SHIANG

by C. F. Iggulden

  ‘Bring the others in,’ Lord Ran ordered. ‘I’ll work with what I have been given.’

  He tied a white cloth over the bottom half of his face and, as if at a signal, all the servants did the same. Taeshin felt his heart thump. He did not know if he could bear whatever they would do to him and keep his dignity, not any longer. Strangely, it was that which frightened him most, more so than actual pain – that other men would see him break.

  Lord Ran’s servants were all young and about as skeletally thin as their master. It was as if the work itself burned away flesh. They raced to do his bidding. Taeshin managed to turn his head when the doors crashed open and three wheeled beds were pushed into the cramped space, the layers of wires rearranged to allow them through. Each bed held a man, though Taeshin could see no common thread to explain their presence.

  Two of them raved from the moment they saw Lord Ran. They had been restrained with the same leather straps, though Taeshin saw there had been no kindly patron to remove the ones around their necks. They gibbered and cursed as the beds were halted and the wires draped over and through, many of them removed and reattached.

  Taeshin found himself in a horrible intimacy with three strangers. He looked from one to the other, while Lord Ran and his servants ignored them all, fussing over the equipment. Taeshin felt himself trembling as if he stood in a freezing wind, though the room was warm and the air thick with chemical odours.

  The two who struggled were painfully clean, their skin sore and pink with scratches, as if the dirt of years or decades had been scrubbed away without much care or pity. One of them had been shaved just as roughly, so that cuts and patches wept clear fluid as he flung himself against the restraints almost mindlessly. Taeshin waited for him to open his eyes, but when he did, it made Taeshin flinch. The sockets were not empty, but they had grown over with scarring that looked more like the inside of a cheek or a muscle. It was pink and marbled-looking, foul in its appearance. Taeshin wondered how much the man even understood of his surroundings.

  ‘Calm yourself, sir, if you can,’ he said.

  The man stopped his writhing on the bed, turning towards Taeshin like a dog catching a scent. It was a strangely unnerving experience as the sightless man leaned against creaking straps, trying to sense him.

  ‘Help me! Help!’ the man cried out suddenly. ‘Please!’ He began to shriek with astonishing volume.

  Taeshin saw a group of the servants respond together. They came with determination in their stance and Taeshin wanted to look away but could not. Two of them held the man’s kicking legs. Another wrapped a piece of tubing around an arm until Taeshin could see a web of purple veins showing. That servant slapped at the arm, reddening the skin. He pulled back a cloth from the tray and revealed a plunger of metal and glass, filled with a white substance. Taeshin remembered Lord Ran had said something about milk and he shuddered as they pressed the thing against the man’s arm and emptied the liquid into him. The result was almost instant, the man’s wailing losing force. Taeshin watched as the blind man sagged, his pink eyes clearly visible without the strength to clench them closed.

  Silence and the bubbling of acid returned. Taeshin looked to the bed of the other who had shouted, perhaps hoping for rescue. That man met his gaze easily enough, though he did not call out again. He had seen the fate of the first and didn’t want any part of it. Taeshin saw he had the same scrubbed look, as if they’d all had years of filth removed. As if they’d been plucked from the gutters of the city for whatever Ran wanted. One was blind, the others … Taeshin felt the gaze of the third on him. The last man was watching him with something like suspicion or rage. He had more muscle on him than the two street rats, if that was what they were. The third had been scrubbed as brutally as the other two, but he bore other marks and scratches, as if he’d fought back every step of the way. When Taeshin spoke, it was to an equal, until he knew more.

  ‘I gather you did not choose to be here,’ Taeshin said.

  The man shook his head, his eyes busy. It was clear he still hoped to find a way out. That was either admirable or foolish, Taeshin was not sure. When he continued to stare, the man’s gaze fixed on him in irritation.

  ‘What do you want? Some lord’s boy, are you?’ he growled, suddenly.

  ‘My name is Taeshin. Lord Hong is my master and patron. And you?’ He thought the question would have no meaning for the fellow. Taeshin was surprised when it was answered.

