by Alice Major
“Yes,” Alasdair replied slowly. “I think he feels terrible . . . he’s in disgrace.”
“It’s the king who should feel disgraced,” Joss said viciously. “So what will happen when Ssu-ma gets back?”
“Well . . .” Alasdair seemed reluctant to answer. “There’s something called the ritual of the white robe.”
“White robe?” Her voice was puzzled Then she had a sudden image of the Director of Horses standing on the steps of the temple, dressed entirely in white. She remembered the voice of the Count’s wife behind her, saying, “He dedicates himself to death.”
Joss’s eyes widened. “You mean he’d go back there to be killed.”
Alasdair nodded miserably.
“No, he can’t!” She felt as though the idea added one more unbearable burden of responsibility to her shoulders.
“He feels it’s his duty.”
She put her head down on her knees. “And us? What happens to us?”
“We’ll go to the capital as well. Ssu-ma says he can get us on our way to the garden.”
Another tide of longing swept over her. “I just want to see Ariel and everyone again. And I want to go home.”
“Well, getting to the Middle Kingdom is the first step in getting to the garden,” said Alasdair. “As for getting home . . .”
“Yeah, I know. We’re no closer to knowing how than we every were.”
“That’s not what I was going to say. Maybe Mark and the others have figured out something by now.”
The small party of travellers set out early on the following pulse—four riders, including a guide. The guide was a man from the village, sent to show them the way out of the hills and set them on their way to familiar territory. He came grudgingly, annoyed to be ordered away on this task when planting time was so near. He jerked impatiently at the halter of the spare pony that carried baggage.
Joss’s pony was a big improvement over the silly, stubborn beast that had carried her north. She looked between its pointed ears down the long valley and felt happier than she had for a long time. The prospect of a journey eased the terrible restlessness in her heart. However, a shadow remained and the future lay in a haze of uncertainty.
She looked at Ssu-ma, riding just ahead. She had spoken barely a few words to him, but she felt sure he must know she was responsible for setting the enemy commander free. On impulse, she flicked the reins to send her pony trotting up beside his big brown horse. He looked down at her, with no softening in his stern face.
“I wanted to say I’m sorry,” she blurted out. “I didn’t know who he was. I just kept thinking how awful it would be if the boy got tortured. It was my fault you caught them in the first place.” She felt silly and awkward.
The Director of Horses didn’t help. “You realize that I would have had to punish you,” he said. “I would have had to have you put to death as an example to the rest of my soldiers.”
She squirmed, but the stern voice went on. “And not just yourself, but also your friend and companion in the act.”
Joss threw a quick glance back at Alasdair. “But it was me who made him do it. You wouldn’t have done anything to him.”
“I will tell you the story of general Pa-yi. During the campaign against the rebel Duke of Chou, he gave strict orders that no-one was to leave the camp. His own nephew slipped away—a brave young man anxious to prove himself. This nephew found an enemy spy post and killed two soldiers, bringing back their weapons in triumph.
“The general greeted his nephew and rewarded him with armour for his success. Then he had him put to death for disobeying orders. He wept while he did so. This is what it is to be a commander.”
“That’s ridiculous,” said Joss indignantly. “I’d never do that.”
For the first time, Ssu-ma’s face lightened a little. “Then you would lose many battles. Your soldiers would not know when to obey you. For instance, Pa-yi wanted the enemy to believe his main forces would attack another point. His nephew’s actions spoiled that plan—and put many more lives at risk.”
“That’s what I did,” she said sadly. “Put lives at risk, I mean. If their commander had been our prisoner, they probably wouldn’t have attacked us.”
“Perhaps yes . . . perhaps no.” The sadness in her voice made him answer more gently. “We would have had to fight at some point.”
“Do people always have to fight?”
“No. A skillful leader subdues the enemy without shedding a drop of blood. That is the stratagem of the sheathed sword, and I forgot it.” His voice was bitter, self-accusing. “This campaign should never have begun. It should never have gone as far as it did.”
“Well it wasn’t your fault. You kept trying to talk the king out of it.”
“I should have used more skill. He was young and wanted adventure. I though he would get a taste of it and be satisfied. I kept telling him about his duty.” He sighed. “I should have worked with him a different way. I failed.”
“We all failed,” she said. “The king sure did. And Alasdair and I. We went along thinking we were just caught up in events. But we were all responsible for them in a way.” She looked up to catch a gleam of approval in his face. “Anyway, I hope you don’t behead us.”
He finally smiled slightly. “No. That is one advantage of having no army to discipline. You do not have to execute your friends.”
“Do you . . .” She hesitated, but his smile encouraged her to plunge on. “Do you really have to go back? To the ritual of the white robe?”
His face clamped down. “The ancestors require it,” he said, flicking his reins to send his horse into a trot. Joss sighed and slowed down to let Alasdair catch up with her.
The guide led them out of the hills, through the long fingers of valleys. The light node drew closer, surrounded by the flickering halo of springtime. Joss thought how long it had been since they had seen it on the journey to the capital. At last, they came to a pass where they could look out and see the open plains stretching ahead of them.
