Guy Kay - Under Heaven

The sensation was so strange. Relief like a wave, and then another wave, of sorrow.

“I wondered,” Tai said. “We knew it came from Wen Zhou.”

Liu shook his head. “It would have made no sense. I knew how far away you were, if you were still alive. You could do nothing about Li-Mei even if you were foolish enough to want to. Why would I need you dead?”

“Why would he?” Tai looked down at the dead man beside them.

“He didn’t. Which is one reason he never told me about it. It was nothing but arrogance. He did it because of the woman, and because he could.”

“And Teng Pass?”

“He was afraid of Xu Bihai. Afraid the general would decide the rebellion was Zhou’s fault and come to an arrangement with the rebels. I think he feared all soldiers.” A slight smile. “Makes this morning amusing, doesn’t it?”

Tai said, “That wouldn’t be my word for it.”

Liu flicked his fingers dismissively. “You have,” he said, “no sense of irony. Listen now, and carefully.” He waited for Tai to nod, an instructor confirming a student’s attention.

Liu said, “The horses will save your life. Let it be said abroad—by the Kanlins, if you can do it—that I did try to have you killed. They won’t lie, you must make them think you believe it.”

“Why? Why do I need to—?”

The familiar, impatient look. “Because Shinzu is more clever than any of us suspected, and if he thinks you are linked to me …”

“I am linked to you, First Brother!”

Liu’s expression was impatient again. “Think. In this imperial family, brotherhood can mean hatred and murder as easily as anything else. Shinzu will know that. Tai, there is a clear path to power for you, for our family. He honours you already. He will have need of advisers, his own men, over and above your bringing the horses.”

Tai said nothing. Liu didn’t wait for him to speak.

“Also, the lands given you, by the Great River. A very good property, but not safe for the next while. I have no idea which way Roshan will go, but he might move south. After they take Xinan and finish killing there.”

“He will allow killing in the city?”

A small headshake, as if it pained Liu that someone might not see these things. “Of course he will. Wen Zhou slew his son, and the rebel soldiers are hard men, more than half of them barbarians. Almost all of the imperial family are still in the city. They are dead when he finds them. Xinan will be a bad place for the rest of this summer at least. People will be leaving in panic. As soon as today.” His voice was brisk, low, no one else could hear. The soldiers were waiting. Jian, Tai thought, was waiting.

Liu seemed to come to the same awareness. “I cannot linger to teach you,” he said. “Our own estate will likely be safe for our mothers, but have an eye to them, wherever you are. Keep Shinzu content, stay as close to him as you can. If this rebellion lasts a long time, and I think it will now, there is a man in Hangdu, near our property. His name is Pang, he has only one leg, you cannot miss finding him at the market. He has been buying and storing grain for me, for our family, in a hidden barn I had built some time ago. He needs to be paid three thousand a month, the middle of every month. You are wealthy now, but there will be shortages of food. Try to keep buying. These things are yours now to look after. Do you understand, Second Brother?”

Tai swallowed. “I understand,” he said. “Pang, in Hangdu.”

Liu looked at him. No affection, no fear, not much of anything to be read in the soft, smooth face.

Tai said, “I am sorry for this, brother. I am … pleased to know you did not send the assassins.”

Liu shrugged. “I might have, if I had thought it prudent for any reason.”

“I don’t think so, Liu.”

A superior smile, well remembered. “You did until now.”

“I know. My error. I request forgiveness.”

His brother glanced away, then shrugged again. “I forgive you. What I did for our family, Li-Mei made a princess, I would do again. Tai, it was a master stroke.”

Tai said nothing. His brother looked at him, then away towards the courtyard.

“So was Kuala Nor,” Liu added softly.

It was suddenly difficult to speak.

“I didn’t think of it that way.”

“I know you didn’t,” said Liu. “If you can, have me buried beside father in the orchard.” Another thin smile as he glanced back. “You are skilled at quieting ghosts, are you not?”

And with that, he went down the steps to the sunlit yard, drawing a jewelled court blade from the sleeve of his robe.

Tai saw him approach Jian and bow to her. The dui commander was the only one near them, and now he withdrew, backing away a dozen steps, as if to, belatedly, distance himself from this.

Tai saw his brother say something to Jian, too softly for anyone to hear. But he saw her smile, as if surprised, and pleased, by what she heard. She murmured something to Liu, and he bowed again.

He spoke one more time, and after a motionless instant she nodded her head. She made a dancer’s spinning movement, a last one, the sort that ends a performance and releases the audience’s approval and applause.

She ended it with her back to Liu, to the posting station. She faced south (her people had come from the south), towards the cypress trees lining the road and the summer fields beyond them, bright in morning light, and Tai’s brother placed his left hand around her waist, to steady the both of them, and he thrust his knife cleanly into her, between ribs, into the heart, from behind.

Liu held her, gently, carefully, as she died. And then he held her a little longer, and then he laid her down on her back in the dust of that yard, because there was nothing else he could do.

He knelt beside her a moment, arranging her clothing. One of her hairpins had come loose. Tai watched his brother fix it in place again. Then Liu set down his jewelled blade and stood up and he moved a distance away from her, towards the archers of the Second Army. He stopped.

“Do it,” he said. Making it his command. And was standing very straight as they sent half a dozen arrows into him.

Tai had no way of knowing if his brother’s eyes were open or closed before he died. He did become aware, after a time, that Sima Zian was beside him, saying nothing, but present.

He looked out into the yard. At Liu, face down, and at Jian on her back, the blue robe spread about her, and it seemed to him that sunlight was wrong for what the moment was, what it would always be now, even as it receded. This morning brightness, the birds rising and darting, their singing.

He said that, to the poet. “Should there be birdsong?”

Zian said, “No, and yes. We do what we do, and the world continues. Somewhere, a child is being born and the parents are tasting a joy they never imagined.”

“I know that,” said Tai. “But here ? Should there be so much light here?”

“No,” said Sima Zian, after a moment. “Not here.”

“My lords?” It was Song. Tai turned to her. He had never seen her looking as she did now. “My lords, we request your permission,” she said. “We wish to kill two of them later. The commander and the first archer, the small one. Only two. But it must be done.” She wiped at her cheeks.

“You have mine,” said Zian, eyes gazing out upon the courtyard.

“You have mine,” said Tai.

A different poet, younger, would write that. Part of a very long verse, one that would be remembered, among all the (deservedly) forgotten ones about that morning at Ma-wai.