  ‘Samson Edo, last of the house of Ruijin.’

  ‘Ruijin is an honourable house,’ Taeshin replied, weighing the man anew.

  ‘It was once, though it has fallen low these days.’

  ‘You served a household? Truly?’ Taeshin asked in genuine curiosity. He could not explain the presence of a swordsman in that place, though he supposed the same could be said of him.

  ‘Until I was cut and the wound festered, yes,’ the man growled back at him. ‘I found out then what loyalty was – and how it stretched only one way, from us to them. I found out what I was worth then.’

  He kicked at the blankets over his legs. As they slipped to the floor, Taeshin looked down. He blanched as he understood. One of the man’s legs ended just below the knee in a pink and yellow bulge of muscle. It looked like a knot and Taeshin shook his head in pity.

  ‘I am sorry to see that, Master Edo,’ he said.

  The man coloured at the courtesy. He twitched in such a way that Taeshin knew he would have waved the words off if he had not been bound. It was part of his craft to read the movements of other men and assess the threat in them. Taeshin saw anger in the way he sat, but despair in the dark eyes.

  ‘Been a long time since I’ve been called that,’ the man muttered. ‘I’m not a master now, nor Ruijin. I just said it because I could see the scorn in you, the arrogance. You’ve never been cut, son. You’ve never watched anything of you hacked away. I have. They took everything from me. When they do it to you, perhaps in this place, you’ll understand.’

  Taeshin made himself look away from the malevolence. He did not know if the man had been treated cruelly, or if he was insane. Taeshin had even heard of men who claimed ties to noble families that bore no relation to the truth. That was a dangerous game, though. The houses of Shiang were harsh with those who undermined their honour and their names.

  Taeshin sighed, shaking his head. He could not concern himself with the fate of strangers, no matter what Lord Ran was doing there. His side had been aching like a rotten tooth, but as he shifted on the bed, it flared up, making him grunt in pain. The servants seemed oblivious. Only the other three might have heard. He thought he saw the one who had named himself Samson Edo curl his lip in a sneer, but Taeshin ignored him. Some men carried too much poison in them to be restful. He sensed Edo was one of those – a bitter man. Taeshin had known others who had lost a leg or hand. It had not destroyed them, not in such a manner. The strong remained strong; the weak broke. That was the truth.

  The second man smiled at him suddenly, making a hissing sound that might have been laughter. Taeshin looked back to a face that had creased in on itself, showing a few grey teeth in withered gums. The man was laughing at him, while all the time tears streamed from his eyes. He reminded Taeshin of the drunks who begged in the old city, their brains rotted away. As he stared back, the fellow raised his chin and spoke, though the words were little more than mush and the wheezing laughter began again. He had been driven to madness, or drunk himself to it, Taeshin could not be sure.

  He looked around the gathering of broken men with new eyes. One was blind, one lame, the third ruined by drink or poverty. Taeshin considered his own lumps that promised death and agony unending. He looked up as Lord Ran returned, his eyes bright with anticipation. As Taeshin watched, the king’s Lord of Trade peered and poked at each of them, careless of their dignity. When he came to Taeshin, the man pressed him back against the upright bed. Taeshin had no strength to resist, while his side spasmed and made him pant. He felt the man’s fingers refasten t
he thick strap around his neck, holding him in place.

  ‘There, that’s better,’ Lord Ran said. ‘I have hopes for you, Master Taeshin. Of all these men, you are the most … whole. One of Lord Hong’s chosen, no less! Only Edo here has known training and that was twenty years ago. You, though, are young and strong, perhaps strong enough to survive. If I had three more of you … but, no matter. Be brave now, sir. Endure. You have as good a chance as any.’