“What’s that?” Alasdair pointed to a series of parallel, curved lines below them that took a deep, semi-circular bite out of the hillside. Wild grass grew over and around the ridges, but they were much too regular to have occurred naturally.
The guide shrugged. “There is a tale they were built by the ancestors, but no-one knows why.”
Joss felt curiously drawn to the curving lines. “Can we take a closer look?”
“We will ride right by. It is the shortest way out of the hills, and there is a good place down there to camp.
The ponies picked their careful way down the rough path. As the lines got closer, Joss could see they were actually a series of walls. Each was about as high as her head and built of carefully fitted stones. They formed a series of steps up the hillside.
As the path zig-zagged down through the ridges, they had to be careful that the horses did not put their feet in one of the deep, narrow channels cut across the ground. There was no apparent pattern to these channels, but they were lined with stone and obviously meant for some long-forgotten purpose. At the bottom, they paused and looked back. The terraces climbed up like rows of seats in some huge outdoor theatre.
“Wow,” Joss breathed.
The guide glanced at the sky. “We’d best get into shelter. Rain is coming. There are some old buildings over this way.”
He led them off to the left, where a cluster of round stone buildings hugged the ground, not far from the foot of the hill, almost in the centre of the stage created by the terraces. Their walls were scarcely taller than the waving grass, but a steep step down into the centre of each made it just possible to stand up under the roof. They found the building with the fewest holes in the roof. The guide and Ssu-ma set to work patching the openings with strips of wood and leather, while Joss and Alasdair went to search for firewood.
H
owever, instead of heading to where there were trees and dead branches to collect, they found themselves drawn by another stone circle standing at a little distance. This building had no roof, although when they jumped down into the centre, they could see the timbers from a long-caved-in ceiling.
“Ouch,” said Alasdair, sitting down abruptly.
“You okay?”
“I stepped on something and it cut into my ankle.”
“One of the stones?”
“No, something sharper than that.” He rummaged around in the weeds again and said, “This is it.”
“This” was a ridge of metal that stuck out of the ground at an angle. Alasdair tugged at it, but it wouldn’t come free. They dug around, pushing the grass aside with flat stones. It turned out to be a large, oval sheet of metal, too heavy to lift. It took the square shoulders of Ssu-ma, who had come to find them, to pull it free and hoist it until it was propped against the wall.
“What is it?” Joss asked.
“It’s a lot of metal,” said Alasdair, who had become all too aware of the importance of metal on the battlefield.
“The White Ti must have left it here,” said Ssu-ma. “They have learned the art of working metal. But even for them, this seems too valuable to leave lying in the grass.” He rapped his knuckle against it, making the oval rumble like a gong. “Well, we can’t use it for firewood,” he said pointedly.
The others took the hint and scurried off.
The rain came while they were sleeping—the first of the heavy spring rains. Large drops drummed against the roof. Water poked its fingers through any opening it could find and ran down the walls in a steady stream. For some welcome reason, however, it didn’t form a pool. Instead, it sank away through a hole in the corner of the room, leaving the floor relatively dry.
Joss lay huddled in blankets with her eyes closed, pretending she was listening to rain pouring on her own window at home. Eventually, the drops began to slow and stop. She kept her eyes closed, trying to pretend for a little longer, until she heard Alasdair shouting “Come out! Come out!”
Outside, the air was clear and the light node almost dazzling. A green haze was already covering the plain. However, that wasn’t what Alasdair was waving at.
Down from the stone terraces ran a thousand streams of water—a web of little rivers glinting in the light and flowing together until they became a single stream running across the plain. Joss looked at the sight in awe. “That must be what those channels were for.”
They wandered across the grass, towards the streaming hillside, until they reached the roofless circle of stone. Joss tilted her head back to look at the web of water. From here, she could see the whole semi-circular sweep hillside. Small streams were drawn together into larger ones; the thicker threads became a single strand of moving water. It looked like a shiny fleece being twisted into one thread.
For some reason, a lump came into her throat. Lifting her hand to touch it, she felt the jade, still tied around her neck. As she did so, she turned so that she was facing the metal oval. And gasped.
At first, she had the confused idea that she was seeing a reflection of the cascade of water in the metal. Then she realized she was looking at a girl’s profile—a girl with long hair spreading like a halo and a single line of light dropping from her hand. The tsung grew warmer and beat against Joss’s chest like an extra heart.
“Molly!” she called out. “Molly!”
The girl kept her hand spinning but looked up. “Joss,” she said clearly, “You are okay. Come back.”
“Where are you?” Joss quavered. She was half convinced she was looking at a ghost.
“In the garden, of course. Here,” she kept her eyes steadily on the copper-coloured thread in front of her, but seemed to be talking to someone else standing nearby, “you talk to her. I’ve got to keep this thing going.”
Ariel’s face swam into view. “Joss, thank god. What about Alasdair?”
Ssu-ma and Alasdair had come up to stand at her shoulder. “I’m here, all right,” Alasdair said. Ssu-ma was staring into the metal with a strange expression on his face. For once, thought Joss, he doesn’t know what to do.
