The Middle Kingdom (62 page)

Seeing movement
among the trees at the far end of the stone-flagged path, she turned
and signaled to the maids to be quiet. "Here they come!"
she mimed exaggeratedly.

The maids
giggled, then, obedient, fell silent.

Fei Yen turned
back to watch the two young men approach. But as they came closer she
drew her sandalwood fan and waved it impatiently, certain there must
be a mistake. Where was Tao Chu? Where was Tsu Ma's strapping young
nephew?

She saw the
taller of the boys hesitate, then touch the arm of the other and lean
close to whisper something. The smaller of them seemed to stare at
her a moment, then turn to the other and nod. Only then did the older
boy come on.

Three paces from
her he stopped. At first she didn't recognize him, he was so much
taller, so much gawkier, than she had seen him last.

"Li Yuan?"

Li Yuan
swallowed and then bowed; an awkward, stilted movement that betrayed
his unease. When he straightened up and looked at her again she saw
his face was scarlet with embarrassment. His lips moved as if he was
about to say something, but he had not formed the words when she
interrupted him.

"Where is
Tao Chu? I was told Tao Chu would be with you."

There were
giggles from the trees behind her, and she turned sharply, furious
with her maids, then turned back in time to see Li Yuan summon the
small boy forward.

"Fei Yen?"
said the boy, bowing elegantly like a tiny courtier. Then, in a
lilting yet hesitant voice that betrayed his unfamil-iarity with
English, he added, "I am most honored to meet you, Lady Fei. My
uncle told me you were beautiful, but he did not tell me how
beautiful."

She laughed,
astonished. "And who have I the pleasure of addressing?"

The boy bowed
again, enjoying her astonishment in the same way he had enjoyed the
applause of the T'ang earlier that day when he had played Tsu Tiao.
"I am Tsu Tao Chu, son of Tsu Wen, and third nephew of the Tang,
Tsu Ma."

The fan that she
had been waving stopped in midmotion and clicked shut. "Tao
Chu?" She laughed—a different, shorter laugh, expressing a
very different kind of surprise—then shook her head. "Oh,
no. I mean, you can't be. I was told . . ."

Then she
understood. She heard the giggling from the trees topple over into
laughter. Flushing deeply, she lowered her head slightly. "Tsu
Tao Chu. I—I'm delighted to meet you. Forgive me if I seemed
confused. I..." Then, forgetting her disappointment, she too
burst into laughter.

"What is
it?" asked the eight-year-old, delighted that he had somehow
managed to amuse this mature woman of nineteen.

"Nothing,"
she said quickly, fanning herself and turning slightly, so that the
shadow of the willow hid her embarrass' ment. "Nothing at all."
She turned quickly to Li Yuan, rinding it easier, suddenly, to talk
to him. "Li Yuan, forgive me. My father, Yin Tsu, sends his deep
regards and best wishes on your forthcoming birthday. I have come on
his behalf to celebrate the day."

Li Yuen's smile
was unexpectedly warm. Again he bowed, once more coloring from neck
to brow. His awkwardness made her remember the last time they had
met—that time he had come to her and cried upon her shoulder,
four days after Han Ch'in's death. Then, too, his reaction had been
unexpected. Then, too, he had seemed to shed a skin.

"I—
I—" He stuttered, then looked down, seeming almost to
laugh at himself. "Forgive me, Fei Yen. I was not told you were
coming."

She gave the
slightest bow. "Nor I until this morning."

He looked up at
her, a strange expectation in his eyes. "Will you be staying
long?"

"A week."
She turned and signaled to her maids, who at once came out from
beneath the trees and hurried along the path to her. Then, turning
back to the two boys, she added, "We had best be getting back,
don't you think? They'll be expecting us in the house." And
then, before they could answer, she had turned away and was heading
back toward the bridge.

Li Yuan stood
there a while, watching her go. Only when he turned to speak to Tao
Chu did he realize how avidly the boy was studying him.

"What are
you staring at, Squib?" he said, almost angrily, conscious that
his cheeks were warm for the third time that afternoon.

"At you,
Great Yuan," answered Tao Chu with a mock earnestness that made
Li Yuan relent. Then, in a softer voice, the small boy added, "You
love her, don't you?"

