Had he been wrong those times? Had he misjudged her? It seemed so. And yet she had sent word to him. Secretly. A tiny, handwritten note, asking him to forgive her moodiness, to come and ride with her again. Was it merely to be sociable—for her husband's sake—or should he read something more into it?
He could still hear her words. If I were free . . .
Even to contemplate such an affair was madness. It could only make for bad blood between the Li clan and himself and shatter the age-old ties between their families. He knew that. And yet the merest thought of her drove out all consideration of what he ought to do. She had bewitched him, robbed him of his senses.
That, too, he knew. And yet his knowledge was as nothing beside the compulsion that drove him to see her again. To risk everything simply to be with her.
He turned, hearing the groom return with the Arab.
"Chieh Hsia." The boy bowed, offering the reins.
Tsu Ma smiled and took the reins. Then, putting one foot firmly in the stirrup, he swung up onto the Arab's back. She moved skittishly but he steadied her, using his feet. It was Li Yuan's horse; the horse he had ridden the last time he had come. He turned her slowly, getting used to her again, then dug in his heels, spurring her out of the courtyard and north, heading out into the hills.
He knew where he would find Fei Yen; there at the edge of the temple pool where they had last spoken. She stood there, her face turned from him, her whole stance strangely disconsolate. Her face was pale, far paler than he remembered, as if she had been ill. He frowned, disconcerted by something; then with a shock, he recognized the clothes she was wearing. Her riding tunic was a pink that was almost white, edged with black; her trousers were azure blue; and her hair . . . her hair was beaded with rubies.
He laughed softly, astonished. They were the same colors—the same jewels—he had worn the first time they had met. But what did it mean?
She looked up as he approached, her eyes pained, her lips pressed together, her mouth strangely hard. She had been crying.
"I didn't know if you would come."
He hesitated, then went across to stand at her side.
"You shouldn't be riding out so far alone." '•>
"No?"
The anger in her voice took him aback. He reached into his tunic and took out a silk handkerchief. "Here . . . What's wrong?"
He watched her dab her cheeks, and wipe her eyes, his heart torn from him by the tiny shudder she gave. He wanted to reach out and wrap her in his arms, to hold her tight and comfort her; but he had been wrong before.
"I can't bear to see you crying."
She looked at him, anger flashing in her eyes again, then looked down, as if relenting. "No . . ." She sniffed, then crushed the silk between her hands. "No, it's not your fault, Tsu Ma."
He wet his lips, then spoke again. "Where is your husband?"
She laughed bitterly, staring down fixedly at her clenched hands. "Husbands! What is a husband but a tyrant!"
Once more the anger in her face surprised him.
She stared up at him, her eyes wide, her voice bitter. "He sleeps with his maids. I've seen him."
"Ah. . ." He looked down into the water, conscious of her image there in front of him, "Maybe it's because he's a man."
"A man!" She laughed caustically, her eyes meeting his in the mirror of the pool, challenging him. "And men are different, are they? Have they different appetites, different needs?" She looked back at the reality of him, forcing him to look at her and meet her eyes. "You sound like my brothers, Tsu Ma. They think the matter of their sex makes them my superior when any fool can see—"
She stopped, then laughed, glancing at him. "You see, even the language we use betrays me. I would have said, not half the man I am."
He nodded, for the first time understanding her. "Yet it is how things are ordered," he said gently. "Without it—"
"I know," she said impatiently, then repeated it more softly, smiling at him. "I know."
He studied her a moment, remembering what her cousin Yin Wu Tsai had said— that she had been born with a woman's body and a man's soul. It was true. She looked so fragile, so easily broken; yet there was something robust, something hard and uncompromising, at the core of her. Maybe it was that—the precarious balance in her nature—that he loved. That sense he had of fire beneath the ice. Of earthiness beneath the superficial glaze.
"You're not like other women."
He said it softly, admiringly, and saw how it brought a movement in her eyes, a softening of her features.
"And you? Are you like other men?"
Am I? he asked himself. Or am I simply what they expect me to be? As he stared back at her he found he had no answer. If to be T'ang meant he could never have his heart's desire, then what use was it being T'ang? Better never to have lived.
"I think I am," he answered after a moment. "I have the same feelings and desires and thoughts."
She was watching him intently, as if to solve some riddle she had set herself. Then she looked down, away from him, the faintest smile playing on her lips. "Yes, but it's the balance of those things that makes a man what he is, wouldn't you say, Tsu Ma?"
He laughed. "And you think my balance . . . different?"
She looked up at him challengingly. "Don't you?" She lifted her chin proudly, her dark eyes wide. "I don't really know you, Tsu Ma, but I know this much—you would defy the world to get what you wanted."
He felt himself go still. Then she understood him, too. But still he held back, remembering the mistake he had made before. To be rebuffed a second time would be unthinkable, unbearable. He swallowed and looked down.
"I don't know. I—"
She stood abruptly, making him look up at her, surprised.
"All this talking," she said, looking across to where their horses were grazing. "It's unhealthy. Unnatural." She looked back at him. "Don't you think so?"
He stood slowly, fascinated by the twist and turn of her, her ever-changing moods. "What do you suggest?"
She smiled, suddenly the woman he had met that first time, laughing and self-confident, all depths, all subtleties gone from her.
"I know what," she said. "Let's race. To the beacon. You know it?"
He narrowed his eyes. "We passed it ten li back, no?"
"That's it." Her smile broadened. "Well? Are you game?"
"Yes," he said, laughing. "Why not? And no quarter, eh? No holding back."
"Of course," she answered, her eyes meeting his knowingly. "No holding back."
FEI YEN reined in her horse and turned to look back down the steep slope beneath the beacon. Tsu Ma was some fifty ch'i back, his mount straining, its front legs fighting for each ch'i of ground.
Her eyes shone and her chest rose and fell quickly. She felt exhilarated. It had been a race to remember.
Tsu Ma reined in beside her. His mount pulled its head back, overexcited by the chase, and he leaned down to smooth it, stroking the broad length of its face. Then he looked up at Fei Yen, his strong features formed into a smile of pleasure.
"That was good. I haven't enjoyed myself so much in years!"
He laughed, a deep, rich laugh that sent a shiver down her spine. Then he reached out and drew the hair back from where it had fallen across her face. His hand rested against her cheek.
It was the first time he had touched her.
He withdrew his hand and turned from her, standing in his saddle and looking out across the valley. They were at the highest point for twenty li around. To their backs and distant were the foothills of the Ta Pa Shan, but before them was only the plain.
Or what had once been the plain. In his grandfather's time the City had stretched only as far as Ch'ung Ch'ing. Now it covered all the lowlands of Sichuan. From where he looked it glistened whitely in the afternoon sunlight, a crystalline growth come to within a dozen li of where they were. He could not see its full extent from where he stood, but he knew that it filled the Ch'ang Chiang Basin, eight hundred li south to the mountains, a thousand li east to west. A vast plateau of ice.