The Scent of Death

by Brian K. Lowe

  After a moment, when it was obvious that Hano was not going to reply, T.J. gallantly thought to move to his defense.

  "He couldn't have known the other guy would disappear so fast."

  Ruyan turned his gaze on his visitor and now his annoyance was plain. "He should have planned better, then."

  T.J. colored. This was a family matter and he had intruded. Damn it! How was he going to pry any information out of Ruyan now? Ted was right; he was not the man for this kind of job. He hurriedly scooped up the last of his porridge.

  "You've been very kind to me, sir, but it's time I got back to the palace. I'm not in the mood for exploring any more."

  Ruyan nodded. "My son can accompany you. He should spend more time at the palace and less wandering the hills himself."

  Obedient Hano might be, but one look at him when they hit the road to town was enough to tell T.J. that he was not happy about it. Hano kicked a rock clear off the road, a gesture so familiar to T.J. that it made him homesick. He found a rock himself and kicked it even further.

  Hano looked at him with surprise, and T.J. shrugged.

  "For a while I was playing with the idea of being a kicker."

  "A kicker?"

  "Yeah, football. Do you know football?" He explained the rules briefly. "In the end, though, the kicker only kicks the ball, he never gets into it with anybody. There's no contact. It sounded boring."

  "It is," Hano said, and it was T.J.'s turn to give a quizzical look. "My kung fu. I learned it at the temple, but then Master Ko said I had to stop going, because if the king found out he would be angry. So I could not spar any more. I can do the exercises by myself, but it is not the same. As you say, it is boring." His face slowly grew a smile. "But the other day, when those men attacked--? That was not boring!"

  T.J. grinned to remember the fight. "You're right. It was pretty good. But somebody said only members of the royal family were supposed to learn kung--what did you call it? Kung fu?--at the temple. I thought they let you do it because you were the king's nephew. I don't understand why he'd be mad."

  Hano picked up another stone, looked it over, and tossed it into a gully. "The only men who can learn kung fu from the priests are students who go into the temple to become acolytes, or the sons of the king. That is the law. But ten years ago, I was wandering around in these hills…" He made a vague sweeping motion with his arm. "I had run away, because I was angry at my father. I wanted to join the temple, but he wanted me to marry Princess Quanyu. Now, of course, I want nothing but to marry Quanyu, but then--I was a little boy.

  "I heard a noise. It sounded like someone was hurt, so I went to see. One of the temple's students, not even an acolyte yet, had been out gathering herbs and he had slipped and hurt his ankle. I was going to try to help him, but he told me 'Get away! Do not come closer! Run to the temple and get help!' Of course, being a boy, I had to come closer to see what had excited him so much. I was very soon wishing I had not done that.

  "The boy had fallen almost into a nest of rock vipers. They were very small, but there were dozens of them. He was just beyond their reach, and he had managed to stay very still, but if they became excited, they could crawl to where he was. And if he moved at all, they would become excited.

  "My father had warned me about snakes, and he told me the small ones were the most venomous of all. If even one of them bit that boy, he would be dead before I could reach the temple, let alone seek help. He kept telling me to go away and get help, but I could not. Where he was lying was littered with sharp rocks like the one he had stumbled upon. I could not start throwing rocks at the snakes, because that would startle them, but I started building a wall between them and the boy. When I had put enough rocks between them, I took his hands and dragged him a few feet away from the snakes. Then I helped him limp back to the temple."

  "But snakes crawl right over rocks," T.J. objected. "You just made it harder, not impossible."

  Hano shrugged. "I only needed enough time to drag him away from the nest. When we got to the temple, Master Ko listened to the boy's story, and then he thanked me--not only for saving his student, but also for not hurting the snakes. I think he was more happy about that than the boy being all right. Then he told me that the temple was in my debt, and he asked me how they could repay me."

  "So you said you wanted to be a priest."

  Hano nodded. "Of course, even Master Ko could not defy my father. So I had to choose again. And I asked to learn kung fu."

