Saint-Germain could not quite smile. “You honor me, Warlord T’en.”
“I wonder,” she said, then lapsed into silence again as they made their way toward her stronghold.
A letter from Kuan Sun-Sze in Lo-Yang to Saint-Germain at Mao-T’ou stronghold.
In the fortnight of a Thousand Blossoms, in the Year of the Ox, the Fourteenth Year of the Sixty-fifth Cycle, to the learned foreigner Shih Ghieh-Man at the Mao-T’ou stronghold in the Shu-Rh District:
Though it is always a pleasure to remember the affection of those we respect, yet on this occasion I would wish that my reasons for sending this message were only those of friendship, but sadly, this is not so.
I have been thinking back with pleasure to the many hours I have spent in your company, of the long and erudite conversations we have shared and of your courtesy and distinction. Therefore it is doubly hard for me to write to you now and inform you of what transpired here eight days ago.
The temper of the city has been uncertain, for there are disturbing reports and even more disturbing rumors circulating regarding the Mongol forces. It has been said that Temujin’s men have conquered far more territory than the Ministry of War will admit. If this is so, then we are most surely lost, for what we have heard is bad enough. I am telling you this so that you will understand how events have come about here, and realize that it was not you but your foreignness that provoked the students and soldiers.
As I read this, I see I am trying to postpone the moment of telling you, and that is a disservice to you and the friendship we have shared to do so. Very well, then: eight days ago, a mob numbering several hundred, mostly students and soldiers from the local garrison, maddened by the latest report of heavy losses in the north, went rampaging through Lo-Yang, destroying all that was foreign. It gives me great pain to inform you that your compound suffered greatly at the hands, of these distraught men. Your gates were torn open and many of your belongings were ruined. Those that were not, I am sending to you with two university messengers to guard them and a formal decree that exempts them from seizure. Most of what survived are Chinese works of art. There are two jade lions, one large silk hanging, which is a little singed in one corner, a number of ceramic pieces, all but one of your collection of musical instruments—I fear that your bowed lyre did not survive the wrath of the students. There are also your supplies from your laboratory. The walls there were very stout and the students and soldiers did not trouble themselves to destroy that side wing of the house. That lantern in the main hall, the one I have admired so often—that was pounded out of shape and given to the metal workers in Street of the Blind Poet.
The officers of the Tribunal did not arrive in time to save the central part of the house, but contained the fires before they spread. The August Magistrates have issued a formal statement of condemnation for the barbarity of the acts of the students and soldiers, and will in time, they assure me, present you with a proper apology and restitution for the damage done.
Most of the supplies in your laboratory will be held here for you, but I have arranged to have the four metal chests sent with your belongings, as well as the two foreign chests of compounds and such supplies. I took the liberty of examining the metal chests to be certain they had not been rifled, as a number of your chests and cases were, and found that they contained earth. I recall that you explained to me once that you have long been convinced that earth has certain properties that are not fully understood and appreciated. I thought at the time you might be involved in experimentation with those properties of earth, but we did not pursue the matter. I trust now that you will forgive me if I ask to be kept abreast of your experiments so that I may apply what you discover to my own study. As you may recall, I told you that since many insects live underground, I have often thought that the earth in some unknown way nurtures them.
There, you must forgive me. I have had the audacity to make a request of you at the very moment I am telling you of your own great loss. I would understand if you chose not to reply to this letter, or to communicate with me again, for though I have long admired you and taken pride in the honor of your friendship, yet, when it was put to the test, I failed you. Will you, of your compassion, pardon me for this? Your generosity would lighten the burden I carry on my conscience, but there is no reason you should extend it to me. Do as you think best, Shih Ghieh-Man, and I will accept your decision as just.
Written by my own hand, and delivered by the officers of the Lo-Yang tribunal, to the foreigner Shih Ghieh-Man at the Mao-T’ou stronghold of the Warlord T’en Chih-Yü in the Shu-Rh District.
