River of Stars

by Guy Gavriel Kay

  Let us fight them, Kitai will triumph!

  Only one army, his own, had held against the horsemen. The others had been crushed like grain under the stones of a mill, then scattered like husks in wind.

  The army had failed, not just the men at court with their little fingernails. Once, men might have sat in a wine shop and debated how this had come to be. Was there anything more pointless, when you were in the midst of the calamity, with more to come?

  He comes to her when he can, over the wall at night, through the courtyard, and up to her balcony. It is as if they are in a song or a poem, but this is not a place for singing.

  She can see he is not sleeping well, if at all. After they make love, he does seem able to rest sometimes, his features sliding back towards youthfulness when his eyes close beside her.

  She lies awake and looks at him, or sometimes traces, in fear and wonder, the daiji’s markings on his back. The words of his destiny—or the spirit world’s amusement or revenge?

  He had resisted a fox-woman, stayed among them here, in this time, because of her. Because of Lin Shan, daughter of Court Gentleman Lin Kuo, who has been accused many times of being a disgrace to her sex, to the decreed and accepted principles of their time.

  She is loved. It is the strangest of all sensations in the world.

  He told her, tonight, before collapsing into sleep, that in the morning he will enter the palace to say something that may end his time as a commander of their forces here. Or end his life. He has asked her to ensure he is awake before sunrise so he can be gone from her chamber unseen.

  He is trying to protect her reputation, her privacy, her existence.

  “I would do it better, of course, by staying away,” he’d said some nights ago, on this bed, after she’d told him she knew that was what he was doing.

  “I need you here,” she’d replied.

  She wonders if her husband and father realize the thing she has deduced by now.

  The soldiers collecting the treasure of Hanjin have reached the clan compound. They have set up in the largest square, and people are expected to bring their silver, gold, gems, jade, coins. The collectors have begun going from house to house, searching for what might have been kept back. Hanjin is being sacked by its own people.

  Shan has already taken them her jewellery and silver, wedding gifts from the Qi family, and her own more recent gifts from the emperor (the old emperor). Qi Wai has carried out their strongboxes of cash, and her father took them his own.

  Only her lapis earrings, not valuable but a link to her mother, has she kept back. She’s placed them on the altar in their front room. Perhaps when the house is searched, items on an altar will be respected, especially if they aren’t worth much.

  But the thing she’s grasped is that they have not been searched.

  It is widely known that Qi Wai and his unusual wife have a collection of precious objects. Wai has been in agony, expecting the soldiers and civil officers, the dismantling of the collection. He has spoken wildly of arming the servants, wielding a sword.

  But no one has come.

  Shan had walked out some days ago, wrapped against a cutting wind, to the storage warehouse they’d been granted by the emperor who admired her songs and her calligraphy.

  Snow had been falling, slantwise, stinging. It was getting near to the New Year’s celebrations. No plans were being made. There would be no fireworks this year.

  The lock on the warehouse door was intact. There was a symbol on the wall above and beside it. The character for “fox.” She stayed for a time, thinking, then the cold had forced her to move on. Arriving home, she looked up and saw the same symbol to the right of their front door, small, high up. You needed to be looking for it.

  No one has touched their collection; no one has entered the house.

  She looks at the man sleeping beside her. They hadn’t made love tonight. He was so weary he’d stumbled and almost fallen entering from the balcony. He’d declined when she offered wine. She’d taken off his boots and sword, removed his tunic, made him lie down on her bed, slipped in beside him.

  There is always desire when she sees Daiyan, she’s had to learn to deal with that new thing in herself. But there is a deeper truth. She loves, as well as being loved.

  He had fallen asleep almost immediately. He has not moved. Shan watches the rise and fall of his breathing. She wants to guard him.

  She wakes him, instead, as promised, watches him dress and go out into the starry dark. It is cold in her room. There is no firewood any more, it is being used to burn the dead.

