Guy Kay - Under Heaven

The land wasn’t really the emperor’s to give, he thought. There was too much uncertainty in the east. Still, the documents were his, Tai held them in his hands, and fortune might one day smile upon Kitai and the Ninth Dynasty again. The important thing was that his absence from court was accepted. Or it appeared that way.

Seven horses were coming back to him. It was a number he’d chosen very simply: he’d promised ten to Jian (she’d wanted to train them to dance); he had left three with Bytsan, seven remained. Besides two for himself, he had people for whom he wanted horses.

His younger brother, his sister. A fortress commander at Iron Gate. A poet, if he ever saw him again. The woman he loved, as a wedding gift.

If he ever saw her again.

The horses did indeed come, not long after the letter, escorted by twenty soldiers of the Fifth Military District. The new soldiers stayed and were garrisoned at Hangdu. They were reassigned to the Fourteenth Army, based here, but more specifically to Tai himself. They arrived with documents making him a senior officer of the Fourteenth Cavalry, carrying responsibilities for good order in Hangdu and the surrounding countryside. He reported directly to the governor.

It was suggested he call on the governor and the prefect as soon as circumstances permitted.

He’d had his mother write Song’s parents. It had caused him a day of reflection when he’d learned who her father was. In the end, perhaps to honour the man as much as anything, Tai had ended up in laughter, by the stream. It did make sense, who she was. He told Li-Mei, tried to make her see why it was amusing, but she didn’t laugh, only looked thoughtful.

A reply came back, addressed to his mother, offering the formal acceptance by Wei Song’s father of the Shen family’s proposal of honourable marriage to his daughter.

The letter communicated personal admiration for General Shen Gao, but also noted that Kanlin women, by the code of the order, always had the right to decline such offers in order to remain among the Warriors. Her father would convey to Wei Song his own approval, but the decision would be hers.

Through the winter, which was blessedly mild in their region, given other torments unfolding, Tai dedicated himself to tasks in the prefecture.

Warfare had not yet reached the district, but fleeing people had, and there was hardship. Outlaws, whether from need or a seized opportunity, became a problem, and the soldiers of the Fourteenth were busy dealing with them.

Tai also made a decision (not a difficult one) and began doling out supplies of grain from Liu’s hidden granary. He put his brother Chao in charge of that, assisted by Pang, the man in Hangdu.

Their family had assets enough. Liu’s own wealth had been mostly in Xinan and was probably forfeit after his death, because of his connection to Wen Zhou. It was too soon to explore this, but Tai was wealthy now himself, and Li-Mei had been given considerable gifts when made a princess. These had made their way here, since she had been expected never to see Kitai again.

Tai gave a horse to her and another to Chao.

In the evenings when he wasn’t out with his cavalry on patrol, he drank wine, wrote poetry, read.

Another letter arrived one afternoon, brought by a courier from the southwest: Sima Zian sent greetings and love to his friend and reported that he was still with the father-emperor. There were tigers and gibbons where they were. The poet had travelled to the Great River gorges and remained of the view that there was no place in the world like them. He sent three short poems he’d written.

Word came that An Li had died.

There was a flickering of hope at this, but it didn’t last long. The rebellion had taken on a life, or lives, that went too far beyond that of the man who’d started it.

It rained, the roads were muddy, as always in winter.

Nothing arrived from Wei Song until spring.

In that season, when the peach and apricot trees were flowering in the orchard, with magnolias in bloom and the paulownias growing new leaves and beginning to shade the path again, a letter finally came.

Tai read it and did calculations of distance and time. It was six days to the full moon. He left the next morning, with two of the remaining Kanlins and ten of his cavalry. He rode Dynlal, and they led a second Sardian horse, the smallest one.

North along the river road they went, the one he’d travelled all his life. He knew each inn along the way, the mulberry groves and silk farms. They saw a fox once, at the side of the road.

They encountered one band of outlaws, but a party as large as theirs, heavily armed, was far too intimidating and the bandits melted back into the forest. Tai took note of where they were. He’d send soldiers up this road later. The people living here would be menaced by these men. You could grieve for what might drive men to be outlaws, but you couldn’t indulge it.

On the fifth day they reached the junction with the imperial road. There was a village to the west. East of here was the place where he’d sat in a carriage decorated with kingfisher feathers and spoken with An Li, who had brought destruction upon Kitai, and was dead now, leaving ruin and war all around.

Beyond that point along the road was the posting inn where he’d met Jian. One of Tai’s cavalry from Iron Gate—his name had been Wujen Ning—had died there, defending Dynlal.

Wei Song had been wounded, defending him.

They didn’t have to go that far. They were where they needed to be. The full moon would rise tonight. He waited, among a company of soldiers and two Kanlin Warriors. They ate a soldiers’ meal by the side of the road. He read her letter again.

I have learned from my father that he approves of my marriage. I have also received leave from the elders of my sanctuary to withdraw from the Kanlin Warriors, and have completed the rituals required for that. I will be riding south to your father’s home, if that is acceptable. I have sat beside open windows through autumn and winter, and have come to understand the poems about that better than I ever did. At times I have been angry with you, for causing me to feel this way. At other times I desire only to see you, and have my dust mingled with yours when I die. It would please me greatly, husband-to-be, if you were to meet me by the bridge across your stream, where it meets the imperial road between Xinan and the west. I will be there when spring’s second full moon rises. Perhaps you will escort me home from Cho-fu-Sa?

The moon rose as he looked east along the road.

And with it, exactly at moonrise, she came, riding along the imperial way with a dozen or so companions and guards. It took him a moment to recognize her: she no longer wore Kanlin black. He’d never seen her in any other clothing. She wore no elegant bridal garb. She’d been travelling, and they had a distance yet to ride. Wei Song had on brown leather riding trousers and a light-green tunic with a short, dark-green overtunic, for there was still a chill to the air. Her hair was carefully pinned, he saw.

He dismounted and walked away from his men.

He saw her speak to her escort and she, too, dismounted and came towards him, so that they met each other, alone, on the arched bridge.

“Thank you for coming, my lord,” she said. She bowed.

He bowed as well. “ My heart outraced the both of us ,” he quoted. “The winter was long without you. I have brought you a Sardian horse.”

Song smiled. “I will like that.”

He said, “How did you know the old name for this bridge?”

“Cho-fu-Sa?” She smiled again. “I asked. The elders at Kanlin sanctuaries are very wise.”

“I know that,” he said.

She said, “It is pleasing to me to see you, husband-to-be.”