River of Stars

by Guy Gavriel Kay

  They were aware of what was happening in the north. They knew Xinan had fallen and that Yenling and Hanjin were besieged. Friends, the ones who hadn’t yet fled this way, sent letters, warnings, laments.

  Spirits could be swifter. Most spirits were not benevolent. He knew (he absolutely knew) that this one was.

  It seemed to have grown dark outside, he saw. He’d had his attention on his paper and brush. He didn’t write anything more in that winter twilight. He went looking for his brother.

  They were welcoming the new year. Of course they were. He was late, his son had been about to come get him. They celebrated quietly at East Slope, not as one did in the cities or even the villages.

  In Hanjin itself the emperor would normally lead a great procession to the Temple of Benevolent Auspices and the rituals of renewal would be performed, accompanied by the musicians of the court. After the emperor returned to the palace, fireworks and parades illuminated by round, red-paper lanterns would begin. Street performers and men with huge dragon masks would be everywhere. People would fill the streets all night to greet the year with joy.

  The poet stood in the doorway of his own reception room. He had no news from any earthly source. Only this inward sense from the spirit world. It would be wrong, he decided, unjust, to mar the household’s mood with that.

  He managed a smile of apology for being late. He knew he’d be forgiven, they were used to it. He was a man who could lose a day to words. He looked at his wife, at his family and his brother’s and their gathered servants and farm workers, many of them loyal through years of hardship. They were safe here, he thought. Surely they were.

  His heart, as he smiled at those he loved, as a year ended and a year began, was heavy as a stone at the bottom of a lake. That same night, from a wood near Hanjin, a small party started south with a prince of Kitai in their midst.

  Clouds remained all night and it would begin to snow again in the morning. Ziji queried splitting the party, southeast and southwest, to divide pursuit. Daiyan decided otherwise. It would split their own force, too, and they’d be outnumbered by too much, whatever size party was sent after them. Better to keep together.

  They had no doubt they’d be pursued. They were moving as fast as they could. Prince Zhizeng was not yet a problem, though he was likely to tire later. He was frightened—more obviously so now, Daiyan thought, than he’d seemed in the yurt. It was as if he’d accepted his fate back there, had not allowed himself to imagine freedom, and now that he could ...

  Men were so varied, he thought. Men and women. How could anyone claim to understand another person? Who could read a soul? He moved up at times from rear guard to ride beside Shan. They’d given her the gentlest horse they had, but this pace would be hard on her. He did know she’d ridden horses all her life, with her father, with her husband, searching for the past throughout Kitai.

  Her only words, whenever he came up, were, “I am all right. Do whatever must be done.” Each time, like the refrain of a song.

  He halted twice and food and drink were shared. Zhizeng first, offered by a kneeling soldier. But the prince was the one, both times, who urged them back into their saddles. His gaze, as they ate or as they rode, kept going over his shoulder, north into night, as if fearing the sudden appearance of riders, like demons.

  It was possible they’d be caught tonight. However hard they rode, they would never be as swift as the steppe horsemen. Ziji had picked his two best riders to go west, with orders for their waiting cavalry. Those two would not stop.

  Daiyan walked over to the prince at their second halt.

  “My lord,” he said formally, “I request permission to share our intentions, for your approval.” This was a man born to rank and luxury but not to power. He’d have to begin learning that last.

  “Go on, commander.”

  “I expect pursuit. With good fortune, not until morning.”

  “And without good fortune?”

  “They’ll be on their way now, tracking us.”

  “Then shouldn’t we be riding?”

  “Yes, lord. But horses and men must rest. We cannot ride a whole night straight through.”

  “The Altai can.”

  “Perhaps. But I don’t believe you can.”

  A silence. Perhaps not the best way to have put that.

  “Go on,” the prince said again.

  “We have cavalry to the west, from the army that holds Yenling. They were kept a distance away, to remain unseen. Riders have been sent to bring them this way. Half will try to intercept any pursuit. The others will meet us by a village we’ve chosen between here and the Wai.”

  “How many men?”

  “Fifteen hundred in each party.”

  “That ... that is a good number,” said the prince. “And they will escort us across the Great River?”

  Daiyan’s turn to be silent. He swallowed. “Our intention, my lord, was to head for Jingxian, summon our southern armies to meet us there. If we are to make a stand, drive the barbarians back when the weather—”

  “No,” said Prince Zhizeng of Kitai.

  He said it loudly. Nearby conversations stopped. Daiyan heard the horses as they snorted and shuffled. They were at the edge of a poplar grove, sheltered from the wind.

  The prince said, “No, Commander Ren. Those are not our desires, nor our commands. You are to escort us across the Great River. We wish to be safely removed from the barbarians. We will go to Shantong on the sea. We will command our army to defend the Great River’s southern bank, and summon officials from all prefectures to attend upon us at Shantong.”

  It was never entirely quiet in a night. Especially among a company of men. The sounds of horses, soldiers, trees in wind. But it felt quiet now. As if the stars were listening, Daiyan thought.

