"Of course! Of course you aren't," the poet murmured. "Forgive me, gracious lady. We'll bring a pipa player here. And perhaps just one girl, with cups and wine?"
"I think not," said Tai. "I believe that Wei Song will now escort the Lady Xu Liang back to her father's mansion. Is the boat waiting for you?"
"Of course it is," Liang said. "But my guards..."
Tai cleared his throat. "It appears, if Sima Zian is correct, and my Kanlin, that they may have encountered a spirit-world creature. I have no better explanation. We are told they are alive."
"I will return and watch over them myself," Song said, "and tell them when they wake that their lady is home and well."
"They won't believe you if I'm not here," Xu Liang said.
"I'm a Kanlin," said Song simply. "We do not lie. They will know that, if others, less experienced, do not."
The poet, Tai thought, looked ridiculously pleased by all of this.
Liang, he realized, was looking at him again, ignoring the other woman. Tai didn't entirely mind that. He was briefly tempted by the notion of agreeing with Zian, summoning music and wine.
But not really. His sister was a long way north, beyond the Wall by now. And tonight, here in Chenyao, men had—
"I did say earlier," Xu Liang murmured, eyes demurely downcast, "that my father had sent me. You have not asked why."
Indeed. Well, he'd had what seemed a good notion why.
"My apologies." He bowed. "Is it permitted for your servant to ask now?"
She nodded. "It is. My father wished to advise you privately that those two men, when encouraged to discuss their adventurism tonight, suggested only one name of possible significance before they each succumbed, sadly, to the exacting nature of the conversation."
She looked meaningfully at the poet, and then at Song on the porch. Tai understood. "One is my guard," he said. "The other my companion."
Liang inclined her head. She said, "The assassins were bandits from the woods south of here. The man they named lives in Chenyao. He, in turn, when invited for a conversation, was kind enough to offer another name—from Xinan—before lamentably expiring."
Tai was listening very closely. "I see. And that other name is?"
She was crisp, efficient. She said, "Xin Lun—a civil servant at court, we understand—was the name given. My honoured father offers his deepest regret that he was unable to be of greater assistance, but dares to hope this will be of some use to Master Shen."
Xin Lun. Again. Yan had spoken that name before he died. He'd been killed as he said it.
Lun. Drinking companion, fellow student, convivial and clever. Not a student any more, it seemed. If he was in the palace he'd passed the examinations while Tai was away. A card and dice player once, ballad singer at night, a lover of—as it happened—Salmon River wine. Wearing the robes of a mandarin now.
Because of Yan, it wasn't a revelation, not devastating news of betrayal. More a confirmation, an echo. He'd been waiting for a different name, perhaps two, behind these assassins... and had been deeply afraid to hear one of them spoken aloud.
He showed none of this in his face, he hoped.
He bowed to the governor's daughter. "My thanks to your father. And to you, gracious lady, bearing these tidings so late at night. I do understand why Governor Xu would not trust them to anyone else."
"Of course he wouldn't," she murmured.
She looked directly at him as she said it, then let that slow smile shape her lips, as if the guard and the poet weren't in the room. As if she and Tai were continuing a conversation interrupted earlier, and so unpleasantly, by another girl with a blade.
The other girl escorted her out the sliding doors and through the garden. Sima Zian walked them down to the river. Standing on the porch, Tai watched the three of them go towards the trees and the water beyond. He lost them in the dark, then saw the one man come back a short time later and head across towards the music again, head lifted, steps quickening, hearing it.
Tai waited in silence for a time, listening to the night. He caught the scent of flowers, citrus. There were peonies. A slight breeze from the north, towards the river. The stars that ended the night this time of year were rising.
"Daiji?" he called, greatly, recklessly daring.
He couldn't say why, but it felt as if there might be an answer to something, to part of this story, out in the garden.
Nothing stirred in the dark but fireflies. Flashing go the night-travellers. The old song about them. He thought of the tale of the poor scholar who could not afford oil for lanterns, gathering fireflies in a bag each evening, studying by their light. They used to joke about that story, in Xinan, the students. Chou Yan, Xin Lun, Shen Tai, the others.
There were other night-travellers tonight. He wondered where his sister was, where in a too-wide world. A hard pull upon the heart. His father was dead. This would not have happened, otherwise.
Deaths, even quiet ones, had consequences.
Three men had died in Chenyao tonight under questioning. For attempting to have him killed.
No movement in the garden, no approach to his call, his foolishness. He didn't believe there had been a fox-creature following him, though it was interesting that Wei Song seemed to fear them. He hadn't noticed her biting her lower lip that way before. He had thoughts about how those two guards had ended up unconscious.
Wind in leaves. Distant music. The bright, low star he'd seen before was still there. It felt as if a great deal of time had passed since he'd come into this room, but it wasn't so.
Tai didn't call again. He turned and went back inside. He washed and dried himself using the filled water basin and towel. He undressed, put out the three lights burning in the room, drew the sliding doors and hooked them shut. Some air came in through the slats, which was good. He closed the main door, which was still ajar.
He went to bed.
A little later, drifting towards sleep as to the shore of another country, he suddenly sat up in the nearly black room and swore aloud. He half expected to hear Song from the portico asking what was wrong, but she wouldn't be back from the governor's mansion yet.
They couldn't leave at sunrise. He'd just realized it.
It was not possible. Not in the empire of the Ninth Dynasty.
He had to visit the prefect tomorrow morning. Had to. They were to take a morning meal together. It had been arranged. If he didn't attend, if he simply rode off, it would bring lasting shame upon himself, and upon his father's memory.
Neither the poet nor the Kanlin would say a word to refute this. They wouldn't even think to try. It was a truth of their world, for good or ill. As much a part of it—this ritualized, unyielding, defining formality—as poetry was, or silk, or sculpted jade, palace intrigues, students and courtesans, Heavenly Horses, pipa music, or unburied tens of thousands upon a battlefield.
CHAPTER XII
They are walking east in the night, around the shore of the small lake, then ascending the slopes of the hills that frame it on the far side. No one has followed them. The wind is from the north.
Li-Mei looks back. The campfires glow. They seem fragile, precarious, in the vastness stretching in all directions. The firelit presence of men—some women are down there, but not her, not her any more—surrounded by all of night and the world.
It is cold in the wind. Swiftly moving clouds, then stars. Deerskin riding boots are better than jewelled slippers, but are not adequate to this steady walking. The wolves keep pace on either side. She is still trying not to look at them.