Under Heaven

CHAPTER V

Some decisions, for an officer accustomed to making them, were not difficult, especially with a night to consider the situation.

The commander of Iron Gate Fort made clear to his guest from Kuala Nor that the five guards being assigned to him were not to be seen as discretionary. His premature death, should it occur, would be blamed—without any doubt—on the incompetent fortress commander who permitted him to ride east with only a single (small, female) Kanlin guard.

In the courtyard, immediately after the morning meal, the commander indicated, courteous but unsmiling, that he was not yet ready to commit an ordered suicide and destroy the prospects of his children, should a tragic event overtake Shen Tai on the road. Master Shen would be properly escorted, military staging posts would be made available to him so that he might spend his nights there on the way to the prefecture city of Chenyao, and word of the horses—as discussed—would precede him to Xinan.

It was possible that the military governor would wish to assign further soldiers as escorts when Shen Tai reached Chenyao. He was, naturally, free to make his own decision about sending the five horsemen back to Iron Gate at that time, but Commander Lin presumed to express the hope he would retain them, having come to see their loyalty and competence.

The unspoken thought was that their presence, entering into the capital, might be some reminder of the priority of Iron Gate in the matter of the horses and their eventual safe arrival, one day in the future.

It was obvious that their guest was unhappy with all of this. He showed signs of a temper.

It might have to do, Commander Lin thought, with his having been solitary for so long, but if that was it, the man was going to have to get out of that state of mind, and the quicker the better. This morning was a good time to start.

And when the Kanlin guard also made clear that she could not be held accountable for guarding Shen Tai alone, especially since the Sardian horse he himself was riding was so obvious an incitement to theft and murder, the late general’s son acceded. He did so with—it had to be admitted—grace and courtesy.

He remained an odd, difficult fellow to pin down.

Lin Fong could see why the man had left the army years ago. The military preferred—invariably—those who could be readily defined, assigned roles, understood, and controlled.

This one, intense and observant, more arresting than conventionally attractive in appearance, had had a brief military service, with a cavalry posting beyond the Long Wall. And then there had been a period among the Kanlin on Stone Drum Mountain (there had to be a story to that). He had been studying for the civil service examinations in Xinan when his father died. More than a sufficiency of careers, already, for a still-young man, Lin Fong would have thought. It spoke to something erratic in him, perhaps.

Shen Tai also—and this signified—had evidently had dealings with the new first minister, not necessarily cordial. That was problematic, or it might be. I know the man did not offer much, but the tone in which it had been spoken did, for someone inclined to listen for nuance.

Considering all of this, Commander Lin had, sometime in the night, made his decisions.

These included offering a considerable sum from his own funds to the other man. He named it a loan—a face-saving gesture—making clear that he expected reimbursement at some point, but stressing that a man travelling with the tidings Shen Tai carried could hardly undertake such a journey, or arrive at court, without access to money.

It would be undignified, and perplexing to others. A discord would emerge between his present circumstance and the future’s promise that would unsettle those he met. In challenging times it was important to avoid such imbalances.

The solution was obvious. Shen Tai needed funds for the moment and Lin Fong was honoured to be in a position to assist. What was left to discuss between civilized men? Whatever the future would bring, it would bring, the commander said.

Men made wagers with their judgment, their allegiances, their resources. Commander Lin was making one this morning. If Shen Tai died on the road or in Xinan (distinctly possible), there was still a distinguished family to approach for the return of his money.

That didn’t need to be said, of course. One of the pleasures of dealing with intelligent men, Lin Fong decided, watching seven people ride out the eastern gate in early-morning sunlight, was how much did not have to be spoken.

The five soldiers represented protection for Shen Tai and for the Second District’s interests. The strings of cash were Fong’s own investment. It was frustrating, had been from the beginning, to be tied down in this impossibly isolated place, but when that was the case and there was nothing to be done about it, a man cast his lines like a fisherman in a stream, and waited to see if anything chanced to bite.

He had done one other thing, was quietly pleased with himself for thinking of it. Shen Tai now carried documents, and so did the couriers who had already ridden out, establishing that the commander of Iron Gate Fort had made him an officer of cavalry in the Second Military District, currently on leave to attend to personal affairs.

