Under Heaven

She had passed into legend by then.

Back in that summer when the rebels came, his task, as he came to understand it, was straightforward: to preserve order in one small place, one household, in a world that had lost all sense of order or claim to being civilized.

He didn’t give it a great deal of thought, caught up in his day-today tasks, but one morning, in autumn, it suddenly came to him that the men and women here in Master Shen Tai’s compound trusted him completely, relied upon him, were doing whatever he ordered, for reasons that went beyond rank or deference.

He was keeping them alive.

Most nights now Rain awakens afraid, disturbed by sounds that turn out to be nothing at all, whether they are in some small inn on the road or a larger one in a city, as now.

She doesn’t like being so fearful, it isn’t how she thinks of herself, but the times are very dangerous, and she knows she isn’t the only one feeling this way.

She is alive to feel anything at all—and she’s acutely aware of this—only because of a note sent in the middle of the night, and because two men turned out to be loyal beyond anything she might have expected.

And because of the Kanlins, of course.

Perhaps, also, her own decisiveness, but when she looks back at that night it doesn’t seem to her that she’d felt decisive. She had been panicked as much as anything, acted on impulse, instinct. Fear.

Small things, a difference in her own mood that night, a message not sent, or lost, or not delivered until morning (by which time it would have been impossible to get away). Smallest differences: living or dying. Such thoughts could keep you awake at night.

They now know, here in Chenyao to the west, a little of what happened in Xinan after they left. The two Kanlins, still with her, have ways of discovering information even in wartime. A time when letters go astray, when posting inn horses are all claimed by the army, when news of any kind is worth a fortune.

In particular, they have learned what took place in the city compound of the recently deceased first minister, Wen Zhou, when the rebel army arrived in the capital.

Is it so surprising, really, if she startles awake at alarming sounds in the dark, or never even falls asleep?

It is the narrowness of survival, of her being here and alive, that unsettles as much as anything. That, and the awareness of how many are dead, and how savagely. She knows names, remembers faces. It is impossible not to think about what would have been done to her, as favoured concubine. There are sickening stories, worse than anything ever heard about the barbarians beyond Kitai’s borders.

She is from beyond those borders. Sardia is a beleaguered little kingdom that has always known warfare and contended with invasion. Even so, Rain has never heard tales such as those that come to them from Xinan.

Xinan, which lies behind her only because Tai sent a note in the middle of the night. He’d been summoned to the palace—she understands that from the Kanlins. Wen Zhou had been sent for as well.

That was what had put her on edge that night. He’d been with her when the message came. Sitting up in bed, watching him read it by the light of a quickly lit lamp, Rain had understood that this wasn’t any routine summons to the Ta-Ming. Those didn’t come at this hour, and they didn’t shake him so profoundly.

He’d dressed in haste and left immediately with guards, saying nothing—nothing—to her, to anyone. Also disturbing. He’d burned the note, or she’d have retrieved it and read it as soon as she was alone.

Some time later—the passage of time that night is blurred—Hwan had come with another message, this one addressed to her.

He might so easily have waited until morning. That would have made all the difference. Or the note might not have reached her at all.

It had been carried by Qin, the crippled beggar in the street.

She understood, and it humbled her even now, that he had entrusted it to no one. Had paid coins to a drunken tradesman (and why had he been in the street, passing by, so late?) to carry him—carry him—all the long way around to the front gates of the compound. And he’d stayed there, painfully on his feet, banging at the gates and shouting, until someone had sleepily, angrily come.

And then he’d demanded, loudly, fiercely, without backing down, that Hwan be brought to him, and no one else but Hwan.

And, improbably (another source of fear in her imagining those moments), they hadn’t beaten him and turned him away. Hwan, awake since the master had ridden out, had come to see what the disturbance was.

The disturbance.

He had accepted the note, hand passing it to hand, and brought it to her. Immediately, not waiting for morning. Perhaps he’d known she’d be awake. Perhaps he’d been frightened. She’s never asked, though he’s been with her all the way here, to Chenyao.

So has Qin.

She can’t say with certainty why she kept them with her, but it had seemed proper, it had seemed … needful. As she’d read Tai’s note, Rain felt some inner imperative overtaking her.

Possible danger. Be very alert, he’d written.

Alert meant remembering Zhou’s face as he read the summons from the palace, as he burned it, as he went away. No good night, or goodbye.

You could describe the first minister in many ways, but he had never been a coward—and he’d looked afraid that night. And Rain had already had enough of a feeling of danger to have hidden jewels in the garden.

It had been enough—she remembers now, in Chenyao, middle of another night, late summer. All these things together, and a sense (her mother had also had it) of when something decisive needed to be done.

Decisive. There’d been only one action she could take. Like a gambler throwing dice in a late-night game in the pleasure district, staking everything he owned.

She’d been a little unkind to Hwan then, trading upon his love for her, the love she’d nurtured for her own reasons. On the other hand, she’d almost certainly saved his life.

Her instructions had been precise, much more assured than she’d felt. Inside, she’d been terrified. He was ordered to go out the gates alone. He was to find a sedan chair in the streets of the ward—there were always one or two of them, even late at night, bearers ready to carry someone to an assignation, or home from one.

He was to get the beggar, Qin, into that sedan chair, and lead it around to the back of the property.

Hwan’s eyes had widened, she remembers.

He was to do this immediately, she’d said coldly, or never find favour in her sight again. If he did do this, she’d said, looking straight at him by the light of the lantern, wearing her night robe, he would find very great favour.

He’d left to do as she’d said.

She rose and dressed by herself, moving quickly now that a decision had been made, as if speed could overmaster second thoughts. The gods alone knew what was to come, but if she was wrong about this she was unlikely to live through the day.

She took more gems from the chest in the room. There was no point leaving them. She walked back alone through the vast and silent garden, past the lake and isle and the small, moored boats and the bamboo grove and the grassy space where Wen Zhou had played at games with others of the court. The path wound through night flowers. She breathed their scent.

She came to the gazebo, found the tree where she’d hidden that small bag. She claimed it (dirtying her hands) and then she climbed the wall herself, using the elm tree at the eastern end.

She’d learned how to climb as a girl in Sardia, had been good at it, better than most boys, treating a skinned knee or elbow as a mark of honour. She still has a scar on her left knee. There’d been little call for climbing in the North District, or here at the compound, but some things the body remembered.

The two Kanlins appeared out of shadow as she dropped down into the street. She hadn’t doubted for a moment that they’d be there.

“I am leaving now,” she said. “Because of the message you brought. Will you stay with me?”