The Prisoners of Fate: Sequel to The Emperor's Prey

by Jeremy Han

“In here!” the cook indicated and the royal family moved into the hut, their disgust at the hanging cobwebs overturned by the fear of the Mongols. Li Jing listened intently and discerned two sets of footsteps.

  The two commanders? Li wondered briefly, but he could not afford to take chances.

  “Majesty, behind the altar please,” he urged the empress dowager. If she did not like to be commanded, she did not show it. Their night clothes were soaked through and wet hair was plastered wildly over their faces. The son of heaven and his mother had lost all dignity, fear reduced all rank, and she humbly nodded and led her quivering son.

  “Come…listen to our guard,” she said, all her disgust toward the poorly dressed warrior was gone. Li went outside to join Meng Da, to see if the footsteps brought friend or foe.

  “Where are they?” Ji Gang whispered to Zhao as they navigated through the maze of non-descript buildings where men of their status would usually never step foot in. This place was reserved for lowly servants and Ji Gang did not know its layout, and he did not risk crying out for fear of alerting any pursuing Mongols. They were busy looting the place, and he would rather they do that than come after them. It was not because he was afraid of a fight, but now the lives of the imperial family were in his hands. Their footing remained light as they moved slowly, carefully planting each foot one after another, never putting their full weight down so that they could move nimbly in the event of any ambush.

  Meng Da crouched behind a wall, waiting. He knew the footsteps were coming from the building in front of him. He bent his knees to lower himself so that he could launch himself like a leopard if the need came. The Acrobat looked around and noticed some broken boxes stacked behind Meng Da. He leapt onto them, and with great agility flipped himself up and onto the roof. He moved noiselessly, careful not to slip on a broken tile or to kick it off the roof and when he reached the apex he crouched so that he could see without being seen. The sight of the two commanders brought a sigh of relief.

  How funny! In the past, the sight of Ji Gang would tighten my gut. To think I actually welcome the sight of his gleaming, bald head!

  He waved his arm, to get their attention. “Over here!”

  Zhao saw, and they ran over to them.

  “In there!” Meng Da said as he pointed to the shrine. Without hesitation they went in, and one-by-one they entered into the dark embrace of the earth’s bowels. At least, the steps felt well-constructed and solid, and they would be out of the heavy, cold rain. The darkness stretched before them, but the cook confidently said, “Let me lead,” before he moved the shrine so that it covered the entrance to the escape way. Then he took a stone and smashed the levers that controlled the mechanism, rendering it permanently locked.

  “This way.”

  His whisper amplified in the darkness and if they had been bats they would have been able to calculate the length of the tunnel based on the echo. Yet human they were, and all of them, imperial guards and royal family alike, now depended on one lowly kitchen helper to lead them to safety. It was hard to imagine that the emperor, with all the might at his disposal, was at the mercy of a servant.

  “I’ll go in front,” Meng Da volunteered. He led the two remaining imperial bodyguards, the remnants of the empress dowager’s entourage, to the front while Ji Gang and the rest took up the rear. They moved silently, afraid to even breathe too loudly. Only the boy’s whimpering, and his mother’s corresponding words of comfort, could be heard. Their fear of being attacked from the rear never materialised and finally they made it safely to the other side after a long, long shuffle in darkness as heavy as ink.

  “Here, take my hand.” The kitchen helper extended his hand to the empress dowager as he spoke, “Majesty, here,” and lady gratefully took it. Then the queen mother helped the boy, whose face had turned white from the cold and exhaustion and one by one they came out from the dark passage.

  “Where are we?” Ji Gang asked as they all looked around. They were inside of an empty, single-storey building. It looked like a warehouse, yet it stored no goods. It had a row of windows but all of them except for a few were boarded over. They could hear the tap-tap of rain falling on its roof.

  In response the kitchen helper indicated for the commander to follow him. He opened a window and pointed into the misty night and in the distance on an elevation Ji Gang could see flashes of orange like a star in a faraway galaxy. The bandits had burnt the royal residence.