Kuan Sun-Sze
Master, University of Lo-Yang
6
Smoke hung over the ridge and the stench of burning filled the air. Saint-Germain stood on the newly constructed ramparts and watched the flat, brassy sky as the smoke trailed across it.
“Any sign?” the gatekeeper called up to him from his post below.
“Not yet,” he answered, a frown darkening his face.
“It’s early,” the gatekeeper said by way of consolation. “Hardly past noon. Jui Ah told us that the troops wouldn’t be back until nightfall.”
If they’re back at all, Saint-Germain thought as he said, “Warlord T’en planned to be off the field by sunset at the latest” to the gatekeeper.
It was a hot day, though not with the thick, drumming heat of high summer. The air was clear, shimmering in the distance, and the gravel in the newly dug trench around the Mao-T’ou stronghold gave back a hard shine where the sun struck them.
“When do you get your relief?” the gatekeeper asked. Saint-Germain had been on the walls of the stronghold since the militia had ridden out shortly after sunrise.
“When the Warlord returns,” he answered distantly, watching the smoke smudge the metallic face of the sun. He braced one arm against the hewn logs of the stockade and stared at the distant ridge.
“Now you don’t want to fret,” the gatekeeper said a little later. He spoke with a soldier’s dialect and found it easy to understand the cultured, academic words Saint-Germain used.
It was an effort for Saint-Germain to wrench his attention from the tallest part of the slope to the squat man with white hair and eyes raisin-dark. “I wish I had been allowed to ride with them,” he said, knowing that there was also within him a reprehensible sense of relief. “They have said that they will not fight with a foreigner.”
“So they have,” the gatekeeper agreed. “Don’t think too harshly of them. Those militiamen aren’t like real soldiers. They see very little of the world. Now, when I was in the army, there was this Tartar fellow, tall, ugly brute and spoke the language worse than a Hang-Chow prostitute, but what a fighter he was! Every man in the company loved him for his bravery and his good sense. But none of the militiamen here would have agreed to go into battle beside him, and that would be their error. You can’t let Jui Ah upset you. That’s what he’s trying to do. It’s the Warlord you’re here to serve, not that fellow. You ought to remember that.” While he spoke, a servant had brought him a bowl of food—a cereal paste with bits of pork and mutton stirred into it. He dipped his fingers into this and glanced up at Saint-Germain again. “It’s barley today,” he remarked. “Sure you don’t want some?”
Half-annoyed and half-relieved by the gatekeeper, Saint-Germain did not answer at once. “Hsing will tend to that later,” he said after a silence.
“Now, there’s a pleasant thought for a man. That Hsing. What thighs.” He paused to gobble more of the barley-and-meat mixture. “Were I a younger man, I’d be jealous of you, but at my age…”
Saint-Germain’s features were unreadable. “I am not a young man, gatekeeper.”
“Oh, not a youth, surely,” the gatekeeper said sagely. “But all I have to do is look at you to know that there are fires in you that were extinguished in me years ago.” He gave a philosophical gesture and finished his meal.
“I might surprise you,” Saint-Germain said lightly, but felt a
grim certainty. He stared out at the ridge and saw that there was more smoke. He could smell it on the wind, a charred odor that tainted the clean smells that promised summer. As he watched the spread of gray and brown over the sky, he tried to distract his thoughts with a catalog of Hsing’s beauty. She was the most shapely woman he had seen at the Mao-T’ou stronghold, and none of the farmers had any wives or daughters like her. She was, he surmised, the offspring of one of General T’en’s concubines. How did Chih-Yü feel about this half-sister? he wondered, but had no answer.
Slowly the smoke obliterated the sun.
Hsing, Saint-Germain reminded himself with an angry desperation as he kept his eyes on the ridge, was oddly complacent, almost bored. She would lie beside him, wholly self-absorbed as he excited her with the full range of his skills. She would close her eyes, going into herself so completely that Saint-Germain was almost certain she did not know when he had taken his pleasure of her. For Hsing, it was not a thing to be shared.
The afternoon was still, and the wind had fallen, but the smoke hung on the air, acrid, poisonous, drifting more slowly now and spreading its blackness over the sky.