Li Yuan laughed
awkwardly then turned and looked back up the path. "What does it
matter? She was my brother's wife."

THE OVERSEER'S
House dominated the vast plain of the East European plantation. Three
tiers high, its roof steeply pitched, it rested on stilts over the
meeting point of the two broad irrigation canals that ran north-south
and east-west, feeding the great latticework of smaller channels. To
the south lay the workers' quarters; long, low huts that seemed
embedded in the earth. To the north and east were storehouses; huge,
covered reservoirs of grain and rice. West, like a great wave frozen
at its point of turning under, lay the City, its walls soaring two
U
into the heavens.

Now it was late
afternoon and the shadow of the Overseer's House lay like a dark,
serrated knife on the fields to the east. There, in the shadow, on a
bare earth pathway that followed the edge of one of the smaller
north-south channels, walked three men. One walked ahead, alone and
silent, his head down, his drab brown clothes with their wide, short
trousers indicative of his status as field-worker. The two behind him
joked and laughed as they went along. Their weapons—lethal
deng
rifles, "lantern guns"—slung casually over their
shoulders. They were more elegantly dressed, the kingfisher blue of
their jackets matching the color of the big sky overhead. These were
the Overseer's men, Chang Yan and Teng Fu; big, brutal men who were
not slow to chastise their workers and beat them if they fell behind
with quotas.

"What does
he want?" Teng asked, lifting his chin slightly to indicate the
man plodding along in front of them, but meaning the Overseer when he
said "he." No one requested to see the Overseer. He alone
chose who came to see him.

"The man's
a thief," said Chang. He spat out into the channel, below and to
his left, and watched the off-white round of spittle drift away
slowly on the water. Then he looked back at Teng. "One of the
patrol cameras caught him in the Frames making harvest."

The Frames were
where they grew the special items; strawberries and lychees,
pineapples and oranges, grapes and peaches, cherries and almonds,
pears and melons.

"Stupid,"
Teng said, looking down and laughing. "These peasant
types—they're all stupid."

Chang shrugged.
"I don't know. I thought this one was different. He was
supervisor. A trusted man. We'd had no trouble with him before."

"They're
all trouble," said Teng, scratching his left buttock vigorously.
"Stupid and trouble. It's genetic. That's what it is."

Chang laughed.
"Maybe so."

They had come to
a bridge. The first man had stopped, his head still bowed, waiting
for the others. He was forbidden to cross the bridge without a
permit.

"Get on!"
said Teng, drawing the long club from his belt and jabbing the man
viciously in the small of the back. "The Over-seer wants to see
you. Don't keep him waiting, now!"

The man stumbled
forward onto the bridge, then got up and trudged on again, wiping his
dirtied hands against his thighs as he went and glancing up briefly,
fearfully, as the big House loomed over him.

More guards
lounged at the foot of the steps. One of them, a tall Hung
Mao,
sat apart from the rest, looked up as the three men approached,
then, with the vaguest movement of his head to indicate that they
should go on up, looked back down at the rifle in his lap, continuing
his meticulous inspection of the weapon.

"Good day,
ShzH Peskova," said Teng, acknowledging the Overseer's
lieutenant with a bow. But Peskova paid him no attention. Teng was
Han and Han were shit. It didn't matter whether they were guard or
peasant. Either way they were shit. Hadn't he heard as much from The
Man himself often enough?

When they had
gone, Peskova turned and looked up at the House again. He would have
to watch that Teng. He was getting above himself. Thinking himself
better than the other men. He would have to bring him down a level.
Teach him better manners.

With a smile he
put the rifle down and reached for the next in the stack at his side.
Yes, it would be fun to see the big Han on his knees and begging. A
lot of fun.

OVERSEER BERGSON
looked across as the three men entered.

"What is
it, Teng Fu?"

The big Han
knelt in the doorway and bowed his head. "We have brought the
man you asked for, Overseer."

Bergson turned
from the bank of screens that took up one whole wall of the long room
and got up from his chair. "You can go, Teng Fu. You, too, Chang
Yan. I'll see to him myself."