  The prime minister of Kitai finds himself wishing he were a braver man. Physical courage, however, has never been a part of his training, or what he’s needed to prosper.

  The skills a man has needed to rise in Kitai these days are very different. The ability to memorize the classics for the examinations, to write of them intelligently (and with an elegant brush). To cultivate the right mentors and allies. To understand the lines of power at court. To seize an opportunity when it presents itself.

  There had been courage needed during the faction wars. You were aware that if an emperor chose the wrong party you would be exiled by triumphant enemies, and impoverished, or worse.

  He also knows that his recurring vision—of walking out through one of the gates and into the Altai camp, surrendering himself—would achieve nothing at all.

  The barbarians aren’t about to abandon a siege simply because the man who sent arrogant demands appears among them to be killed or displayed in mockery back north. And besides (he also thinks) his demands last summer were only made because the emperor wanted them to be. He can almost persuade himself of that.

  It is certainly what they have told the Altai: that the old emperor has resigned in shame, has admitted his folly. His son, the serene and illustrious Emperor Chizu, has a different understanding of the way of things. He wishes to acknowledge the dignity and importance of the great Altai people and their esteemed emperor, Yan’po. Also, of course, Emperor Yan’po’s honoured commanders, the brothers Wan’yen and Bai’ji.

  The new emperor of Kitai has confided, in another letter written by the prime minister, that he would never have made such intemperate demands regarding lands Kitai had lost long ago.

  Emperor Chizu desires to make redress for his father’s errors and to live in celestial harmony with the new lords of the vast north. Kai Zhen had rather admired the elegance of his own last turn of phrase there.

  But only briefly. It is a lingering foolishness to think in this way. As if a turn of phrase matters. As if barbarians can grasp it, or care.

  And the same vanity applies to any idea of heroically sacrificing himself. There will be nothing heroic about what is coming to Hanjin. It is likely, however, that his death will be demanded. If not by the Altai, then by those still standing outside the palace gates.

  This morning they are to receive the most current report on the treasure being gathered. It is hardly necessary. There won’t be enough. They are unlikely to reach even a quarter of the terms they have agreed to meet.

  Before the recording officials are ushered in, however, a different name is announced, and a man the prime minister hates comes into the throne room.

  The room is still warmed by fires, perhaps the only adequately heated space in the city. Kai Zhen watches this man remove a cloak and hand it to a guard. The guard bows respectfully.

  Ren Daiyan is armed, the prime minister sees. That sword he claims to have invented (something to do with horses), and a bow and quiver. He is famed for his archery. Can a skilled archer shoot himself? the prime minister wonders, acidly.

  He is too tired to summon any real anger. The commander looks tired as well. Not as young as when Kai Zhen first saw him, in this room in springtime—when Ren Daiyan brought the message that killed Wu Tong. The tree. That foolish, unnecessary tree.

  He’d made a point of learning some things about the man after that encounter. An inconsequential family, an ou
tlaw for years in the marshes near the Great River. Illustrious background! Once, that history might have been a weapon to use against him. Not any more. They were recruiting outlaws now. Swords and bows.

  Ren Daiyan stops in the proper place and performs his first bows to the new emperor.

  Once, coming anywhere near this room while armed would have caused his arrest and probable execution. Now, it is a reflection of Commander Ren’s duties and rank, and what has come upon them this winter. He is the only man the Altai are reported to fear, since that battle north of Yenling.

  Because of that, this man, Kai Zhen thinks, watching the commander approach and perform the obeisances, is probably also as good as dead. The tribes of the grasslands are said to have inventive ways of killing those they most hate. The thought does not improve his own state of mind.

  DAIYAN REMEMBERED the throne room. It had changed, however. Most of the artifacts were gone. Even the paintings had been taken from the walls—though those surely weren’t being seized for the barbarian treasure.

