The Middle Kingdom (50 page)

"You should
have stayed inside," Li Shai Tung said, embracing him and
kissing his cheeks. "This wind can be no good for you, Tsu Tiao.
I thought it would be sheltered here with these walls."

Tsu Tiao reached
out and held his arm. He seemed frail, yet his grip, like his voice,
was strong. "High walls cannot keep the cold wind from blowing,
eh, old friend? I know what it is to lose a son. Nothing would have
kept me from paying my respects to Li Han Ch'in."

Li Shai Tung
bowed, his face grim. "That is true, Tsu Tiao." He turned
to the son. "Tsu Ma. Thank you for coming. I wish we had met in
happier circumstances."

Tsu Ma bowed. He
was a strong, handsome man in his late twenties who had, until
recently, led a headstrong, dissolute life. Now, with his father ill,
he had been forced to change his ways. It was rumored Tsu Tiao was
grooming him for regent, but this was the first time he had appeared
publicly at his father's side.

"I, too,
regret that we should meet like this, Chieh Hsio. Perhaps you would
let me visit you when things are easier?"

Both Tsu Tiao
and Li Shai Tung nodded, pleased by the initiative. "That would
be good, Tsu Ma. I shall arrange things."

Li Yuan's uncles
were next to pay their respects; Li Yun-Ti, Li Feng Chiang, and Li
Ch'i Chun. Advisors to Li Shai Tung, they stood in the same
relationship to his father as he once had to his brother. Their lives
were as his own might once have been. But it was different now. For
Han Ch'in was dead and now he, Li Yuan, was destined to be "Fang.

He had seen the
sudden change in them. Eyes which had once passed through him now
checked their course and noted him; as if his brother's death had
brought him substance. Now strangers bowed and fawned before him. Men
like his uncles. He saw how obsequious they had become; how their
distant politeness had changed to fear.

Yes, he saw it
even now; the fear behind the smiles.

It amused him in
a bitter way. Old men afraid of a boy not yet nine. Would I, he asked
hfmself, have grown like them, twisted from my true shape by fear and
envy? Perhaps. But now I'll never know.

Others came and
stood before them. Fei Yen and her father, the old man almost as
devastated as his daughter, his earnest, kindly eyes ringed with
darkness. Then his father's second wife and her three daughters, all
four of them strangers to Li Yuan.

Last were his
father's men; Hal Shepherd and the General.

"This is an
ill day, old friend," said Shepherd. He embraced the T'ang, then
stood back, looking around him. "I hoped not to see this place
in my lifetime."

"Nor I,"
said Tolonen. For a moment he stared outward at the distant mountains
of the Ta Pa Shan. And when his eyes fell upon the tomb, it was
almost as if his son lay there beneath the earth, such broken love
lay in his gaze.

Tolonen stared
at the tomb a moment longer, then looked back at his T'ang. "We
must act,
Chieh Hsia
. Such bitterness cannot be borne."

"No, Knut.
You're wrong. It must and can be borne. We must find the strength to
bear it."

"The
Council has made its decision?"

"Yes. An
hour back."

The General
bowed his head, his disappointment clear. "Then it is
wuwei?"

"Yes,"
the T'ang answered softly.
"Wuwei.
For all our sakes."

THE HOUSE was in
session and Speaker Zakhar was at the lectern, delivering a speech on
expansion funding, when the big double doors at the far end of the
chamber burst open. Zakhar turned, astonished.

"General
Tolonen! What do you mean by this?"

Then Zakhar saw
the armed guards pouring in after the General and fell silent. House
security was breached. These were the General's own men—his
elite guards. They formed up around the upper level of the chamber,
their long snub-nosed rifles pointed down into the heart of the
assembly.

The General
ignored the storm of protests. He moved swiftly, purposefully, toward
the bench where the senior representatives were seated, and went
straight for Under Secretary Lehmann.

