The Middle Kingdom (84 page)

Andersen was
muttering to himself now. "Fuck him! Fuck the little bastard!
Why did he have to go and attack one of them?" He looked at T'ai
Cho. "Why didn't you tell me he was capable of this?"

T'ai Cho went to
protest, then thought of all that had been happening the last week or
so. Were there warning signs? The restless nights? The problems with
Matyas? Should he have foreseen this? Then he rejected all that. He
threw the photos down, and with all the angry indignation of the
parent of a wronged child, he stood and shouted at Andersen across
the table.

"He didn't
attack this boy! I
know
he didn't! They attacked him! They
must have! Don't you understand that yet?"

Andersen looked
up at him scornfully. "Who gives a shit, eh? We're all out of a
job now. There's no way we can contest this. Nung's dead and the
cameras were all covered over. There's not a bruise on Kim and the
other lad's in critical." He laughed. "Who in their right
mind would believe Kim was the victim?"

T'ai Cho was
watching the Director closely now. "So what are you going to
do?"

Andersen, as
ever, had preempted him. He saw it in his face.

"I've taken
advice already."

"And?"

Andersen pushed
the package aside and leaned across the table. "The Project's
advocate suggests there are ways we can contain the damage. You see,
there's not just the matter of the Project's liability to the parents
of the injured boy but the question of personal responsibility."
He looked directly at T'ai Cho. "Yours and mine, in particular.
Now, if Kim had actually died in the fight . . ."

T'ai Cho shook
his head in disbelief. His voice, when he found it again, came out as
a whisper. "What have you done, Andersen? What in the gods'
names have you done?"

Andersen looked
away. "I've signed the order. He'll be terminated in an hour."

BERDICHEV WENT
to the cell to see the boy one last time before they sent him on. Kim
lay there, pale, his dark eyes closed, the bulky secure-jacket like
an incomplete chrysalis, disguising how frail he really was.

Well, well,
Berdichev thought, you have tried your hardest to make my decision an
empty one, haven't you? But perhaps it was just this that the
Wu
had foretold. The darkening of the light.

He knelt and
touched the boy's cheek. It was cooler than his own flesh, but still
warm. Yes, it was fortunate he had got here in time—before that
asshole Andersen had managed to bugger things up for good and all. He
had "Pai Cho to thank for that.

And now it was
all his. Kim
and
the Project. And all for the asking price of
ten million
yuan
he had originally contracted purely for the
boy.

Berdichev
laughed. It had all been rather easy to manage in the circumstances.
The board had agreed to the deal at once, and to help facilitate
matters he had offered eight of the ten sitting members an increase
in their yearly stipend. The other two he had wanted out anyway, and
when the vote went against them he had accepted their resignations
without argument. As for the matter of the aggrieved parents, their
claim was dropped when they received his counterclaim for two hundred
million— his estimate of the potential loss of earnings SimFic
would suffer if Kim was permanently brain damaged. They had been
further sweetened by an out-of-court no-liability-accepted settlement
of fifty thousand
yuan.
More than enough in exchange for their
dull-witted son-

But what damage
had it done? What would Kirn be like when the wraps came off and the
scars had healed? Not the physical scars, for they were miraculously
slight, but the deeper scars— the psychological ones?

He shuddered,
feeling suddenly closer to Kim than he had ever been. As if the
Wu's
reading had connected him somehow to the boy. The sun was buried
in the earth once more, but would it rise again? Would Kim become
again what he had been? Or was he simple, unawakened Clay again?

Ten million
yuan.
That was how much he had gambled on Kim's full and
complete recovery. And the possible return? He laughed. Maybe a
thousand times as much! Maybe nothing.

Berdichev got up
and wiped his hands on his jacket, then turned to the two SimFic
guards, indicating that they should take the boy away. Then, when
they had gone, he crossed the cell and looked at its second occupant.
This one was also trussed.

He laughed and
addressed the corpse of the Director. "You thought you'd fuck
with me, eh, Andersen? Well, no one does that and gets away with it.
No one. Not even you."

And, still
laughing, he turned and left the cell.

BE
PATIENT, Li Yuan, we'll not be much longer now!

Pearl Heart
tugged the two wings of his collar together with a show of mock
annoyance, then fastened the first of the four tiny catches. He was
sitting on the edge of his bed, Pearl Heart kneeling on the floor in
front of him, dressing him, while Sweet Rose knelt on the bed behind
him, brushing and braiding his hair.

The younger girl
laughed softly. "Your hair's so long, Li Yuan. Such good, strong
hair. It doesn't split easily." She leaned forward, brushing her
nose against it, breathing in its scent. "I wish I had such
hair, dear Yuan."

He made to turn
and speak to her, but Pearl Heart gently brought his head back
around, tutting to herself. The last two catches were always the most
tricky to fasten.

Li Yuan laughed
softly. "Your hair is lovely, too, Sweet Rose. And never more
lovely than when it rests across my lap."

Sweet Rose
blushed and looked down, reminded of what they had been up to only
hours before. Bearl Heart looked up into his face, amused. "Perhaps
you'd like all five of us next time?"