  Then he understood: they’d been the father-emperor’s own artwork. His son was removing them. The throne was what it had been, and the painted screens behind it: rocky landscapes, river gorges, birds flying, tiny fishing boats at the very bottom. On the Dragon Throne sat Emperor Chizu, about the same age as Daiyan. Chizu was smooth-chinned, round-faced under his black cap.

  An array of advisers and younger princes stood behind him. The prime minister was nearest the emperor, on his left side. Daiyan waited to be recognized.

  The emperor remained watchfully silent. It was Kai Zhen who spoke. “You have matters to share with the court, Commander Ren?”

  A smooth voice, as ever, but the man was visibly under strain. Daiyan said, carefully, “I do, Minister Kai.” He faced the throne. “Thank you for receiving me, most serene Lord of the Five Directions.”

  It occurred to him that they were using titles of supreme grandeur as wards or talismans against the shrinking truth.

  Chizu still did not speak. Daiyan realized he had never heard him say a word. The emperor nodded, though, graciously enough. Daiyan took a breath.

  “Serene lord, I have come from the warehouses where the wealth of Hanjin is being gathered.” He paused. The fires crackled. The warmth was seductive after the harsh cold everywhere else.

  He said the first thing he had come to say: “It is the counsel of your military commanders, my lord, that we stop collecting it now. We abuse our people no more. We send what we have to the barbarians and that is all.”

  “They will not accept it.” The emperor’s voice was light, quick, precise.

  “They will not, my lord. Your servant humbly agrees. But there is nothing we can do that will meet the terms imposed. They will not accept any treasure we send out as being sufficient. And in the meantime we are destroying the will and courage of our people.”

  “We need the gold, commander. We have accepted terms.”

  “Terms we know cannot be met, gracious lord. We will ravage our city, turn household against household, servants against masters, execute people for hidden bracelets, and the horsemen will still come when it is done. And, gracious lord, we know what else they will demand. We all know.”

  “Say it,” said the emperor of Kitai. Which was unfair, except that an emperor didn’t have to be fair.

  And so Daiyan did. One of the things that had been destroying his nights. He lifted his voice, making sure it was steady. “The barbarians will assign a value to our people. To artisans of all kinds. They will claim them as slaves, chain them, and march them north. Many will die on the way. If they take enough, they can lose a few. Like their horses.” Bitterness, the need to be careful.

  “Every man,” said Emperor Chizu, “owes a duty to the state. No one alive is free of burdens.”

  Daiyan looked at him a moment, then lowered his eyes. He said, “My lord, they will also attach values to our women. As slaves, to be taken away. So much for a serving girl, so much for a courtesan.” He stopped, made himself go on. “So much for a well-bred woman, for one of the imperial clan, for a woman of the court. Wives and daughters. A great deal for a princess. Your sisters. There will be a very high value for those.”

  The only sound was the fires.

  “A woman,” said the emperor of Kitai eventually, his voice still calm, “also has a duty to the state. We have ... our ancestors sent women north before, princesses to be wed.”

  “By the thousands, my lord? Enslaved?” His voice had risen.

  “Have a care, Commander Ren!” said the prime minister.

  “Remember where you are.”

  “I know exactly where I am!” Daiyan snapped. “I am in the throne room of the empire of Kitai which is the centre of the world.”

  Chizu was gazing at him. He was a smaller man than his father, sat slumped in the great chair as if weighted down. “The centre of the world,” he repeated. “And so instead of these things you describe, commander, you would have us do what?” He knew what he wanted to say. He had come here knowing.

  “I would have us fight, illustrious lord.”

  There was a murmuring, mostly fearful.

  He said, “Great emperor, Hanjin is not all of Kitai. What happens here will shape what happens throughout the empire in the time to come. If we are defiant, we kindle a spark. A memory of courage. The barbarians are far from home, they don’t like siege warfare. And they will soon hear of trouble behind them to the north, with their armies here, not on the grasslands holding what they have only just taken from the Xiaolu.”

