As one the three Han bowed and took their leave.
Wyatt stood there a moment, dumbfounded, watching them go. Then he turned to Lehmann. ‘What in the gods’ names is happening, Pietr?’ He thrust the document into Lehmann’s hand. ‘What is this?’
Lehmann looked away. Gods! he thought. This changes everything.
He turned back. ‘It’s an Edict, Edmund. The Seven have passed a special Edict.’ He unfurled the white, silken roll.
‘See here.’ He pointed out the rigid line of hardened wax.
‘These are their seals. The Ywe Lung, symbol of their power. All seven of them. They must have met in an emergency session and agreed to this.’
Wyatt had gone very quiet, watching him, a new kind of fear in his face.
‘An Edict?’
‘Yes. You are to be tried in camera, by a council of the T’ang’s Ministers.’ Lehmann swallowed then looked across at Tolonen, an unfeigned anger in his eyes. ‘This changes things, Edmund. It changes everything. It means they want you dead.’
Heng Kou paused in the doorway, then knelt down and touched his brow to the cold floor.
‘Nephew Yu. I am most sorry to disturb your afternoon sleep. I would not have come, but it is a matter of the utmost urgency.’
Heng Yu tied the sash to his sleeping robe and came across the room quickly. ‘Uncle Kou, please, get up at once. In private you are still my uncle.’
Heng Kou let himself be drawn to his feet, then stood there, embarrassed, as Heng Yu bowed to him in the old way.
All that has changed, he thought. The T’ang gave you years when he gave you power. Now you are our head and the family must bow before you. So it is. So it must be. Or Chung Kuo itself would fall.
Heng Yu straightened. ‘But tell me, what brings you here, uncle?’
‘I’m sorry, Yu, but I bring bad news. Your uncle Chi-Po is unwell.’
Heng Yu started. ‘Unwell?’
‘Please…’ Heng Kou bowed and moved aside. ‘I felt you should come yourself. At once. My own doctors are seeing to him even now. But…’
Heng Yu gave the slightest nod. ‘I understand. Please, lead me to him.’
Heng Chi-Po’s bedroom was dimly lit. The four doctors stood at one end of the room, beside the only light source. Seeing the two men in the doorway, they came across.
‘How is my uncle?’ asked Heng Yu at once, concerned.
The most senior of them bowed low, then answered him. Like all four of them he had been briefed beforehand concerning Heng Yu’s new status in the household.
‘I regret to say that your uncle passed away five minutes ago. His heart failed him.’
Heng Kou, watching, saw Heng Yu’s mouth fall open, his eyes widen in surprise; saw the real pain he felt at the news and knew he had been right not to involve him in the scheme. Let him believe things are as they are. That disappointment killed my brother. Only I and these four men know otherwise.
Heng Yu had a servant bring them a lamp, then they went over to where Heng Chi-Po lay on his oversized bed. His eyes had been closed and his face now was at peace. The flesh of his arms and chest and face was pale and misted with a fine sheen of sweat.
‘Did he suffer much?’ Heng Yu asked.
Heng Kou saw how the doctors looked at him, then looked away.
‘Not at all,’ he lied, remembering how it had taken all five of them to hold him down while the poison had taken effect. ‘Of course, there was pain at first, but then, thankfully, it passed and he lapsed into sleep.’
Heng Yu nodded then turned away with a tiny shudder.
Heng Kou remained a moment longer, looking down at the brother he had always loathed; the brother who, since he had been old enough to walk, had bullied him and treated him like the basest servant. He smiled. You would have had us kill Tolonen, eh? You would have brought us all down with your foolishness?
Yes, but you forgot who held the power.
He turned, indicating to the doctors that they should leave. Then, when they were gone, he went to where Heng Yu was standing. He was about to speak when Heng Yu surprised him, raising a hand to silence him.
Heng Yu’s whole manner had changed. His voice was low but powerful. ‘Don’t think me blind, Uncle Kou. Or dull-witted. I know what happened here.’
‘And?’
