Chi Hsing hesitated, then bowed lower, placing his forehead to the ground miserably. "Then I shall do as you ask."
LI YUAN STOOD on the balcony outside his dead wives' rooms, a thick cloak draped about his shoulders. It was dark and chilly. Overhead a thin, ragged cloud blew fitfully across the sky. Through screens of leafy vine the light of the crescent moon cast a mottled silver over everything.
Kuei Jen was sleeping. Tseng-li had been sent home to his brothers. Below Li Yuan, in the palace grounds, a doubled guard patrolled silently. Only he, it seemed, was restless. He turned, sighing, and looked back into the empty, silent rooms, remembering.
How strange it was. Before, if he had been asked, he would have said that it was not love he felt for them, more a kind of warm familiarity, a feeling of physical comfort, and he might have smiled wistfully and shaken his head, as if puzzled by the question. But now he realized just how foolish he had been. How childish. Only now, through grief and loss of them, did he finally understand just how much they had meant to him.
Love. How clearly his father's words came back to him now. Love was the thing that failed. Love ... a thing too insubstantial, too fragile to hold and keep, and yet, in the end, there was nothing stronger, nothing more real than love.
He shuddered, then stretched, feeling tired beyond words. In the greater world huge changes were taking place even at that moment. Under Wu Shih's direction, Chi Hsing was standing down and a Governor was being appointed to run the Australian continent. Yet those changes, great as they were, seemed as nothing compared to the changes in his heart. There was no measuring such changes. They blotted out the stars themselves, casting vast, dark shadows on the perceiving eye.
Yes, he thought, bowing his head. Death not Love is master of this uiorld.
As he stood there, looking in at the empty rooms, small memories of them returned to him. Against the emptiness he saw his second wife, Lai Shi, turn and look across at him, laughing, that strange, flirtatious movement of her mouth, special to her alone, making him smile. Beyond her, the youngest, Fu Ti Chang, sat reading an old romance, her jet-black hair like a fine veil over the pallor of her face. As she turned to face him he caught his breath, finding the innocence of her dark eyes suddenly quite beautiful. And if he turned, he could see Mien Shan, there on the far side of the room, the great mirror behind her, smiling as she cradled her son and gently sang to him. How much he had liked that curious pursing of her lips when she sang. How much he missed it now.
The memories faded, vanished. Empty rooms, he thought. That's all I have now. Empty rooms.
He placed his hand against his neck, the warmth of his fingers strange against the night-chilled flesh. He pressed, then gently tugged at it, feeling the strength of muscle, the hardness of the bone beneath; all of it so tenuous, so transient. All of it dust before the wind. Perhaps, then, it was best to go as they had gone, in one brief and sudden burst of pain. Pain, and then . . . nothingness.
"Best. . ." he said softly, letting his hand fall away, and gritting his teeth against the sudden upsurge of feeling. Best? Who knew what was best? And yet he was charged to know—or, at least, to seem to know. It was what made his grief so different. So special. And yet it was only grief, for all that, no different from the grief of countless millions who had suffered since the dawn of Man.
But was grief all? Was there no more to it than this? Li Yuan drew the cloak tighter about his shoulders, then offered the words to the chill and silent air.
"Must it always be like this? Must the heart become a stone?" He stood there for a long time after that, feeling a kind of disgust for what he was. Then, abruptly, he crossed the room and went through to where Kuei Jen was sleeping and woke his nurse, telling her to prepare the child to travel.
/P>
fei yen MET HIM in the Great Room at Hei Shui. He had given her no notice of his coming and she had had no time to ready herself. She had thrown a pale blue gown about her and tied back her long, black hair, but her face was unmade, her nails unpainted. It was years since he had seen her look so natural. Hesitantly, her face showing deep puzzlement, she crossed the room to him, then knelt at his feet, her head bowed, awaiting his command.
"YouVe heard?" he asked her softly.
She gave the smallest nod, then was still.
"I. . ."he looked about him, conscious of the guards by the door, the nurse behind him, holding Kuei Jen. Abruptly, he turned and dismissed them. Then, bending down, he lifted her chin and made her look at him. "I have to talk to you. I..."
Her eyes, always the most beautiful thing about her, robbed him of words. For a moment he knelt there, close to her, conscious of her warm, sweet smell, of her nakedness beneath the gown, and wanted only to hold her; to close his eyes and hold on tight to her.
She moved back, away from him. "Why?"
Her eyes looked briefly at his hand where it yet hovered, awkward, between their faces, then met his own again, their intensity surprising him.
He drew his hand back, looking down. How explain what had made him come? It was more than sudden impulse, yet even he knew how unreasonable it seemed. This had ended years ago. And to come here now . . .
"What do you want, Li Yuan?"
Her voice was softer than before. He looked up at her, not knowing what to expect and found her watching him strangely, her eyes trying to fathom him.
"I thought. . ." she began, then fell silent. Her mouth had fallen open slightly, its wet softness there before him, as in his dreams.
"IVe been thinking of you," he said. "Of us."
He saw the pain in her face and, for the first time, understood what she had suffered; saw the emptiness that no number of casual lovers could fill. Slowly, tenderly, he reached out and touched her cheek.
"Don't," she said, but the slight pressure of her cheek against his fingers gave the lie to the word.
He shivered. "They're dead."
Again there was a moment's pain in her face, awful to see. Then she nodded. "Did you love them?"
His fingers grew still. "I did not think so. But I must have. It... it hurts."
She bowed her head. There were tears in her eyes now. "Is that why you are here? Because of them?"
He took a long, deep breath. "I do not know."
For a moment he thought of telling her of that moment earlier— out in the dark, beneath the moon—when he had seen things clear, then shook his head.
"No," he said at last. "It isn't that. Or not just that. I... I missed you."
"You missed me?" she said, a trace of her former bitterness surfacing. She saw him wince and at once was contrite. "Li Yuan, I. . ." She dropped her head, swallowed. "I am sorry. It is hard. Harder than I can bear some days."
He gave a single nod. "I know."
He looked at her more carefully now and saw the faint crow's feet about her eyes, the lines at mouth and neck and remembered that she was eight years his elder. His dead brother's wife, and once his own. But she was still beautiful. Still the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Again he wanted to kiss her and hold her, yet he felt constrained. Death came between them, darkening their understanding of how things were.
He stood, turning away from her. "I do not know what I want. I am confused. I thought... I thought that if I came here it would all come clear again. That maybe it would be as it was."
For the first time she laughed; a bitter, ugly sound. He turned, looking at her, and saw how all softness had gone from her face.
"Do you mean to be so cruel, Li Yuan, or is it still some sickly innocence that makes you so insensitive?"
"I didn't mean to ..."
"You never mean to. You just do."
She sat back, glaring at him, all humility gone from her now; more, suddenly, the woman he had known and lived with. His equal. Ever his equal. "Are you such a fool that you cannot see it?"