Besides which, it was her sister who was coming to his court, not her.
He watched, bewitched by her.
"They had ten good years. Ten years in which her power in the Emperor's court grew and grew as she promoted relatives and sisters to positions of the highest rank. The arts still flourished, the empire was still stable and powerful. However ..." - she looked at him directly, her stare seeming to cross the centuries and draw him with it - " . . .the seeds of tragedy were already sown. Ming Huang, infatuated by the beautiful Yang Kuei-fei, neglected his duties, leaving it to others to care for his great State. Not only that, but his consort, the Lady Yang, had in the meantime adopted one of his generals, a commoner named An Lu Shan, a gross and hideous man, to be her son."
He shuddered, caught up in her vision, hanging on her words.
"The vengeance of Heaven was swift. Droughts and earthquakes, floods, fires and invasion followed one upon another. 'The gods have spoken,' people said, and talked openly of the Mandate being broken. A mere ten years after he had first brought her to his court, Ming Huang was faced with open rebellion - a rebellion led by the Lady Yang's own adopted son, General An Lu Shan. Fleeing his capital, the Emperor's advisors told him there was but one course, to execute the Lady Yang's brother and her along with him. Only thus, they argued, would the Empire be saved. Bitterly, he agreed. Yet before his beloved Yang Kuei-fei could be executed, he lent her a silken rope so she might hang herself."
For a moment the room was silent. Li Yuan looked down at the leather-bound book in his lap and sighed. "And you, Hsun Lung hsin ... do you think it was the vengeance of Heaven?"
He looked up into her face, awaiting her answer.
"So it is written, Chieh Hsia."
"I know that. But you . . . what do you think?"
She shrugged, then smiled, a sad, pensive smile. "I think that love can rob a man of his senses. I think also that, when it happens, it must be like a great tide, sweeping one away."
He nodded. "So it is. I had three wives . . ."
"Five, surely, Chieh Hsia . . ." She stopped, realising her mistake, and lowered her head, but his smile was tolerant, his voice soft, no trace of blame or anger in it.
"I mean, I lost three wives, Dragon Heart. Had them taken from me. That hurt me. Hurt more than I ever 4magined anything could hurt. But do you know what I did, that day after I had lost them?"
She met his eyes again, curious now. "No, Chieh Hsia?"
"I went to her... to my first wife, Yin Fei Yen. I went to her and asked her to return."
She stared at him, unable to believe what she'd just heard. "But surely ..."
"Don't you see? It was like what you were saying. Like a tide, an obsession. It always was with her. One look at her and I was swept away."
He stopped then stood up abruptly, realising he had said far more than he had meant to say. Yet there was something about her: something that coaxed confessions from him. He looked at her again. "You understand?" he asked softly.
"I . . ." Dragon Heart shook her head, her expression apologetic. "I am afraid not, Chieh Hsia. That kind of feeling. . . I have read about it, certainly, but the reality . . ."
On impulse he took a step toward her, holding the book between them. "Would you mind if I kept this a while?"
"Why no, Chieh Hsia. Let it be a gift ..."
"No." He raised a hand as if commanding a servant, then let it fall, realising what he had done. "I... only want to read a little from it. I will return it, naturally, when I am done."
The deference with which he said it made her narrow her eyes. "As you wish, Chieh Hsia," she said, puzzled by his behaviour. "And as for what you said ... it shall be our secret, neh?"
He smiled, then, hearing the doors begin to open, turned to face the emerging Prince Hsun Teh and his daughter, Princess Hsun Chu-lo, the young woman his son, Kuei Jen, would be marrying before the week was out.
Chuang Kuan Ts'ai pegged the last of the washing on the line then, wiping her hands on her skirts, went quickly back inside. The Oven Man was out doing his rounds, and now that she had finished her tasks there was time at last to do what she'd been thinking of all morning.
Pulling the footstool out from beneath the sink, she took it across and set it against the watt, then climbed up, her right arm at full stretch as she dislodged the heavy bunch of keys from the hook. They fell with a rattle against the stone floor.
She jumped down and picked them up, then made her way out into the courtyard.
The outer gates were dosed, the yard empty. Facing her, the double doors to the cold store were locked. She walked across and stood before them, knowing he would be angry with her if he knew, yet she felt compelled to look once more. One find time before he burned them.
Selecting the key from the bunch, she slipped it into the lock and turned it. Leaving the bunch dangling from the lock, she put both hands to the door and heaved. Slowly the door eased back, the cold of the interior greeting her.
She slipped inside, her fingers reaching for the light-pad. At once the room was lit by a cool blue light that seemed to her the very colour of death.
How many times had she been inside this room? A hundred? A thousand? However many it was, she had never entered there without experiencing a sense of disconnection - as if, stepping over the threshold of this room, she stepped into another realm entirely: a realm untouched by simple human warmth.
Slowly she walked round the slabs, studying the bodies. He had washed them and, with a mortician's art, given them the semblance of healthy life. There was colour now to their cheeks; even so, a single touch revealed how hollow that illusion was. Their coldness was the cold of the abyss between being and non-being and the knowledge of that abyss - a certainty she had lived with from her first conscious moment - coloured her view of them.
Another might have queried why the Oven Man had done this - why, when all he had to do was consign them to the flames, he had bothered to dean them and prepare them for the after-life -but Chuang Kuan Ts'ai knew and understood, for though she was not Cho's daughter, she was much like him. She understood the need for dignity; for someone - even a stranger - to show some degree of respect at the end. To mark the passing of an individual life.
Necessary it was, else none of it made any sense.
She looked, undaunted by their hideous aspect. Now that they had been cleaned, she could see the signs of torture on them dearly and, as she had the evening they'd been brought there, began to wonder how and why they had come to this fate.
Yes, and who they were, for they had come naked on the cart, dothed only in their blood.
She stopped, leaning in doser. Behind the ear of one of them, parity hidden beneath the hair, was a mark. She reached out, lifting the stiff black hair delicately with one finger. It was a number - a serial number - imprinted in the skin.
She stared a long while, memorising it, thinking of a dozen ways to fix the number in her head, then drew her fingers back.
"Chuang?"
She looked up. Her Uncle Cho was standing in the doorway, looking in at her, surprised - clearly surprised - to find her there. She waited, expecting him to ask what she was doing there, to chastise her, perhaps, for disobeying him, but he said nothing.