She moved past him, looking into the room, then drew back, shuddering, meeting Hsao Yen's eyes almost fearfully. "He did that?"
Hsao Yen nodded. He made to strike the fallen man again, but Ywe Hao stopped his hand, speaking to him gently. "I understand, Hsao Yen. But let's do this-' properly, neh? After all, that's what we came here for. To put an end to this."
Hsao Yen looked down at the bloodied figure beneath him and shivered, "All right. As you say."
She nodded, then looked past him, torn by what she saw. "And the boy? He's dead, I take it."
Hsao Yen shuddered, his anger transformed suddenly to pain. "How could he do that, Chi Li? How could he do that to a child?"
She shook her head, unable to understand. "I don't know, Hsao Yen. I simply don't know."
They were lined up beside the pool when she returned, three dozen of them, servants included. The masked figures of the Yu stood off to one side, their automatic pistols raised. She had two of their number hold up their beaten fellow, then went down the line, separating out the servants.
"Tu Li-shan, Rooke . . . take them through to the kitchens. I want them gagged and bound. But don't harm them. Understand?"
Ywe Hao turned back, facing the remaining men. There were twenty-three of them. Less than she had hoped to find here. Looking down the line she noted the absence of several of the faces from the files. A shame, she thought, looking at them coldly. She would have liked to catch them all; every last one of the nasty little bastards. But this would do.
"Strip off!" she barked angrily, conscious that more than half of them were naked already, then turned away, taking the thickly wadded envelope from within her tunic. These were the warrants. She unfolded them and flicked through, taking out those that weren't needed and slipping them back into the envelope, then turned back, facing them again.
They were watching her, fearful now, several of them crying openly, their limbs trembling badly. She went slowly down the line, handing each of them a single sheet of paper; watching as they looked down, then looked back up at her again, mouths open, a new kind of fear in their eyes.
They were death warrants, individually drafted, a photograph of the condemned attached to each sheet. She handed out the last, then stood back, waiting, wondering if any of them would have the balls at the last to say something, to try to argue their way out of this, perhaps even to fight. But one glance down the line told her enough. Hsao Yen was right. They were insects. Less than insects.
For a moment she tried to turn things around; to see it from their viewpoint; maybe even to elicit some small trace of sympathy from deep within herself. But there was nothing. She had seen too much; read too much: her anger had hardened to something dark, impenetrable. They were evil, gutless little shits. And what they had done here—the suffering they had caused—was too vast, too hideous, to forgive.
Ywe Hao pulled the mask aside, letting them view her face for the first time, letting them see the disgust she felt, then walked back to the end of the line and stood facing the first of them. Taking the paper from his shaking hands, she began, looking directly into his face, not even glancing at the paper, reciting from memory the sentence of the Yu Inner Council, before placing the gun against his temple and pulling the trigger.
fifth BELL was sounding as Wang Sau-leyan stood at the head of the steps, looking down into the dimly lit cellar. It was a huge, dark space, poorly ventilated and foul smelling. From its depths came a steady groaning, not from one but from several sources; a distinctly human sound, half-articulate with pained confession. The semblance of words drifted up to him, mixing with the foul taste in his mouth, making him shudder with distaste and spread his fan before his face.
Seeing him there, Hung Mien-lo tore himself away from the bench and hurried across.
"Chieh Hsia," he said, bowing low. "We are honored by your presence."
The T'ang descended the uneven steps slowly, with an almost finicky care. At the bottom he glared at his Chancellor, as if words could not express the vulgarity of this.
It was old-fashioned and barbaric, yet in that lay its effectiveness. Torture was torture. Sophistication had nothing to do with it. Terror was of the essence. And this place, with its dank, foul-smelling miasma, was perfect for the purposes of torture. It stank of hopelessness.
The bench was an ordinary workman's bench from an earlier age. Its hard wooden frame was scrubbed clean, and four dark iron spikes—each as long as a man's arm—jutted from the yellow wood, one at each corner, the polished metal thick at the base, tapering to a needle-sharp point. The prisoner's hands and feet were secured against these spikes with coils of fine, strong chain that bit into the flesh and made it bleed. Across his naked chest a series of heated wires had been bound, pulling tight and searing the flesh even as they cooled, making the prisoner gasp and struggle for each breath; each painful movement chafing the cutting wires against the blood-raw flesh.
One eye had been put out. Burned in its blackened socket. The shaved head was crisscrossed with razor-fine scars. Both ears had been severed. All four limbs were badly scarred and bruised, broken bone pushing through the skin in several places. There were no nails on hands or feet and the tendons of each finger had been cut neatly, individually, with a surgeons skill. Lastly, the man's genitals had been removed and the amputation sealed with a wad of hot tar.
Wang Sau-leyan looked, then turned away, moving his fan rapidly before his face, but Hung Mien-lo had seen, mixed in with the horror and the revulsion, a look of genuine satisfaction.
The prisoner looked up, his one good eye moving between the two men. Its movements seemed automatic, lacking in curiosity, intent only on knowing where the pain would come from next. All recognition was gone from it. It saw only blood and heat and broken bone. Wang Sau-leyan, looking down at it, knew it from childhood. It was the eye of his father's Master of the Royal Household, Sun Li Hua.
"You have his confession?"
"Yes, Chieh Hsia," Hung answered, one hand resting lightly on the edge of the bench. "He babbled like a frightened child when I first brought him down. He couldn't take much pain. Just the thought of it and the words spilled from him like a songbird."
And yet he's still alive, Wang thought. How can he still be alive when all this has been done to him?
The thought brought him to a new realization, and his anger at the man's betrayal was softened by a new respect for him. Even so, he deserved no pity. Sun Li Hua had sold him to another. To Li Yuan, his enemy.
Just as he sold my father to me.
Wang leaned over and spat on the scarred and wounded body. And the eye, following the movement, was passive, indifferent to the gesture, as though to say, "Is that all? Is there to be no pain this time?"
They moved on, looking at the other benches. Some were less damaged than Sun Li Hua, others were barely alive—hacked apart piece by piece, like hunks of animal product on a butcher's table. They were all old and trusted servants; all long-serving and "loyal" men of his father's household. And Li Yuan had bought them all. No wonder the bastard had been able to anticipate him in Council these last few times.
Wang Sau-leyan turned, facing his Chancellor.
"Well, Chieh Hsia?" Hung Mien-lo asked. "Are you pleased?"
There was an unpleasant smile on the Chancellor's features, as if to say there were nothing he liked better than inflicting pain on others. And Wang Sau-leyan, seeing it, nodded and turned quickly away, mounting the steps in twos, hurriedly, lest his face betray his true feelings.
It was a side of Hung Mien-lo he would never have suspected. Or was there another reason? It was said that Hung and Sun had never got on. So maybe it was that. Whatever, there would come a time of reckoning. And then Hung Mien-lo would really learn to smile. As a corpse smiles.