Kou held his breath. If Heng Yu insisted, all would be undone.
‘And nothing, uncle. Understand me?’
Heng Kou hesitated, studying the smooth lines of his nephew’s face, seeing him for the first time as the T’ang must have seen him.
He smiled, then bowed low. ‘I understand, Minister Heng.’
The door slammed shut. DeVore turned and looked back across the cell at Wyatt. They were alone now. Just the two of them.
‘Shouldn’t there be others?’ Wyatt said, watching him warily. ‘I thought it was usual for there to be several officers at an interrogation.’
DeVore laughed. ‘You don’t understand, do you? You still think you’re safe. In spite of all that’s happened.’
Wyatt turned away. ‘If you mistreat me…’
DeVore interrupted him. ‘You really don’t understand, do you?’
He moved closer, coming round the side of Wyatt until he stood there, face to face with the slightly taller man.
‘Let me explain.’
Wyatt had turned his face slightly, so as not to have to meet DeVore’s eyes, but the suddenness of the slap took him by complete surprise. He staggered backwards, holding his cheek, staring at DeVore, his eyes wide with astonishment.
‘Strip off!’ DeVore barked, his face suddenly mean, uncompromising. ‘Everything. Top clothes. Underclothes. Jewellery. We’ll remove your electronic implants later.’
Wyatt shook his head uncertainly. ‘But you can’t do this…’
‘Do what?’ DeVore laughed. ‘You’re a murderer. Understand? You killed the T’ang’s Minister. You’ll be tried and found guilty. And then we’ll execute you.’
DeVore took a step closer, seeing how Wyatt flinched, expecting another blow. His cheek was bright red, the weal the shape of DeVore’s hand, each finger clearly delineated. ‘That’s the truth of this, Edmund Wyatt. You’re a dead man. When you killed Lwo Kang you stepped outside the game. You broke all the rules. So now there are no rules. At least, none that you would recognize.’
He reached out and took Wyatt’s wrists, savagely pulling him closer, until Wyatt’s face was pressed against his own.
‘Are you beginning to understand?’
Wyatt shivered and made an awkward nod.
‘Good.’ He thrust Wyatt back brutally, making him fall. ‘Then strip off.’
He turned his back. The cell was bare. He could almost see Wyatt look about him, hesitating. Then he heard the jingle of his thin gold bracelets as he set them down on the floor, and smiled. I have you now, my proud false Chinaman. I’ll strip the Han from you, pigtail, pau and all. Yes, and we’ll see how proud you are when I’m done with you.
When he turned back. Wyatt was naked, his clothes neatly bundled on the floor beside him. His white, soft body seemed so frail, so ill-suited to the trial that lay ahead: already it seemed to cower, to shrink back into itself, as if aware of what was to come. Yet when DeVore looked up past the narrow, hairless chest and met Wyatt’s eyes he was surprised to find defiance there.
So, he thought. That first. They say the Han are strong because they resign themselves to fate. In thirty centuries they have never fought fate, but have been its agents. Flood, famine and revolution have all been as one to them. They have bowed before the inevitability of death and so survived, stronger for their long and patient suffering. So it will be with you, Edmund Wyatt. I’ll make a true Han of you yet – stripped bare of all you were, resigned and patient in your suffering.
He smiled. ‘You knew Yang Lai? Lwo Kang’s Junior Minister?’
Wyatt looked up sharply, real hatred in his eyes. ‘He’s dead. You know he’s dead. He died with Lwo Kang in t
he solarium.’
‘That’s not what I asked. Did you know him well?’
‘He was a friend. A good friend. I was at college with him.’
DeVore laughed coldly. ‘How good a friend, would you say?’
Wyatt swallowed, then lowered his head. ‘He was my lover.’
‘You admit it?’
Angered, Wyatt yelled back at him. ‘Why not? I expect you knew already! Anyway, what has Yang Lai to do with this?’
DeVore smiled and turned away. ‘Yang Lai was murdered. Three days after the assassination. The only thing we found on the body was a small hologram of you.’
