“You did not always speak so respectfully of the Emperor,” she answered. “But it is as well that you should. I am glad that you did not insist, last, night, on coming here to me. Perhaps you have realised that it would have been imprudent.”
Ah Lai looked at the girl as he listened to her formal speech. There seemed a great distance between them now, and he felt it to be useless to speak, as he had meant to do, of the events of the night. Against the walls of their little world lapped the tide of war, and he knew that, for a time at least, that tide had separated them. And then, suddenly, she sat up, frowning.
“Go and do whatever you have to do,” she said. “If, in that doing, it pleases you to know that now I am certain that I shall not bear a child to the Emperor, then you have the right to be pleased. Now go.”
“But last night you said . . . ,” he began.
She answered: “Last night was last night; today is today. Go now about your new duties, and forget me. You are for greater things that I can give you.”
He inclined his head. “So you think,” he replied, going out
The Lady Yang had not rested long, and now, as she stood waiting for Ah Lai to come to her, with the sheer fall of the invisible mountain to the East before her, she felt something of the spirit of a painter who aims to transfer to paper the sweep of rocky land, the sheltering copses, the rushing streamlets, of a countryside which he sees, and which those who look upon his painting will also see but not believe. “He has idealised it,” these people will say. “It was not so steep. That stream did not so flash in the sunlight. That wood did not so unbelievably fit into the balance of the picture.” Life, she was reflecting, resembled, this landscape. The perfection of her last years with the Emperor were equally incredible. Love, itself, was just such a figment of the imagination, real enough when expressed, but to a hearer of its magic merely a symbol of what the lover hoped to taste. And yet, it was real enough.
Ah Lai came up behind her as she had expected.
“I understand the Emperor now,” the boy said. “Before, I thought that no man could have reason for so distilled a delimit, but, seeing you, I find all the old tales inadequate before your reality.” Then he laughed. “Why, I am talking like a poet!”
“You are talking in the fashion to which I am accustomed,” she replied. “And yet shall I believe that you mean it?”
The steady gaze of her long eyes under the high brow held his eyes. The hair at the back of his neck moved independently of his will. He was not conscious of anything else about her, before the compelling comfort of her eyes.
He replied: “I mean what I have said. And I understand, too, why my uncle would not let me see you when I lived with him at the Porcelain Pavilion, for it seems that, being wise, he feared for me the peril of seeing you. Not that he feared you, for my sake, but that he knew that a man changes when he looks upon you. He changes. He forgets what he was and what he hoped. He knows only that he looks upon you, and the rest of life fades into the shadow of reality. That is what my uncle, Li Po, knew, since he is a poet.”
She said: “You say it all very charmingly, I almost seem to hear the words of your uncle. But this is not time for soft words. You can drive a carriage—I know, for I heard the men talking of it. Will you take me away from here, from the soldiers, whom I fear? If the Emperor were here, it would be different, but I do not trust General Tung.”
He looked at her, and found that he could not take his eyes away. He forgot Winter Cherry; he forgot Honeysuckle. The world, and the edges of the world moved back and behind him as though he were advancing from the audience on to a brightly lit stage, moving without his own volition, towards the woman who now stood watching him calmly, as if nothing depended on his answer.
He rubbed his eyes.
“I will take you,” he said. “I am to start with one carriage as soon as General Tung has written his instructions. You will clothe yourself in ordinary clothes, so that none shall know you. They will think that I am taking another girl with me. And hide those jade pins in your hair. I will bring you clothes, and you will wait here. When I bring the carriage past, you will run out and climb in.”
She nodded, showing no sign of relaxation from the strain of wondering if she could have her way with this youth.
He left her, fetched outer garments from the room of Honeysuckle and Clear Rain, gave them to Yang Kuei-fei and went to see to the horses.
There was the sound of horses, and of men shouting, so that the night, now less dark under a faint lightening of the Eastern sky, was less quiet also. It seemed that with the coming of these men a dawn wind stirred. A sentry challenged.
General Tung went to meet the Emperor. Behind him Han Im stood, wondering why eunuchs should now stand behind generals, and reflecting on the inversion of proper procedure which war brings in its train. The Captain of the Guard galloped towards them and drew rein in a spectacular whirl of dust in the dark.
“I have performed my duty,” he said. “His Imperial Majesty is here.” He dismounted.
Behind him the outriders came to a halt, then drew aside. More horsemen emerged from the darkness, and then a carriage drawn by two horses. The Emperor descended from the carriage and advanced towards them. Even in the glistening light of the torches which suddenly appeared in the doorway, the Emperor seemed older, more tired, as if he had shrunk within his robes. Han Im had for a moment the fancy that these robes were draped upon a skeleton. Then the Emperor spoke.
“You are the last of my people,” he said. “I have left Chang-an. The palaces of Chang-an contain but my ghost to keep my Empress company. Is it not strange that I should think of her now, I, who have not thought of her for many a day? Where is Yang Kuei-fei?”
General Tung bowed stiffly.
“All is ready for your departure to a place of further safety,” he said. “A messenger has gone on to prepare for your arrival and see to provender for the troops. He left not long ago. Your Majesty will rest for an hour or two, until dawn?”
Han Im stepped forward and kotowed. Then he stood awaiting orders.
The Emperor said: “Take me to her.”
Han Im moved into the house in front of the Emperor, opening doors.
But Wang Wei’s room was empty.
The Emperor looked wildly round him. “Where is she?” he cried.
Han Im said: “I will look for her. I left her in this room.” But when he had searched the house, finding no knowledge of Yang Kuei-fei’s whereabouts from the two girls or from Winter Cherry, or from a just-wakening Liu, his heart sank as he returned to the room which had been Wang Wei’s. He felt the silken cord of suicide against his neck. Outside the door of Wang Wei’s room he met General Tung, clearly awaiting news.
“You have not found her?” the General asked.
Han Im said: “No. Nobody knows where she is. I wonder . . . could she have gone with Ah Lai? You ask your men. I will go in to the Emperor. I feel my neck’s insecurity growing with every minute. All well, a man can die but once.”
“And an eunuch has less to lose by death than have common men,” the General laughed, keeping a brave face against another man’s misfortune. “I will enquire if any one saw the boy depart.”
The Emperor was pacing up and down the room. He was quieter than Han Im had expected, but seemed to hold the promise of a sudden explosion of anger. He appeared conscious of his clothes and intolerant of them, as if their formal loveliness were an affront at such a moment.
Han Im said: “It is believed that the Lady Yang went forward with the advance party, by carriage.”
The Emperor’s wrath burst. “It is believed!” he cried. “Believed! Where is she? Tell Yen to come to me.”