Ice and Fire: Chung Kuo Series

by David Wingrove

  DeVore shook his head. ‘That was nothing. He was just trying to impress me. These Han are strange, Stefan. They think all Hung Mao are beasts, with the appetites of beasts. Maybe it’s true of some.’

  Yes, but he had wondered for a moment: had waited to see if Tong Chou would clamour for it back.

  ‘You’re certain of him, then?’

  DeVore looked sharply at the youth. ‘And you’re not?’

  Lehmann shook his head. ‘You said you had a hunch. Why not trust to it? Have you ever been wrong?’

  DeVore hesitated, reluctant to say, then nodded. ‘Once or twice. But never about something so important.’

  ‘Then why trust to luck now?’

  When Lehmann was gone, he went upstairs and sat at his desk, beneath the sharp glare of the single lamp, thinking about what the albino had said. The unease he felt was understandable. Everything was in flux at present – The New Hope, the fortresses, the recent events in the House, all these demanded his concentration, night and day. Little wonder, then, that he should display a little paranoia now and then. Even so, the boy was right. It was wrong to ignore a hunch simply because the evidence wasn’t there to back it up. Hunches were signs from the subconscious – reports from a game played deep down in the darkness.

  Normally he would have had the man killed and thought nothing of it, but there were good reasons not to kill Tong Chou just now. Reports of unrest were serious enough as it was, and had brought enquiries from Duchek’s own office. Another death was sure to bring things to a head. But it was important that things were kept quiet for the next few days, until his scheme to pay that bastard Duchek back was finalised and the funds transferred from his accounts.

  Yes. And he wanted to get even with Administrator Duchek. Because Duchek had let him down badly when he had refused to launder the funds for the Swiss Wilds fortresses through his accounts. Had let them all down.

  Even so, there was a way that he could deal with Tong Chou. An indirect way that would cause the very minimum of fuss.

  The dead thief had three brothers. They, certainly, would be keen to know who it was had put their brother in the ground. And who was to say who had left the anonymous note?

  DeVore smiled, satisfied that he had found the solution to one of his problems, then leaned forward and tapped out the combination of the discrete line that connected him directly with Berdichev.

  ‘Do you know what time it is, Howard?’

  ‘Two-twenty. Why? Were you sleeping, Soren?’

  Berdichev waved his wife, Ylva, away, then locked the door behind her and came back to the screen. ‘What’s so urgent?’

  ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘What about?’

  DeVore paused, conscious of the possibility the call was being traced – especially after the events of the past few days. ‘I’ll tell you when I see you.’

  ‘Which is when?’

  ‘In an hour and a half.’

  ‘Ah…’ Berdichev removed his glasses and rubbed at his eyes, then looked up again and nodded. ‘Okay.’ Then he cut contact. There was no need to say where they would meet. Both knew.

  An hour and a half later they stood there on the mountainside below the landing dome at Landeck Base. The huge valley seemed mysterious and threatening in the moonlight, the distant mountains strange and unreal. It was like being on another planet. Berdichev had brought furs against the cold, even so he felt chilled to the bone, his face numbed by the thin, frigid air. He faced DeVore, noting how little the other man seemed to be wearing.

  ‘So? What do we need to talk about?’

  His voice seemed small and hollow; dwarfed by the immensity of their surroundings.

  ‘About everything. But mainly about Duchek. Have you heard from Weis?’

  Berdichev nodded, wishing he could see DeVore’s face better. He had expected DeVore to be angry, maybe even to have had Duchek killed for what he had done. ‘I was disappointed in him, Howard.’

  ‘Good. I’d hate to think you were pleased.’

  Berdichev smiled tightly. ‘What did you want to do?’

  ‘Wrong question, Soren. Try “What have you done?”’

  ‘So?’

  ‘He’s dead. Two days from now. Next time he visits his favourite singsong house. But there’s something else I want to warn you about. I’ve got a team switching funds from the plantation accounts here. At the same time Duchek greets his ancestors there’ll be a big fire in the Distribution Centre at Lodz. It’ll spread and destroy the computer records there. I thought I’d warn you, in case it hurts any of our investors. It’ll be messy and there’ll doubtlessly be a few hiccups before they can reconstruct things from duplicate records.’

