by G R Matthews
“Will he,” Haung corrected himself, “will she be all right?”
“The wound is deep, Haung. I can prevent the bleeding, though it is tiring to work at such small scales. The needle and thread should take care of the rest. As long as I do not cut too deeply and sew carefully. Your warrior will be swinging those axes again in a few months. The muscles will take some time to bind themselves together again, even with the help of the thread,” the lady said.
“But why isn’t she awake?” Haung said. In the war with Wubei, and on the Wall, he had seen the surgeons work, their patients awake and screaming until a draught could be swallowed, or forced down their throats. For many it was their last drink in this life.
“I’m keeping her asleep. It is easier for her and for me, the less she moves, the more careful my stiches can be,” the lady explained.
“How?”
The lady turned her face to Haung, an exasperated look in her eyes and a frown creasing her forehead. “You will not leave me alone to work, even though I am trying to save the life of your friend? Is your trust so difficult to give?”
“I’m sorry,” Haung said. “I was trained to be suspicious, and I like knowing things. It makes decisions easier to make, if I know what is going on.”
She stared at him for a long moment and he in turn, took the chance to inspect her features. She was young, much younger than he had suspected from her words after the battle at the docks. Long hair, tied back into a ponytail, and dark eyes that reminded him of Xióngmāo’s, too knowing, too measuring, to make him feel entirely comfortable. There were creases on her face, around her eyes and mouth that suggested she smiled a lot, or frowned, he allowed. On her left cheek a tattoo, three rings through which a single line wound and twisted. She still wore the same long dark robe, not cut in any fashion of the empire and the belt round her waist held her scabbarded sword.
“I am suppressing the amount of air in her lungs. Not only does that protect the one that is damaged and allow me to repair the damage, but it has the added bonus of keeping her unconscious. It is doing no harm as long as I work quickly and for that to happen you need to trust me. If you are about to ask me how, don’t bother. It will take too long and you will have more questions than I can answer in time to save her life. For the sake of simplicity, let’s just call it magic and get on with this.” She did not wait for answer, turning back to her work, the needle dipping into Liu’s flesh and remerging stained red.
He watched her work, alert and suspicious. The wound was deep, he had seen the knife plunged into Liu’s back, but slowly the open gash was being drawn together. The lady did not look away from the wound, speaking only to give Haung instructions, which instrument to hand over, when to rethread a needle with yet more silk and when to step out of the light if he got too close.
The door was thrown open and a dishevelled man was pushed in. Haung moved to catch the untidy fellow before he clattered into the instruments or, worse still, the table where Liu lay.
“Found one,” Gang said. “The fool took a while to wake up and then tried to say he wasn’t going to come with me. I changed his mind.”
“A doctor?” Haung said.
“Reckoned to be one of the best. I did some asking,” Gang said, closing the door behind him and looking round for the first time. “Lot of lights. Now get the foreign woman out of the way and let the doctor do his work.”
“Gang,” Haung began, “she is almost finished.”
“What? No,” Gang took a step forward and pointed an accusing finger at Haung. “How could you let her treat Liu? Get out of the way, Haung. Let the doctor repair the damage she’ll have done.”
Haung looked at the doctor. The man was stick thin and did indeed look like he had been woken from a deep sleep, and none too kindly. With his hands on the doctor’s arms, he could feel the man trembling in fear.
“Doctor,” Haung said. “I am sorry you have been dragged here tonight. My name is Colonel Haung. It is good to meet you, though we might wish under different circumstances.”
The man’s gaze flitted around the room, taking in the candles, the instruments and the body on the table. A semblance of control seemed to return as he realised that he was in a somewhat familiar situation.
“Colonel,” he said, “I am Doctor Zhi and I do not appreciate this sort of treatment.”
Haung could see the doctor was not finished, but interrupted anyway. “Of course not, good Doctor, but we appreciate you coming anyway. One of our small group was injured in an altercation at the docks a little while ago and Master Gang is rightly concerned for their well-being.”
“Well,” Zhi said, lifting his frame into an upright stance, shoulders back and chest puffed out, reminiscent, Haung thought, of a peacock about to fan its tail, “let me see the man then.”
Haung stepped aside and let Zhi pass. The lady ceased bending over the injured Liu and stepped aside, not uttering a word as she did so.
“Now, let’s see what we have here,” Zhi said, taking up the spot the lady vacated. “Interesting, a knife wound?”
The question was not addressed to either Gang or Haung, Zhi was looking at the lady. She nodded in return.
“Good stich work here. They’ll hardly leave a scar. All the internal bleeding stopped?”
The lady nodded again.
“Punctured the lung, I’d bet,” Zhi said, turning to Haung and doing his best to avoid Gang’s furious looks. “You can see the bruising around the wound that indicates the force and angle of the knife.”
Zhi put two fingers alongside Liu’s neck, nodding to himself as he did so. Then he rested a palm on either side Liu’s spine.
