“But did … were you honoured by the emperor? As you deserved to be?”
“I was. I thank you for making it possible.”
It was true, of course. Tai had wealth, a great deal of property, and access to power if he wanted it. Though the emperor who had given him these things was travelling somewhere south of here, even now, towards the Great River, and he didn’t rule Kitai any more.
You didn’t need to tell all the truth, not with armies moving.
“And you?” he asked. “You are not in your fortress any more. This is good?”
“Mostly so. I am at Dosmad, obviously. My … my father is the commander.”
Tai looked at him. “Did you know that he …?”
“Am I so obviously a fool? He’d just been transferred.”
“This is not good?”
Bytsan sri Nespo shook his head so gloomily, Tai laughed.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Fathers and sons …”
“I blame you,” said the Taguran wryly. And suddenly they seemed to be as they’d been during a long night by the lake.
“I am your friend,” said Tai with exaggerated seriousness. “One role of friends is to accept such blame unquestioningly.”
He was jesting, but the other man didn’t smile.
After a moment, Tai added, “I know that this has also changed your life.”
The other nodded. “Thank you,” he said. Bytsan looked at the clouds overhead. “I can bring the Sardians by late today, or tomorrow morning, if that suits better.”
“Tomorrow suits very well. I will have sixty Kanlins with me. They will have weapons, they always have them, but they are only here to lead and guard the horses. Please tell your men not to be alarmed.”
“Why would a Kitan alarm a Taguran soldier?”
Tai grinned.
Bytsan smiled back. “But I will let them know.” The Taguran hesitated again. “What are you doing with the horses?”
Given the circumstances they’d shared, a fair question. Tai shrugged. “The only thing that made sense, in the end … I’ve offered them to the emperor.”
He didn’t have to
“You do know,” he said abruptly, “that Emperor Taizu has withdrawn from the Phoenix Throne in favour of his son?”
They wouldn’t know. Not here, not yet.
Bytsan’s mouth opened, showing his missing tooth. “Which son?” he asked quietly.
“Third Son. The heir. Shinzu of the Ninth Dynasty is emperor of Kitai now, may he rule a thousand years.”
“Has … has a message gone to Rygyal?”
“I do not know. Perhaps. If you send word swiftly, it might come from you. It is all recent, I came here quickly.”
Bytsan stared at him again. “This may be a gift you are giving me.”
“A small one, if it is.”
“Not so small, being the one with world-changing tidings.”
“Perhaps,” Tai said again. “If so, I am pleased for you.”
Bytsan was still looking closely at him. “Are you pleased about the change?”
Near to the bone this time. “A man in my position, or yours … who are we to be happy or unhappy about what happens in palaces?” Tai suddenly wanted a cup of wine.
“But we are,” said Bytsan sri Nespo. “We always have thoughts on these changes.”
“Perhaps eventually,” said Tai.
The other man glanced away. “So you will take the Sardians to the new emperor? You will serve him, with them?”
And it was in that moment—in a meadow by the border with Tagur, under a heavy sky with thunder to the south—even as he opened his mouth to answer, that Tai realized something.
It made his heart begin to pound, so abrupt was the awareness, so intense.
“No,” he said quietly, and then repeated it. “No. I’m not.”
Bytsan looked back at him, waiting.
Tai said, “I’m going home.”
Then he added something else, a thought he hadn’t even known he’d been carrying until he heard his voice speaking it.
The Taguran listened, holding Tai’s gaze. After a moment he nodded his head, and said, also quietly, something equally unexpected.
They bowed to each other and parted—until the next morning, it was agreed, at which time the Heavenly Horses of the west, the gift of the White Jade Princess, would be brought over the border to Kitai.
LOOKING BACK, Tai would name that day as another of those that changed his life. Paths branching, decisions made. Sometimes, you did have a choice, he thought.
Riding back from the meeting with Bytsan he understood, yet again, that he’d already made a decision within, he’d only needed to acknowledge it, say it, bring it into the world. He felt a quiet within, as they rode. He hadn’t felt this way, he realized, since leaving Kuala Nor.
But this awareness—that all he wanted to do now was go home to his two mothers and his younger brother and his father’s grave, and Liu’s by now—was not the only thing that would emerge from that day and night by the border.
The storm came that afternoon.
The heavy stillness of the air, silence of birds, had foretold it. When it broke over them, lightning lacerating the southern sky, thunder cracking like the anger of gods, they were blessedly under a roof in the trading station and inn between Hsien and the border.
In times of peace, and there had been twenty years of peace now, Tagur and Kitai did trade, and this was one of the places where it happened.
As rain drummed on the roof and thunder boomed and snarled, Tai drank cup after cup of unexceptional wine, and did the best he could to fend off a verbal assault.
Wei Song was rigid with fury, had even enlisted Lu Chen to join her attack—and the very experienced leader of Tai’s Kanlins, however respectful he remained, wasn’t diffident about agreeing with her.
Song was less respectful. She called him a fool. He had made what appeared to be a mistake, had told the two of them his intentions. He was going home; the Kanlins would take the horses to the emperor.
“Tai, you cannot do this! Later, yes. Of course, yes. But not until you have taken the Sardians to him yourself! He needs to see
She’d just called him by his name, which she never did.
Another hint that she was genuinely upset. As if he needed more evidence. He pushed a cup of wine across the wooden table to her. She ignored it. Her eyes were fierce. She was very angry.
“I am touched that a Kanlin Warrior should care so much about her employer’s choices,” he said, trying for a lighter tone.
She swore. She never did that, either. Lu Chen looked startled.
“You aren’t my employer any more!” Song snapped. “We were hired by Wen Jian, or did you forget?”
There was another roll of thunder, but it was north of them now, the storm was passing. “She’s dead,” he said. He was somewhat drunk, he realized. “They killed her at Ma-wai.”
He looked at the two Kanlins across the table. They were alone in the dining space of the inn, on long benches at a rough table. They had eaten already. The sun would be setting, but you couldn’t see it. A hard rain had been pounding down, it seemed to be lessening now. Tai felt sorry for the Kanlins who’d gone back to Hsien to bring the rest of the company. They would claim the horses in the morning and start them north.