  “My lord,” he said slowly, searching for the right words, “the Altai are far from their homeland. They will have trouble already back in the Xiaolu lands, and holding our prefectures behind them. Our people will not easily submit. The people are courageous! They need only a sign, a signal from us—from you—that Kitai has a leader, a prince.”

  “They will have no leader in us, no prince, no emperor, if we are taken.”

  It had taken no time, Daiyan thought, for Zhizeng to assume the imperial we. His brother, his father, the rest of his family ... there was no way to know if they were alive right now. Perhaps the assumption of power came more easily than he’d thought.

  He tried again. “The barbarians will hate fighting in the south! We have land—rice fields, marshes, forests, hills—their horsemen cannot easily manage. And we know how to fight there. We will defeat them. And then move back north. Kitai depends on you, my lord.”

  “Then, Commander Ren, Kitai depends on you to keep us safe, doesn’t it? Shouldn’t we be riding?”

  You did whatever you did, whatever you could, Daiyan was thinking, and there came moments when the world would not unfold to your desires and designs—unless, perhaps, you forced it to. There was suddenly too much to think about.

  “Yes, my lord,” he said. He turned to give the order to mount up.

  “One more thing,” said Prince Zhizeng.

  Daiyan turned back, waiting in the dark.

  “We are grateful for what you did tonight. Our escape. It was well done, commander. We will expect you as a good soldier, as a loyal soldier of Kitai, to continue this. The larger decisions, whatever they are to be, are made by the court. That is not to change, Commander Ren.”

  There were also moments when certain things could be said—or not. He could say they were fleeing in a winter night from a burning city because decisions by the court ...

  He was a yamen clerk’s second son. This man was, as best any of them knew, the only prince of Kitai not dead or in captivity tonight.

  “Yes, my lord,” was what he said.

  He gave orders, as commanded, and they rode.

  He stayed mostly beside Shan for that part of the night. He was aware of her lookin
g at him, as if sensing his disquiet. Finally, she said, “There is only so much one man can do. We cannot steer the world, where it goes.”

  He didn’t know how she knew to say that. Perhaps some people could understand the thoughts of others? He didn’t answer, but he didn’t leave her side.

  Eventually, he said, quietly, “You shine for me like the brightest star of summer.”

  He heard her catch her breath.

  “Oh, dear. That one? I am so much not a goddess, not the Weaver Maid.”

  “For me you are,” he said. “And I don’t know if I will be allowed to steer across the stars to you.”

  He dropped back, to take up his proper position at rear guard, guarding her, guarding them all. They didn’t stop again until the first hint of morning appeared on their left.

  The Altai camp on the night of the fall of Hanjin, and into the afternoon and evening of the next day, was a place of drunken chaos. What else but savagery, historians later wrote, would one expect from barbarians?

  Women were indeed brought out from the city, along with terrified boys and men, and even some of the palace eunuchs, for sport. There was also a great deal of wine rolling out on wagons.

  The horsemen didn’t like Kitan wine, but it could get a man drunk, and the conquest of the imperial city was reason for drinking. Celebrations could turn violent, but men at war needed their release, any good commander knew that.

  The dead guards at the southwestern perimeter were not discovered until late in the morning. The tidings didn’t make their way to any functioning leader for some time. They were puzzling deaths, but no obvious action seemed to be demanded in the midst of triumph.

  Those posted near the dead watchmen had evidently abandoned their stations in the night. The city was taken, women and drink were coming out. What sort of man would stay on duty or report to his post at such a time?

  It wasn’t until evening, with snow falling again, that someone remembered that their Kitan captive would need food.

  It occurred to one of the higher-ranking leaders that it might offer good entertainment to make the prince watch them play with some of the women. None of the leaders in the camp, including the two brothers commanding them, were entirely sober. They’d had the rest of the imperial family rounded up by then—men and women, the young emperor and the older one. It had been easy.

  The dowager empress of Kitai and the younger one had, unfortunately, killed themselves in the palace before the riders reached the women’s quarters, making a liar of Bai’ji, who had sworn to have the young one while her husband watched. His brother, the war-leader, had pointed out that her body was available, eliciting much laughter, though not from Bai’ji.

  The three riders sent to the prisoner’s yurt, also laughing with anticipation, discovered that he was gone.

  There was a rip in the back of the yurt, made by a sword. There were four dead guards inside. There was a note on the prisoner’s pallet.

  It is untrue to say a man can be shocked into immediate sobriety, but the three men did move with speed—and apprehension—back to the place where their leaders were drinking. One of them carried the note. It remained rolled into a scroll, unopened. He held it carefully, as if it were poisoned. It might indeed be poisonous for him. Bearing bad tidings to a drunken leader was not a sound plan if one wished for a long life among the Altai.

  There was tumult when they reported their news. Wan’yen, the war-leader, not as drunk as most of those around him, stood up and came forward. He was given the scroll. He opened it. He could not, of course, read Kitan. It was some time, a tense, dangerous interval, before a translator was found.

  This man read the note by torchlight and then stood silent.

  “Go on,” said Wan’yen. The war-leader’s voice was frightening. His brother had also risen to his feet by then. Bai’ji held his famous skull-cup, filled with Kitan wine.

  “It is just defiance, great leader,” said the translator.

