On the low table before him was the contract of marriage, which would link the T’ang’s clan once more with that of Yin Tsu. Two servants, their shaven heads lowered, their eyes averted, held the great scroll open as the T’ang positioned the seal above the silken paper and then leaned forward, placing his full weight on the ornate handle.
Satisfied, he stepped back, letting an official lift the seal with an almost pedantic care and replace it on the cushion. For a moment he stared at the vivid imprint on the paper, remembering another day. Yin Tsu’s much smaller chop lay beneath his own, the ink half-dried.
They had annulled the previous marriage earlier in the day, all seven T’ang setting their rings to the wax of the document. There had been smiles then, and celebration, but in all their hearts, he knew, there remained a degree of unease. Something unspoken lay behind every eye.
Dark Wei followed in his brother’s footsteps and the Lord of You-yi was stirred against him…
The words of the ‘Heavenly Questions’ had kept running through his mind all morning, like a curse, darkening his mood. So it was sometimes. And though he knew the words meant nothing – that his son, Yuan, was no adulterer – still he felt wrong about this. A wife was like the clothes a man wore in life. And did one put on one’s dead brother’s clothes?
Han Ch’in… Had five years really passed since Han had died? He felt a twinge of pain at the memory. This was like burying his son again. For a moment he felt the darkness well up in him, threatening to mist his eyes and spoil things for his younger son. Then it passed. It was Li Yuan now. Yuan was his son, his only son, his heir. And maybe it was right that he should marry his dead brother’s wife – maybe it was what the gods wanted.
He sniffed, then turned, smiling, to face Yin Tsu, and opened his arms, embracing the old man warmly.
‘I am glad our families are to be joined again, Yin Tsu,’ he said softly in his ear. ‘It has grieved me that you and I had no grandson to sweeten our old age.’
As they moved apart, the T’ang saw the effect his words had had on the old man. Yin Tsu bowed deeply, torn between joy and a fierce pride, the muscles of his face struggling to keep control. His eyes were moist and his hands shook as they held the T’ang’s briefly.
‘I am honoured, Chieh Hsia. Deeply honoured.’
Behind Yin Tsu his three sons looked on, tall yet somehow colourless young men. And beside them, her eyes lowered, demure in her pink and cream silks, Fei Yen herself, her outward appearance unchanged from that day when she had stood beside Han Ch’in and spoken her vows.
Li Shai Tung studied her a moment, thoughtful. She looked so frail, so fragile, yet he had seen for himself how spirited she was. It was almost as if all the strength that should have gone into Yin Tsu’s sons had been stolen – spirited away – by her. Like the thousand-year-old fox in the Ming novel, Feng-shen Yen-I, that took the form of the beautiful Tan Chi and bemused and misled the last of the great Shang Emperors…
He sniffed. No. These were only an old man’s foolish fears – dark reflections of his anxiety at how things were. Such things were not real. Were only stories.
Li Shai Tung turned, one hand extended, and looked across at his son. ‘Li Yuan… bring the presents for your future wife.’
The Shepherd boy stood apart from the others, staring up at the painting that hung between the two dragon pillars on the far side of the Hall. Li Yuan had noticed him earlier – had noted his strange separateness from everything – and had remarked on it to Fei Yen.
‘Why don’t you go across and speak to him?’ she had whispered. But he had held back. Now, however, his curiosity had got the better of him. Maybe it was the sheer intensity of the boy that drew him, or some curious feeling of fellowship; a sense that – for all his father had said of Ben’s aversion to it – they were meant to be companions, like Hal and his father. T’ang and Advisor. They had been bred so. And yet…
‘Forgive me, General,’ he said, smiling at Nocenzi, ‘but I must speak with Hal’s son. I have not met him before and he will be gone in an hour. If you’ll excuse me.’
The circle gathered about the General bowed low as he moved away, then resumed their conversation, an added degree of urgency marking their talk now that the prince was no longer amongst them.
Li Yuan, meanwhile, made his way across the room and stopped, a pace behind the boy, almost at his shoulder, looking up past him at the painting.
‘Ben?’
