"Yes, Barlow?"
"Why is this happening? I mean . . . why didn't Li Yuan crush the White T'ang when he could?"
Karr sighed. "A good question. But not one for us to ask. We are but our Master's hands, neh?"
Barlow stared at him briefly, surprised by the tone of his words. "Have we ... lost, sir?"
"Lost? No, lad. Things aren't that bad." But it wasn't what he believed. News had come only an hour back of Tsu Ma's death—news he had kept from his troops, lest it demoralize them. Closer to home, it was said that the old Marshal was sick, on his deathbed. Soon there would be no one left. Soon there would only be darkness—darkness and ghosts.
And as for Marie and May . . . well, maybe they would be safer in Astrakhan, but the news of their evacuation from Tongjiang had troubled him far more than he'd believed possible. Safe? No. No one was safe anymore.
In any case, it doesn't really matter, he thought. For this is the end. All this—this drawing of lines . . . we're only going through the motions. Fill' ing our own territory with stones. For the truth is he's already won. "Sir?"
He looked to Barlow again, then reached out and brushed his hair back from his eyes, as if it were his son. "Yes, lad?"
"How long do you think we have?"
"Daddy?"
Tolonen stirred in his bed, then turned his head, looking across the darkly shadowed room toward the door.
"Jelka?" he asked weakly. "Is that you?"
She went across and knelt beside the bed, clasping his good hand— the hand that was flesh and blood—between her own.
"Oh, Daddy . . . what have you been up to now?"
He laughed softly; laughter that quickly degenerated into a hacking cough. She waited, looking anxiously at the doctor who hovered silently on the far side of the bed.
It's okay, he mouthed, smiling reassuringly.
She looked back at her father. He was old—that was a fact—yet never before now had he looked old. He had always been so healthy, so . . . robust. To see him like this pained her, and for all that Kim had argued with her about it, she still saw it as her fault. She had done this to him. She and her stubbornness.
"How are you?" she asked, reaching up to smooth his brow.
"Just fine," he said, his gray eyes searching hers. "Not a day's sickness in all my life, and suddenly . . ."
She pressed his head back gently where it had come up from the pillow. "They say you must rest. They say you must take things easy and not worry."
"Worry?" He laughed bleakly. "Did you hear? They're talking of evacuating Bremen . . . Bremen! Aiya!"
"Daddy . . . please. It will do no good. You have to forget what's happening. You can do nothing."
"You think I do not know that?" He turned his head aside, then sniffed deeply, a look of bitter shame on his face. "I have never let him down. Never . . . until now."
She squeezed his hand tightly, touched by his display of loyalty. It was true what he said. Whereas she . . .
"Is he here?"
Jelka sighed. "No, Daddy. I came alone."
He closed his eyes and nodded, then placed his other hand—the hand of golden metal—over hers. She stared at it, trying not to flinch from it—from that part it had always seemed to represent—that cold, inflexible part of him.
"I've come to stay," she said quietly. "I've come to nurse you."
His head turned back, his eyes flicked open. "For good?"
It was hard to meet his eyes and disappoint him, yet she knew she must. "Until you're well again. Kim says—"
"Damn you, girl!" he yelled hoarsely, lifting himself from the pillow. "Don't even speak his name in my presence! I—"
He gave a shudder, as if he were about to have another fit, then lay back again, glancing at his doctor. "I'm sorry, I ... I forgot myself there. I must rest, I know."
She moved back slightly, letting the doctor fuss about him a moment, checking his pulse and his blood pressure, then leaned close again, giving him a smile.
"Let's not fight, eh? Let's be friends. . . ."
"You're all I have, Jelka. All the others . . . they're dead. Klaus Ebert, Hal Shepherd, Li Shai Tung . . . Dead, every last one of them. The world . . . it's like there's nothing here but ghosts. Excepting you, my love. Excepting you."
She felt her stomach muscles tighten, felt the tears begin to well in her eyes; yet at the same time she knew what he was doing; knew that this too—true as it was—was another battle for him. To win her, that was his aim. And to defeat his enemy, her lover, Kim.
"I love you, Daddy," she said, the tears beginning to trickle down her cheeks. "Never doubt that. Never doubt that for a moment. But I love him, too, and I have to be with him."
He stared at her, silently, his eyes accusing her.
"Can't you see? Don't you see how easy it would all be if you just stopped this silliness? Why can't you just accept him, eh? Then we could be together ... all of us. We could take you to Kalevala—"
"No!" he roared, sitting up, his face suffused with sudden anger. "You'll not have him! You won't! You—"
She saw the surprise in his face, the look of shock that came into his eyes, the way his hands clutched at his chest.
"Oh, gods . . ." she whispered, frightened. "Please no . . ."
Then there was shouting in the room, doctors hurrying about. In a daze she found herself lifted to her feet and led away.
"It'll be all right," someone was saying reassuringly. "He needs rest, that's all. All this excitement . . ."
But as she was led from the room, she could still hear his murmuring. "You won't have him! You won't. ..."
LI YUAN embraced his cousin, then turned, introducing the senior members of his staff who had traveled with him from Tongjiang.
"I am glad you came," Tsu Tao Chu said, when they were alone again. "The situation . . ."
Li Yuan touched his arm, understanding. Tao Chu had not been born to rule. The deaths of his half-brother and his uncle had come as a double blow. Nor had he been given any time to prepare himself for such a mighty responsibility. All this was new to him. Even so, he was a good, upstanding young man. If anyone could shoulder such a burden, Tsu Tao Chu could, surely?
"It is okay, Tao Chu. Together we shall make sense of this, neh?"
Tao Chu smiled. "I have prepared the Northern Palace for your people, Yuan. If that is insufficient—"
"It will be fine," Li Yuan said quickly. "But before I do anything else, I must pay my last respects to your uncle."
"Of course."
Tao Chu led him through, past grieving servants and into a dark, cool hall in which the funeral bier had been set up, the casket open to the air. Li Yuan went across and stood there over it, looking down at his old friend, finding it hard to believe that he was dead. The poison had left its mark on Tsu Ma. His face seemed much older than Yuan remembered it, and the hair—the hair was almost gray. He sighed, then turned to Tao Chu again.
"Have you found out yet who did this thing?"
"I have the man. I racked him, made him sing."
Li Yuan stared at Tao Chu, surprised by the unexpected hardness in his voice and face.
"And his Master?"
"You know his Master well, cousin Yuan. Your armies fight him even now."
Li Yuan gave a tiny nod, then looked back. For some reason the memory of an evening, years before, came back to him—of Tsu Ma and himself in a boat on the lake at Tongjiang, with Fei Yen and her cousin, Yin Wu Tsai, the lanterns dancing in the darkness. What a night that had been. What a beautiful, entrancing night.
He grimaced, then turned away, torn between the jealousy he felt— the anger at Tsu Ma's betrayal—and the love he'd had for him.