Under Heaven

once without any choice of your own, the second time …?”

Unhurried, unruffled, a man of obvious breeding: “The second time I was honouring my father. That is why I went to Kuala Nor.”

“There were no other ways to honour him?”

“I’m sure there were,” was all Shen Tai said.

Fong had cleared his throat, embarrassed. He was too hungry for such exchanges, he’d realized, too starved for intelligent talk. It could make you cross social boundaries. He’d bowed.

This Shen Tai was a complex man, but he was leaving in the morning to pursue a life that was unlikely ever to bring the two of them into contact again. With reluctance, but an awareness of what was proper, the commander had turned the conversation to the matter of the Tagurans and their fortress north of the lake, what Shen Tai could tell him of that.

The Tagurans, after all, were within his present sphere of responsibility, and would be until he was posted elsewhere.

Some men seemed able to slide in and out of society. This man appeared to be one of them. Lin Fong knew that he himself was not, and never would be; he had too great a need for security, routines, for such uncertainty. But Shen Tai did make him aware that there were, or might be, alternative ways to live. It probably did help, he thought, to have had a Left Side Commander for a father.

Alone in his chamber later that night, he sipped his wine. He wondered if the other man had even noticed that they’d been drinking tea earlier, how unusual that was out here. It was a new luxury, just beginning to be taken up in Xinan, imported from the far southwest: yet another consequence of peace and trade under Emperor Taizu.

He had heard about the drink from correspondents and asked for some to be sent. He very much doubted the new custom had been adopted by many other commanders in their fortresses. He’d even ordered special cups and trays, paid for them himself.

He wasn’t sure he liked the taste of the drink, even sweetened with mountain honey, but he did enjoy the idea of himself as a man in tune with court and city culture, even here on a desolate border where it was almost impossible to find a man worth talking to.

What did you do when faced with this as your life? You reminded yourself, over and again, that you were a civilized man in the most civilized empire the world had ever known.

Times were changing. The prime minister’s death, the new first minister, even the nature and composition of the army—all these foreign troops now, so different from when Lin Fong had first enlisted. There were great and growing tensions among military governors. And the emperor himself, aging, withdrawing, with who knew what to follow? Commander Lin did not like change. It was a flaw in his nature, perhaps, but a man could cling to basic certainties to survive such a flaw, couldn’t he? Didn’t you have to do that?

There was only one private chamber for guests at Iron Gate.

The fort wasn’t a place where distinguished visitors came. The trade routes were to the north. Jade Gate Pass, aptly named, guarded those and the wealth that passed through. That was the glamour posting in this part of the world.

The guest room was small, an interior chamber on the second level of the main building, no windows, no courtyard below. Tai regretted not having chosen to share a communal room where there might at least be air. On reflection, however, it hadn’t been an option: you needed to make choices that reflected your status or you confused those dealing with you.

He’d had to take the private chamber. He was an important man.

He had blown out his candle some time ago. The chamber was hot, airless, black. He was having trouble falling asleep. His thoughts were of Chou Yan, who was dead.

There were no ghost-voices in the darkness here, only the night watch on the walls, faintly calling. There hadn’t been ghosts in the canyon, either, the two nights he’d spent coming this way. He hadn’t been used to that: stillness after sunset. He wasn’t used to not seeing the moon or stars.

Or, if it came to that, to having a young woman just the other side of his door, on guard—at her absolute insistence—in the corridor.

He didn’t need a guard here, Tai had told her. She hadn’t even bothered to reply. Her expression suggested that she was of the view she’d been retained by a fool.

They hadn’t talked about her fee. Tai knew the usual Kanlin rates, but had a feeling he also knew what she would say when that came up: something to do with her failure to be at Kuala Nor in time to save him, being required by honour to serve him now. He needed to learn more about that first woman at the lake: most importantly, who had sent her, and why.

He had a name—Yan had named their scholar friend Xin Lun—and Tai also had a growing apprehension about another.

The fee for Wei Song hardly mattered, in any case. He could afford a guard now. Or twenty. He could hire a private dui of fifty cavalry and dress them in chosen colours. He could borrow any sum he needed against the Sardian horses.

He was—no other way to shape the thought, no avoiding it—a wealthy man now. If he survived to deal with the horses in Xinan. If he sorted out how to deal with the horses.

His family had always been comfortable, but Shen Gao had been a fighting officer commanding in the field, not an ambitious one at court straining towards recognition and the prizes that came with it. Tai’s older brother was different, but he wasn’t ready to start thinking about Liu tonight.

His mind drifted back to the woman outside his door. That didn’t lead him towards sleep, either. They’d put a pallet in the corridor for her. They’d be used to doing that. Guests of any stature would have servants outside or even inside this chamber. It just wasn’t how he thought of himself. A guest of stature.

The other Kanlin—the rogue, according to Wei Song—had likely slept out there when Yan was in this same bed a few nights earlier.

You could look at that as symmetry, two well-balanced lines in a verse, or as something darker. This was life, not a poem, and Yan, loyal, gentle, almost always laughing, lay in a grave three days’ ride back through the ravine.

West of Iron Gate, west of Jade Gate Pass,

There’ll be no old friends.

For Tai, there would be one there forever now.

He listened, but heard nothing from the corridor. He couldn’t remember if he’d barred the door. It hadn’t been a habit for some time.

It had also been more than two years since he’d been close to a woman, let alone in the stillness after dark.

Against his will, he found himself picturing her: oval face, wide mouth, alert eyes, amusement in them under arching eyebrows. The eyebrows her own, not painted in the Xinan fashion. Or what had been the fashion two years ago. It had likely changed. It always changed. Wei Song was slender, with quick movements, long black hair. It had been unbound when first seen this morning.

Too much, that last recollection, for a man who’d been alone as long as he had.

His mind seemed to be sailing down moonlit river channels, pulled towards memory as to the sea. Unsurprisingly, he found himself thinking of Spring Rain’s golden hair, also unbound, and then—unexpectedly— there was an image of a different woman entirely.

It was because of what he’d been told this afternoon, he suspected, that he found himself with a clear memory of the Precious Consort, the emperor’s own dearly beloved concubine.

Wen Jian, the one time he’d seen her close: a jade-and-gold enchantment on a springtime afternoon in Long Lake Park. Laughing on horseback (a ripple in air, like birdsong), a shimmer about her, an aura. Appallingly desirable. Unattainable. Not even safe for dreaming about or reveries.

And her handsome, silken-smooth cousin, he had learned today, was now first minister of the empire. Had been since autumn.

Not a good man to have as a rival for a woman.