  ‘Is that wise, Howard?’

  DeVore smiled. ‘My experts estimate it’ll take them between six and eight weeks to sort out the bulk of it. By that time I’ll be out of here and the funds will have been tunnelled away, so to speak. Then we cut Weis out of it.’

  Berdichev narrowed his eyes. ‘Cut Weis out?’

  ‘Yes. He’s the weak link. We both know it. Duchek’s betrayal gives me the excuse to deal with them both.’

  Berdichev considered a moment, then nodded, seeing the sense in it. With Weis dead, the trail covered and the fortresses funded, what did it matter if they traced the missing plantation funds to Duchek? Because beyond Duchek there would be a vacuum. And Duchek himself would be dead.

  ‘How much is involved?’

  ‘Three billion. Maybe three and a half.’

  ‘Three billion. Hmm. With that we could take some of the pressure off our investors.’

  DeVore shook his head. ‘No. That would just alert Weis. I gave him the distinct impression that we were grabbing for every fen we could lay our hands on. If we start making refunds he’ll know we’ve got funding from elsewhere and he’ll start looking for it. No, I want you to go to him with the begging bowl again. Make him think things are working out over budget.’

  Berdichev frowned. ‘And if he says it can’t be done?’

  DeVore laughed and reached out to touch his arm. ‘Be persuasive.’

  ‘Right. You want me to pressure him?’

  DeVore nodded. ‘How are things otherwise?’

  ‘Things are good. Under Secretary Barrow tells me that the tai are to face impeachment charges next week. Until then they’re suspended from the House. That gives our coalition an effective majority. Lo Yu-Hsiang read out a strongly worded protest from the Seven yesterday, along with an announcement that funding in certain areas was to be cut. But we expected as much. Beyond that they’re impotent to act – as we knew they would be. The House is humming with it, Howard. They’ve had a taste of real power for once and they like it. They like it a lot.’

  ‘Good. And the File?’

  For a moment Berdichev thought to play dumb. Then, seeing how things stood, he shrugged inwardly, making a mental note to find out how DeVore had come to know of it. It was fortunate that, for once, he had prepared for such an eventuality. ‘I’ve a copy in my craft for you, Howard. I’ll hand it to you before we go.’

  ‘Excellent. And the boy? Kim, isn’t it? Have you sorted out your problems there?’

  Berdichev felt his stomach tighten. Was there anything DeVore hadn’t heard about? ‘It’s no problem,’ he said defensively.

  ‘Good. Because we don’t want problems. Not for the next few days, anyway.’

  Berdichev took a deep breath, forcing himself to relax. ‘And how is young Stefan? How is he settling in?’

  DeVore turned his head away, staring out at the mountains, the moonlight momentarily revealing his neat, rather handsome features. ‘Fine. Absolutely fine. He’s quiet, but I rather like that. It shows he has depths.’ He looked back, giving Berdichev the briefest glimpse of a smile.

  Yes, thought Berdichev, recalling the two appalling weeks the boy had spent with them as a house guest, he has depths all right – vacuous depths.

  ‘I see. But has he learned anything from you,
Howard? Anything useful?’

  DeVore laughed, then looked away thoughtfully. ‘Who knows, Soren? Who knows?’

  The huge bed was draped with veils of silk-white voile, the thin, gauze-like cotton decorated with butterflies and delicate, tall-stemmed irises. It filled one end of the large, sumptuously decorated room, like the cocoon of some vast, exotic insect.

  The air in the room was close, the sweet, almost sickly scent of old perfumes masking another, darker odour.

  The woman lay on the bed, amidst a heap of pale cream and salmon pink satin cushions that blended with the colours of the silk shui t’an i camisole she wore. As he came closer, she raised her head. The simple movement seemed to cost her dearly, as if her head were weighted down with bronze.

  ‘Who is it?’

  Her voice had a slightly brittle edge to it, a huskiness beneath its silken surface.

  He stood where he was, looking about the room, noting with disgust its excesses. ‘I am from Shih Bergson, Fu Jen Maitland.’