Lehmann was
shouting, as vehement as any other in his protest. Tolonen stood
there a moment, facing him, as if making certain this was the man he
wanted, then reached across the desk and grabbed Lehmann by the upper
arms, pulling him toward himself.

There was a
moment's shocked silence, then the outroar grew fierce. Tolonen had
dragged Lehmann over the desk and was jerking him along by his hair,
as if dealing with the lowest cur from the Clay. Lehmann's face was
contorted with pain and anger as he struggled to get free, but the
General had a firm grip on him. He tugged him out into the space
between the benches of the Upper Council and the seats of the General
Assembly, then stopped abruptly and pulled Lehmann upright. Lehmann
gasped, but before he had time to act, Tolonen turned him and pulled
his arm up sharply behind his back. The General had drawn his
ceremonial dagger and now held it
at
Lehmann's throat.

He stood there,
waiting for them to be silent, scowling at any who dared come too
close. Above him, encircling the chamber, his men stood patiently,
their laser rifles raised to their shoulders.

He had only a
second or two to wait. The House grew deathly still, the tension in
the chamber almost tangible. Tolonen tugged gently at Lehmann's arm
to keep him still, the point of his dagger pricking the Under
Secretary's skin and drawing a tiny speck of blood.

"I've come
for justice," Tolonen said, staring about him defiantly, looking
for those faces he knew would be most interested, most fearful, at
this moment.
They never
imagined I
would come here for
them.
The thought almost made him smile; but this was not a
moment for smiling. His face remained grim, determined. Nothing would
stop him now.

A low murmur had
greeted his words and a few shouts from nearer the back of the hall.
He had stirred up a hornet's nest here and Li Shai Tung would be
furious. But that did not matter now. Nothing mattered but one thing.
He had come to kill Leh-mann.

As he stood
there, three of his men brought a portable trivee projector down into
the space beside him and set it up. The image of Lehmann's face, ten
times its normal size, took form in the air beside the frightened
reality.

"I want to
show you all something," Tolonen said, raising his voice. He
seemed calm, deceptively benign. "It is a film we took of our
friend here at Li Han Ch'in's wedding. At the private ceremony
afterward, in the Imperial Gardens. I should explain, perhaps. The
Under Secretary is looking toward where the T'ang's son was standing
with his bride. The rest, I think, you'll understand."

Tblonen scanned
the crowded benches again, noting how tense and expectant they had
become, then turned and nodded to his ensign. At once the great face
came to life, but Tolonen did not look at it. He had seen it too many
times already; had seen for himself the effect it had had on Li Yuan.

3»7

For the next few
minutes there was silence. Only during the final moments of the film
was there a growing murmur of unease. They did not have to be told
what was happening. The image in the blown-up eye told the story as
clearly as any words.

The image faded
from the air. Lehmann, who had turned his head to watch, began to
struggle again, but the General held him tightly, drawing his arm as
far up his back as it would go without breaking, making Lehmann
whimper with pain.

"Now youVe
seen," said Tblonen simply. "But understand. I do this not
for Li Shai Tung but for myself. Because this man has shamed me. And
because such vileness must be answered." He raised his chin
defiantly. "This act is mine. Do you understand me,
ch'un
tzu?
Mine."

The words were
barely uttered when Tblonen drew his knife slowly across Lehmann's
throat, the ice-edged blade tearing through the exposed flesh as if
through rice paper.

For what seemed
an eternity the General held the body forward as it gouted blood,
staring about him at the shocked faces in the chamber. Then he let
the body fall, blood splashing as it hit the floor, and stepped back,
the trousers of his white ceremonial uniform spattered with blood.

He made no move
to wipe it away, but stood there, defiant, his dagger raised, as if
to strike again.

With
all its eyes the creature-world beholds

the
open. But our eyes, as though reversed,

encircle
it on every side, like traps

set
round its unobstructed path to freedom.

What
is outside, we know from the brute's face

alone;
for while a child's quite small we take it

and
turn it round and force it to look backwards

at
conformation, not that openness

so
deep within the brute's face. Free from death.

