He’d been promoted and was now understood to have had direct communication with the palace in Rygyal, which was useful, obviously. He was in a far larger fortress now.
On the other hand, he had no clear role in the chain of command here, which was awkward and made him disliked. He outranked longer-serving officers, but he was here only to await one specific person, or message, from across the border.
He also knew, each morning and through each day and into each long summer evening, what his father thought of all this.
Principally, because his father was the commander of Dosmad Fortress. Dosmad, where Bytsan was posted to await the possible arrival of a Kitan gifted with an absurd number of Sardian horses.
Bytsan hadn’t known who had just been made fortress commander here when he’d offered his clever suggestion about the Sardians. One of the (many) unfortunate aspects of having been in such an isolated fort.
Under Heaven Page 53