  “There’s the villa," the cook explained. "We are in the valley below. We are not far away from a town where we can go seek help at the Yamen tomorrow morning."

  Ji Gang surveyed the place. It was huge, but somehow he knew that it was secure. It was as if it had been designed exactly for a day like this, but the commander could not take chances. He went over to Zhao Qi.

  “Your thoughts?” he asked the man.

  Zhao folded his arm and leaned tiredly against a pillar as he assessed their situation.

  It was dire. He knew in the dark that the Mongols would not be able to find this place, but men like him did not take chances. Moreover, they had women and children, plus a severely wounded man. Zhao knew they could not leave the severely injured man behind, it was against the emperor’s wishes impractical as it might be. “Send the two Jinyi Wei to the Yamen, and see if they can get help as soon as possible," he finally answered. "I don’t think we should wait 'till dawn.”

  Ji Gang nodded his concurrence and issued the orders and the two men left quickly. Ji Gang turned to Meng Da.

  “Guard the entrance," he ordered.

  Zhao told the Acrobat to do likewise for the exit.

  “Where is my new maid?” the queen mother asked. She referred to the girl she had rescued from the gangster earlier that day.

  Nobody answered her as nobody knew who it was that she meant. If she was not with them, then she must be still in the villa, either dead or raped by the Mongols. She buried her head in sorrow as she blamed herself. If she had not rescued her, maybe the girl would still be alive.

  How was I to know this would happen? she reasoned against the guilt that flooded her.

  Wang Zhen lay shivering on a pile of hay thrown together by the kitchen helper. The eunuch thought he was dying. He felt so tired, as though every bone was made of lead, and he was floating in and out of consciousness. He felt a warm hand holding his and instinctively he knew it was the boy emperor. Only a child did not mind the difference in status. He had played with the boy every day, took care of his every need. To the boy’s mother he was expendable, just another digit in a palace filled with eunuchs, but to the boy he was his closest companion. His subconscious mind took him back in time to a garden with a pavilion, and there the boy-emperor was learning how to read. Wang Zhen patiently read to him, but the child’s attention was elsewhere.

  Putting his cheeks on his two hands the child had asked him, “Eunuch Wang, why do I have to learn to read?”

  “Majesty, you have to rule an empire, that’s why,” he had replied.

  “That’s my mother’s job. Mine’s to catch butterflies.”

  “Majesty, maybe you won’t understand it now, but someday you will.”

  “Huuuuuh…” the child groaned as though he had just found out he was going to be tortured.

  “Eunuch Wang, since you can read then you govern the country for me, alright?”

  “Me? No…no Majesty. You are the son of heaven, not me. I am just a poor man’s son.”

  “No, you are not! You are my best friend.”

  “Me, Majesty? I’m your slave. And when you grow up, you’ll forget about me. But I will be so proud of you when you can read many words and govern wisely.”

  “I like you, Eunuch Wang. Next time when I grow up and rule, you will help me, won’t you?”

  “Thank you, your Majesty. It would be an honour,” Wang had said as he bowed, struggling to hide his smile.

  A poor man’s son. An emperor’s best friend. Is this possible?

  For the first t
ime in his life Wang had felt warmth fill his heart. He hated his own parents for selling him into imperial slavery. He hated Kong Wei for putting him in danger, for manipulating him, for discarding him after he had provided vital information.

  Ironically it was the emperor, the son of heaven, the perpetrator of this system of slavery who saw his worth. The heat from the child’s hand seemed to transmit energy to his weak body, but the darkness hovering over him was too great. He swore his eyes were open, but he saw nothing, and like a blanket over his head the darkness pressed down around him until he could not hear or see anything.

  47

  Zhao joined the Acrobat at the rear of the building. Despite his cooperation with Ji Gang, the bald man was not his friend. Li Jing squatted on a beam that allowed him a three-hundred and sixty degree view of the warehouse. He sat like a statue, unmoving in the darkness.

  “How did you know about this place?”

  Without looking at Zhao, Li replied, “When you told me earlier that there must be an escape route, I went to look for the person most likely to know about it.”

  “The cook?”