“Good work,” Zhi said. “Pulse is strong, and the lung appears to be re-inflating, though it will be weak for a while. I would suggest bed rest for a month or two, then a further two or three of limited physical activity. Give the lady enough time to recover her strength. If I am honest,” he said with an accusing tone in his voice, “I do not think you needed to wake me up, drag me across the city to treat a lady who was already under care almost as good as I could give.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Haung said.
“Liu’s a lady,” Gang said, the anger fleeing his face, replaced by open-mouthed shock.
“Of course she is,” Zhi said. “Any fool can see that. Now, if that is all, I will be returning to bed. You can expect my bill in the morning.”
The stick thin doctor swept past Gang, his head held high and a careful refusal to meet the large warrior’s shocked eyes.
# # #
The dawn’s light crept in through the inn’s window and Haung awoke to find he had fallen asleep upright in a wooden chair. In his sleep misted sight he could see that Gang had done the same. The large man had moved his chair up to the side of Liu’s table, where she slept. The big man was still asleep. In the corner, where the light had not yet reached, the lady sat, her eyes watching him.
“Good morning, Colonel Haung,” she said in her sing-song voice. “In all the confusion of last night, I don’t think we have been properly introduced and there are some things that perhaps only you should hear. My name is Sabaa. Please don’t worry about your friends, they will sleep a little longer.”
Haung stood up. His back complained at the sudden movement and his legs added their own chorus of unhappiness. “You are keeping them asleep?”
“I am,” she said from her seat.
He waited for more, but nothing was forthcoming and he considered her actions. She had saved Liu’s life last night, fought alongside them and posed no threat, that is until now. Keeping Gang asleep, however she did it, was not the act of a friend and Haung was tempted to settle into the quiet, to be ready for her next move. “Will you let them wake?”
“The large one with the quick temper and slow mind will awake as soon as our conversation is done. The injured lady, Liu, it would be better for her if she slept for longer. It stops her moving about too much and tearing the stiches. I promise, no harm will
come to them.”
“I am listening,” Haung said.
“Good, that’s a start. Your friends will need to remain here when we leave. The lady is too injured to travel and it would be better if she was accompanied by someone she knows and trusts. Liu is going to be in bed for a few weeks at least. That is not easy for anyone, and for a lady in a strange town it is even harder.” She lifted a finger, forestalling Haung’s objections. “The stiches will help her body to repair the damage. I used small stiches to minimise the scarring and so that she could regain her former freedom of movement. A sudden movement, a jolt, a twist, anything could rip the flesh they are in. She stay’s here, in this room preferably and Gang stays with her. I understand he has known Liu for a long time as a man. We talked last night, while you slept. He has a lot to come to terms with and we have a dangerous path ahead of us if everything your Emperor sent to me is true. I have somewhere to be in the not too distant future. Gang understands this and has agreed.”
Haung was silent for a moment, processing the news, and had only one question. “Why not tell me all this with Gang awake? If he agrees to it all.”
“I was not sure of your reaction. Gang describes you as an honourable man, one who puts the lives of others above his own. There was a chance that you would take issue with this news or, worse yet, try to force the issue. It might have become embarrassing for Gang,” she explained. “I have lived a long time by taking care of men’s egos. Your sex seems to have the ability to blow any imagined slight out of all proportion. I have seen embarrassment lead to the deaths of thousands and learned to step carefully when I can.”
“As long as Gang agrees when he wakes, I see no need to do anything. My task was simply to escort you, safely, to the capital and a meeting with the Emperor,” Haung said.
“I have news regarding that too. While you all slept, I sent my gaze as far as I could. I looked at your capital. It is under siege by an army. By the state of their camp, I would say they arrived early yesterday morning. The road back to the capital is not going to be an easy one.”
# # #
“Are you sure this is what you want?” Haung asked.
“It is,” Gang replied.
Both men had left the room where Liu lay, tended by Sabaa, and descended the stairs to the main room. The fire had been lit and the heat was slowly working its way across the room. Aside from the two of them and a few waiters, the room was empty. Haung ordered a pot of tea and a bowl of congee. For once Gang did not eat.
“We can make sure she is looked after, if you come.”
“It’s not that, Haung. I know we could pay for her care, the Emperor’s seal and orders would do that, but I have an obligation. All those years we were sent on the Emperor’s orders, all over the Empire, and I never knew. I’m not the quickest thinker, I know that, but I should have noticed something, shouldn’t I?” Gang looked at him with pleading eyes.
“Liu had me fooled too, Gang. We spent all that time on the Wall, in combat and on the retreat, and I never noticed a thing. It never occurred to me and, don’t forget, I am trained to be observant, to find out secrets. I suppose the insistence on a separate room when we arrived at the Wall wasn’t just because your snoring sounds like a mill full of carpenters all sawing at a particularly stubborn log.”
“I don’t snore,” Gang said with an indignant half-smile.
At least the large warrior had not lost his sense of humour. “Why would someone pretend that they were male?”