  ‘You’re new…’ she said sleepily, a faintly seductive intonation entering her voice. ‘Come here where I can see you, boy.’

  He went across and climbed the three small steps that led up to the bed, then drew the veil aside, looking down at her.

  She was a tall, long-limbed woman with knife-sharp, nervous facial features, their glass-like fragility accentuated rather than hidden by the heavy pancake of make-up she was wearing. She looked old before her time, the web of lines about each eye like the cracked earth of a dried-up stream, her eyeballs protruding slightly beneath their thin veils of flesh. The darkness of her hair, he knew at once, had been achieved artificially, for the skin of her neck and arms had the pallor of albinism.

  Yes, he could see now where his own colouring came from.

  Bracelets of fine gold wire were bunched about her narrow wrists, jewelled rings clustered on her long, fragile fingers. About her stretched and bony neck she wore a garishly large ying luo, the fake rubies and emeralds like pigeons’ eggs. Her hair was unkempt from troubled sleep, her silks creased. She looked what she was – a rich Han’s concubine. A kept woman.

  He watched her turn her head slowly and open her eyes. Pale, watery blue eyes that had to make an effort before they focused on him.

  ‘Ugh… Pale as a worm. Still…’ She closed her eyes again, letting her head sink back amongst the cushions. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Mikhail,’ he said, adopting the alias he had stolen from DeVore. ‘Mikhail Böden.’

  She was silent a moment, then gave a small, shuddering sigh and turned slightly, raising herself onto her elbows, looking at him again. The movement made her camisole fall open slightly at the front, exposing her small, pale breasts.

  ‘Come here. Sit beside me, boy.’

  He did as he was bade, the perfumed reek of her filling his nostrils, sickening him. It was like her jewellery, her silks and satins, the make-up and nail paint. All this – this ostentation – offended him deeply. He himself wore nothing decorative. His belief was in purity. In essence.

  Her hand went to his face, then moved down until it rested on his shoulder.

  ‘You have it?’

  He took the two packets from his jacket pocket and threw them down onto the bed beside her. If she noticed his rudeness, she said nothing, but leaned forward urgently, scrabbling for the tiny sachets, then tore one open with her small, pointed teeth and swallowed its contents down quickly.

  It was as he had thought. She was an addict.

  He watched her close her eyes again, breathing deeply, letting the drug take hold of her. When she turned her head and looked at him again she seemed more human, more animated, a slight playfulness in her eyes revealing how attractive she must once have been. But it was only a shadow. A shadow in a darkened room.

  ‘Your eyes,’ she said, letting her hand rest on his chest again. ‘They seem… wrong somehow.’

  ‘Yes.’ He put a finger to each eye, popping out the contact lenses he had borrowed from DeVore’s drawer, then looked back at her, noting her surprise.

  ‘Hello, mother.’

  ‘I have no…’ she began, then laughed strangely, understanding. ‘So. You’re Pietr’s son.’

  He saw how the muscles beneath her eyes betrayed her. But there was no love there. How could there be? She had killed him long ago. Before he was born.

  ‘What do you want?’

  In answer he leaned forward and held her to him, embracing her. DeVore is right, he thought. Trust no one. For there’s only yourself in the end.

  He let her fall back amongst the satin cushions, the tiny, poisoned blade left embedded at the base of her spine. Then he stood and looked at her again. His mother. A woman he had never met before today.

  Carefully, almost tenderly, he took the device from his pocket, set it, then laid it on the bed beside her. In sixty seconds it would catch fire, kindling the silks and satins, igniting the gauze-like layers of voile, cleansing the room of every trace of her.

  Lehmann moved back, away, pausing momentarily, wishing he could see it, then turned and left, locking the door behind him, knowing that no one now had any hold on him. Especially not DeVore.

  Li Yuan lay there in the darkness, listening to the rain falling in the garden beyond the open windows, letting his heartbeat slow, his breathing return to normal. The dream was fading now and with it the overwhelming fear which had made him cry out and struggle back to consciousness, but still he could see its final image, stretching from horizon to horizon, vast and hideously white.

  He shuddered, then heard the door ease open, a soft tread on the tiled floor.

  ‘Do you want company, Li Yuan?’