If he was an officer, Shen Tai’s mourning period was now over. He was free to return to Xinan. This was, Commander Lin had pointed out, not trivial. If there had been people willing to kill him even before the horses, they would hardly hesitate to invoke failure to honour ancestral rites to discredit him. Or even smooth the way towards confiscating his possessions, which might include…

You could say a great deal, Lin Fong had always believed, with properly chosen silences.

Shen Tai had hesitated. He had prominent cheekbones, those unusually deep-set eyes (a suggestion of foreign blood?), a way of pressing his lips together when in thought. Eventually, he had bowed, and expressed his thanks.

An intelligent man, no doubting it.

The commander stood in the easternmost courtyard to see them leave. The gates swung closed, were barred with the heavy wooden beam. They didn’t need to do that, no one came this way, no dangers loomed, but it was the proper thing to do and Lin Fong believed in acting properly. Rituals and regulations were what kept life from spinning towards chaos.

As he walked back to deal with paperwork (there was always paperwork) he heard a soldier on the wall begin to sing, and then others joined him:

For years on guard in Iron Gate Pass

We have watched the green grass change to snow.

The wind that has come a thousand li

Beats at the fortress battlements…

The air felt unnervingly still all the rest of that day. Towards evening a thunderstorm finally came, surging from the south, sheets of lightning shattering the sky. A heavy, percussive rain fell, filling the cisterns and wells, making muddy lakes in the courtyards, while thunder rolled and boomed. It passed, as storms always passed.

This one continued north, boiling away as quickly as it had come. A low, late-day sun returned, shining red down the wet ravine that led to Kuala Nor. The storm explained his day-long feeling of brittle tension, Commander Lin decided. He felt better for the realization. He preferred when there were explanations for what occurred—in the sky, on earth, within the loneliness of the self.

Their path trended downwards out of the mountain foothills, to grain fields and hamlets, and eventually through a low-lying marshland south of the river. This was tiger country. They posted guards the one night they chose to camp between posting stations, heard the creatures roaring, but never saw one.

There was some tension between the soldiers and the woman, but no more than might be expected. Wei Song kept mostly to herself, riding at the front. That was part of the problem—her taking the lead—but once Tai realized that, he turned it into an order he gave her, and the men from the fort accepted it that way.

She kept her hair tightly coiled, her posture alert. Her head was always moving as she scanned the road ahead and the land to either side. She said almost nothing at night, at campfire or the inns. There were enough of them—seven, well armed—that they hadn’t feared to light a fire when they camped, though there would be bandits in this countryside, too.

As they descended, riding east, the air felt heavier to Tai. He had been in the mountains for so long. One morning he caught up to the woman, rode beside her. She gave him a glance, then looked ahead again.

“Be patient,” she murmured. “Chenyao tonight, or early tomorrow at the latest. The soldiers can surely tell you the best house for girls.”

He saw—couldn’t miss—the amusement in her face.

This did need to be dealt with. At least it felt that way to him.

“But how would it satisfy you,” he asked earnestly, “if I slake my passion with a courtesan, leaving you to weep, unassuaged, on some marble stair?”

She did flush. It made him feel pleased, then slightly contrite, but only slightly. She had started this, in his room back at the fort. He knew who had to be behind what this one had said then, about women. Was it normal for Rain to have confided in a hired bodyguard the intimate nature of the person she’d be protecting?

He didn’t think so.

“I will manage to control my longing,” the woman said, looking straight ahead.

“I’m sure you will. You seem well-enough trained. We could have the others wait, take a short ride together past those trees…”

She didn’t flush again. “You’ll do better in Chenyao,” she said.

They had entered more densely populated country. Tai saw mulberry trees and a path leading south towards a silk farm—the buildings were hidden behind the trees but a banner was visible.

He had spent three weeks on one of those, years ago, obscurely curious. Or without direction, more accurately. There had been a period in his life when he was like that. After his time in the north, beyond the Long Wall. Some things had happened to him there.

He remembered the sound in the room where the silkworms were kept on stacked trays and fed, day and night, hour by hour, on white mulberry leaves: a noise like rain on a roof, endlessly.

While that happened, in that time of needful, important perfection, the temperature was controlled, all smells were prevented from entering the room, all drafts of wind. Even lovemaking in chambers nearby was done without sound, lest the silkworms be frightened or disturbed.

He wondered if this Kanlin woman knew this. He wondered why he cared.

Shortly after that, a fox appeared at the edge of the trees, alongside the road to their right.

Wei Song stopped, throwing up a quick hand. She turned in the saddle, eyed the animal. One of the men laughed, but another made a gesture averting danger.

