Sergey turned one of the cards a moment, studying the reverse carefully for special markings, then compared it with a second. The backs of the cards were a bright, silken red, broken in the center by a pattern of three concentric circles, three rings of dragons—twenty-nine black dragons in the outer circle, seven larger dragons in the second, and at the very center, a single golden dragon, larger than all the others, its great jaws closing on its tail.
Sergey smiled and looked up. "These are beautiful cards, Heng Chian-ye. The faces . . . they look almost as if they were drawn from life."
Heng laughed. "So they were, my friend. These are copies of the very first Chou pack, hand-drawn by Tung Men-tiao."
Sergey looked down at the cards with a new respect. Then these were tiny portraits of the actual people who had filled those roles. Men and women whom the great artist and satirist Tung Men-tiao had known in life. He smiled. Somehow it gave the game an added bite.
"Shall we start?" Heng asked. "If you'll stack the cards, we'll cut to see who deals."
For the first few hours he had tried to keep things fairly even, attributing his victories to good fortune, his defeats to his own stupidity. And all the while he had studied their play, had seen how the other two played to Heng, even while making it seem that they had only their own interests at heart. It was clever but transparent, and he could see how it would have fooled someone else, but he was not just any player. At Chou he excelled. He had mastered it as a child, playing his father and uncles for his pocket money.
In the last game he had drawn the Emperor and despite a strong hand, had proceeded to ensure that he lost; rather than consolidating power, he played into the hands of Heng's three Minister cards. Heng's rebellion had succeeded and Sergey had ended by losing a thousand yuan. He had seen the gleam in Heng's eyes as he noted down his winnings on the tab and knew that the time was ripe. Heng had won the last two games. He must feel he was on a winning streak. What better time, then, to up the stakes?
Sergey looked down, pretending not to see how Heng looked to his left at Tsang Yi, knowing what was to come.
"Forgive me, ch'un tzu," the Han began, getting to his feet and bowing, first to his friends, and then—his head barely inclined—to Sergey, "but I must go. My father . . ."
"Of course," Heng said smoothly, before Sergey could object. "We understand, don't we, Shih Novacek?"
We do, he thought, smiling inwardly, then watching as another of Heng's circle took Tsang's place at the table.
"I'll buy Tsang out," the Han said, his eyes meeting Sergey's briefly, chal-: lengingly. Then, turning to Heng, he added, "But look, Chian-ye, why don't we make the game more—exciting."
Heng laughed, acting as though he didn't understand his friend. "How so, Yi Shan-ch'i? Was that last game not exciting enough for you?"
Yi inclined his head slightly. "Forgive me, honorable cousin, but that is not what I meant. The game itself was good. As enjoyable to watch as I'm sure it was to play. ; But such a game needs an added bite, don't you think? If the stake were to be raised to ten thousand yuan a game . . ."
Heng laughed, then looked across at Sergey. "Maybe so. But let's ask our friend here. Well, Shih Novacek? What do you say? Would you like to raise the stakes, or are you happy as it is?"
It was delicately put. Almost too delicately, for it was phrased to let him back off without losing face. But things were not so simple. He was not one of them, even though he sat at their table. He was Yang kuei tzu. A foreign devil. A barbarian. He looked down, wrinkling up his face as if considering the matter, then looked up again.
"Ten thousand yuan . . ." He laughed nervously. "It's more than I've lost in a whole evening before now. Still, Yi Shan-ch'i is right. It would make the game more interesting."
Heng looked to his two friends, then back at Sergey. "I would not like to pressure you."
"No." Sergey shook his head firmly, as if he had made up his mind and was now determined. "Ten thousand yuan it is. For good or ill."
He sat back, watching Yi deal. As ever Heng picked up each card as it was dealt, his face an eloquent map of his fortunes. For his own part, Sergey waited until all seventeen cards were laid facedown before him, watching the other two sort their cards before he picked up his own.
As he sorted his hand he thought back to the last time he had played Heng. The object of Chou was straightforward and could be expressed quite simply: it was to hold the most points in one's hand at the end of the final play. To do so, however, one had not only to strengthen one's own hand but to weaken one's opponents. The game's complex system of discards and exchanges, blind draws and open challenges was designed to simulate this aspect of political life, the sticky web of intrigue that underpinned it all. Heng played, however, as if he barely understood this aspect of the game, as if only the relative levels of the cards—their positive attributes— mattered to him. He sought to cram his hand full of high-scoring cards and bonus combinations—Ministers and Family Heads and Generals—failing, like so many of his kind, to understand the other side of things, the powerfully destructive potential of Concubines and Sons.
In Chou the value of a card did not always express its significance in the scheme of things. So it was with Concubines. At the end of the game they were worth only eight points—fifty-six points less than a Family Head and one hundred twenty points less than a Minister. Unless . . .
Unless the Emperor were without a Wife. In which case, the Concubine took on its negative aspect, cancelling out not only its own value but the two hundred fifty-six points that the Emperor would otherwise score.
Likewise with the Sons. While they scored only four a piece at the final count, in the company of their respective mothers they became a liability, cancelling out not merely their own value but that of any Minister held.
The skillful player sought, therefore, to pair Wives with Sons, hold back Wives from those who held the Emperor, and, at the last throw, to off-load their pairings and Concubines in an exchange of hostages. To win by undermining their opponents.
Sergey smiled, noting that he had both Concubines in his hand. Well, good. This time he would keep them. Would make it seem he had drawn them late in the play, before he could off-load them on another.
A half hour later he had lost.
"Another game, ch'un tzu?" Heng asked, jotting down Yi's victory on the tab. Sergey glanced across. He was eleven thousand down, Chan nine, Heng eight. Yi, who had taken on Tsang's deficit of two thousand, was now twenty-eight thousand up.
Heng dealt this time. "Has anyone the Emperor?" he asked, having sorted out his own hand.
Sergey laid it down before him, then reached across to take another card from the pile. Having the Emperor made one strong. But it also made one vulnerable— to Concubines and the scheming Sons of Wives.
Again he smiled. He had a good hand—no, an excellent hand. Three Wives and three Ministers and there, at the far left of his hand, one of the Concubines. The tiny, doe-eyed one.
He looked down, momentarily abstracted from the game, thinking back to earlier that evening and to the row with Catherine. He had shut it out before, but now it came back to him. It had been his fault. He could see that now. But why did she always have to provoke him so? Why couldn't she be more like the other women he knew? He felt a mild irritation at her behavior. Why did she always have to be so stubborn? Didn't she know what it did to him? And all that business with the "technician," Shepherd. Why had she done that, if not to spite him? She knew how jealous he was. Why couldn't she be a bit more compliant? Then again, he liked her spirit. So different from Lotte and her kind.