  He sighed, then rolled over and looked across to where she stood, shadowed and naked, at the foot of his bed.

  ‘Not now, Sweet Rose…’

  He sensed, rather than saw her hesitation. Then she was gone.

  He got up, knowing he would not sleep now, and went to the window, staring out into the moonlit garden. Then, taking a gown from the side, he wrapped it about him and went to the double doors that led out, pulling them open.

  For a while Li Yuan stood there, his eyes closed, breathing in the fresh, sweet, night scents of the garden, then he went outside, onto the balcony, the coldness of the marble flags beneath his feet making him look down, surprised.

  ‘Prince Yuan?’

  He waved the guard away, then went down, barefoot, into the garden. In the deep shadow of the bower he paused, looking about him, then searched blindly until he came upon it.

  ‘Ah!’ he said softly, finding the book there, on the side, where she had laid it only hours before. It had been in the dream, together with the horse, the silks, the scent of plum blossom. The thought made his throat dry again. He shivered and picked the book up, feeling at once how heavy it was, the cover warped, ruined by the rain. He was about to go back out when his fingers found, then read, the pictograms embossed into the sodden surface of the cover.

  Yu T’ai Hsin Yang.

  He moved his fingers over the figures once again, making sure, then laughed shortly, understanding. It was a book of love poetry. The sixth century collection, New Songs From A Jade Terrace. He had not read the book himself, but he had heard of it. Moving out from the bower he turned it over and held it out, under the moonlight, trying to make out the page she had been reading. It was a poem by Chiang Yen. ‘Lady Pan’s Poem on the Fan.’

  White silk like a round moon

  Appearing from the loom’s white silk.

  Its picture shows the King of Ch’in’s daughter

  Riding a lovebird toward smoky mists.

  Vivid colour is what the world prefers,

  Yet the new will never replace the old.

  In secret I fear cold winds coming

  To blow on my jade steps tree

  And, before your sweet love has ended,

  Make it shed midway.

  He shivered and closed the book abruptly. It was like the
dream, too close, too portentous to ignore. He looked up at the three-quarters moon and felt its coldness touch him to the core. It was almost autumn, the season of executions, when the moon was traditionally associated with criminals.

  The moon… A chill thread of fear ran down his spine, making him drop the book. In contrast to the sun, the new moon rose first in the west. Yes, it was from the west that Chang-e, the goddess of the Moon, first made herself known.

  Chang-e… The association of the English and the Mandarin was surely fanciful – yet he was too much the Han, the suggestive resonances of sounds and words too deeply embedded in his bloodstream, to ignore it.

  Li Yuan bent down and retrieved the book, then straightened up and looked about him. The garden was a mosaic of moonlight and shadows, unreal and somehow threatening. It was as if, at any moment, its vague patterning of silver and black would take on a clearer, more articulate shape; forming letters or a face, as in his dream. Slowly, fearful now, he moved back towards the palace, shuddering at the slightest touch of branch or leaf, until he was inside again, the doors securely locked behind him.

  He stood there a while, his heart pounding, fighting back the dark, irrational fears that had threatened to engulf him once again. Then, throwing the book down on his bed, he went through quickly, almost running down the corridors, until he came to the entrance to his father’s suite of rooms.

  The four elite guards stationed outside the door bowed deeply to him but blocked his way. A moment later, Wang Ta Chuan, Master of The Inner Palace, appeared from within, bowing deeply to him.

  ‘What is it, Prince Yuan?’

  ‘I wish to see my father, Master Wang.’

  Wang bowed again. ‘Forgive me, Excellency, but your father is asleep. Could this not wait until the morning?’

  Li Yuan shuddered, then shook his head. His voice was soft but insistent. ‘I must see him now, Master Wang. This cannot wait.’

  Wang stared at him, concerned and puzzled by his behaviour. Then he averted his eyes and bowed a third time. ‘Please wait, Prince Yuan. I will go and wake your father.’

  He had not long to wait. Perhaps his father had been awake already and had heard the noises at his door. Whatever, it was only a few seconds later that Li Shai Tung appeared, alone, a silk pau pulled about his tall frame, his feet, like his son’s, bare.