An old armchair to one side displayed a touch of luxury, heaped as it was with colorful silk cushions, but her bed was spartan, a simple dark-blue sheet covering it. Beside it, beneath a half-length mirror, was her study desk, a wei chi board set up to the right, books and papers stacked neatly on the left at the back. He went across and looked, interested to see what she was reading.
At the very front of the table, facedown beside her comset, was a copy of Sun Tzu's The Art of War, the Ping Fa. He picked it up and read the passage she had underlined:
If not in the interests of the state, do not act. If you cannot succeed, do not use troops. If you are not in danger, do not fight.
He smiled. Ten thousand books had been written on the subject since Sun Tzu first wrote his treatise twenty-five hundred years before and not one had come as close to capturing the essence of armed struggle as the Ping Fa. He set the book down again, then studied the wei chi board a moment, noting how a great spur of black stones cut between two areas of white territory, separating them. There were other books piled up on the desk—the San Kuo Van Yi, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Tseng Kung-liang's Wu Ching Tsung Yao, his Essentials of the Martial Classics, and the Meng Ke among them—but what took the Marshal's interest was a small floppy, orange-covered volume tucked away at the back of the desk. He reached across and pulled it from the pile.
It was an ancient thing, the cover curling at the edges, the paper within yellowed badly. But that was not what had caught his eye. It was the words on the cover. Or, rather, one word in particular. China.
He stared at the cover for a time, frowning. He had not heard that term—not seen it in print—in more than forty years. China. The name that Chung Kuo, the Middle Kingdom, had had before Tsao Ch'un. Or at least, the name it had been called in the West. He leafed through the book, reading at random, then closed it, his pulse racing. Islam and Communism. America and Russia. Soviets and Imperialists. These were lost terms. Terms from another age. A forgotten, forbidden age. He stared at the cover a moment longer, then nodded to himself, knowing what he must do.
He turned, hearing her in the next room, singing softly to herself as she dressed, then forced himself to relax, letting the anger, the tension drain from him. It was a mistake, almost certainly. Even so, he would find out who had given this to her and make them pay.
"Well?" she asked, standing in the doorway, smiling across at him. "Tell me, then. What is it?"
She saw how he looked down at the book in his hands.
"In a moment. First, where did you get this?"
"That? It was on your shelves. Why, shouldn't I have borrowed it?"
"My shelves?"
"Yes. It was in that box of things you had delivered here three weeks ago. My amah, Lu Cao, unpacked it and put it all away. Didn't you notice?"
"She shouldn't have," he began irritably. "They were things General Nocenzi had sent on to me. Things we'd unearthed during the Confiscations. Special things ..."
"I'm sorry, Father. I'll tell her. But she wasn't to know."
"No . . ." He softened, then laughed, relieved that it was only that. "Did you read any of it?"
"Some." She smiled, looking inside herself a moment. "But it was odd. It presented itself as a factual account, but it read more like fiction. The facts were all wrong. Almost all of it. And that map at the front. . ."
"Yes . . ." He weighed the book in his hand a moment, then looked up at her again. "Well, I guess no harm's done. But listen. This is a forbidden book. If anyone were to find you had read even the smallest part of it . . ." He shook his head. "Well, you understand?"
She bowed her head. "As you wish, Father."
"Good. Then this other matter . . ." He hesitated, then gave a short laugh. "Well, you know how long Klaus Ebert and I have been friends. How close our families have always been."
She laughed. "Shih Ebert has been like an uncle to me." Her father's smile broadened momentarily. "Yes. But I've long wished for something more than that. Some stronger, more intimate bond between our families." "More intimate . . ." She stared at him, not understanding. "Yes," he said, looking back at her fondly. "It has long been my dream that you would one day wed my old friend's son."
"Hans? Hans Ebert?" Her eyes were narrowed now, watching him. "Yes." He looked away, smiling. "But it's more than a dream. You see, Klaus Ebert and I came to an arrangement."
She felt herself go cold. "An arrangement?" . -
"Yes. Klaus was very generous. Your dowry is considerable." -
She laughed nervously. "I don't understand. Dowry? What dowry?" !
He smiled. "I'm sorry. I should have spoken to you about all this before, but I've not had time. Things were so busy, and then, suddenly, the day was upon me." The coldness melted away as a wave of anger washed over her. She shook her head defiantly. "But you can't. . ."
"I can," he said. "In fact, there's no question about it, Jelka. It was all arranged, ten years ago."
"Ten years?" She shook her head, astonished. "But I was four . . ."
"I know. But these things must be done. It is our way. And they must be done early. Hans is heir to a vast financial empire, after all. It would not do to have uncertainty over such matters. The markets . . ."
She looked down, his words washing over her unheard, her breath catching in her throat. Her father had sold her—sold her to his best friends son. Oh, she'd heard of it. Indeed, several of her school friends had been engaged in this manner.
But this was herself.
She looked up at him again, searching his eyes for some sign that he understood how she felt; but there was nothing, only his determination to fulfill his dream of linking the two families.
Her voice was soft, reproachful. "Daddy . . . how could you?"
He laughed, but his laughter now was hard, and his words, when they came, held a slight trace of annoyance.
"How could I what?"
Sett me, she thought, but could not bring herself to say the words. She swallowed and bowed her head. "You should have told me."
"I know. But I thought. . . well, I thought you would be pleased. After all, Hans is a handsome young man. More than half the girls in the Above are in love with him. And you . . . well, you alone will be his wife. The wife of a General. The wife of a Company Head. And not just any company, but GenSyn."
It was true. She ought to be pleased. Her friends at school would be jealous of her. Green with envy. But somehow the thought of that palled in comparison with the enormity of what her father had done. He had not asked her. In this, the most important thing she would ever do, he had not taken her feelings into consideration. Would he have done that if her mother had been alive?
She shivered, then looked up at him again.
"So I must marry him?"
He nodded tersely, his face stem. "It is arranged."
She stared back at him a moment, surprised by the hard edge to his voice, then bowed her head. "Very well. Then I shall do as you ask."
"Good." He smiled tightly, then glanced down at the timer at his wrist. "You'd best call your amah, then, and have her dress you. It's after eleven now and I said we'd be there by one."
She stared at him, astonished. "This afternoon?"
He looked back at her, frowning, as if surprised by her question. "Of course. Now hurry, my love. Hurry, or we'll be late."