She reached up and took his hands from where they lay on her shoulders, then held them, turning them over. Strong, fine hands.
"Well?" he prompted, impatient now, but laughing too. "Tell me who it is!"
"General Nocenzi."
"Ah____" He sat back heavily.
"He's in the house. Shall I bring him?"
He looked up at her distractedly, then nodded. "Yes. It will be good to see Vittorio again."
He watched her go, then let his gaze drift out over the surface of the sea. Nocenzi. It could mean only one thing. They had come for his head.
Friends had kept him informed. They had told him of the growing demand for "justice" in the Lehmann case. Lately there had been rumors that the House was about to indict him for the murder. Well, now the T'ang had succumbed to that pressure. And he, Tolonen, would be made to account for what he'd done.
He shivered, thinking of Jelka, then turned to see that Nocenzi was already there, standing on the sand by the corner of the house, his cap under his arm.
"Knut____"
The two men embraced warmly and stood there a moment simply looking at each other. Then Tolonen looked down.
"I know why you've come."
Nocenzi laughed strangely. "You've read my orders, then, General?"
Tolonen met his eyes again, then shook his head. "Just Shih Tolonen. You're General now, Vittorio."
Nocenzi studied him a while, then smiled. "Let's sit, eh? Jelka said she'd bring fresh ch'a."
They sat, not facing each other, but looking outward at the sea.
Nocenzi noted the book that lay facedown on the table. "What are you reading, Knut?"
Tolonen handed him the old, leather-bound volume and watched him smile. It was Sun Tzu's Chan Shu, his Art of War, dating from the third century B.C. The Clavell translation.
"They say the Ch'in warriors were mad. They ran into battle without armor."
Tolonen laughed. "Yes, Vittorio, but there were a million of them. Nor had they ever tasted defeat."
There was a moment's tense silence, then Tolonen turned to face his old friend. "Tell me straight, Vittorio. Is it as I fear? Am I to pay for what I did?"
Nocenzi looked back at him. "Lehmann deserved what you did to him. There are many who believe that."
"Yes," Tolonen insisted. "But am I to pay?"
Tolonen's successor gazed back at the man he had served under for almost a quarter of a century and smiled. "You said you knew why I had come, Knut. But you were wrong. I haven't come for your head. I've come because the T'ang has asked to see you."
LI YUAN cried out and woke in the semi-darkness, his heart beating wildly, the feeling of the dark horse beneath him still vivid, the smell of plum blossom filling his nostrils.
He shivered and sat up, aware of the warm stickiness of his loins. Sweat beaded his brow and chest. The satin sheets were soaked about him. He moaned softly and put his head in his hands. Fei Yen. ... He had been riding with Fei Yen. Faster and faster they had ridden, down, down the long slope until, with a jolt and a powerful stretching motion he could feel in his bones even now, his horse had launched itself at the fence.
He threw the sheets back and, in the half light, looked down at himself. His penis was still large, engorged with blood, but it was flaccid now. With a little shudder he reached down and touched the wetness. The musty smell of his own semen was strong, mixed with the lingering scent of plum blossom. He sniffed deeply, confused, then remembered. The silk she had given him lay on the bedside table, its perfume pervading the air of his room.
He looked across at the broad ivory face of the bedside clock. It was just after four. He stood, about to go through and shower, when there were noises outside the door, then a muted knocking.
Li Yuan threw the cover back, then took a robe from the side and drew it on. "Come!"
Nan Ho stood in the doorway, head bowed, a lantern in one hand.
"Are you all right, Prince Yuan?"
Nan Ho was his body servant; his head man, in charge of the eight juniors in his household-within-a-household.
"It was"—he shuddered—"It was only a dream, Nan Ho. I'm fine." He glanced around at the bed, then, slightly embarrassed by the request, added. "Would you bring clean sheets, Nan Ho. I—"
He turned away sharply, realizing he was holding Fei Yen's silk in his hand.
Nan Ho looked to him then to the bed and bowed. "I'll be but a moment, Prince Yuan." Then he hesitated. "Is there"—he moved his head slightly to one side, as if finding difficulty with what he was about to say—"is there anything I can arrange for you, Prince Yuan?"
Li Yuan swallowed, then shook his head. "I don't understand you, Nan Ho. What might you arrange at this hour?"
Nan Ho came into the room and closed the door behind him. Then, in a softer voice, he said, "Perhaps the Prince would like Pearl Heart to come and see to him?"
Pearl Heart was one of the maids. A young girl of fifteen years.
"Why should I want Pearl Heart . . . ?" he began, then saw what Nan Ho meant and looked away.
"Well, Highness?"
He held back the anger he felt, keeping his voice calm; the voice of a Prince, a future T'ang.
"Just bring clean sheets, Nan Ho. I'll tell you when I need anything else."
Nan Ho bowed deeply and turned to do as he was bid. Only when he was gone did Li Yuan look down at the wet silk in his hand and realize he had wiped himself with it.
CHEN STOOD there in the queue, naked, waiting his turn. The sign over the doorway read DECONTAMINATION. The English letters were black. Beneath them, in big red pictograms, was the equivalent Mandarin. Chen looked about him, noting that it was one of the rare few signs here that had an English translation. The Lodz Clearing Station handled more than three hundred thousand people a day, and almost all of them were Han. It was strange that. Unexpected.
Beyond the doorway were showers and disinfectant baths: primitive but effective solutions to the problem of decontaminating millions of workers every week. He shuffled along, ignoring his nakedness and the nakedness of those on every side of him, resisting the temptation to scratch at the skin patch beneath his left ear.
A Hung Mao guard pushed him through the doorway brutally, and like those in front of him Chen bowed his head and walked on slowly through the stinging coldness of the showers, then down the steps into the bath, holding his breath as he ducked underwater.
Then he was outside, in daylight, goose pimples on his flesh. A guard thrust clothes into his arms—a loincloth, a drab brown overall, and a coolie hat—and then he was in line again.
"Tong Chou?"
He answered to his alias and pushed through to the front to collect his ID card and his pack, checking briefly to make sure they had not confiscated the viewing tube. Then he found a space and, holding the card between his teeth, the pack between his feet, got dressed quickly.
He followed the flow of people through, one of thousands, identically dressed. At the end of a long walled roadway the crowd spilled out into a wide arena. This was the embarkation area. Once more the signs were all in Kuo-yu, or Mandarin. Chen turned and looked back, seeing, for the first time, the wall of the City towering over them, stretching away whitely into the distance to either side. Then he looked down, searching for the pictogram he had learned—hsia, the crab. Seeing it, he made his way across and up the ramp, stopping at the barrier to show his ID.
The train was packed. He squeezed in, smiling apologetically as he made his way through, then turned, waiting.
He had not long to wait. The train was crowded and extremely stuffy, the smell of disinfected bodies overpowering, but it was fast. Within the hour he was at Hsia Plantation, stumbling from the carriage, part of the crowd that made its way slowly down the ramp and out into the open.
There was a faint, unpleasant scent to the air, like something stale or overcooked. Chen looked up, then looked down again quickly, his eyes unused to the brightness. The sun blazed down overhead; a huge, burning circle of light—bigger, much brighter, than he remembered it. Ahead of him the land stretched away forever—flat and wide and green. Greener, much greener, than he'd ever imagined.