  4

  Cruelty

  Marias knew she was breathing too fast, her heart beating like a hare’s. She stood in the dwindling shadow of the city gate while hawkers, guards and workers streamed by, all busy with their lives. Those who kept moving had a sort of immunity, she saw, as if their bustle protected them from notice. She sensed the attention of others flickering past and then returning to her: a butcher opening his shop, a schoolchild eating a steamed bun filled with red bean paste. Just standing still brought her to the notice of those who knew she had not been there before. Marias did not want to be challenged. Yet what choice did she have? Taeshin had vanished two days before. She had no way of claiming his income, if it was still being issued in his name. No house slave would be allowed to collect a man’s pay, even if she’d known which of the offices in the palace quarter was the right one. She bit her fingernails as she stood at the roadside, worrying at the tips until the skin was ragged and sore. Taeshin had not been a wealthy man, she knew that. He had paid late on occasion, using his status and name to make tradesmen wait. Yet he had not been seen since he’d collapsed in front of half a dozen noble families and the king himself. The news had spread as if it had wings. Those to whom Taeshin owed money had heard and come to bang on his door that very first evening. Warriors who became ill had no protections from such men. The obsequious manner she’d seen in them before had vanished, just as soon as they thought they had the upper hand. Marias had sat at the top of the stairs and hugged her knees to herself, watching angry shadows peer through glass.

  They had not forced the door, at least. Some of Taeshin’s creditors had left boys to watch the house for his return, or perhaps to be first in line if the property was sold at auction. Marias would have starved or frozen if she’d stayed inside, without a single lamp to betray her presence. Instead, she’d climbed out of the small window in Taeshin’s bedroom and crept across the tiles.

  That had felt like freedom, of a sort, above the heads of bustling men and women. They went about their lives below and, as far as she could see, hardly looked up at all. Certainly, she had not been spotted as she made her way out. No cry had begun, no chase summoned to recapture a running slave.

  She clasped the good cloak close around her. Marias had never worn it before. She thought it had belonged once to Taeshin’s mother and it still smelled of a faint perfume. Yet it sheltered her from the glances of those passing. On impulse, she held out a hand to beg for coin. That made her even less visible to the merchants and traders coming into the city. Her face was smeared with dirt and her hands were filthy from climbing around on green tiles. It was either a disguise or her new reality. For the moment, she chose to believe it was a disguise.

  Taeshin used to keep spare coins on a round plate by the door. It was bad luck there had been only a couple of renminbi there. She’d spent the last of the household wealth on bread and a handful of dried silkworm larvae, all the while listening to every conversation and asking questions like a gossip. She’d considered going back to Little Mung, but Marias was not that desperate, not on the first day. After another day and night with no sign of Taeshin, her certainties were slipping through her fingers and she was losing hope. She’d eaten the last of the food the previous evening and all she’d heard was the rumour that Taeshin had been taken in by the Lord of Trade. Marias imagined a kindly man, treating Taeshin’s illness with poultices and doctors. None of the street sellers would tell her where that lord had his home. When she pressed them, they sensed her need was dangerous. They looked again at the dirt on her and they clamped their lips tight and waved her away.

  Marias was certainly hungry enough to consider stealing, but was all too aware of what happened to slaves who did. She had decided to die on her feet rather than be stripped and hanged in the nearest square. A wave of dizziness swept over her, so that she reached out to the gatepost, brushing against a soldier coming out. He eyed her warily at first, then with more confidence as he took in her visible poverty. Something unpleasant kindled in his eyes and Marias turned away from it, only to have him grip her arm.

  ‘You should come into the guardhouse, love, where it’s nice and warm. We’ve got food in there – and wine, if you want. Come on.’

  Marias yanked her arm from his grasp. She knew very well what awaited her if she was fool enough to go with him, especially if they discovered her brand.

  ‘Get away!’ she snapped at him. Anger or perhaps hunger gave her the confidence. She was a free woman in that instant, gathering tattered dignity like the shawl around her.

  The guard sneered, flushing. He was younger than she’d first thought and embarrassed by the glances coming his way. The butcher was watching the little scene, Marias saw. The guard didn’t reach out again, but there was spite in him too and a desire to hurt.