We
alone see
that;
the free animal

has
its decease perpetually behind it

and
God in front, and when it moves, it moves

within
eternity, like running springs.

We’ve
never, no, not for a single day,

pure
space before us, such as that which flowers

endlessly
open into: always world,

and
never nowhere without no: that pure,

unsuperintended
element one breathes,

endlessly
knows, and never craves. A child

sometimes
gets quietly lost there, to be always

jogged
back again. Or someone dies and is it.

—rainer
maria RILKE, Duino Elegies: Eighth Elegy.

MEG
SHEPHERD, Hal Shepherd's daughter, was standing in the tall grass of
the Domain, watching her brother. It was early evening and, on the
far side of the water, dense shadow lay beneath the thick cluster of
trees. At this end the creek narrowed to a shallow, densely weeded
spike of water. To her left, in the triangle of wild, uncultivated
land between the meadow and the vast, overtower-ing whiteness of the
Wall, the ground grew soft and marshy, veined with streams and pocked
with tiny pools.

Ben was crouched
at the water's edge, intensely still, staring at something in the
tall, thick rushes to his right. For a moment there was only the
stillness and the boy watching, the soft soughing of the wind in the
trees across the water, and the faint, lulling call of pigeons in the
wood. Then, with an abrupt crash and spray and a strong beating of
wings, the bird broke from cover. Ben's head went up, following the
bird's steep ascent, his twelve-year-old eyes wide with watching.
"Look at it, Meg! Isn't it a beauty?"

"Yes,"
she answered softly, but all the while she was watching him, seeing
how his eyes cast a line to the climbing bird. Saw how he grasped
every last detail of it and held that knowledge tight in his memory.
His body was tensed, following the bird's flight, and his eyes
burned. She shivered. It was astonishing to watch, that intensity of
his. The world seemed to take form in his eyes: to grow bright and
rich and real. As if, before he saw it,

it was but a
pale shadow of itself; a mere blueprint, uncreated until he saw and
reimagined it. So it was for her. She could see nothing unless he had
seen it first.

The bird was
gone. He turned and looked at her.

"Did you
see it?"

"Yes,"
she said, meaning something else. "It was beautiful."

He turned his
head, looking away from her, toward the village. When he looked back
his green eyes were dark, thoughtful.

"Things are
different this year, Meg. Don't you feel it? Small things. Like the
bird."

She shrugged,
then pushed her way through the grass, out into the open. Standing
there beside him at the water's edge, she looked down at his
reflection, next to her own in the still, clear water.

"Why do you
think that is? Why
should
it change?" He looked around
him, his brow furrowing. "I mean, this place has always been the
same. Always. Unchanged. Unchanging but for the seasons. But now . .
." He looked at her. "What is it, Meg? What's happening?"

She looked up
from his reflection and met his eyes.

"Does it
worry you?"

He thought for a
moment. "Yes," he said finally. "And I don't know why.
And I want to know why."

She smiled at
him and reached out to touch his arm. It was so typical of him,
wanting to understand what he thought and why he thought it. Never
happy unless he was worrying at the problem of himself.

"It's
nothing," she said reassuringly. "They're only small
things, Ben. They don't mean anything. Really they don't."

But she saw he
wasn't convinced. "No," he said. "Everything has
meaning. It's all signs, don't you see? It all
signifies.
And
the small things . . . that's where it's to be seen first. Like the
bird. It was beautiful, yes, but it was also . . ." He looked
away and she said the word for him, anticipating him without quite
knowing how, as she so often did.

"Frightening."

"Yes."

She followed his
gaze a moment, seeing how his eyes climbed the Wall to its summit far
overhead, then looked back at him again. He was more than a head
taller than she, dark haired and straight boned. She felt a small
warmth of pride kindle in her. So elegant he was. So handsome. Did he
know how much she loved him? He knew so much, but did he know that?
Maybe. But if he did he gave no sign.

"It was
only a bird, Ben. Why should it frighten you?"