  "That must have gone over well."

  "Oh, yes! But a debt is a debt, and an unpaid debt is injurious to harmony, so he had to agree, if I agreed to keep it a secret. Which I did, but it was only a few months later that Master Ko told me he could not lie any more to the king or to my father. That, too, is bad for one's harmony."

  They continued down the path for a few moments in silence, then T.J. turned to Hano abruptly.

  "Wait a second. You took six guys in that alley the other day. Are you trying to tell me that you learned all that in a few months when you were nine years old?"

  "No. I had to leave the temple, but I have been practicing every day since. I have even had to make up my own exercises. But until those men attacked us, I had no sparring partners. Practice is very good, but…"

  "… It isn't like a game," T.J. finished. "Believe me, I understand what you mean." His eyes narrowed and he pointed down the road at a man sprinting toward them. "Who's that?"

  They watched open-mouthed as he ran past without so much as a glance to the side and never slowing down.

  "That is a royal messenger! He must be headed for my father's house!" Hano grabbed T.J.'s arm. "Something is wrong! Quanyu is in trouble!"

  And he was off like a shot, T.J. close behind.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  The Show Must Go On

  "In 1842, Prince Quanyu was one month short of his celebration of age when he went out with his father to chase the bandits that had been raiding outlying farms. He was wounded in the fighting and brought back to Quanyu unconscious. He lay in his bed for five weeks before he died. But since he turned eighteen during that time, his father held his celebration regardless. In 500 years, we have never failed to celebrate the coming of age of the heir."

  Princess Quanyu put down her empty cup. It was refilled with steaming, scented tea almost before the sound of it touching the table faded away. Withdrawing, the servant gave a wide berth to Chang, standing against the wall behind the princess like an unblinking pagan idol.

  "Then there's no chance that Kuragawa's death will stop it." Kate sipped her own hot tea thoughtfully. "Well, that's one theory shot down."

  "Only if you insist of believing that someone killed him," Quanyu said. "No Quanyuan would ever make the mistake of thinking he could stop the celebration that way. It would have to have been a stranger--and that means you and your friends, and none of you could have sneaked into the temple to harm him. It is just as Master Ko said. Captain Kuragawa died at peace."

  Kate looked at the princess sharply over her teacup, but kept her expression masked.

  "I almost died, too. And it may have been really comfortable in that hut, but I wasn't anywhere near at peace."

  Quanyu lifted her eyebrows, and Kate realized she had spoken too sharply. She muttered an apology for her rudeness, glancing automatically at Chang to make sure he had not decided that steps must be taken to protect the princess's dignity. Quanyu smiled disarmingly.

  "There is no need to apologize, Kate. Captain Kuragawa was a friend of yours, and you had a frightening experience. I know our customs are strange to you. Holding a celebration so soon after your friend's death must seem cold to you."

  Kate managed an assenting expression while finishing her tea. She would never have thought of Kuragawa as a friend, but he had been a companion--albeit forced on them--on the journey through Mongolia and he had helped fight off the bandits, so that should count for something. Even if the "bandits" turned out to have been fake, their bullets had
not been. And Quanyu's attempt to change the subject had not escaped her notice.

  On the other hand, she had wanted to ask Quanyu more about her plans for after the celebration…

  "Since you mention it, and since as you say, I don't know your customs, please forgive me if I get too personal, but do you have any plans once you're of age? Do you have any duties to take up?"

  "My father wants me to marry, of course." Quanyu would not commit to something so unbecoming as a sigh in front of the servants, but it was there, unexpressed. "I thought that I was going to escape that for a little while, but then your parents… " Her eyes darted toward the waiting servants. "Naturally, it would be best for the kingdom if I carried out my duty, so I will be paying close attention to all of the eligible young men around now that I am of an age to make a choice."

  Her change in tone did not escape Kate. These were waters she would not sail where others could overhear.

  "You must have a lot to do before tonight," Kate said, putting her cup down. "I'll leave you to get on with it."

