Now, watching the boy across the length of the dinner table, he understood.
"What do you think, Ben? Do you think the time has come to fight our enemies?"
Unexpectedly, the boy laughed. "That depends on whether you know who or what your enemies are, Li Shai Tung."
The T'ang lifted his chin slightly. "I think I have a fair idea of that."
Ben met his eyes again, fixing that same penetrating stare on him. "Maybe. But you must first ask yourself what exactly you are fighting against. When you think of your enemies your first thought is of certain identifiable men and groups of men, is that not so?"
The T'ang nodded. "That is so, Ben. I know my enemies. I can put names to them and faces."
"There, you see. And you think that by waging war against them you will resolve this present situation." Ben set his bowl down and sat back, his every gesture momentarily—though none but Ben himself realized it—the mirror image of the T'ang's. "With respect, Li Shai Tung, you are wrong."
The T'ang laughed fiercely, enjoying the exchange. "You think their ideology will outlive them? Is that it, Ben? If it were not so false in the first place, I would agree with you. But their sole motivation is greed. They don't really want change. They want power."
Ben shook his head. "Ah, but you're still thinking of specific men. Powerful men, admittedly, even men of influence, but only men. Men won't bring Chung Kuo down, only what's inside of Man. You should free yourself from thinking of them. To you they seem the greatest threat, but they're not. They're the scum on the surface of the well. And the well is deep."
Li Shai Tung took a deep breath. "With respect, Ben, in this you are wrong. Your argument presupposes that it does not matter who rules—that things will remain as they are whoever is in power. But that's not so. Their ideology is false, but, forgive me, they are Hung Moo."
Across from him Hal Shepherd smiled, but he was clearly embarrassed. It was more than two decades since he had taken offense at the term—a term used all the while in court, where the Han were predominant and the few Caucasians treated as honorary Han—yet here, in the Domain, he felt the words incongruous, almost—surprisingly—insulting.
"They have no sense of harmony," continued the T'ang, unaware. "No sense of li. Any change they brought would not be for the good. They are men of few principles. They would carve the world up into principalities and then there would be war again. Endless war. As it was before."
There was the faintest of smiles on Ben's lips. "You forget your own history, Li Shai Tung. No dynasty can last forever. The wheel turns. Change comes, whether you will it or no. It is the way of mankind. All of mankind, even the Han."
"So it may have been, but things are different now. The wheel no longer turns. We have done with history."
Ben laughed. "But you cannot stop the world from turning!"
He was about to say more but his mother touched his arm. She had sat there, perfectly still and silent, watching the fire while they talked, her dark hair hiding her face. Now she smiled and got up, excusing herself.
"Perhaps you men would like to go through into the study. IVe lit the fire there."
Shepherd looked to the T'ang, who gave the slightest nod of agreement before standing and bowing to his hostess. Again he thanked her warmly for the meal and her hospitality and then, when she had gone, went before Shepherd and his son into the other room.
"Brandy?" Shepherd turned from the wall cabinet, holding the decanter up. The T'ang was usually abstemious, but tonight his mood seemed different. He seemed to want to talk—to encourage talk. As if there were some real end to all this talking: some problem which, though he hadn't come to it, he wished to address. Something he found difficult; that worried him profoundly.
The T'ang hesitated, then smiled. "Why not? After all, a man should indulge himself now and then."
Shepherd poured the T'ang a fingernail's measure of the dark liquid and handed him the ancient bowled glass. Then he turned to his son. "Ben?"
Ben smiled almost boyishly. "Are you sure Mother won't mind?"
Shepherd winked at him. "Mother won't know."
He handed the boy a glass, then poured one for himself and sat, facing the T'ang across the fire. Maybe it was time to force the pace; time to draw the T'ang out of himself.
"Something's troubling you, Shai Tung."
The T'ang looked up from his glass almost distractedly and gave a soft laugh. "Everything troubles me, Hal. But that's not what you mean, is it?"
"No. No visit of yours is casual, Shai Tung. You had a specific reason for coming to see me, didn't you?"
The T'ang's smile was filled with gratitude. "As ever, Hal, you're right. But I'll need no excuse to come next time. I’ve found this very pleasant."
"Well?"
The T'ang took a long inward breath, steeling himself, then spoke. "It's Tolonen."
For some time now the T'ang had been under intense pressure from the House to bring the General to trial for the murder of Under Secretary Lehmann. They wanted Tolonen's head for what he'd done. But the T'ang had kept his thoughts to himself about the killing. No one—not the Seven nor Hal Shepherd—• knew how he really felt about the matter, only that he had refused to see Tolonen since that day; that he had exiled him immediately and appointed a new general, Vittorio Nocenzi, in his place. .
Shepherd waited, conscious of how tense Li Shai Tung had suddenly become. Tolonen had been of the same generation as the T'ang and they shared the same unspoken values. In their personal lives there had been parallels that had drawn them close and formed a bond between them; not least the loss of both their wives some ten years back. In temperament, however, they were ice and fire.
"I miss him. Do you understand that, Hal? I really miss the old devil. First and foremost for himself. For all that he was.
Loyal. Honest. Brave." He looked up briefly, then looked down again, his eyes misting. "I felt he was my champion, Hal. Always there at my side. From my eighteenth year. My General. My most trusted man."
He shuddered and was silent for a while. Then he began again, his voice softer, yet somehow stronger, more definite than before.
"Strangely I miss his rashness most of all. He was like Han Ch'in in that. What he said was always what part of me felt. Now I feel almost that that part of me is missing—is unexpressed, festering in the darkness."
"You want him back?"
Li Shai Tung laughed bitterly. "As if 1 could. No, Hal, but I want to see him. I need to speak to him."
Shepherd was silent for a time, considering, then he leaned forward and set his glass down on the table at his side. "You should call him back, Shai Tung. For once damn the House and its demands. Defy them. You are Tang, and thus above their laws."
Li Shai Tung looked up and met Shepherd's eyes. "I am T'ang, yes, but I am also Seven. I could not act so selfishly."
"Why not?"
The T'ang laughed, surprised. "This is unlike you, Hal. For more than twenty years you have advised me to be cautious, to consider the full implications of my actions, but now, suddenly, you counsel me to rashness."
Shepherd smiled. "Not rashness, Shai Tung. Far from it. In fact, I've thought of little else this past year." He got up and went across to a bureau in the corner farthest from the fire, returning a moment later with a folder which he handed to the T'ang.
"What is this, Hal?"
Shepherd smiled, then sat again. "My thoughts on things."
Li Shai Tung stared thoughtfully at.Shepherd a moment, then set his glass down and opened the folder.
"But this is handwritten."
Shepherd nodded. "It's the only copy. I've said things in there that I'd rather not have fall into the hands of our enemies."
He looked briefly at his son as he said the last few words, conscious that the boy was watching everything.
Li Shai Tung looked up at him, his face suddenly hawklike, his eyes fiercer than before. "Why did you not mention this before?"