  “Go on,” repeated Wan’yen.

  Hearing that tone, the three men sent for the prince each felt deeply relieved that he could not read or speak Kitan.

  The man who could do so, a Xiaolu tribesman, cleared his throat. It could be seen that his hands were shaking.

  He read, a voice so low one had to strain to hear, “Your days and nights are short now. The sun will soon see your bones. There is no rest or home for you here. We can be among you any time we wish. Just as your army above Yenling found no mercy you will find none. You have taken the first steps towards your own destruction.”

  No one spoke for a time.

  “Who wrote this?” Wan’yen was standing very straight.

  The translator cleared his throat again. “It is signed by Commander Ren Daiyan. He is the one who—”

  Bai’ji killed him with a sword from behind, the blade going through the man’s body and out his belly. The red tip of the blade came, some noted, close to touching his own brother, standing in front of the interpreter.

  “We know who that dung-face is! He didn’t need to tell us.” Bai’ji drained his cup. He pulled his sword free with some effort. “Dung-face!” he said again, loudly.

  “Perhaps,” said his brother, who was holding no wine. “But he killed four of your own men picked to guard a hostage. I recall you requesting that detail. For the pleasure, you said.”

  “Don’t remember,” said Bai’ji, with a wide gesture. “You like making things up.”

  “No. I dislike our camp being entered and important prisoners being freed. You know what that man means.”

  “He means nothing, brother. The city is ours!”

  “He is a prince of the direct line. He matters! You were the one who wanted to take all of Kitai, to ride a horse into the southern sea!”

  Bai’ji spat into the fire. “Can still do that. But first, kill those useless guards who let him escape.”

  An uneasy murmur. Wan’yen’s mouth twisted. “You are too drunk to even listen. They are dead, brother. Put down your wine!”

  “Hold my wine as long as I want. We have to kill Ren ... Ren Dung-face.”

  “I agree. And recapture the prince. They’ll have a day’s start.”

  “Nothing! They can’t ride, the Kitan.”

  “Agreed again, brother. Take five hundred men. Leave now.”

  “Me?”

  “I did say that.”

  “Now? I want to ... I want five palace women in my yurt!”

  “They may be there but you will not be. Little brother, go! This is a command. Those were your men guarding him. You will kill Ren Daiyan and kill or recapture the prince.”

  “Now?” Bai’ji repeated.

  His brother made no reply, only stared at him.

  Bai’ji’s was the glance that faltered. “All right! I will!” He reached out the hand with the cup and someone took it from him. “See?” he said. “I put down the wine! I obey your commands!”

  “Take our best trackers, it will be harder in the dark.”

  “Then we will go in the morning. I want five—”

  “No. Now. I do not want that prince surviving. He is too important. The Sky God guard you in an alien land, brother. You wanted to go south. This is your first chance.”

  The brothers faced each other over the dead body of the interpreter. There was blood on the snow. The younger still held his sword.

  “Doesn’t have to be me,” Bai’ji said softly, in a voice that seemed to exclude everyone but his brother.

  “Yes, it does,” the war-leader said, equally quietly.

  There was a moment, there sometimes is, when a great deal hung suspended as the snow fell, torchlit. It was possible that the younger brother might have killed the older, or tried. The older one was aware of this, and was ready, balanced, a hand casually close to his own sword hilt, although he was most nearly sober, and so grieving at what might come next, where the night had gone.

  If this had happened, if there had been a killing either way, it might have changed w
hat followed in the world. Or not. It is never possible to know with certainty. We cannot go back and do something differently to see the result.

  Bai’ji sheathed his sword.

  Five hundred horsemen, with fifteen hundred very good horses, left camp not long after, riding south, the burning city quickly behind them, darkness sweeping in. They were led by the younger of their two leaders, his presence a marker of how urgent this mission was judged to be.

  The three men who had carried the tidings of the prisoner’s escape ended up walking away from that fire alive. A decision or an oversight, it was unclear which. They never knew, themselves.

  Two thousand, one hundred, and fifty-seven carts laden with treasure left Hanjin for the north.

  Seven convoys of captives went with them or after them, some fifteen thousand people, including the entire imperial family of Kitai (except for one prince, the ninth son) and almost all of the extended imperial clan. Some of the latter had died in the clan quarter. Some had actually swung swords, trying to defend their homes or women. They were supposed to be captured, but a horseman could only endure so much indignity from a Kitan.

  There was some anxiety among those guarding the convoys, as they stretched out, about being attacked on the way north.

  Most of the Altai force remained south, and the guards were significantly outnumbered by their captives. There were also large numbers of Kitan soldiers and outlaws roaming the northern prefectures, almost all the way up to the former Xiaolu Southern Capital.

  The guards kept their captives moving quickly, most of them on foot, and there wasn’t a great deal of food. Men and women were beaten if they lagged, and they had to collect their own firewood and carry it as they moved. Large numbers died on the way north and were left unburied where they fell.

  These deaths did not include either the former emperor or the recently proclaimed one, his son. These two had been mockingly renamed by the Altai war-leader in a ceremony outside the city walls before the first convoy started north.