The boy turned his head and looked at him. ‘Li Yuan…’ He smiled and lowered his head the tiniest amount, more acknowledgment than bow. ‘You are to be congratulated. Your future wife is beautiful.’
Li Yuan returned the smile, feeling a slight warmth at his neck. The boy’s gaze was so direct, so self-contained. It made him recall what his father had told him of the boy.
‘I’m glad you could come. My father tells me you are an excellent painter.’
‘He does?’ Again the words, like the gesture, seemed only a token; the very minimum of social response. Ben turned his head away, looking up at the painting once again, the forcefulness of his gaze making Li Yuan lift his eyes as if to try to see what Shepherd was seeing.
It was a landscape – a shan shui study of ‘mountains and water’ – by the Sung painter, Kuo Hsi. The original of his Early Spring, painted in 1072.
‘I was watching you,’ Li Yuan said. ‘From across the room. I saw how you were drawn to this.’
‘It’s the only living painting here,’ Ben answered, his eyes never leaving the painting. ‘The rest…’
His shrug was the very symbol of dismissiveness.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, the rest of it’s dead. Mere mechanical gesture. The kind of thing a machine might produce. But this is different.’
Li Yuan looked back at Ben, studying him intently, fascinated by him. No one had ever spoken to him like this; as if it did not matter who he was. But it was not simply that there was no flattery in Ben’s words, no concession to the fact that he, Li Yuan was Prince and heir; Ben seemed to have no conception of those ‘levels’ other men took so much for granted. Even his father, Hal, was not like this.
Li Yuan laughed, surprised; not sure whether he was pleased or otherwise.
‘How is it different?’
‘For a start it’s aggressive. Look at the muscular shapes of those trees, the violent tumble of those rocks. There’s nothing soft, nothing tame about it. The very forms are powerful. But it’s more than that – the artist captured the essence – the very pulse of life – in all he saw.’ Ben laughed shortly, then turned and looked at him. ‘I’ve seen such trees, such rocks…’
‘In your valley?’
Ben shook his head, his eyes holding Li Yuan’s almost insolently. ‘In my dreams.’
‘Your dreams?’
Ben seemed about to answer, but then he smiled and looked past Li Yuan. ‘FeiYen…’
Li Yuan turned to welcome his betrothed.
She came and stood beside him, touching his arm briefly, almost tenderly. ‘I see you two have found each other at last.’
‘Found?’ Ben said quietly. ‘I don’t follow you.’
Fei Yen laughed softly, the fan moving slowly in her hand. Her perfume filled the air about them. ‘Li Yuan said earlier how much he wanted to speak to you.’
‘I see…’
Li Yuan saw how Ben looked at her and felt a pang of jealousy. It was as if he saw her clearly, perfectly; those dark, intense eyes of his taking in everything at a glance.
What do you see? he wondered. You seem to see so much, Ben Shepherd. Ah, but would you tell me? Would even you be that open?
‘Ben lives outside,’ he said after a moment. ‘In the Domain. It’s a valley in the Western Island.’
‘It must be beautiful,’ she said, lowering her eyes. ‘Like Tongjiang.’
‘Oh, it is,’ Ben said, his eyes very still, watching her. ‘It’s another world. But small. Very small. You could see it all in
an afternoon.’
Then, changing tack, he smiled and turned his attention to Li Yuan again. ‘I wanted to give you something, Prince Yuan. A gift of some kind. But I didn’t know quite what.’
It was unexpected. Li Yuan hesitated, his mind a blank, but Fei Yen answered for him.
‘Why not draw him for me?’
Ben’s smile widened, as if in response to her beauty, then slowly faded from his lips. ‘Why not?’
They went through to the anteroom while servants were sent to bring paper and brushes and inks, but when it arrived Ben waved the pots and brushes aside and, taking a pencil from his jacket pocket, sat at the table, pulling a piece of paper up before him.
‘Where shall I sit?’ Li Yuan asked, knowing from experience how much fuss was made by artists. The light, the background – everything had to be just so. ‘Here, by the window? Or over here by the kang?’
Ben glanced up at him. ‘There’s no need. I have you. Here.’ He tapped his forehead, then lowered his head again, his hand moving swiftly, decisively across the paper’s surface.