When they were
gone and he was alone with the field supervisor, Bergson came across
and stood there, no more than an arm's length from the man.

"Why did
you do it, Field Supervisor Sung?"

The man
swallowed, but did not lift his head. "Do what, Shih Bergson?"

Bergson reached
out almost tenderly and took the man's cheek between the fingers of
his left hand and twisted until Sung fell to his feet, whimpering in
pain.

"Why did
you do it, Sung? Of do you want me to beat the truth out of you?"

Sung prostrated
himself, holding on to Bergson's feet. "I could not bear it any
longer, Overseer. There is barely enough to keep a child alive, let
alone men and women who have to toil in the fields all day. And when
I heard the guards were going to cut our rations yet again . . ."

Bergson stepped
back, shaking Sung's hands off. "Barely enough? What nonsense is
this, Sung? Isn't it true that the men steal from the rice fields?
That they eat much of the crop they are supposed to be harvesting?"

Sung started to
shake his head, but Bergson brought his foot down firmly on top of
his left hand and began to press down. "Tell me the truth, Sung.
They steal, don't they?"

Sung cried out,
then nodded his head vigorously. "It is so,
Shih
Bergson.
There are many who do as you say."

Bergson slowly
brought his foot up, then stepped away from Sung, turning his back
momentarily, considering.

"And you
stole because you had too little to eat?"

Sung looked up,
then quickly looked back down, keeping his forehead pressed to the
floor. "No ... I..."

"Tell me
the truth, Sung!" Bergson barked, turning sharply. "You
stole because you were hungry, is that it?"

Sung miserably
shook his head. "No, Shih Bergson. I have enough."

"Then why?
Tell me why."

Sung shuddered.
A sigh went through him like a wave. Then,

resigned to his
fate, he began to explain. "It was my wife, Overseer. She is a
kindly woman, you understand. A good woman. It was her suggestion.
She saw how it was for the others: that they were suffering while we,
fortunate as we were, had enough. I told her we could share what we
had, but she would not have it. I pleaded with her not to make me do
as she asked. . . ."

"Which
was?"

"I stole,
Overseer. I took fruit from the Frames and gave it to the others."

Bergson laughed
coldly. "Am I meant to believe this, Sung? An honest thief? A
charitable thief? A thief who sought no profit from his actions?"

Sung nodded his
head once but said nothing.

Bergson moved
closer. "I could have you flogged senseless for what you did,
Sung. Worse, I could have you thrown into the Clay. How would you
like that, Field Supervisor Sung? To be sent into.the Clay?"

Sung stared up
at Bergson, his terror at the thought naked in his eyes. "You'd
not do that, Shih Bergson. Please. I beg you. Anything but that."

Bergson was
silent a moment. He turned and went across to the desk. When he
returned he was holding a thin card in one hand. He knelt down and
held it in front of Sung's face a moment.

"Do you
know what this is, Sung?"

Sung shook his
head. He had never seen the like of it. It looked like a piece of
Above technology—something they never saw out in the fields—but
he would not have liked to have guessed just what.

"This here,
Sung, is the evidence of your crime. It's a record of the hour you
spent harvesting in the Frames. A hidden camera took a film of you."

Again Sung
shuddered. "What do you want, Shih Bergson?"

Bergson smiled
and slipped the thin sliver of ice into his jacket pocket, then stood
up again. "First I want you to sit down over here and write down
the names of all those who shared the stolen fruit with you."

Sung hesitated,
then nodded. "And then?"

"Then
you'll go back to your barracks and send your wife to me."

Sung stiffened
but did not look up. "My wife, Overseer?"

"The good
woman. You know, the one who got you into all this trouble."

Sung swallowed.
"And what will happen to my wife,
Shih
Bergson?"

Bergson laughed.
"If she's good—if she's
very
good to me— then
nothing. You understand? In fact—and you can tell her this—if
she's
exceptionally
good I might even give her the tape. Who
knows, eh, Sung?"

Sung looked up,
meeting Bergson's cold gray eyes for the first time in their
interview, then looked down again, understanding perfectly.

"Good. Then
come. There's paper here and ink. You have a list of names to write."