sedan chairs — all was but a distant hum. A stand of trees masked the grand-looking house from the stare of the common crowd, and the river behind it lent an air of tranquillity. I jumped from my horse and handed the reins to a fearful servant, who cowered at the sight of my whiskery face. I gave him a snarl for good measure, and stomped towards the elegant main doors. The prefect had indulged himself by having imperial dragons carved on the doors. He would have been severely punished for such presumption in the capital. Here, out in the sticks, he could get away with it. I slid the doors back and barged in, keeping to my role of demon and personal investigator to the Khan.
In the main room of the house, a fat, middle-aged man sat like a Buddha at a table in the centre of the room. By his side sat Lin Chu-Tsai, whereas Friar Alberoni and Tadeusz Pyka had to content themselves with sitting at some distance in the furthest corner of the room. Of Gurbesu there was no evidence. The fat man gazed at me, a look of indignation forming on his face. He was pulling his embroidered robe around him, and I could see that each side of the skirt had a bai, or panel, sewn in it to add to the bulk and his importance. He didn’t really need it as he was as broad as a horse’s backside anyway. The robe was blue to signify his rank. I was pleased to let him see that my Mongol jacket was red, as was Lin’s official robe. We outranked him and he knew it. I marched over to the table and slumped to the ground in a deliberately inelegant manner. I saw the flush of contained anger in Li’s face, as I rudely reached for the porcelain jar of rice wine that stood on the table between us. Politeness and etiquette dictated that I should have waited to be offered a drink. But I was past caring about this fat prefect, and I wanted to get him flustered before I interrogated him about Jianxu. Lin, I could see out of the corner of my eyes, had a knowing smile on his face. He patted the ruffled prefect’s arm.
‘Forgive the Investigator of Crimes, he is a barbarian. We are trying to train him, but he will use his own…’ He paused tellingly. ‘… brutal ways to find out the truth.’
The disconcerted prefect’s fat, jowly face fell, and his red flush turned white with fear. He managed to gasp out a few words from his now dry mouth.
‘I am sure you will see that everything here is in order. And I will cooperate fully with you.’
I smiled coldly, knowing I might have his attention now, but that he would soon recover his composure. Then he would try to find ways of wheedling his way back into Lin’s favour. I would need other ways of dealing with him then. For now, I would enjoy his rice wine. I gulped the fiery fluid down, and dreamed of the wine I had commanded to be sent to our quarters. Even though I didn’t yet know where we were to be staying, I could lay a bet that the owner of the winery did. And the whole of the rest of Pianfu too.
The harassed servant scurried across the courtyard in the old quarter of Yenking. He was nearly bowled over by a group of eight court officials kicking a ball. This solemn pastime was called ‘Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea’, and involved skilful passing and ball control rather than tackling and scoring. It was often impossible for the outsider to understand who was winning therefore. The servant cared only that he was not knocked down or delayed from delivering what he held in his hand. His master — Ko Su-Tsung — was waiting anxiously for the message. As Head of the Censorate, Ko could have chosen to be in the building site that was Kubilai’s new inner sanctum. But he was a fastidious man, and could not bear the thought of his robes and shoes being muddied. It was enough that he was borne into the Great Khan’s presence every day in a sedan chair that at least spared his clothing. Besides, his spies could come and go in the old city without being observed. Kubilai’s government was made up of three large bureaux — the Secretariat was responsible for all civil matters, the Privy Council for all military matters, but the Censorate was responsible for ritual, and spied on all government officials alike.
