Under Heaven

was destroyed. Some of the tales suggested otherwise, memorably.

Wei Song hadn’t yet lowered her blade. Tai said, first of half a dozen questions jostling in his head, “How did you know to come back?”

She shrugged. “You couldn’t smell that much perfume through the door?” A cool glance at the governor’s daughter. “And I was quite certain you hadn’t asked for another courtesan. You did say you were tired. Remember, my lord?”

He knew that tone.

Xu Liang folded her arms across her low-cut gown. She looked younger suddenly. Tai made his decision. This was not a girl possessed by a fox-spirit that had chosen to make use of her body—and his—for what was left of tonight. He didn’t even believe in fox-women.

That did mean, if you were functioning well enough to consider the matter, that the governor’s older daughter was remarkably seductive and alarmingly poised. He’d address that issue later.

Or, perhaps better, he wouldn’t.

He concentrated on his black-clad guard, not much older than Xu’s daughter. “So you went …?”

Song rattled it off impatiently. “I came back around on the garden side. I saw the two guards in the grass.” She looked at Liang. “I never touched them.”

The governor’s daughter looked uneasy for the first time. “Then what? How were they …?”

A footfall on the porch, behind Wei Song.

“I’d have to agree it was probably a daiji,” said Sima Zian.

The poet came up the steps into the room. “I just had a look at the two of them.”

Tai blinked, then shook his head in indignation.

“Shall we,” he asked caustically, “wake our soldiers and invite them in? Oh, and perhaps the governor’s men out front might want to join us?”

“Why not?” grinned Zian.

“No!” said Xu Liang. “Not my father’s guards!”

“Why? You said his soldiers brought you here. It won’t be a secret,” Song said dryly. These two, Tai realized, had decided not to like each other.

“You are wrong, again, Kanlin. It is secret, my being here. Of course it is! The two in the garden are men I can trust,” Liang said. “My own guards all my life. If they have been slain …”

“They are not dead,” the poet said. He looked around. Probably hoping for wine, Tai thought. “If I were to shape a conjecture, and I confess I enjoy doing that, I would say that Master Shen was the target of a daiji, that our clever Kanlin is correct.” He smiled at Song, and then at the governor’s daughter. “Your arrival, gracious lady, was exquisitely timed for the fox-spirit—or was guided by her.” He paused, to let that thought linger. “But something here, perhaps within our friend, kept the spirit away—from him, and from you. If I am correct, you have cause to be grateful.”

“And what would something be?” asked Xu Liang. Her painted eyebrows were arched again. They really were exquisite.

“This is … this is nothing but conjecture!” Tai snapped.

“I did say that,” Sima Zian agreed calmly. “But I also asked if you saw ghosts at the White Phoenix tonight, when first we spoke.”

“You are saying that you did?”

“No. I have only a limited access to the spirit world, my friend. But enough to sense something about you.”

“You mean from Kuala Nor? The ghosts?”

It was Wei Song this time, her brow furrowed. She was biting her lower lip again.

“Perhaps,” said the Banished Immortal. “I would not know.” He was looking at Tai, waiting.

Another lake, far to the north. A cabin there. A dead shaman in the garden, mirrors and drum. Fires, and then a man, or what had once been a man …

Tai shook his head. He was not about to speak of this.

When pressed, ask a question. “What could my being at Kuala Nor possibly mean to a daiji?”

The poet shrugged, accepted the deflection. “You might draw one as you passed by. She could become aware of your presence, conscious of those protecting you, hovering.”

“There are spirits attending upon Master Shen?”

Xu Liang didn’t sound fearful. You could say, if you wanted, that she appeared to find the notion intriguing, engaging. She’d uncrossed her arms again, was looking at Tai. Another appraising glance, not dissimilar to ones she’d given him from by the door in her father’s reception room.

He really had been away from women too long.

“There are spirits near all of us,” Song said from the porch, a little too emphatically. “Whether we see them or not. The Way of the Sacred Path teaches as much.”

“And the Dialogues of Master Cho assert that this is not so,” murmured the woman in the red gown. “Only our ancestors are near us, and only if they were improperly consecrated to the next world when they died. Which is the reason for our rituals.”

Sima Zian glanced happily from one woman to the other. He clapped his hands. “You are both splendid beyond description! This is a wonderful night. We must find wine!” he cried. “Let us continue this across the way, there is music.”

“I am not entering a courtesan pavilion!” said Xu Bihai’s daughter with immediate, impressive propriety.

The fact that she was standing, scented and bejewelled, in a man’s bedchamber and had been on the verge of closing the door (lest someone be made envious by what was apparently to transpire) seemed entirely beside the point, Tai thought, admiringly.

“Of course! Of course you aren’t,” the poet murmured. “Forgive me, gracious lady. We’ll bring a pipa player here. And perhaps just one girl, with cups and wine?”

“I think not,” said Tai. “I believe that Wei Song will now escort the Lady Xu Liang back to her father’s mansion. Is the boat waiting for you?”

“Of course it is,” Liang said. “But my guards …”

Tai cleared his throat. “It appears, if Sima Zian is correct, and my Kanlin, that they may have encountered a spirit-world creature. I have no better explanation. We are told they are alive.”

“I will return and watch over them myself,” Song said, “and tell them when they wake that their lady is home and well.”

“They won’t believe you if I’m not here,” Xu Liang said.

“I’m a Kanlin,” said Song simply. “We do not lie. They will know that, if others, less experienced, do not.”

The poet, Tai thought, looked ridiculously pleased by all of this.

Liang, he realized, was looking at him again, ignoring the other woman. Tai didn’t entirely mind that. He was briefly tempted by the notion of agreeing with Zian, summoning music and wine.

But not really. His sister was a long way north, beyond the Wall by now. And tonight, here in Chenyao, men had—

“I did say earlier,” Xu Liang murmured, eyes demurely downcast, “that my father had sent me. You have not asked why.”

Indeed. Well, he’d had what seemed a good notion why.

“My apologies.” He bowed. “Is it permitted for your servant to ask now?”

She nodded. “It is. My father wished to advise you privately that those two men, when encouraged to discuss their adventurism tonight, suggested only one name of possible significance before they each succumbed, sadly, to the exacting nature of the conversation.”

She looked meaningfully at the poet, and then at Song on the porch. Tai understood. “One is my guard,” he said. “The other my companion.”

Liang inclined her head. She said, “The assassins were bandits from the woods south of here. The man they named lives in Chenyao. He, in turn, when invited for a conversation, was kind enough to offer another