  ‘Go on, get away from this patch,’ he said, his voice coarse and too loud. ‘You’ll not beg here, bitch.’

  Marias felt her own face flush under the dirt. It stung, even after so many years. Yet she was pleased just to be able to turn into the crowd once more. It was the only victory she could have against the man and all he was: strong and violent, trained and clean and free. She wished Taeshin could have been there, to put the man across his knee and beat him like a drum. The thought took some of the pain from the encounter. She began to push her way through the passers-by, ignoring the touch of hands that felt for some hidden purse under her cloak. She had nothing to steal, nothing even to prevent her stomach croaking like a marsh frog.

  Further along the street, cheering began. Marias stood on her tiptoes to see, holding on to a short stone post to keep her balance as more and more people swept forward to see what was coming. She clung there like a limpet, refusing to be dislodged from a place that would allow her to see which of the king’s master swordsmen were riding through the gate. The city was alive with the rumour and she had convinced herself one of them would somehow be Taeshin. As mad as it was, she could not let them leave Shiang while she searched for her master, not without glimpsing their faces. The thought that she might have missed him in her weakness and hunger would torment her if she didn’t look. That much was certain.

  It was a modest group compared to some she had seen. Military processions could march along those main streets for hours: thousands of men in perfect ranks, with the banners of noble houses fluttering overhead. In comparison, those four horsemen might have passed through Shiang almost without notice. Yet the crowds thickened by the moment and Marias felt breath catch in her throat.

  In a city that revered the craft of the sword, those who could claim true mastery were considered national treasures. Even Marias knew the name of Hondo, first swordsman of Shiang. He looked younger than she had expected, riding a shining brown horse with his hands lightly on the pommel. No group of the best swordsmen could be assembled without him, she imagined. Though he had to be fifty, he had won tournaments for thirty years, against all comers.

  She did not know the names of the three riding with Hondo, though the crowd around her obliged by calling them at the tops of their voices. The twins Hi and Je could not be told apart, of course. They were identical warriors and were said to have achieved their mastery by training together every day, stopping only to sleep and eat.

  Marias blinked as she discovered she did actually recognise the last of the four. Bosin was a huge man who rode a horse more suited to pulling a plough than being ridden into battle. It was a beast that dwarfed even its master, who stood head and shoulders above the other three. God had given Bosin unusual gifts as a child,
so that he was said to be able to lift any man above his head. Untrained, he would not have been a challenge for a Mazer swordsman. Yet he was as fast and deadly as any of the others – and far stronger. In normal times, he trailed admirers like a comet passing through the city. Marias had seen him twice over the years, both times when she’d glanced up to see who could possibly laugh so loudly. Bosin was a man of gold, far above the pettiness and frustrations of an ordinary life, at least as she imagined him.

  Marias craned and peered for some sight of Taeshin amongst them. It surprised her to see such names travelling without servants or slaves to tend them. It was true their saddlebags were crammed full, but they would be lighting their own fires in the wilderness. Bosin’s animal seemed to be carrying twice his weight with all he had brought. Yet Taeshin was not there.

  Marias let go of the post and her space was immediately filled by those who desired a glimpse of the Shiang masters. Almost without effort, she was pushed back and back, retreating from the press of elbowing humanity as her strength faded. She turned for home, then changed her mind and headed to the market once more. At the end of each day, the stallholders threw away the food that had turned. She had seen the sick and the poor gather for that harvest the evening before, holding out their hands. She had not been ready to fight them then, but she knew she would be too weak if she let another chance go. Marias was not yet ready to give up. She wondered what it would feel like when she was.

  Taeshin had not experienced electrical pain before. Part of his training in the Mazer steps was simply being hit, both in sparring bouts and as a separate procedure, to force his bones to grow stronger. Nothing trained the body for battle as well as actually being struck. He had lived with bruises and cracked bones from the age of seven, when he’d been taken to the boys’ barracks for the first time. His bunkmates had welcomed him with a beating that had left him senseless and with two broken fingers.