The servant, who had just negotiated the elegantly robed men playing football, lived in fear of his master. It was said Ko Su-Tsung had a file on everyone, no matter how lowly, and that therefore he could twist everyone to his own ends. The humble servant didn’t know if that was the truth, and he didn’t want to find out the hard way. He reached the inner room where Ko habitually spent his days like a spider in the centre of a web, and coughed discreetly to announce his presence. His master’s sharp, impatient voice called him into the room. The servant silently glided in, holding out the paper he had taken from the sweating horseman moments earlier. He briefly raised his eyes to glance at his master. Ko was tall and cadaverous. If he was a spider in his web, he didn’t seem to gain much sustenance from the titbits that regularly came his way. His face was a skull with dry parchment-like skin pulled over it. His eyes were deep-set, and black as coals, though they still somehow burned with the ferocity of that marvellous stone. The servant dropped his gaze from Ko’s piercing stare. He had long ago conceived the thought that his master had long ago actually died, but that Ko was so frightening that no one, not even the Devil himself, had had the nerve to tell him so. He was therefore more than happy to be summarily dismissed from Ko’s presence.
Ko Su-Tsung opened the message and began to read. It told him that Lin Chu-Tsai and his entourage had left T’ai-Yuan-Fu and were almost at their destination. In his mind he calculated the time taken for the letter to arrive. The Mongol postal system — the Yam — was remarkably efficient with horse-riders changing their mount every twenty-five miles. They were thus able to cover one hundred and twenty-five miles in a day. So Lin would even now be in P’ing-Yang-Fu. He returned to the message contained in the letter. Aside from some dull factual information, it also told him of a possible sexual liaison between Lin and a young male actor. Ko licked his lips at the morsel. The suggestion of forbidden lascivious behaviour on the part of his old adversary would be a strong bargaining tool in the future. It might even serve to bring Lin down. Ko’s spy was doing well. And though Lin and that barbarian assistant of his had not yet become embroiled in the vexing case of the Chin girl, his lines of communication were opened.
He lifted his writing instrument and began to compose a reply to the letter. His instructions included a command to make use of the sexual misconduct outlined by the spy in a way that would smear Lin’s reputation. In two or three days Ko knew his instructions would be in the hands of the spy, and Lin’s mission would be all the more impossible. And it had been an undertaking that was fraught with dangers in the first place. The girl’s execution, confirmed by the regional Mongol governor, had been delayed by the apparent interference of Lin Chu- Tsai. Whatever the outcome, Lin’s standing would be undermined. Ko finished the letter and called for his servant. He was so pleased with himself that, for once, his thin, cadaverous face split into what passed for him as a smile. To his petrified servant it was the death-grin of a skull.
EIGHT
The girl was unaware that she was, albeit obliquely, in the thoughts of someone so highly positioned at the court of Kubilai Khan, so many li away. It was enough that she now knew the Investigator of Crimes was in Pianfu. Wenbo had come scurrying along the unlucky road that very morning. He bore the news that a delegation had arrived the previous afternoon, led by a most important official dressed in a red pao robe. He was accompanied by foreigners — a small monkey of a man with a burned face, a tall, black-garbed, ugly man who must be a Western priest, and a woman who looked as though she came from the Kungurat. Then the boy looked at Jianxu with a mixture of fear and awe on his face.
‘And the official had his own personal demon with him.’
Jianxu could barely restrain her laughter. She didn’t believe in ghouls and demons — not completely anyway. Wenbo saw her look of scorn, and frowned.
‘It’s true. He had hair and a beard made of fire, and a big nose just like Zhong Kui.’
Even Jianxu shivered a little at the mention of the demon hunter of lesser demons. But then, what did she have to fear from Zhong Kui? He would find her innocent of any crime, wouldn’t he? She had sent the boy away, and huddled all day in the corner of her little cell puzzling over the meaning of what Wenbo had told her. With the onset of the cold of the night, she slept fitfully.
But in the cold light of day, on a frosty morning that heralded an early beginning of winter, she felt more confident. There were no such things as demons, and that stupid boy was just teasing. Stretching her stiff limbs, she scooped up the cold rice the gaoler had left on the shelf inside the cell door, and forced herself to eat. Her stomach rebelled, and she had a griping feeling of anxiety at the impending arrival of the investigator. But she swallowed and kept the meagre allowance of food down. She would face the investigator with confidence and convince him of her innocence. Moving to stand at the grille set in her cell door, she began her vigil.