Some little time later there was a fluttering movement at the crest of the hill, and Saint-Germain straightened up, his eyes slits as he strove to make out what was approaching. He moved along the narrow catwalk, his gaze never leaving the distant ridge. He was alert now, and oddly feral. His black, steel-studded pelisse was Frankish and the black coxalia that clung to his legs were Byzantine; his only concession to Chinese fashion was his thick-soled boots. He had got used to hearing the whispers about his manners and dress and no longer worried when one of the militiamen regarded him with contempt.
“What’s happening?” the gatekeeper called up.
“Riders,” Saint-Germain said tersely.
“How many?” There was ill-concealed anxiety in the man’s voice, for there were only ten militiamen in the stronghold, and if the riders were Mongols, there was not enough time to muster a makeshift defense.
“I can see twenty, perhaps more.” He concentrated, damning the smoke that had turned the light ruddy and brought its own shadow to the hills.
“Any indications…?”
“… that they’re ours? No.” His eyes were stinging, but he continued to search the distant figures in the hope of discovering their identity. “Perhaps you’d better warn the others?” he suggested, and did not look to see whether or not the gatekeeper obeyed him. He gripped the rough timbers of the wooden ramparts, ignoring the splinters that sank into his hands. Who was coming. What had happened. The words sounded in his mind in a dozen languages, and he refused to think of the number of times he had waited to learn what had become of his companions. He wished he had a clarion to signal the approaching men, yet knew that even if he had one, neither Chih-Yü nor her men were familiar with its call.
The few militiamen who had been left behind hurried toward the battlements, one of them pausing to take a stirrup crossbow from its place on the wall.
“I would like to have some artillery,” one of the militiamen muttered as he set up his standing quiver where he could reach his arrows without turning away from the walls.
“Get the women into the main buildings,” the gatekeeper shouted as he hurried across the courtyard. “Children in the cellars until we know who’s coming!”
There was swift, frenzied movement as the people of Mao-T’ou stronghold hastened to carry out his orders.
Saint-Germain was aware of the activity, but he did not allow it to divert his attention. He could see the figures more plainly now, though the distant roiling smoke made everything indistinct. He wiped at his eyes as if to clear the air by this action. “Move, move,” he whispered tightly as the mounted figures came over the crest of the hill and the men on the ramparts were readying their weapons. The extent of his relief as he recognized the chestnut roan Chih-Yü had been riding that morning was greater than a sense of good fortune for the Mao-T’ou stronghold.
“Hold!” he shouted to the militiamen, who turned to him in suspicion and surprise. “It’s T’en Chih-Yü. That’s Jui Ah on the dun. See?” Saint-Germain pointed at the figures, who were now becoming separate from the smoke. They no longer looked like wraiths of darkness, but like what they were—an exhausted militia troop returning with casualties to their base.
“It is the Warlord!” one of the men on the ramparts agreed, shocked, and turned to the man next to him in amazement. “They’ve made it back.”
“Open the gates!” Saint-Germain ordered, and no one thought it strange that he was obeyed at once.
Even as the huge wooden bolt was being lifted, Saint-Germain was climbing to the lookout tower, which had only recently been completed. The last part of it was unfinished, but it gave him a better view of the ridge. He glared toward the smoke, beyond the company T’en Chih-Yü led, fearing to see armed men on squat Mongol ponies racing after them. He watched until he could hear the sound of approaching horses, and was assured. There were no Mongols in pursuit this day. Later it might be otherwise, but for now the militiamen of Mao-T’ou stronghold and their Warlord were out of immediate danger.
The gates groaned open, and shortly afterward, Chih-Yü led her men through them to be greeted by shouts from her guards.
Saint-Germain stayed by the watchtower and looked down into the courtyard.
Chih-Yü’s face was darkened with smuts, as were all her men’s faces. Her sheng me was torn and her scale armor had several leaf-shaped scales missing. There was blood on her left leg and boot and she had a makeshift bandage around her right hand. As the gatekeeper rushed up to her, she slid out of the saddle.