  Li Jing nodded, his steely gaze fixed forward. “I deduced that the oldest worker, the one who had been here the longest would know about it.” Then he added, “Of course, I was lucky. He could have turned out to be complete moron.” He still did not look at the commander. His eyes were fixed on something ahead, like a man planning ambush.

  So much in battle is dependent on luck, Zhao reflected. “You did not ask the bodyguards?” he asked.

  “They had arrived with the empress dowager, so how would they know?” Li replied.

  “Good thinking.”

  “Well, you pointed out to me the possibly of an escape route first.”

  “That is how I would design the place.”

  They sat in silence, and when Zhao was sure nobody was within earshot, he whispered, “I fought a man just now.”

  The Acrobat remained silent. He knew Zhao had not finished, but was deciding how to tell him.

  “He was extremely powerful, and he carried himself differently from the rest of the raiders. I am quite sure he commanded them.”

  “Your point, Commander?” the Acrobat asked as he narrowed his eyes, even though he continued to look straight ahead. This must be serious.

  “I ripped his shirt off and saw something.”

  Slowly, the Acrobat’s head turned. “What?” he asked, his eyes wide with suspense.

  Zhao paused as he visualised the odd-shaped mark against the man’s pale shoulder. “A mark on his shoulder.”

  The Acrobat’s eyebrows shot up at the news. “Damn.”

  “Yes.”

  “Does Ji Gang know?”

  “I don’t think so. It was dark. If not for a stroke of lightning, I would never have seen it.”

  “Could you be mistaken?”

  “I could be, but I doubt it.”

  “After today, the Empress Dowager will hurry back to the safety of Beijing. We have to find a way to remain south if we want to find Zhu Wenkui before the Eastern Depot does.”

  “Yes, Ji Gang must never know about this,” Zhao agreed with the Acrobat before he added, “I doubt Ji Gang will have the time to worry about this for the time being. When her Majesty calms down she will demand an answer on how the Eastern Depot had failed to detect this attack.” He did not envy what Ji Gang would face. The empress dowager could legitimately ask for his head as compensation for failure.

  “It only reinforces the speculation that the eunuchs have infiltrated either the Dong Chang or the imperial household.”

  Zhao turned and looked at Li. “And this could be turned to our advantage.”

  “How?”

  Zhao whispered his plans to the Acrobat and Li Jing nodded slowly, thoughtfully as he weighed them in his mind and saw the its merits.

  48

  Golden sunlight streamed in weakly through the boarded windows. The rain had stopped, but somewhere in the vast warehouse a leak in the roof caused a constant tap-tap as water dripped into a puddle. The chamber was cold in the early morning. The mist had cleared, and soon the sun would win its battle against the dark sky.

  The empress dowager was still asleep, cuddling her son. Because her son refused to let go of Wang’s hand the night before, she had been forced to sleep next to the wounded man. Ji Gang stared at the sleeping trio. He had earlier taken Wang’s pulse, but it was very weak. He estimated that if they did not get him to a daifu ‘doctor’, the man would be dead by sunset. But the lowly eunuch was the least of his concerns.

  He now knew why she had seduced him. It was not love, or even attraction. It had been a form of bribery.

  You only bribe someone who has something you need, he thought. But what of when you no longer need it?

  He was useful to her, but this incident could easily signal an end to that. He felt a chill down his spine as he recalled the sight of her long, red fingernails and her eagle-like grip last night.

  Like an eagle securing its prey. Realisation dawned like the sun outside, and he no longer doubted how ruthless she could be. A thousand questions flew threw his mind that he had no answers for.

  He summoned Meng Da over to speak with him. He knew his deputy had a fine mind, and it would be a waste if he did not use it. He had always told his men he was open to their views, but he made the final conclusions on them. They stood opposite each other and Ji Gang spoke first, as befitting his status.

  “The empress dowager will want an accounting of what happened.”

  “I asked myself the following questions last night," Meng replied. "Who are they? How did they know? And most importantly, why we did not hear of it.”

  “All good questions. But no good answers for the lady who sits on the throne," Ji Gang said. “Let us cross that bridge when we come to it though. Let us piece our puzzle first and see where it leads.”

