Conn Iggulden - Conqueror (2011)

The memories seemed part of another age, another lifetime. Xuan’s best years had vanished while he remained a captive, a slave, waiting to be remembered and quietly killed. He had seen his youth wither, blown away on silent winds.

Once again, he looked to the lake, seeing the young men and women bathing there. His sons and daughters, grown to adulthood. The figures were blurred, his eyes no longer sharp. Xuan sighed to himself, lost in melancholy that seemed to spin the days away from him, so that he was rarely in the world and sometimes only dimly aware of it. Their fates saddened him more than his own. After all, he had known freedom, at least for a time. His eldest son, Liao-Jin, was a bitter young man, petty in his moods and a trial to his brother and sisters. Xuan did not blame Liao-Jin for his weaknesses. He remembered how his own frustration had gnawed at him, before he managed at last to become numb to the passing seasons. It helped to read. He had found a fresh copied scroll of the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius in a library. Though he did not understand all of it, there was something about its message of accepting fate that fitted his situation.

Xuan still missed his wife, dead these ten years of some disease that ate her up from the inside. He had written many letters then, breaking his silence to beg the Sung court for doctors to save her. No one had come and each time he had been allowed to visit, she had grown a little weaker. His mind skittered away from the topic as it did with so many things. He dared not let his thoughts drift into the angry roads within.

A flight of ducks passed over his head and Xuan looked up at them, envying them their ability to fly and land wherever they wanted. It was such a simple thing, freedom, and so completely unappreciated by those who had it. Xuan was given a stipend each month for clothes and living expenses. He had servants to tend him and his rooms were always well furnished, though he was rarely allowed to stay in one place for more than a year. He had even been allowed to live with his children after the death of his wife, though he had discovered that was a mixed blessing at best. Yet he knew nothing of the outside world, or the politics of the Sung court. He lived in almost complete isolation.

Liao-Jin came out of the lake, dripping water from his lean body. His chest was bare and finely muscled, with his lower half covered in belted linen trousers that clung to him. The young man’s skin roughened in the breeze as he shivered and shook his long black hair. He towelled himself dry with brisk efficiency, looking over at his father and resuming his habitual scowl. At twenty, he was the oldest of the children, one of three Xuan had brought across the Sung border so many years before. The last, now a girl of twelve, had been born knowing no other way of life. Xuan smiled at her as she waved to him from the water. He was a doting father to his girls in a way that he found difficult with his two sons.

Liao-Jin pulled a simple shift over his head and tied his hair back. He could have been a young fisherman, without any sign of rank or wealth. Xuan watched him, wondering what sort of mood he would be in after the swim. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched his son walk up the small pebbly beach towards him. Sometimes, he could hardly recall the bright, cheerful boy Liao-Jin had once been. Xuan could still remember when his son had truly understood their situation for the first time. There had been tears and rages and sulky silences almost ever since. Xuan never knew what to expect from him.

Liao-Jin sat on the pebbles and pulled his knees up, clasping his hands around them to keep warm.

‘Did you write to the prefect, as you said you would?’ he asked suddenly.

Xuan closed his eyes for a moment, weary of the conversation even before it had begun.

‘I did not say I would. He has not answered me for a long time.’

Liao-Jin’s mouth twisted unpleasantly.

‘Well, why would he? What good are you?’

The young man gripped a handful of pebbles and threw them into the water in a jerky motion. One of his sisters yelped, though she had not been hit. When she saw who had thrown the stones, she shook her head in admonishment and waded out deeper.

When Liao-Jin spoke again, the tone was almost a whine.

‘You know, there is no law to prevent me joining the Sung army, father. Whatever they think of you, I could rise. In time, perhaps I could have a house of my own. I could take a wife.’

‘I would like that for you,’ Xuan agreed distantly.

‘Would you? You haven’t written to the one man who might agree. You have done nothing , as usual, while every day passes so slowly I can’t bear it. If my mother was alive …’

‘She is not,’ Xuan said, his own voice hardening to match his son’s. ‘And there is nothing I can do until this prefect moves on to another post, or dies. I do not believe he even reads my letters any longer. He has not replied to one for eight, no ten years!’ His mood was spoiled, the peace of the day gone under his son’s fierce glare.

‘I would rather be in prison than here with you,’ Liao-Jin hissed at him. ‘At least there, I might dream of being released. Here, I have no hope at all. Shall I grow old? Do you expect me to tend you when your mind is gone and I am wrinkled and useless? I won’t. I’ll walk into the lake first, or put a rope around my neck. Or yours, father. Perhaps then they would let me walk away from my captivity.’

‘There are servants to tend me, if I grow ill,’ Xuan said weakly.

He hated to hear the bitterness in his son, but he understood it well enough. He had felt the same for a long time; part of him still did. Liao-Jin was like a stick stirring the muddy depths of his soul and he resisted, pulling away physically and coming to his feet rather than listen to any more. He raised his head to call his other children and paused. The distant towers of Hangzhou could be seen around them, the lake a creation of some ancient dynasty more than a thousand years before. On the rare days he was allowed there, he was rarely bothered by anyone, yet he saw a troop of cavalry trotting down from the road onto the shores of the lake. As he watched in vague interest, they turned in his direction. Xuan came to himself with a start.

‘Out of the water, all of you,’ he called. ‘Quickly now, there are men coming.’

His daughters squawked and Liao-Jin’s brother Chiun came out at a rush, spattering droplets onto the dry stones. The riders rode around the curving shore and Xuan became more and more certain they were coming for him. He could not help the spasm of fear that touched his heart. Even Liao-Jin had fallen silent, his face set in stern lines. It was not impossible that the soldiers had been told to make them disappear at last and both of them knew it.

‘Did you write to anyone on your own?’ Xuan asked his son, without looking away from the strangers riding in. Liao-Jin hesitated long enough for him to know he had. Xuan cursed softly to himself.

‘I hope you have not drawn the attention of someone who might wish ill on us, Liao-Jin. We have never been among friends.’

The soldiers drew to a halt just twenty paces from the shivering girls as they moved back to stand close to their father and brothers. Xuan hid his fear as the officer dismounted, a short stocky figure with grey hair and a wide, almost square face that was ruddy with health. The man flicked his reins over his horse’s head and strode to the small group watching him.

Xuan noted the small lion symbol etched into the officer’s scaled armour as he bowed. He did not know every rank of the Sung military, but he knew the man had proven himself as an archer and swordsman, as well as passing an exam on tactics in one of the city barracks.