Tai looked at the woman.

“Surely not!” he exclaimed. “You think it a daiji?”

“Hush! It is beyond foolish to name them,” she said. “And which of us do you think a fox-woman would be here for?”

“I don’t think she’d be here at all,” Tai said. “I don’t think every animal seen by the woods is a spirit-world creature.”

“Not every animal,” she said.

“What next, the Fifth Dragon appears in a red sky and the Ninth Heaven falls?”

“No,” she said, looking away.

It was unexpected, that this crisp, composed Kanlin Warrior would so obviously believe in fox-woman legends. She was still watching the fox, a stab of colour by the woods. It was looking back at them, Tai saw, but that was normal. Riders were a possible threat, needed to be observed.

“You should not be so careless, speaking of spirits, naming their names,” Wei Song said softly, so that only Tai heard. “We cannot understand everything about the world.”

And that last phrase took him hard, sent him spinning back a long way.

The fox withdrew into the woods. They rode on.

The only other time he’d been in command of cavalry had been north of the Wall, on campaign among the nomads. He’d led fifty soldiers, not just five riders, as now.

Command of a dui had been more than he deserved, but Tai had been young enough to feel that his father’s fame and rank had simply opened a doorway for him to show what he could do, what he honestly merited. He’d welcomed the chance to prove himself.

He didn’t want to dwell on it now, all these years after, but being among soldiers again, riding in open country towards a changed life seemed to make it inevitable that his thoughts would drift.

That time among the Bogü had begun the changes in his life. Before that, he’d thought he knew what his course would be. After, he was shaken, unsure. Adrift for a long time.

He’d told what had happened, how it had ended, as best he could. First to his superior officers, and then to his father when they were both home. (Not his brothers: one was too young, the other not a confidant.)

He’d been permitted to honourably resign rank and post, leave the army. It was unusual. Going to Stone Drum Mountain some time later had been a useful, perhaps even an appropriate next stage, though he doubted the Kanlin masters on the mountain saw it that way, since he’d left them, too.

But after what had happened on the northern steppes that autumn, it had not been considered unexpected that a young man would want to spend time searching for spiritual guidance, discipline, austerity.

Tai remembered being surprised that his military superiors had believed his northern tale, and even more at the hint of understanding among them. Understanding was not seen as a strength, let alone a virtue, in the higher ranks of the Kitan army.

Only later did he realize that he and his men might not have been the first or the only ones to encounter some terrifying strangeness among the Bogü. He’d wondered over the years about other stories; no one ever told him names, or what had happened.

He was not blamed for what had happened.

That had also surprised him. It still did. Military rank carried responsibilities, consequences. But it seemed the official view was that some encounters between civilized men and savagery in barbarian lands were not to be anticipated or controlled by any officer. Ordinary soldiers’ conduct could break down in such places.

The Kitan felt a defining superiority and contempt for those beyond their borders, but also fear whenever they left home, even if that was denied. It made for a dangerous intermingling.

For a long time their armies had been going among the nomads to ensure the succession of the chieftain—the kaghan—they favoured. Once you went north of the Wall and its watchtowers you were living in the open or in isolated garrison forts among the Bogü or the Shuoki, fighting beside or against the barely human. It was unreasonable to expect men to conduct themselves as if they were doing domestic duty on the Great Canal or among summer rice fields, guarding peasants against bandits or tigers.

Manipulating the Bogü succession was important. The Ta-Ming Palace had a considerable interest in who ruled the nomads and how willing they were to offer docility along the border and their thick-maned horses in exchange for empty, honorary titles, lengths of lesser silk, and the promise of support against the next usurper.

Unless, of course, the next usurper made more attractive overtures.

The nomads’ grazing lands, fractured among rival tribes, stretched from the Wall all the way to the bone-cold north among birch and pine forests, beyond which the sun was said to disappear all winter and never go down in summer.

Those farthest ice-lands didn’t matter, except as a source of fur and amber. What mattered was that on their nearer margins the nomads’ lands bordered Kitai itself—and ran alongside the Silk Roads—all the way from the deserts to the eastern sea. The Long Wall kept the nomads out, most of the time.

But the northern fork of the great trade routes curved up through the steppes, and so the lucrative flow of luxuries into the glorious Kitan empire depended to a great degree on camel-trains being safe from harassment.