Wyatt had gone very still. When DeVore next looked at him he was surprised to find tears in his eyes.
‘There,’ said Wyatt softly. ‘Surely that says something to you? Would I kill a man I loved then leave my holo on him?’
DeVore shook his head. ‘You don’t understand.’
Wyatt frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘He had it up his arse.’
Wyatt looked away. A shuddering breath racked his body.
‘Oh, and there’s more. Much more. Kao Jyan’s tape. Your trading connections with Hong Cao and Cho Hsiang. The internal flight schedules that coincide perfectly with our reconstruction of the attack on the solarium. Your company’s experiments with harmonic triggers. And, of course, your secretary Lung Ti’s evidence.’
Wyatt looked back at DeVore blankly. ‘Lung Ti?’
This was DeVore’s master stroke, the thing that had cemented it all in place. Lung Ti had been with Wyatt from his tenth year. He was his most trusted servant. But eight years ago DeVore had found Lung Ti’s weakness and bought him. Now Lung Ti was his creature, reading from his script.
DeVore let the silence extend a moment longer, then lowered his head. ‘Lung Ti has confessed to his part in everything. He is to give evidence under the T’ang’s pardon.’
Wyatt’s mouth worked loosely, but no sound came out.
‘Yes,’ DeVore said softly, moving closer. ‘And now you do understand, neh?’ He reached out and put his fingers gently to the weal on Wyatt’s cheek. ‘We’ll find the truth of this, you and I. We’ve time, you know. Plenty of time.’
And in the end, he thought, even you will believe you ordered Lwo Kang’s death.
From high above it seemed insignificant, a tiny, circular blemish in the vast field of whiteness, yet as the craft dropped the circle grew and grew until it seemed to fill the whole of the viewing window with its blackness.
The big transporter set down on the roof of the City, close to the circle’s edge. Only paces from its struts the surface of the roof was warped, the ice dented and buckled by the vast heat of the explosion. Seen from this close the huge dark circle revealed another dimension. It was a dish – an enormous concave dish, like some gigantic alchemist’s crucible; the dark and sticky sludge of its residue already sifted and searched for clues.
They climbed down from the transporter, looking about them; sixty men from the lower levels, white-cloaked and hooded. Others handed down tools from inside the big, insectile machine: shovels and brushes; sacks and other containers. Old-fashioned tools. Nothing modern was needed now. This was the simplest part of all. The final stage before rebuilding.
They got to work at once, forming three chains of twenty men, three from each chain filling sacks at the edge of the sludge-pool and handing them back to the others in the line. And at the top two anchor men moved backward and forward between the human chain and the big machine, passing the sacks up into the interior.
A wind was blowing from the mountains. At the top of the right-hand workchain one of the men – a big, shaven-headed Han – turned and looked back at the distant peaks. For a moment he could relax, knowing no sack was on its way. Taking off a glove, he pulled down his goggles and wiped at his brow. How cool it was. How pleasant to feel the wind brushing against the skin. For a moment his blunt, nondescript face searched the distance, trying to place something, then he shrugged.
Looking down, he noticed something against the dark surface. Something small and green and fragile-looking. He bent down and picked it up, holding it in his bare palm. It was a budding seed.
He looked up, hearing the cry of birds overhead, and understood. It was from the mountainside. A bird must have picked it up and dropped it here. Here on the lifeless surface of the City’s roof.
He stared at it a moment longer, noting the shape of its twin leaves, the hardness of its central pip. Then he crushed it between his fingers and let it drop.
Kao Chen, kwai, one-time assassin, looked up. Clouds, mountains, even the flat, open surface of the City’s roof – all seemed so different in the day-light. He sniffed in the warm air and smiled. Then, hearing the grunts of the men below him, he pulled up his goggles, eased on his glove and turned back.
Part 7
Beneath the Yellow Springs
SPRING 2198
‘When I was alive, I wandered in the streets of the Capital;
Now that I am dead, I am left to lie in the fields.