  "What the hell was Sums doing spying on Ruyan?" Damien asked.

  "The heck with that--who killed Kuragawa?" T.J. shot back.

  "And did Eric leave those clothes in the tunnel?" Damien wondered. "If he didn't, who did?"

  "I thought it was a little odd that Deng Zhongshu didn't see them," T.J. said. Damien shook his head.

  "No, it wasn't odd. I barely saw them myself. It was dark in there, and I was the one holding the torch."

  Ted held up a hand. "Brothers, we're getting off-track. The big question is: Who killed Kuragawa, and why? We know it wasn't Sums, because T.J. was following him all morning. I don't know why he was spying on Ruyan, but we've got to put that on the back burner."

  "Well, it probably wasn't Master Ko. Killing somebody in your own temple is not the way to avoid suspicion." T.J. bit his lip the way he did when he was worrying over a problem. "It could have been Ruyan. I don't know that he was there all morning. For that matter, he probably wouldn't have done it himself anyway."

  "Maybe that's the angle we should look at," Ted suggested. "Just how was Kuragawa killed? It didn't occur to me until they tried it on Kate, but every time somebody smells that odor, it's in an enclosed space, like a room."

  "Like in Kate's stateroom," Damien said. "But it's not gas. I'm sure of that. Whatever that scent is--and we know they're scared of it, because we used it on the road--it signals the presence of the fatal agent, but it's not in and of itself what's doing the killing."

  "It was odd," Ted recalled. "When they pulled Kate out of that hut, one of them grabbed her, and the other took a burning log and swung it around the room--like he wanted it to smoke up the place."

  They exchanged blank looks.

  "Well, other than supporting Damien's conclusion that the toxic agent isn't a gas, this is getting us nowhere," T.J. said at last. "If we don't know what it is, and we don't know how it's introduced, we can't figure out who's using it. I say we concentrate on finding the Reinholds. Whoever's got them is our man."

  With the others in agreement, Ted went back to his room to rest up before the celebration later, but as the Professor was about to follow him, Damien tugged at his arm.

  "I'm not going to the party tonight. You know I don't like parties."

  T.J. frowned. "Since when?"

  "If you come up with a reason to leave early, stop by here. I'm working on a project and I could use your help."

  T.J. took a long look at his friend's impassive face. "How early?"

  Kate shut the door to her room carefully, and almost as an afterthought, sniffed the air. She smelled nothing to alarm her, but as a precaution she opened her shutters and windows, letting in the crisp winter air. While still chilly, the threat of snow had abated, good news for the celebration, which was to be held largely in the courtyard between the palace and the garrison. Kate had deduced the common element between all of the mystery attacks all on her own, and she felt better with the windows open.

  The breeze fluttered a piece of paper on the table next to her bed, catching her eye immediately: She had not left any loose papers lying around this morning. Gingerly, she approached without touching it, in case her enemies had decided to change their method of attack. But the instant she saw what was written there, she scooped it up with a low cry.

  The message was written in Spanish. If there was a single native in Quanyu who spoke Spanish, she would eat a yak. And even then, only four people in this country knew that she spoke it.

  "Take care tonight," it read. "Do not let the king go anywhere alone."

  After re-reading it twice, she walked to the fireplace and watched the piece of paper shrivel in flames. "Do not let the king go anywhere alone," it said--but it did not say how the heck they were supposed to stop him!

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Celebrations and Explorations

  The sun went down early in Quanyu in this late winter, meaning that the celebration started early, too. The palace gates, normally half-closed, had been thrown wide open so that, so it seemed, the entire population of the kingdom could swarm in. Lanterns had been strung the entire length and breadth of the courtyard, casting a fairyland glow from the palace to the garrison, and other than these two spots, everyone mingled and wandered at will, sampling the food and drink that were the king's largess.

  Like the marketplace, however, many had brought their own provisions, fruits and skewers of meat and jugs of thin brown beer, but unlike the marketplace, tonight they were flowing freely from hand to hand, shared with old friends and new. The king had hired musicians, but they competed with thrown-together orchestras that plinked and blared from every available corner. The smells were already intoxicating, and the babble of voices rose as the level in the aleskins fell.

