They went inside, Jelka bowing her head, her cheeks flushed, as the contracts were presented and endorsed by all parties.
He signed, then straightened, looking across the table at her. In three years he would be her husband. Three years. But who knew how things would be in three years time? And the girl? In three years she would be seventeen. Again he smiled, remembering the mui tsai. And you, my little one? he wondered, looking across at the Marshal's daughter. What will you be like on our wedding night? Are you the frigid, nervous type, or is there fire in your loins? His smile broadened, seeing how she looked away, the color deepening at her neck. Yes, well, we'll see. And even if you prove a disappointment, there will be others—plenty of others—to sweeten my nights.
And in the meantime maybe he would buy the mui tsai. After all, it wasn't every woman who could make love like that. Gifted, she'd been. He turned, taking the Marshal's offered hand, smiling back fiercely at the two old men. Yes, he would buy the mui tsai. And later, when her temper had cooled, he would go and see Madam Chuang again, and make it up with her.
JELKA SAT at her father's side, sipping at her bowl of ch'a, conscious of the stifling opulence of the room. She looked about her, feeling an unease that had nothing to do with her personal situation.
, She shuddered and looked down. The Eberts flaunted their wealth, displaying it with an ostentation she found quite tasteless. Ornate Ming vases rested on hideous plinths, heavy, brutal things in garish colors. In recesses of the curiously shaped room, huge canvases hung in heavy gilt frames, the pictures dark, suggestive of blood.
Across from her, Hans's two sisters were staring at her with an unconcealed hostility, the youngest a year or so older than Jelka, the oldest in her early twenties. She tried not to look at them, knowing they saw her only as a rival. More disconcerting was the creature serving them; a goatlike being, grown in GenSyn's vats. She shivered when its pink-eyed stare met her own and in a deep but toneless voice, it asked if she would like more ch'a. She looked at its pinched, three-toed hand and shook her head, noting the fine silk of its cuffs, the stylish cut of its trousers.
She had the oddest feeling of being in a dream, unreality piled upon unreality. Yet this was real. Was the reality of power. She looked at her future husband and saw him with a clarity that almost overwhelmed her. He was a tall young man, taller than her father, and handsome. Yet there was a cruelty, an arrogance in his handsomeness that made her shudder. She could see his pride, his intense sense of self-importance, in the way he held his head, in the cold indifference of his eyes.
Even so, it didn't reach her yet; didn't touch or move her. Three years was a long time. She could not imagine how she would feel three years from now. This much—this ritual of contracts, of pledges and vague promises—seemed a small thing to do to satisfy her father.
She smiled, looking at her father, sensing his pride in her. It pleased her, as always, and she reached out to hold and touch his arm. She saw how old man Ebert smiled at that, a tender, understanding smile. He was cut from a different cloth than the rest of his family. Beside him his wife, Berta, looked away, distanced from everything about her, her face a mask of total indifference to the whole proceeding. A tall, elegant woman, hers was a cold, austere beauty: the beauty of pine forests under snow. A rarefied, inhuman beauty.
With that same clarity with which she had seen the son, Jelka saw how Berta Ebert had shaped her children in their father's absence. Saw how their cold self-interest was a reflection of their mother's.
She held her father's arm, feeling its warmth, its strong solidity, and drew comfort from that contact. He loved her. Surely he would allow nothing that would harm her?
On the way over he had talked to her of the reasons behind this marriage. Of the need to build strong links between the Seven and the most powerful of the new, commercial Families. It was the way forward, and her union with Hans would cement the peace they had struggled hard to win. GenSyn had remained staunchly loyal to the Seven in the recent War and Li Shai Tung had rewarded them for that loyalty. Klaus Ebert had taken over mining contracts on Mars and the Uranus moons as well as large holdings in three of the smaller communications companies. Her marriage would make this abstract, commercial treaty a personal thing. Would make it a thing of flesh and blood.
She understood this. Even so, it seemed a long way off. Before then she had to finish her schooling, the rest of her childhood. She looked at Hans Ebert dispassionately, as if studying a stranger.
She turned in her seat, her cup empty, to summon the servant. It came to her without a word, as if it had anticipated her wish, bowing to her as it filled her cup. Yet before it moved back into the shadows of the room it looked up at her, meeting her eyes a second time, holding them a moment with its dark, intimate knowledge of things she did not know.
Jelka turned her head away, looking past her father, meeting the eyes of her future husband. Blue eyes, not pink. Startlingly blue. Colder, harder eyes. Different...
She shuddered and looked down. And yet the same. Somehow, curiously, the same.
WANG SAU-LEYAN raised the silk handkerchief to his face and wiped his eyes. For a moment he stood there, his well-fleshed body shaking gently, the laughter still spilling from his lips; then he straightened up and sniffed loudly, looking about him.
Behind him the tomb was being sealed again, the rosewood litter carried away. Servants busied themselves, sweeping the dirt path with brushes of twigs, while, to one side, the six New Confucian officials stood in a tight circle, talking quietly among themselves.
"That was rich, Heng, don't you think?" Wang said, turning to face his Chancellor, ignoring the looks of displeasure of his fellow T'ang. "I had visions of my brother getting up out of the casket to chastise the poor buggers!"
"My Lord . . ." Heng's face was a picture of dismay. He glanced about him at the gathered T'ang, then lowered his head. "It was unfortunate . . ."
"Unfortunate!" Wang's laughter rang out again. "Why, it could only have happened to Ta-hung! Who else but my brother would find himself thrown into his own tomb!" With the last few words Wang Sau-leyan made a mime of the casket sliding into the tomb.
It had been an accident. At the top of the steps, one of the bearers had tripped and with the balance of the casket momentarily upset, the remaining bearers had lost their grip. The whole thing had tumbled down the steps, almost throwing out its occupant. Wang Sau-leyan, following close behind, had stood there at the tomb's mouth, doubled up with laughter. He had not stopped laughing since.
Throughout the ceremony, he had giggled, oblivious of the astonished looks of the officials.
Now, however, his fellow T'ang were exchanging looks, appalled by his behavior. After a moment the oldest of them, Wei Feng, stepped forward.
"What is this, Wang Sau-leyan? Have you no feelings for your dead brother? We came to honor him today, to pay our respects to his souls as they journey on. This laughter is not fitting. Have you forgotten the rites, Wang Sau-leyan? It is your duty—"
"Hell's teeth, Wei Feng, I know my duty. But it was funny. Genuinely funny. If he had not been dead already, that last fall would have killed him!" Wang Sau-leyan stared back at his fellow T'ang momentarily, then looked away. "However . . . forgive me, cousins. It seems that I alone saw the humor in the moment."
Wei Feng looked down, his anger barely contained. Never in all his years had he seen anything like it.
"There are times for humor . . ."
Wang's huff of disgust was clearly disrespectful. He moved past Wei Feng as if the older man weren't there, confronting the other T'ang.