He lifted Kuei Jen from the seat, turning away from his secretary, then paused. The child, at his shoulder, was looking past him at Tseng-li, smiling in that open way that only young children have. His dark and liquid eyes held two perfect, tiny images of Tseng-li. Li Yuan took a slow, deep breath, then began to move again, aware that in that brief moment he had both weighed and decided something.
Tseng-li. He could trust Wei Tseng-li. Maybe even with his life.
LI YUAN THREW HIMSELF forward, arms out in a dive, and cut the water crisply. He pushed hard with his legs underwater, his arms pulling him forward strongly, smoothly through the cool and silent medium. At the far end of the fifty-ch'i-long pool he surfaced, gasping for air, then rested there, one hand holding the tiled overhang while he got his breath back.
Throughout the three hours he had spent with Tseng-li at his desk he had thought of this. Of the cool silence of the pool, the flicker of shadows on the plain white walls, the gentle lapping of the water against the metal rungs. More of his time these days was taken up with official business, and though he sought to delegate as much as possible, it still left him little time that was his own. So often, recently, he had found himself thinking of something other than the matter at hand. He would catch himself imagining this: the long, weightless glide after the plunge; the pattern of light and shade on the water's mottled surface.
For a long while he floated there, thoughtless, the water rising either side of him, following the curve of the palace. Then, coming to himself, he pushed away and began to swim, a leisurely breaststroke that took him to the other end. Turning, he started back. He was halfway down when he heard the door behind him slide back. Slowing, he turned and, floating there, his arms out, his legs slightly raised, looked back at the doorway.
The figure in the doorway had knelt and bowed low, in k'ou t'ou, forehead pressed to the floor. It stayed there, awaiting his acknowledgment.
Li Yuan frowned and pushed with his legs, moving closer. "Who is that?"
The head lifted slowly. It was Tseng-li. "Forgive me, Highness, but I thought the pool was empty. I did not know you came here."
Li Yuan laughed, relaxing. He had been angry, but seeing Tseng-li he softened. "You came to swim?"
Tseng-li bowed his head again. "I will go, Highness. Forgive me."
"No . . . stay. Come join me, Tseng-li. There's room for two."
Still the young prince hesitated.
"Tseng-li! Your T'ang commands you! Now join me in the pool!"
He said it sternly, sharply, yet he was smiling. It would be good to relax in Tseng-li's company. Besides, there were things he wanted to say to his young cousin; things he had found difficult to say earlier.
Tseng-li got up slowly, and, after bowing one last time, stripped off quickly and jumped into the water. Li Yuan watched him surface, then strike out firmly with a bold, aggressive backstroke. He followed him slowly down, coming alongside him at the far end of the pool. Tseng-li hung there by one hand, looking back at him and smiling.
"Highness?"
"You swim well, cousin. The curve doesn't bother you."
Tseng-li laughed and looked past Yuan at the steep curvature of the water. In the artificial gravity of the palace things behaved differently than on Chung Kuo. Li Yuan's great-great-grandfather, Li Hang Ch'i, had had them build this pool, in defiance of the strangeness of the place. He, too, had been fond of swimming. But Li Yuan's father had never used it. He had felt the pool unnatural, odd.
Tseng-li looked back at Li Yuan. "I came here earlier and saw it. All day IVe thought of coming here."
"AH day?" Li Yuan looked mock stern at him, and Tseng-li blushed,
realizing what he had said. But then the T'ang laughed and nodded.
"You were not alone in that thought, cousin. My mind was also drawn here. But tell me, you don't mind its strangeness?" "No, Highness. I like new things. Strange things." "And the old?" "That too. We live in constant flux. Things persist, and yet they also change. Is that not the law for all time?"
Li Yuan laughed. "Now you sound like my father." Tseng-li joined his laughter. "Like all our fathers!" For a time they rested there, in the water, laughing. Then Li Yuan pushed away from the ledge. "Swim by my side, Tseng-li. There is something I must say to you . . ."
IT WAS JUSTAFTERTENinthe morning when Kennedy reported to the duty captain at Plainsborough garrison. After searching him thoroughly, the two guards placed an audio-wrap over his head and led him to their craft. That first part of the journey took an hour, then he was led up a short set of steps and strapped into an acceleration couch. Minutes later he felt the firm, steadily accelerating pressure of the shuttle's climb.
Only when it docked, some eighty minutes later, did a gentler pair of hands release his straps and take the bulky wrap from his head. Kennedy sat up, feeling slightly nauseous, and rubbed furiously at the two welts that the wraparound's harness had left across his forehead and beneath his eyes. It had been a tighter fit than he was accustomed to. Ironically—and, again, perhaps deliberately—they had been showing an old historical saga, about the fall of the Sung dynasty before the onslaught of the Mongol generals. A heavy-handed piece of Han propaganda.
Kennedy cleared his throat and looked up at his liberator. From the touch, the faint trace of scent, he had expected a woman, but it was not. A middle-aged man, slender and finely featured, bowed and introduced himself. He was dressed in silks of salmon-pink and lemon.
"I am Ho Chang, your valet. It will be some while before the T'ang can see you. Meanwhile I shall prepare you for your audience."
Kennedy made to say something, but Ho Chang shook his head. "Wu Shih has given specific orders. You must do exactly as I say."
Kennedy smiled inwardly, understanding at once how things stood. Beneath the perfect manners ran a streak of raw hostility. Ho Chang did not like him. Nor did he mean to like him.
He let himself be bathed and dressed. The cut of the silks felt strange; far stranger than he had thought they would feel. They were elaborate and heavy, like the silks the Minor Families wore, and he felt overdressed in them. As he stood there, studying himself in the mirror, Ho Chang fussed about him, taking great care to mask his natural smell with scents.
"The very smell of you offends our noses," Ho Chang said bluntly, in response to Kennedy's unspoken query. "You smell like babies. Your skin . . ." He wrinkled his nose. "It stinks of milk."
Kennedy laughed, as if he took it as a joke, but beneath his laughter he felt real anger. Unlike many of his kind, he took great care not to touch milk products. Why then should Ho Chang insult him, unless as a foretaste of the audience to come? Was that why he had been summoned here: to be humiliated?
Ho Chang took him through to an antechamber, a great cavernous place where shadows lay on every side and dragon pillars rose up into the darkness overhead. There, insisting that Kennedy kneel, he lectured him on the proper etiquette to be followed. It was all very different from the first time he had met Wu Shih. This time full protocol was called for. He would kneel on the stone before the raised dais and strike the floor with his forehead three times. Not looking up at the great T'ang, he would stand, then repeat the process, prostrating himself three times in all before Wu Shih. This, the son kuei chiu k'ou, was the ultimate form of respect as laid down in'the ancient Book of Ceremonies; a form reserved only for the Sons of Heaven.
And afterward? Afterward he would stay there, on his knees before Wu Shih, not daring to lift his head and look upon his master until the T'ang permitted. Nor would he speak. Not unless Wu Shih said he might.
For a long time they waited there in the cool penumbral silence. Waited until Kennedy felt certain that this, too, was deliberate; a ploy to make him understand his own insignificance in the scheme of things. Then, finally, it was time. Ho Chang led him to the great doors and, bowing once, moved back, leaving him there. Slowly the doors eased open. At once Kennedy knelt, as he'd been shown and, lowering his head, shuffled forward until he came to the foot of the steps.