The northeast was a wasteland in this regard, of course: soldiers and camp followers in the wind-scoured fortresses by the Long Wall, repressive cities (also wind-scoured) dominated by an ascetic aristocracy that saw the last three imperial dynasties as new arrivals, barely worth acknowledging.
Chenyao, however, was at the other end of the empire, and the Silk Road passed through it, becoming the imperial highway, bringing traders and trade goods into the market square and pleasure district of a prosperous, lively city.
Lying so far west, Chenyao also had a reputation for Sardian girls—the fair-haired, blue- or green-eyed goddesses from beyond the deserts, so very appealing in Ninth Dynasty Kitai.
One such woman was called Spring Rain, who was in Xinan, and whose name now appeared to be Lin Chang, and who belonged as a personal concubine to the new first minister of the empire.
There were a number of reasons, Tai decided, that it was past time for him to become extremely drunk.
One was a friend's death. He kept reclaiming images of Yan: laughing until he spluttered and choked in a wine-cup game in the North District, or studying on a bench next to Tai, in ferocious concentration, chanting under his breath to memorize a passage, or the two of them climbing a tower outside the walls during the Festival of Chrysanthemums, which was about friendship. And now this friend was lying in a lakeside grave beside the assassin who had killed him. The second reason for needing wine (good wine, one might hope) was that someone had tried to kill him and he didn't know who, or why.
The third was Rain.
She had foreseen her departure from the North District more than two years ago, had warned Tai about it. He hadn't believed it could happen—or had denied it to himself. Not the same thing.
Against his will, he found himself remembering a night in the Pavilion of Moonlight, Rain and three other girls entertaining the students, laughter and music in the largest room.
A silence had fallen. Tai's back had been to the doors.
He'd seen Rain glance over, and then—without the slightest hesitation—stand up and, carrying her pipa, walk away from them towards the man Tai saw in the doorway as he turned to watch her go.
Wen Zhou had not been first minister then. But he was wealthy, well-born... and a favourite cousin of the emperor's favoured concubine, which mattered most of all. He was a big man, handsome and knowing it, elegantly dressed.
He could have had any woman in Xinan sent to him. He'd wanted Rain. It amused him to come to her in the city, and there was no question of scholars claiming any kind of priority once such a man arrived—the idea was laughable.
Tai remembered that night, though it wasn't the only time. Zhou's gaze had flicked over the party of students before turning to Rain, accepting her graceful homage. She'd led him out, towards a private room.
Tai tried to sort out why that memory was the one that had returned, and decided it was because Zhou's gaze had actually held his a moment, a too-long moment, before looking away.
There was a poem by Chan Du about powerful men and women of the court enjoying a feast in Long Lake Park, suggesting that with certain men it was better if they never noticed you.
He'd been noticed that night.
He didn't want a yellow-haired girl in Chenyao.
He did need a woman, after so much time alone. And, he decided, assorted ghosts and malign spirits could choose amongst themselves which would torment the smug Kanlin Warrior he'd mistakenly hired at Iron Gate.
He'd arranged with the escort waiting outside the walls that he would call upon the prefect and the military governor—in that order—in the morning. They both wanted him tonight. He declined, politely.
Tonight was his own.
They were inside a city patrolled by soldiers, safe from roaming bandits—or spirit-world fox-women. He'd had Wei Song book the best available inn for the seven of them.
He'd also decided to keep the cavalrymen from Iron Gate. It was a small enough gesture of acknowledgement to Commander Lin, who had given him cash for the road, including the inn here, and what turned out to be a handsome room with a good-sized bed and sliding doors leading out to a garden.
Five guards from a border fortress were not going to link him too closely to the Second Military District when he got to the capital, but their presence with Tai might be of use to the commander who had assigned them.
There had been competing invitations from the welcoming party on the way into the city, to be the honoured house guest of both the men in power here: a competition that made it easier for Tai to take his own lodging. The governor was more powerful (they always were, these days) but the prefect had the title that signified in protocol, and Tai had studied in Xinan long enough to know how this matter needed to be dealt with, come morning.
THERE WERE GIRLS at his inn, of course, in a pavilion behind the first building, red lanterns hanging from the eaves there. One of the women, he noticed, when he strolled across the courtyard and looked in, was charming—or could that be due to his not having been close to a silk-clad woman in two years?
There was a pipa being played, and another girl with wide red sleeves was dancing. He stayed a few moments to watch in the doorway. But this was a comfortable inn, not the entertainment district, and Tai had been cheerfully advised by the escort sent out to meet him which of the courtesan houses was most likely to please a man of taste with some reserves of cash.
He left the inn to make his way there.
The night streets of Chenyao were crowded, lit by hanging lanterns on walls and carried by torches. That was something else he hadn't experienced for a long time: men pushing the darkness back, so the nights might hold more than fear. He wouldn't have denied feeling a measure of aroused anticipation.
In Xinan, nightfall marked the curfew, the city gates and those of each ward locked until the dawn drums, but this was a market town on the merchants' road and rules were slack here, of necessity. Men, many of them foreigners, emerging from the hardship of the long passage around the deserts, would not readily submit to limits on their movements when they finally arrived at a civilized place, knowing their journey was over.
They'd pay their duties and taxes, submit to inspection of goods, bribe clerks—and the prefect—as required, but they wouldn't stay in one place after dark.
There were enough soldiers in Chenyao, this close to the Taguran border, to ensure relative good order even if travellers were abroad at night. Tai saw clusters of soldiers here and there, but they looked relaxed, not oppressive. Moonlit carousing was encouraged here: men feasting and drinking spent money, left it in the city.
Tai was prepared to be one of those.
Music, graceful women dancing, good food and wine, and then a chosen girl, eyes dark with promise, the nearly forgotten scent of a woman, legs that could wrap themselves around him, a mouth and fingers skilled in provoking, in exploring... and a candlelit private room where he could begin to feel his way back into the world he'd left behind at Kuala Nor.
He was distracted, he would later decide, his thoughts running too far ahead through the noisy streets, or else he'd not have been so easily trapped.
He ought to have been alerted when the short laneway he turned down, following directions given, was suddenly not noisy, or thronged. He was alone, he realized.