  At one spot, the priests of the temple of Quanyu had spread themselves, showing off their martial techniques like a deadly dance, as well as demonstrating feats of balance and strength to the delight of the crowd, most of whom viewed the priests as equal parts fact and legend. Their torches gave off a strong scent of incense, but to Kate's relief, there was nothing in it of the fatal cloying sweetness she had come to loathe.

  She found herself standing next to Hano in the first line of the crowd, watching the fighting demonstrations, he with a hungry gaze and she with professional appreciation.

  "You wish you were up there with them?" She kept her voice pitched low so that only he could hear.

  "No. Yes. Well, no…" Hano gave her a rueful smile. "It is part of seeking harmony to accept your place in life. Theirs is there, and mine is here. You look beautiful tonight."

  "Thank you." Quanyu had offered to lend Kate some clothing suitable for the event, but Kate had realized that she would be wrapped in a heavy coat anyway, so she declined. She had taken extra time with her face and hair, however, and was pleased to see it had paid off. "Quanyu is looking stunning tonight, as well. Have you seen her?"

  "Yes, when I paid my respects to His Majesty. I tried to speak to her, but she, apparently, is still not speaking to me."

  Kate winked at him. "Keep trying." Hano's remark had reminded her that Eric was expecting her to watch the king, but her best excuse for staying near him was staying close to the princess, and she could not even do that every moment without looking suspicious herself. She had left Ted and the Professor to keep an eye on things, but it might be time to wander back in that direction. "I'm walking over to see her. Would you like to escort me? If you're finished watching the demonstration, of course."

  Although she could see that it was a struggle, to his credit he took his eyes off of the priests' exercises and put his arm out for her to take.

  "There was so much I could have learned from them," he said as they strolled away. "I've had to make up my own exercises, based on what they taught me."

  Kate looked him in the eye. "You've invented your own forms? Honestly? By yourself? I've never heard of anyone doing that, at least no one who wasn't a ma
ster himself."

  He shrugged. "As I said, everyone must accept his place in life. That doesn't mean one is not allowed to improve on it."

  The eddies of the crowd opened up and threw a figure in front of them.

  "Miss Reinhold! Honorable Hano! Is this not the most exciting time you have had in Quanyu?"

  Laughing, Kate and Hano bowed quickly to Deng Zhongshu, a sight to see with a meat skewer in one hand and an aleskin in the other. Before they could answer, something caught his eye and he was diving into the crowd again.

  "And the women…!"

  Kate doubled over with laughter, unable to contain herself. "I’m sorry," she said when she could speak again, "but that was too funny! If the Imperial Court could see him now…!" She was still giggling, and Hano was grinning, when they reached the knot of well-wishers and favor-seekers who surrounded the princess and her father. As if by accident, T.J. and Ted sauntered up at the same moment, Sums Dean tagging along in their wake.

  The princess turned her gaze upon Hano and Kate. "Well, you seem to have become quite well acquainted." Her eyes zoomed in on Kate. "Are you having a good time?" Kate assured her she was. Quanyu smiled tightly. "Good." She made a show of looking around. "And where is your friend Damien? I haven't seen him."

  "I don't know," Ted replied. "It's not like him to miss a party."

  "Maybe he wasn't feeling well," T.J. said quickly.

  "Such a shame," the princess sighed. She shot Hano a hard glance. "I was hoping to talk with him."

  "Maybe I should go check on him," T.J. offered, and he was gone before anyone could weigh in.

  Kate shot Ted a quick look of puzzlement and frustration, and he answered with a quick, almost unnoticeable shrug. She had not had time to brief the boys on the note Eric had left her, but she thought they had all agreed that the princess's celebration was the most likely place for something to happen, if anything was going to. And now Damien and T.J. had run off on them? What could be more important than protecting the king and the princess?