  “And how do you know this?” It was the prime minister, his voice harsh.

  “Any good soldier knows it,” said Daiyan. He was half lying, trying to make himself believe it was true. “Power in the steppe must be defended or it will be taken away. The Altai can easily lose what the Xiaolu lost! The other tribes will not love them, only fear them—and only if they are present. There will be fighting behind them. Depend on it.”

  Silence. He pushed on. “And our own people ... if we offer an honourable example they, too, will resist. There are past a hundred million of our people, great lord! This is not just about our own lives, our own time, great lord.” He lowered his head. He was close to tears. It was the exhaustion, he told himself.

  “And so what is it you want? We send what treasure we have now and say that is all, go home?” The emperor’s face was intent, sharp.

  Daiyan lifted his head. “My lord, your commanders propose something else. We send the treasure, yes. But we tell them more is being gathered. We keep them here, waiting. Hanjin is cold and hungry, but most of us can survive, if we ration carefully. We keep the Altai out there in winter as long as we can, without fighting.”

  “And then?”

  “And then we do fight, my lord. Half of my army can come this way from Yenling. Men can get through to them with messages. The messenger birds can fly past arrows if they are released at night. I know my officers in the west. They have been working to gather the forces broken above Xinan. We still hold Yenling, my lord! We can send a good-sized army this way and those of us here can break out from our gates when that army comes. We can—”

  “No,” said the emperor of Kitai, and then again, “No,” and it was remarkable how much finality a voice could hold when it spoke from a throne.

  CHAPTER XXII

  Two guards escorted Daiyan from the throne room of Kitai. Beyond the double doors they walked along hallways and through antechambers empty except for other guards, and then they came to the great doors that were opened to let them out into winter.

  He stood at the top of the wide stairs and looked down on the palace grounds. It was a bright morning, the sun shining on a dusting of snow. There was an enormous square in front of him, buildings on three sides. The palace had been designed for splendour, power, majesty, to overawe.

  Four guards marched over from their right. The original pair saluted and turned back. Daiyan wasn’t impressed with the salutes,
but these weren’t his men.

  The new ones led him on. He was still bitter. He didn’t speak, neither did they. They went down the stairs, past stone dragons at the bottom, crossed the square in a cutting wind under a blue sky. The snow drifted across the ground. There were curved bridges over artificial streams. The water was frozen, he saw. He remembered winters in the marsh, a long time ago.

  They led him up the stairs into the next building instead of along the crooked pathway around it. To be out of the wind, he thought. He was wrong.

  Just inside, one of his escorts stopped.

  “Your presence is requested,” he said, and gestured.

  There was a door slightly ajar. No one else was here. It was a ceremonial building, for rituals of the Sacred Path. All the clerics—the ones who hadn’t fled—were probably gathered in one room allowed a fire, Daiyan thought. There would have been precious objects in here. They’d been taken away, gathered for the Altai.

  It occurred to him to decline, but there was no reason to do that. He had no idea who wanted to meet him here. After what had just happened, it didn’t seem to matter. Their course was set, like stars.

  He walked across to the partially open door. He entered the room. It was an interior chamber, quite dark, with no lamps lit. He closed the door behind him.

  He turned around, his eyes adjusting, and then, quickly, he bowed—three times, then three times again—and he remained on his knees on the dusty floor.

  “That is not necessary any longer,” said the father-emperor of Kitai. “Stand, please, Commander Ren. We ... I wish to speak with you.”

  They were entirely alone. Daiyan worked to control his breathing. His heart was pounding, even though this was the man whose inattention to matters of the world had—as much as anything else—brought them to this shivering, starving state, with invaders at their gates.

  But you didn’t think of an emperor that way.

  Wenzong was seated on a chair in the middle of the almost empty room. Two long, bare tables along the walls. Nothing hanging, nothing covering the floor. He was wrapped in furs and wore a hat with flaps that covered his ears. There was no fire.