I leaned forward excitedly.
‘Nu did see something at Geng’s house. What else did you find?’
‘Well, I remembered a line about monkshood, and I thought it was relevant to our case. But it was just coincidence. The line really does read, “Get your monkshood, your mountain fennel.” But Nu has drawn a circle round the symbol for monkshood all the same, giving it emphasis. However there can be no doubt about this other textual change.’
Lin flicked through the sheets until he found what he was looking for. He took a deep breath and declaimed the proper lines.
‘“Keep the memory safely locked in your head; never hesitate, never wonder am I right?” But now it reads, “Keep the memory safely locked in your head; the boy ensured that he was dead.”
For me, that was the final clincher. Ho had told me via the priestess that he had stolen this script from Geng’s house. The only person who could have therefore taken it from the storeroom of plays at the theatre in order to suppress the clear hints in the text, and who had therefore probably been at the play to witness the new lines, was Old Geng’s son.
Wenbo had to be the killer.
TWENTY
The following morning Tadeusz and I rode out of Pianfu for the nameless village in the hills where the good Doctor Sun was skulking. It was barely light, with the autumn sun just creeping across the sweep of the flat plain to our right. The air was crisp and cold, presaging a hard winter to come. Already heavy, dark clouds hung over the mountains ahead of us. It could mean snow was on the way. I shivered, eager to finish this mess of a murder case and be gone before we were trapped by snowdrifts. I had experienced that once in the land of Rus, where the very breath from your body would freeze and turn to icicles as it escaped your lips. I did not want that sort of experience again.
My companion was understandably tense, and maintained a silence as we rode along. He was no doubt thinking of Lin’s proposal that he should continue to report to Ko, but send him misleading information. He was still scared about losing his family for a second time, I could tell. But his course was now set. As was ours today. We had debated the way ahead last night, and it had resulted in Tadeusz and me rising early to be on our way. The decision not to arrest Wenbo first had taken some time.
‘Wenbo can be taken tomorrow morning. There is no point rushing over to the Geng property now. It is very late, and he and the old lady will be safely in their beds.’
Lin was certain that nothing needed to be done precipitately. And I agreed, especially as our evidence was flimsy at present. It was based on the changes in a playscript made by a dead man. Actors had bad reputations generally, and it would take nothing at all for Li Wen-Tao to undermine our case in such circumstances. No actual link had been established between Old Geng’s death, and the murder of P’ing-Yang Nu. Li could argue that internal rivalry might have been the cause of the actor’s death. It was only the fact that the playscript had been found at Geng’s house that made the link. And the only person who could establish that was the man who had found it there. I voiced my concerns over the thief, Ho.
‘It is quite possible that Ho will not even bear witness to the book being at Geng’s house. It fell into his hands by theft, after all.’
Lin pulled a face.
‘And even if he did speak up, Li could silence him with a threat to imprison him. Li still does not want his original verdict overturned.’
I reassured him on that matter, though.
‘Don’t worry about Li. I have made… erm… arrangements which will prevent the prefect from crossing us.’
Lin looked questioningly into my eyes, not sure what I was referring to. I waved a dismissive hand.
‘You don’t want to know. Let us just say it came at a cost.’
While Lin tried to digest my enigmatic pronunciations, Tadeusz intervened in the debate.
‘What about the doctor? Is it possible he could give us the evidence we need? If we can verify that the poison that killed Old Geng came from him, and that he sold it to Wenbo, then we are home and dry.’
‘ If he sold it to the boy. We don’t yet know that, and we don’t know if this beggar that was present had anything to do with the killing. Let’s not forget him.’
Gurbesu, who had been silent throughout the debate, laid out our approach for us.
‘Forget about taking Wenbo for the moment. He is going nowhere, because he is infatuated with Jianxu. I could tell that from what she said when I spoke to her. She made a joke of it, because she has no interest in him. She sees him as a boy, though he is the same age as she is. Go and apprehend the doctor, and see what emerges from that.’
That had been our decision.
As we plunged into the rocky defile that was the entrance to the village where we hoped to find Sun, Tadeusz leaned across in the saddle. He took my arm, a look of deep pain on his ruined face.
‘You don’t think my wife or children are still alive, do you, Nick?’
I looked him in the eyes, and told him what I thought, not what he wanted to hear. I was no good at platitudes, anyway.
‘Truthfully? No. You know more than anyone in the West how savage the Mongols were twenty or thirty years ago. We even called them Tartars, as though they were demons out of Hell. And their reputation was well earned. They would wipe out a whole village, even a whole town to make a point to the rest of us. We learned that resistance was futile, because it only brought bloody revenge. Of course, Kubilai has changed all that, adopting some of the ways of the cultured Chinee that Lin is so proud of. But make no mistake. In their soul, the Mongols are still nomadic warriors, whose only way to grow and progress is by conquest. It is something the Song emperor will find out soon enough.’
I was referring, of course, to the ongoing war Kubilai waged with the remnants of the Chinee empire that he had taken by force in the north. The Song people were stubbornly holding out in the city of Siang-Yang-Fu that sat on the banks of a tributary of the great Yang-tse river. The river was the final barrier between Kubilai and the decadent empire in the south. And the doorway to the Song was the besieged city. It had held out so far. But one day it would fall, and the inhabitants would regret their intransigence. I turned in my saddle to face Tadeusz.
‘I am sorry, but I think your family are long dead.’
The silversmith scrubbed his face with his free hand, masking his renewed sense of loss.
‘I know you are right. I just wish…’
He did not finish what he was about to say because a skinny demon sprung out of the bushes at the roadside, and grabbed the reins of his horse. The nag I was seated on reared up in fear, and I had difficulty controlling it for a moment. I was still better on the deck of a bucking ship than on the back of a plunging horse. Despite all my years away from the sea in Cathay. When I finally had it settled, I saw that Tadeusz was actually conversing with our attacker. He was twisting round to speak to me.
‘The old man is the village elder I spoke to. He says that Doctor Sun has returned. With the body of the farmer he went to heal. It would seem our good doctor’s skills have not improved at all. The funeral rites will take place tomorrow, but the dead man’s brother is on the rampage. He wants the hide of the doctor and he — ’ Tadeusz pointed at the village elder — ‘is fearful that Sun is about to abscond. If we want him, we had better take him right away.’
I spurred on my horse and followed Tadeusz into the village, leaving the old man to follow in our wake. Tadeusz led me through the village to a grubby shack on the other side. Riding through, I thought it was not the neatest settlement I had ever encountered. But by comparison with the doctor’s hovel ahead of us, the other huts were positive palaces. As we dismounted, a lanky man in a blue robe that had seen better days came to the door of
