Guy Kay - Under Heaven

“No,” he said quietly, and then repeated it. “No. I’m not.”

Bytsan looked back at him, waiting.

Tai said, “I’m going home.”

Then he added something else, a thought he hadn’t even known he’d been carrying until he heard his voice speaking it.

The Taguran listened, holding Tai’s gaze. After a moment he nodded his head, and said, also quietly, something equally unexpected.

They bowed to each other and parted—until the next morning, it was agreed, at which time the Heavenly Horses of the west, the gift of the White Jade Princess, would be brought over the border to Kitai.

LOOKING BACK, Tai would name that day as another of those that changed his life. Paths branching, decisions made. Sometimes, you did have a choice, he thought.

Riding back from the meeting with Bytsan he understood, yet again, that he’d already made a decision within, he’d only needed to acknowledge it, say it, bring it into the world. He felt a quiet within, as they rode. He hadn’t felt this way, he realized, since leaving Kuala Nor.

But this awareness—that all he wanted to do now was go home to his two mothers and his younger brother and his father’s grave, and Liu’s by now—was not the only thing that would emerge from that day and night by the border.

The storm came that afternoon.

The heavy stillness of the air, silence of birds, had foretold it. When it broke over them, lightning lacerating the southern sky, thunder cracking like the anger of gods, they were blessedly under a roof in the trading station and inn between Hsien and the border.

In times of peace, and there had been twenty years of peace now, Tagur and Kitai did trade, and this was one of the places where it happened.

As rain drummed on the roof and thunder boomed and snarled, Tai drank cup after cup of unexceptional wine, and did the best he could to fend off a verbal assault.

Wei Song was rigid with fury, had even enlisted Lu Chen to join her attack—and the very experienced leader of Tai’s Kanlins, however respectful he remained, wasn’t diffident about agreeing with her.

Song was less respectful. She called him a fool. He had made what appeared to be a mistake, had told the two of them his intentions. He was going home; the Kanlins would take the horses to the emperor.

“Tai, you cannot do this! Later, yes. Of course, yes. But not until you have taken the Sardians to him yourself! He needs to see you !”

She’d just called him by his name, which she never did.

Another hint that she was genuinely upset. As if he needed more evidence. He pushed a cup of wine across the wooden table to her. She ignored it. Her eyes were fierce. She was very angry.

“I am touched that a Kanlin Warrior should care so much about her employer’s choices,” he said, trying for a lighter tone.

She swore. She never did that, either. Lu Chen looked startled.

“You aren’t my employer any more!” Song snapped. “We were hired by Wen Jian, or did you forget?”

There was another roll of thunder, but it was north of them now, the storm was passing. “She’s dead,” he said. He was somewhat drunk, he realized. “They killed her at Ma-wai.”

He looked at the two Kanlins across the table. They were alone in the dining space of the inn, on long benches at a rough table. They had eaten already. The sun would be setting, but you couldn’t see it. A hard rain had been pounding down, it seemed to be lessening now. Tai felt sorry for the Kanlins who’d gone back to Hsien to bring the rest of the company. They would claim the horses in the morning and start them north.

Sixty Kanlins would. Not Tai.

He was going home. Crossing a last bridge over the River Wai.

He thought for a moment. “Wait. If you’re paid by Jian, then you aren’t being paid any more. You don’t even owe me …”

He trailed off, because Song looked extremely dangerous suddenly. Lu Chen lifted an apologetic hand.

He nodded to Chen, who said, “It is not so, my lord. The Lady Wen Jian presented our sanctuary with a sum of money to ensure you ten Kanlin guards for ten years.”

“ What ? That’s … it makes no sense!” He was shaken, again.

“Since when,” said Song icily, “do the women of a court have to act in ways that make sense? Is extravagance such a startling thing? I’d have thought you’d learned that lesson by now!”

She really wasn’t speaking respectfully. Too upset, Tai decided. He decided he would forgive her.

“Have more wine,” he said.

“I do not want wine!” she snapped. “I want you to have some sense. You aren’t a member of the court yet! You have to be more careful!”

“I don’t want to be a member of the court, that’s the whole … that’s the point!”

“I know that!” she exclaimed. “But take the horses to the emperor first! Bow nine times, accept his thanks. Then decline a position because you feel a son’s need to go home to protect his family, with a father and older brother dead. He will honour that. He has to honour that. He can make you a prefect or something and let you go.”

“He doesn’t have to do anything,” Tai said. Which was true, and she knew it.

“But he will!”

“Why? Why will he?”

And amidst her fury, and what was also clearly fear, Tai saw a flicker of amusement in her eyes. Song shook her head. “Because you aren’t very useful to him in a war, Tai, once he has your horses.”

Using his name again. She sat very straight, looking at him. Lu Chen pretended to be interested in wine stains on the table wood.

Anger for a moment, then rue, then something else. Tai threw up both hands in surrender, and began to laugh. The wine, mostly, although wine could take you towards rage, too. Another crack of thunder, moving away.

Song didn’t smile at his amusement. She stared angrily back at him. “Think it through,” she said. “Master Shen, please think it through.” At least she was back to addressing him properly.

She went on, “The emperor knows your brother was with Wen Zhou. That puts you under suspicion.”

“He knows Zhou tried to kill me, too.”

“Doesn’t matter. It isn’t Wen Zhou, it is your brother, his death. Your feeling about that. And Jian’s. He knows she paid for your guards. For us.”

Tai stared at her.

Song said, “He will remember that you were on the ride from Xinan, when he spoke to the soldiers about Teng Pass and caused what happened at Ma-wai.”

“We don’t know he did that!” Tai exclaimed.

He looked around, to be sure they were alone.

“Yes, we do,” said Lu Chen softly. “And we also know it was almost certainly the right thing to do. It was necessary.”

“Sima Zian thought so, too!” said Song. “If he were here he would say it, and you would listen to him! Shinzu needed Zhou dead, and could have foreseen what would happen to Wen Jian after, and even his father’s reaction to her death. The empire needed a younger emperor to fight Roshan. Who can deny it?”

“I don’t want to believe he intended all that,” said Tai, gripping his wine cup.

The problem, the real problem, was that he did see it as possible. He had been thinking that way himself through that terrible day. And the thoughts had not left him since.

He looked at the two Kanlins. He drew a breath and said, quietly, “You are right. But that is one of the reasons I’m not going north. I accept that what you say may be true. I even accept that those are deeds men must do at court, in power, if they are to guide the empire, especially in wartime. But it is … I do not accept it for my own life.”

“I know that,” said Song, in a quieter voice. “But if you are to pull away, to remain safe and not under suspicion, you need to bring him the horses first and be seen to bow, wearing the ring he gave you. The emperor has to see you are not hiding from him. Hear you petition for leave to go. Decide he trusts you.”