In the morning I drove out from the High Hall;
In the evening I lodged beneath the yellow springs.
When the white sun had sunk in the Western Chasm
I hung up my chariot and rested my four horses.
Now, even the Maker of All
Could not bring the life back to my limbs.
Shape and substance day by day will vanish:
Hair and teeth will gradually fall away.
For ever from of old men have been so:
And none born can escape this thing.’
—Miu Hsi, Bearer’s Song (from Han Burial Songs)
Chapter 30
BROTHERS
It was spring in Sichuan province and the trees of the orchard at Tongjiang were ablaze with blossom beneath a clear blue sky. The air was clear, like a polished lens. In the distance the mountains thrust into the heavens, knife-edged shapes of green and blue.
At the orchard’s edge four servants waited silently, their heads bowed, heavily laden silver trays held out before them.
Beneath the trees at the lake’s edge, the two princes were playing, their laughter echoing across the water. The eldest, Li Han Ch’in, evaded his little brother’s outstretched arm and, with a swift, athletic movement, grasped an overhead branch and swung up into the crown of the apple tree. Li Yuan rushed at the tree, making trial jumps, but the branch was too high for him to reach.
‘That isn’t fair, Han!’ Yuan said breathlessly, laughing, his eyes burning with excitement. In the tree above him Han Ch’in was giggling, his head tilted back to look down at his brother, a sprig of pure white blossom caught in his jet black hair.
‘Come up and get me!’ he taunted, letting one leg dangle, then pulling it up quickly when his brother jumped for it.
Yuan looked about him a moment, then found what he was looking for. He turned back. ‘Come down! Come down or I’ll beat you!’ he threatened, one hand holding the thin switch, the other on his hip; his expression part stern, part amused.
‘I won’t!’ said Han, pulling himself up closer to the branch, trying to work his way further up the tree.
Laughing excitedly, Yuan stepped forward, flicking the leafy switch gently against his brother’s back. The older boy yelled exaggeratedly and kicked out wildly, his foot missing by a breath. The boy on the ground screeched, enjoying the game, and hit out harder with the branch. There was another yell from above and again the foot struck out wildly. But this time it connected, sending the small boy crashing backward.
Han Ch’in dropped down at once and went over to where his brother lay, unmoving, on the earth beside the bole.
‘Yuan! Yuan!’
He bent down, listening for his brother’s breath, his head dropping down onto the small boy’s chest.
Yuan rolled, using his brother’s weight, as he’d been taught, and came up on his chest, his knees pinning down Han’s arms. For a moment he was on top, his
face triumphant. Then Han pushed up, throwing him off sideways. Yuan turned and began to scramble away, but Han reached out and grabbed his leg, slowly dragging him back.
‘No, Han… No… Please!’ But Yuan’s protestations were feeble. He could barely speak for laughing.
‘Say it!’ Han demanded, pinning the small boy’s arms against his sides, his arms wrapped tightly about his chest.
‘I order you to say it!’
Yuan shook his head violently, his laughter giving way to hiccups. But as Han’s arms squeezed tighter he relented, nodding. The grip slackened but remained firm. Yuan took a breath, then spoke. ‘You are my master…’ He coughed, then continued, ‘… and I promise to obey you.’
‘Good!’
Han Ch’in released him, then pushed him away. The small boy fell against the earth and lay there a moment, breathing deeply. For a while they were quiet. Birds called in the warm, still air.
‘What do you think of her, Yuan?’
Li Yuan rolled over and looked up at his brother. Li Han Ch’in was kneeling, looking out across the lake towards the terrace. The sprig of blossom still clung to the side of his head, pure white against the intense blackness of his hair. There was a faint smile on his lips. His dark eyes looked far off into the distance. ‘Do you think she’s pretty?’
The question brought a colour to Yuan’s cheeks. He nodded and looked down. Yes, he thought. More than pretty. Fei Yen was beautiful. He had known that from the first moment he had seen her. Fei Yen. How well the name fitted her. Flying Swallow…
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