“Oh no, Haung, that makes some sense. Liu travelled all over the Empire and not everyone, everywhere treats women with respect. A woman travelling on their own would raise suspicions or make some men think they could act in a certain way. He, she, Liu would have taught them the error of their ways quickly enough. Liu is as dangerous without her axes as she is with them. The more I say ‘she’, the more I get used it.” Gang shook his head, picked up his tea and, after a moment, put it down again. “Travelling as man she would not be forced to defend her honour against every idiot, in every inn along the road. Believe me, Haung, there are a lot of idiots out there. No, travelling and living as a man makes a certain sense, but why didn’t she tell me?”
“Perhaps she feared your reaction, that you would treat her differently?” Haung said.
Gang stared at Haung for a moment. Haung let the big man some time to think it through and ate a little of congee.
“You might be right,” Gang eventually conceded, “however, I owe her a lot. There have been too many times when my temper got us into fights and her axes saved my skin, or her words calmed everyone down. She has saved my life many times over and I have a duty to repay that.”
“I understand,” Haung said.
“Plus, when you think about, here is a woman who knows everything about me, all my faults and idiocies, and still fights at my side,” Gang laughed. “Not many that would do that.”
“Only one, perhaps.” Haung nodded and both men settled into silence whilst they finished their tea.
# # #
At the top of the hill, Haung turned in his saddle to gaze down upon the port town. The grey clouds above reflected his mood and the cold wind that blew in off the water chilled his heart. In the space of a few weeks he had lost three companions who had become the closest thing he had to true friends. Gongliang in defence of the town, and now Liu and Gang to an ambush in another town. It was true, he knew, that the two masters had not died, but the past few years had taught him nothing if not how fragile life was, and now he was heading back to a battle.
If Sabaa was correct, and given her ability to keep them asleep, her skill in surgery and that she seemed to have lived for many more years than should be possible, he saw no reason to disbelieve her, the capital of the Empire was under siege.
“Two days?”
“Two days to the capital, yes,” Haung said, kicking his horse into motion once more and drawing up alongside her. She had not changed from the long black robes she had worn last night, but she had left off the head and face cloth.
“And is it always this cold in your country?” she asked.
“No,” he studied her for a moment, noting the tattoo once more and her dark eyes that were rounder than most in the Empire. Her skin was darker too, not by much, but Haung was determined to notice as much as possible and not to be fooled again. “It will get colder.”
“Interesting,” she answered. “The last time I was here it was much warmer.”
“You’ve been to the Empire before?”
“It was not the Empire then, but where do you think I learned to speak your language? I will say that I am finding some of it a little different than I recall, but things change over time.”
He studied her once more. She rode a horse as if it was an everyday activity and, for all he knew, it might be. Her skill with the sword was undeniable, she had been in fights and battles before and had made up for her lack of strength with speed. And then there was all the mention of age and years past. Now she was saying she had visited the Empire before it became the Empire and that was, he knew from his barracks education and that under his Fang-shi teachers, centuries ago, many centuries ago.
“My country, the one that is now, is much warmer than this.”
“But you wear those black clothes and the head wear too?” Haung asked.
“I do. The outer layers warm and draw cool air in from the bottom, it is surprisingly cool even in the heat of summer. The headwear, as you call it, that is new, only a hundred years or so. It has become a tradition and expected. I hate it, but to live in my country I must live as the all the women do.”
“Why?”
“Why do they wear it? The religion tells them it is right. A religion written by men and controlled by men. It preaches that women are somehow lesser and sadly they believed it. The rule became a tradition and the normal way of things. Change will come, but slowly. It is not so different to your friend, Liu, hiding her true sex from everyone. The Empire may allow women greater
freedoms, but men are still in charge.” Sabaa spoke with statements of fact and Haung could find little to argue with.
“My wife considers herself in charge of me and our home,” Haung said.
“As it is in my country,” Sabaa smiled. “You watch. When women realise just how much power they have, things will change.”
“Jiao would agree with you,” he admitted.
“You see,” she laughed, “already it begins.”
“Maybe, but in two days we will be at the capital and change will be the last thing on my mind. Protecting the Empire and my family will be my focus. What can you tell me about the siege?”
“At the moment, nothing. When we rest tonight, I will look and tell you what I can. It takes time and some preparation,” she said.
“How do you do it?”
“In the Empire, you study the void between the realms?”
He nodded. “We call our magicians Fang-shi and they use the void to power their spells.”
“In my country we use a different realm to draw power and make magic. Our magic, if that term makes it easier to understand, comes from the air. It is all around us, enables us to live and breathe, it carries heat and moisture. Control the air and you control many things. Those very skilled in its control can ride the winds and see further than others.”
“Ride the winds? You mean fly?” He looked incredulous and could not keep the scepticism from his voice.
“Of course not.” She laughed louder and longer than anyone he had ever heard. When she finally calmed down she explained. “Our spirits leave our body and follow the air currents. We can see through them. It is not perfect and it is easy to miss things, but I have found it to be a useful skill.”
“The Fang-shi can see long distances, but I am not sure how,” he said.
“There are many ways to get the same effect,” she said. “We should be wary as we get closer to the city.”
“I agree, it is likely that the Mongols will have forces out on patrol, trying to keep reinforcements away.”