The gatekeeper looked about in consternation, starting to motion for assistance, but faster than he could act, Saint-Germain vaulted down from his position by the watchtower, landing close enough to her chestnut roan to make the horse whinny and rear.
The militiamen stared at him in awe, and a few made gestures to protect themselves. Jui Ah, who had started toward Chih-Yü, cursed and turned to shout orders to the men.
Chih-Yü was already getting to her feet. “What a silly thing to do,” she remarked in a shaky voice. “I’ve been in the saddle too long, I think.” She glanced around at the waiting faces—at her troops, who were exhausted, some wounded; at the gatekeeper, who regarded her anxiously; and at Saint-Germain, who stood near her, one hand extended to help her up. “Shih Ghieh-Man,” she said, puzzled. “I didn’t see you before.”
“He jumped from up there…” the gatekeeper said, and for the first time seemed aware of the extraordinary thing the foreigner had done.
“Western circus tricks,” Saint-Germain said with a shrug of dismissal. He salved his conscience with the admission that it was a circus trick, one he had seen done for the first time in the Circus Maximus when Claudius had ruled in Rome.
“Impressive, nonetheless,” Chih-Yü said as she gave him her unbandaged hand and let him pull her up. “I’m famished. My legs feel like lead. My throat is raw from the smoke and the shouting. Have someone prepare my bath and heat up the bathhouse for the rest. We’ll need treatment for nine of my men. Two did not come back.” This last was said quietly, painfully, and she looked away.
“That’s most fortunate,” Saint-Germain said quickly, and looked to the others for confirmation. “To lose so few.”
“There were men from Shui-Lo fortress there, as well,” Jui Ah announced. He swaggered as he got off his horse, parading for the benefit of those who had stayed behind to guard Mao-T’ou stronghold.
“There were more than a hundred of them,” Chih-Yü said, silencing her Captain. “They were well-mounted and better armed. Tan Mung-Fa told me he has persuaded his uncle in the Ministry of War to address the Emperor on his behalf, which apparently he did, because at least half his men wore the badge of the Imperial household.” She could not quite stop her sigh.
“Then Tan Mung-Fa will have informed the Emperor how it is with us, and your petition wil
l be heard,” Jui Ah declared with satisfaction, looking to the other men to give him their support.
One of the injured men screamed as he reached the ground. Until he had dismounted he had not been aware of the severity of his wounds, but the agony hit him at once, and half a dozen of his fellows rushed to his aid.
“Tan Mung-Fa is for later,” Chih-Yü said crisply, seeming more herself again. “Get the surgeon out here and tell him to start to work on those who are wounded. When he is through with them, I’d like him to look at my hand.”
The others were already moving to carry out her orders as Saint-Germain asked her softly, “Would you like me to examine your hand? I know a little of medicine.”
“You do?” She was startled, but just for an instant. “Of course you do. You’re an alchemist.” With a jerk of her other hand she tore away the bandage. “I got my knuckles grazed,” she said, feeling ashamed.
Saint-Germain looked at the caked blood and torn skin. “This must be cleaned first. Afterward I will give you a powder that will take away the sting and will keep the flesh from corruption. If you will allow me.”
“Certainly,” she said, then turned to the others. “After the evening meal, I will want to speak to all of you in the main hall. We must set our strategy now, or we’ll be in as much danger as Bei-Wa was. And all of you saw that fortress burn.” The stern set of her face and the clipped words gave emphasis to her orders. Her men would be there in the main hall after their evening meal. “I will also want a complete report on all injuries, no matter how slight. Let no man think he is showing heroism if he makes light of his hurts, for that will make you a danger to all of the rest of us.” She looked toward her stablehands. “I will want to know how all the horses are. Be as honest as you can be. If a horse is not fit for riding, tell me so.” When she had received an acknowledging wave from the oldest groom, she looked again at Saint-Germain. “Very well. Give me a little time to bathe and I will join you in your quarters.”
Path of the Eclipse Page 9