The Taguran empire in the west was another threat, of course, and required different solutions, but for some time the Tagurans had been quiet, trading for themselves with those taking the southern branch of the route, exacting tolls and duties in far-off fortresses they controlled. Acquiring Sardian horses.

Xinan wasn’t happy about this, but could live with it, or so it had been decided. Tagur and its king had been bought off from worse with, among other things, a slender Kitan princess, in the aftermath of wars that had drained both empires.

Peace on his various borders might reduce an emperor’s chances of glory, but Emperor Taizu had reigned for a long time and had won battles enough. Wealth and comfort, the building of his own magnificent tomb-to-be north of Xinan (colossal beyond words, overshadowing his father’s), languid days and nights with his Precious Consort and the music she made…for an aging emperor these appeared to be adequate compensation.

Let Wen Jian’s sleek, clever cousin Zhou be first minister if he wished (and if she wished it). Let him be the one to sort through, after a forty-year reign, the complexities of court and army and barbarians. One could grow weary of these.

The emperor had a woman for the ages making music for him, dancing for him. He had rituals to follow and carefully measured powders to consume—with her—in pursuit of longed-for immortality. He might never even need his tomb if the three stars of the Hunter’s Belt, the asterism of this Ninth Dynasty, could be aligned by alchemists with the emperor’s merit and his desire.

As for ambitious younger men in the empire? Well, there had been steady fighting among the Bogü against their eastern rivals, the Shuoki, and in their own internal tribal wars, and these continued.

Military officers and youthful aristocrats (and brave men of no particular birth) had always been able to assuage a hunger for blood and sword-glory somewhere. For this time it was in the north, where the emptiness of the grasslands could dwarf a man, or change his soul.

For Shen Tai, second son of General Shen Gao, that last had been what had happened, years ago, during an autumn among the nomads.

IT WAS EXPLAINED to them that evil spirits, sent by tribal enemies, had afflicted the soul of Meshag, the son of Hurok.

Hurok had been the Ta-Ming’s chosen kaghan, the man they were in the steppe lands to support.

His eldest son, a man in the prime of health, had fallen suddenly, gravely ill—unresponsive, barely breathing—in the midst of a campaign. It was determined that shamans of the enemy had invoked dark spirits against him: so the nomads told the Kitan soldiers among them.

The imperial officers did not know how that understanding had been arrived at, or why the alleged magic was directed at the son and not the father (though some of them had views, by then, as to which was the better man). This business of Bogü magic—shamans, animal totems, spirit journeys from the body—was simply too alien, too barbaric, for words.

It was only reported to them as a courtesy, along with what apparently was going to be done in a desperate effort to make the sick man well. This last information had compelled some hard thinking among the army leaders sent north from Kitai.

Hurok was important and, therefore, so was his son. The father had sent private earnests of allegiance and offerings to the Long Wall in the spring—good horses and wolf pelts and two young women—his own daughters, apparently—to join the emperor’s ten thousand concubines in their palace wing.

Hurok, it emerged, was willing to contemplate a revolt against the ruling kaghan, his brother-in-law, Dulan.

Dulan had not sent as many horses or furs.

Instead, his envoys had brought weak, small-boned horses, some with colic, to the wide northern loop of the Golden River where the exchange was done each spring.

The kaghan’s emissaries had shrugged and grimaced, spat and gestured, when the Kitan pointed out these deficiencies. They claimed the grasses had been poor that year, too many gazelles and rabbits, sickness among the herds.

Their own mounts had looked sturdy and healthy.

It seemed to the senior mandarins charged with evaluating such information for the celestial emperor that Dulan Kaghan might have grown a little too secure, perhaps even resentful of his annual commitment to far-off Xinan.

It had been decided that a reminder of the power of Kitai was past due. Patience had been abused. The emperor had, once again, been too generous, too indulgent of lesser peoples and their insolence.

Hurok had been quietly invited to contemplate a more lofty future. He had done so, happily.

Fifteen thousand Kitan soldiers had gone north late that summer beyond the loop of the river, beyond the Wall.

Dulan Kaghan, with his own forces and followers, had been in strategic retreat ever since, maddeningly hard to pin down in the vast grasslands, waiting for allies from north and west, and for winter.

There were no cities to pillage and burn on the steppe, no enemy fortresses to besiege and starve into submission, no crops to ravage or seize, and they were acting for the man who needed to claim the trust of the nomads afterwards. It was a different sort of warfare.