  “Yong was following up on Zhu Wenkui’s lead while I pursued the demoness,” Meng Da said as he picked up the discussion. “Yong did not come back and now this happenes. I daresay there is a chance his disappearance is linked to the attack. It is too coincidental, given the fact this was an incognito visit.”

  “Yong is dead,” Ji Gang said solemnly.

  “How can you be sure?” the other man asked.

  “I just know it. There is a fair chance he was killed because he found out about this attack. Or was on the verge of finding out.”

  “Which means the bandits last night were Zhu Wenkui’s men, and therefore related to the eunuchs?” Meng Da added.

  “Which begs the next question. Why are Mongols following Zhu Wenkui?” Ji Gang asked as he raised an eyebrow.

  “Mongols or not, they had explosives. We all know that black powder is controlled by only by one military unit in the capital.”

  “The eunuch artillery battalion.” Ji Gang ground the words through his teeth as he spoke them.

  It was common knowledge that the eunuchs manned the battalion in the palace that controlled the guns. They had researched on the development of the black powder, and only they had foundries that manufactured guns and cannons. The guns had once been used against the Mongol cavalry effectively where now they guarded the palace against rebellion. The massive guard towers that ringed the Forbidden City were armed with guns pointing outward.

  “So now we have a connection that ties Zhu Wenkui to the eunuchs,” Ji said.

  “And also the yinsu flower,” reminded Meng Da. It was to his credit after all that the connection had been discovered. “That ties the mysterious many-handed woman to this case.” he pressed.

  “Which means I must go back to the source of these two things and shake the tree. See what monkey falls out,” Ji Gang said firmly.

  “Commander, there is one more thing we must not forget.”

  “What?” Ji Gang answered sharply.

  “If the eunuchs are truly behind this, what are we going to do with the eunuchs in this entourage?” Meng’s voice had
an edge to it. “Every eunuch who survived the massacre last night must be tortured for information.” Meng’s eyes shifted toward the unconscious man.

  “Plug the leak? The emperor would never allow it. Didn’t I tell you before,” he lectured, “that before you beat a dog, you need to consider who its master is?”

  “But we have to eliminate all possibilities,” the agent said urgently.

  “I know. Just like I did during my voyage back. Why do you think he is a risk?” Ji Gang asked as he tested his subordinate. “After all, he is a lowly eunuch who is unlikely to have access to resources that could mount such a threat.”

  Meng folded his arms as he analysed the point, then slowly he lifted a finger toward a distant buzzing sound.

  “He is a fly on the wall.”

  “Yes.” Ji Gang’s lips came together in a predatory grin. “Walls have ears. And the lowest of eunuchs hear the deepest of secrets simply because everyone ignores their existence. Talking in their presence is like whispering before a pillar.”

  Enlightenment dawned on Meng Da as to where Ji Gang was leading him. His smile was equally feral. “Then we need to know who he is reporting to.”

  Ji Gang spoke softly to his deputy in a conspiratorial tone.

  “This is what we must do later….”

  49

  A stream of glorious sunlight illuminated the room they were in. It fell on her, bathing her in a glow as though she were a deity. The empress dowager sat on a chair with her son, the emperor, by her side. The men were assembled before her as though they were at court.

  Despite the miserable conditions her presence and authority were unmistakable. The rain had destroyed her make-up, and her hair hung limp about her face. Without the bright red lips she looked like a woman who did not bother to impress, yet her hawk-like gaze fell over every man in the room, scrutinising their expressions. They did not betray any thoughts or feelings and she might as well be staring at pillars. Her fingers tapped against her lap, as she thought of what to say.

  Tap-tap-tap

  Ji Gang concentrated on the finger, counting the number of taps as he noticed that one of the red nails was badly chipped. Somehow, he was able to anticipate when she would be ready to speak. He suspected she would not deal with his failure today, not when her son was still in danger. Any mother would ensure her offspring was safe before looking into other matters. Her chest heaved and she slowly turned her head toward the commander of the Dong Chang,