Fei Yen laughed and looked at him, then, taking his hand, began to lead him away. ‘We’ll come back,’ she said. ‘When he’s finished.’
But Li Yuan hesitated. ‘No,’ he said gently, so as not to offend her. ‘I’d like to see. It interests me…’
Ben looked up again, indicating that he should come across. Again it was a strange, unexpected thing to do, for who but a T’ang would beckon a prince in that manner? And yet, for once, it seemed quite natural.
‘Stand there,’ Ben said. ‘Out of my light. Yes. That’s it.’
He watched. Saw how the figures appeared, like ghosts out of nothingness, onto the whiteness of the paper. Slowly the paper filled. A tree, a clutch of birds, a moon. And then, to the left, a figure on a horse. An archer. He caught his breath as the face took form. It was himself. A tiny mirror-image of his face.
‘Why have you drawn me like that?’ he asked, when it was done. ‘What does it mean?’
Ben looked up. On the far side of the table Fei Yen was staring down at the paper, her lips parted in astonishment. ‘Yes,’ she said, echoing her future husband. ‘What does it mean?’
‘The tree,’ Ben said. ‘That’s the legendary fu sang, the hollow mulberry tree – the dwelling place of kings and the hiding place of the sun. In the tree are ten birds. They represent the ten suns of legend which the great archer, the Lord Shen Yi, did battle with. You recall the legend? Mankind was in danger from the intense heat of the ten suns. But the Lord Yi shot down nine of the suns, leaving only the one we know today.’
Li Yuan laughed, surprised that he had not seen the allusion. ‘And I… I am meant to be the Lord Yi?’
He stared at the drawing, fascinated, astonished by the simple power of the composition. It was as if he could feel the horse rearing beneath him, his knees digging into its flanks as he leaned forward to release the arrow, the bird pierced through its chest as it rose, silhouetted against the great white backdrop of the moon. Yes, there was no doubting it. It was a masterpiece. And he had watched it shimmer into being.
He looked back at Ben, bowing his head, acknowledging the sheer mastery of the work. But his admiration was tainted. For all its excellence there was something disturbing, almost frightening about the piece.
‘Why this?’ he asked, staring openly at Ben now, frowning, ignoring the others who had gathered to see what was happening.
Ben signed the corner of the paper, then set the pencil down. ‘Because I dreamt of you like this.’
‘You dreamt… ?’ Li Yuan laughed uneasily. They had come to this point before. ‘You dream a lot, Ben Shepherd.’
‘No more than any man…’
‘But this… Why did you dream this?’
Ben laughed. ‘How can I tell? What a man dreams – surely he has no control over that?’
‘Maybe so…’ But he was thinking, Why this? For he knew the rest of the story – how Lord Yi’s wife, Chang-e, goddess of the moon, had stolen the herb of immortality and fled to the moon. There, for her sins, she had turned into a toad, the dark shadow of which could be seen against the full moon’s whiteness. And Lord Yi? Was he hero or monster? The legends were unclear, contradictory, for though he had completed all of the great tasks set him by Pan Ku, the Creator of All, yet he was an usurper who had stolen the wives of many other men.
Ben surely knew the myth. He knew so much, how could he not know the rest of it? Was this then some subtle insult? Some clever, knowing comment on his forthcoming marriage to Fei Yen? Or was it as he said – the innocent setting down of a dream?
He could not say. Neither was there any certain way of telling. He stared at the drawing a moment longer, conscious of the silence that had grown about him, then, looking back at Ben, he laughed.
‘You know us too well, Ben Shepherd. What you were talking of – the essence behind the form. Our faces are masks, yet you’re not fooled by them, are you? You see right through them.’
Ben met his eyes and smiled. ‘To the bone.’
Yes, thought Li Yuan. My father was right about you. You would be the perfect match for me. The rest are but distorting mirrors, even the finest of them, returning a pleasing image to their lord. But you… you would be the perfect glass. Who else would dare to reflect me back so true?