“Where are you?” asked Ariel. “Are you near the capital? We need that jade thing we found on the way there.”
“I’ve got it with me, right now!” Joss cried.
“Well hurry up and get here.” It was Mark’s voice.
“We will. We will. But we’re still way up north. Tell us—how are you doing this?”
Mark quickly told them about Molly freeing the little frog and finding the scroll chamber and bringing the wild woman back. And how they’d read in the scrolls that the Lady Lo-Tsu had spun copper thread to look through her mirror to different parts of the kingdom.
“So we were just fishing around. And we’ve found you.”
“A talking frog?” asked Joss, trying to make sense of the story. “You can’t be serious.”
“Oh yes we are. And it’s lucky we didn’t let a whole lot more loose.”
There was a sudden exclamation from Molly and the metal surface clouded over. “Wait!” shouted Joss, but the link was broken. They looked at each other, and even Ssu-ma’s face wore an expression of wonder.
“Creatures that inhabited this world before the people of the Middle Kingdom. And metal surfaces that show things far away,” he said thoughtfully.
“We have to get back there,” Joss urged. “As soon as we can.”
Ssu-ma nodded. “I will accompany you there,” he said, surprisingly. “If we take the western road, we will by-pass the capital and arrive more quickly.”
Surprised and relieved, Joss smiled at him. Wisely, she didn’t say anything about the ritual of the white robe. “That’s good,” was all she said.
Chapter Twenty-eight
They came at last to a long slope. At a distance, they could see the main road lying across the landscape like a dull brown ribbon in the greening landscape. Their guide pointed to it and turned his horse’s head towards home, barely saying any other good-bye. When they got to the road, the signs of the army’s churning passage north were still plain. At this reminder of the bitter past, Ssu-ma grew somber and silent again. Alasdair was glad when at last they crossed a river and began following a new road that veered off to the west.
They did not pass the important towns that they had visited on the procession north. But soon they did begin passing villages and villagers. Joss drew her cap down to avoid notice, but the people of this western part of the Middle Kingdom seemed unsurprised by three riders and hardly paid much attention. Finally, they were standing at the lip of a broad valley with a river below them—the same river that, further east, flowed past the capital. Ssu-ma swung himself down off his horse and looked down into the valley with a milder expression. “We are near my home,” he said.
“I thought your home was in the capital,” said Alasdair, surprised.
“I grew up in this western province of Ch’i and my estates are still here.” He smiled nostalgically. “And I, too, have a grandmother who looks forward to my visits.”
“Will we visit her now?” asked Joss practically.
He shook his head ruefully. “We couldn’t get away again quickly and quietly. The whole countryside would know I was here. But we will stop with one faithful tenant on my land so that I can arrange supplies for the rest of our journey.”
After several hot meals with meat and spicy sauces, which Alasdair devoured as if he had never tasted protein before—and after a long sleep on a comfortable bed that Joss thought she might never want to get out of—they were back on their way. A ferry took them across the river, where they picked up a faint trail that led off across the empty prairie.
The grass had lost its spring green and turned light gold by the time they were looking down on the slough that lay near the Lady’s garden. The garde
n walls made a distant, well-defined square against the horizon. The water was as quietly silver as ever, but the millet fields that sloped above it seemed larger. Surprisingly, there were eight or ten people working there—distant figures bent over their tools. Joss squinted to see if she could recognize anyone.
“Who are they all?” she asked. As she shaded her eyes and stared, one of the figures straightened up, waved and shouted. The other workers laid down their tools and headed back towards the li. Obviously, the returning travellers had been seen. Ssu-ma shook the reins to send his horse pacing along the path.
When they got to the centre of the li, they found the tumble-down huts had been repaired and were obviously inhabited. The field workers were hurrying along the path through the trees, and a huddle of dark-eyed children stopped playing to look at the newcomers. Joss looked around at the strangers for a familiar face, wondering for one crazy moment whether they were really back in the same village, or whether they’d arrived somewhere else by mistake. With relief she saw P’eng standing beside the fire, and slid off her pony with a whoop.
“We’re back,” she said. “Where is everyone? And who is everyone” She waved her hand at the villagers clustered around, who were eyeing her foreign face. Some were looking past her at Ssu-ma; someone had obviously recognized him and a whisper was going around the group behind hands raised to mouths.
P’eng held out her hands in welcome. “Your friends are at the garden,” she said. “And all these people ...” she waved her arm “... The Lady Shen brought them.” Joss realized for the first time that the tall woman was standing behind P’eng was the Count’s wife.
“The Count isn’t here too,” she said in dismay.
A quiver—either amusement or irritation—passed over Lady Shen’s face. She shook her head, but her first words were for Ssu-ma. “Welcome, brother,” she said. “Your task has not gone well?”
Sadness, affection, resignation—somehow, Ssu-ma’s impassive face expressed all these emotions as he bowed to her. “It is good to see you here, sister. I did not know that I would ever see you again.”