He looked down, letting his fingers trace the form of the archer, then nodded to himself. ‘A dream…’
Klaus Ebert roared with laughter, then reached up and drew his son’s head down so that all could see. ‘There! See! And he’s proud of it!’
Hans Ebert straightened up again, grinning, looking about him at the smiling faces. He was in full uniform for the occasion, his new rank of major clearly displayed, but that was not what his father had been making all the fuss over – it was the small metal plate he wore, embedded in the back of his skull; a memento of the attack on Hammerfest.
‘The trouble is, it’s right at the back,’ he said. ‘I can’t see it in the mirror. But I get my orderly to polish it every morning. Boots, belt and head, I say to him. In that order.’
The men in the circle laughed, at ease for the first time in many months. Things were at a dangerous pass in the world outside, but here at Tongjiang it was as if time had stood still. From here the War seemed something distant, illusory. Even so, their conversation returned to it time and again; as if there were nothing else for them to talk of.
‘Is there any news of Berdichev?’ Li Feng Chiang, the T’ang’s second brother, asked. His half-brothers, Li Yun-Ti and Li Ch’i Chun, stood beside him, all three of Li Yuan’s uncles dressed in the same calf-length powder blue surcoats; their clothes badges of their rank as Councillors to the T’ang.
‘Rumours have it that he’s on Mars,’ General Nocenzi answered, stroking his chin thoughtfully. ‘There have been other sightings, too, but none of them confirmed. Sometimes I think the rumours are started by our enemies, simply to confuse us.’
‘Well,’ Tolonen said. ‘Wherever he is, my man Karr will find him.’
Tolonen was back in uniform, the patch of Marshal on his chest, the four pictograms – Lu Chun Yuan Shuai – emblazoned in red on white. It had been the unanimous decision of the Council of Generals, three months before. The appointment had instilled new life into the old man and he seemed his fierce old self again, fired with limitless energy. But it was true also what the younger officers said: in old age his features had taken on the look of something ageless and eternal, like rock sculpted by the wind and rain.
Klaus Ebert, too, had been promoted. Like Li Yuan’s uncles, he wore the powder blue of a Councillor proudly, in open defiance of those of his acquaintance who said a Hung Mao should not ape a Han. For him it was an honour – the outward sign of what he felt. He smiled at his old friend and leaned across to touch his arm.
‘Let us hope so, eh, Knut? The world would be a better place without that carrion, Berdichev, in it. But tell me, have you heard of this new development
? These “messengers”, as they’re called?’
There was a low murmur and a nodding of heads. They had been in the news a great deal these last few weeks.
Ebert shook his head, his features a mask of horrified bemusement, then spoke again. ‘I mean, what could make a man do such a thing? They say that they wrap explosives about themselves, and then, when they’re admitted to the presence of their victims, trigger them.’
‘Money,’ Tolonen answered soberly. ‘These are low-level types you’re talking of, Klaus. They have nothing to lose. It’s a way of ensuring their families can climb the levels. They think it a small price to pay for such a thing.’
Again Ebert shook his head, as if the concept were beyond him. ‘Are things so desperate?’
‘Some think they are.’
But Tolonen was thinking of all he had seen these last few months. By comparison with some of it, these ‘messengers’ were decency itself.
A junior minister and his wife had had their six-month-old baby stolen and sent back in a jar, boiled and then pickled, its eyes like bloated eggs in the raw pinkness of its face. Another man – a rich Hung Mao who had refused to cooperate with the rebels – had had his son taken and sold back to him, less his eyes. That was bad enough, but the kidnappers had sewn insects into the hollowed sockets, beneath the lids. The ten-year old was mad when they got him back: as good as dead.
And the culprits? Tolonen shuddered. The inventiveness of their cruelty never ceased to amaze and sicken him. They were no better than the half-men in the Clay. He felt no remorse in tracking down such men and killing them.
‘Marshal Tolonen?’
He half turned. One of the T’ang’s house-servants was standing there, his head bowed low.
‘Yes?’
‘Forgive me, Excellency, but your daughter is here. At the gatehouse.’
Tolonen turned back and excused himself, then followed the servant through and out into the great courtyard.
Ice and Fire: Chung Kuo Series Page 34