He looked past
her, smiling. "Perhaps. . . ."

"Still,"-she
continued, frowning with concentration as she tried to fix the last
of the catches, "it will be good for you to get some exercise."

Li Yuan laughed,
delighted. "You really think so, Pearl Heart? After last night?"

She leaned back
away from him with a sigh, the collar fastened at last, then shook
her head, her eyes sparkling.

"You young
men. You think you're real horsemen simply because you can keep at it
all night long, don't you? But there's more to horsemanship than
keeping in the saddle!"

Sweet Rose had
gone silent, her head bowed. Pearl Heart looked back. Li Yuan was
staring at her strangely. She thought back, then ducked her head,
blushing, realizing how she had linked the two things. Li Yuan was
about to go out riding with Fei Yen, and there she was saying ...

"Forgive
me, Prince, I didn't mean ..."

But Li Yuan
simply leaned forward and took her head between his hands, kissing
her forehead before pressing her face down into his lap and closing
his legs about her playfully.

She fought up
away, enjoying the game, then stood there a few paces off, admiring
him. Sweet Rose had finished and had placed a riding hat upon his
tight-coiled hair. He was dressed entirely in green, from hat down to
boots: a dozen subtle shades of green, yet each pf them fresh and
bright, reminiscent of the first days of spring, when the snow has
just thawed.

"You look—"
she laughed and clapped her hands—"you look like a prince,
Li Yuan!"

He laughed with
her, then turned to give Sweet Rose a farewell peck before rushing
off.

The two maids
watched him go, then began to tidy the room. As Pearl Heart stripped
the covers from the cushions, she noticed the square of silk beneath
one of them. It was a pale lilac with the pictogram of the Yin family
in green in one comer. She knew at once whose it was, and lifted it
to her nose briefly before returning it, making no mention to Sweet
Rose.

"She's
beautiful, don't you think, Pearl Heart?"

Sweet Rose was
gazing outward through the open doorway, following the figure of Li
Yuan as he made his way through the gardens.

"They say
there's no one quite as beautiful in all the Families as Fei Yen. But
she's a
hua poo,
a flowery panther. She's headstrong and
willful for all her beauty."

Sweet Rose
sighed and looked back at her older sister. "And Li Yuan, he
seems to love her like a brother."

Pearl Heart
laughed. "Have you seen how his eyes grow soft at the merest
glimpse of her. He's hooked, the poor little one."

"Ah. . . ."
Sweet Rose glanced around once more, then busied herself, disturbed
by what Pearl Heart had said. A moment later, while she was gathering
up the linen, she stopped sud-denly and looked up again, her eyes
moist. "Then I feel pity for him, Pearl Heart. For nothing can
come of it."

Pearl Heart
nodded sagely. "It is our law, Sweet Rose. A man cannot marry
his brother's wife. And there's wisdom in that law,
mei mei,
for
think what would come of things were it not so. There are men who
would murder their own brothers for the sake of a worthless woman!"

Sweet Rose
looked down. "And yet
we
are sisters. And we share a
man."

Pearl Heart
laughed and began to take the new silk sheets from the drawer. "Li
Yuan's a boy, and they're less complex than men. But in any case, the
whole thing's totally different. We are here only to help him and
teach him. We must think not of ourselves but of the future T'ang."

Sweet Rose
studied her sister a moment, noting how she busied herself as if
unconcerned. But she had heard the undertone of bitterness in her
voice and could see the faint trace of regret at the comers of her
mouth and in her eyes and knew that, whatever else she said, she,
too, was just a little in love with the young Prince.

"What are
you reading?"

Fei Yen half
turned her face toward him, then smiled and set the book down on the
wooden ledge beside her. "Ah, Li Yuan, I wondered when you'd
come."

She was sitting
in a bower overlooking one of the garden's tiny waterfalls. The
interlaced branches of the maple overhead threw her features into
shadow as she looked at him, but he could see that her hair had been
put up in a complex bun, the dark, fine bunches held there by tiny
ivory combs no bigger than his thumbnail. She was wearing a
waist-length, curve-edged riding-tunic with a high collar, the satin
a delicate lavender with the thinnest edging of black, while her
riding breeches were of dark blue silk, cut almost to her figure. Her
boots were of kid leather, dyed to match the breeches.

He let his query
pass. "Shall I come and sit with you, Fei Yen?"

"Wait
there, Li Yuan. I'll come out to you. It's rather warm in here. Why
don't we walk down to the terrace?"

He bowed, then
moved back to let her pass, smelling the scent of her for the first
time that day.
Mei hua.
Plum blossom. He fell in beside her on
the path.

"How is
your father, Yin Tsu?"

She laughed.
"He's fine. As he was yesterday when you asked. And my three
brothers, too, before you ask." She stopped and inclined her
head toward him. "Let's drop formality, shall we, Li Yuan? I
find it all so tiresome after a while."

A small bird
flitted from branch to branch overhead, distracting them both a
moment. When they looked down again it was at the same time. Their
eyes met and they laughed.

"All
right," he said. "But in public . . ."

She touched his
arm gently. "In public it shall be as always." She lifted
her chin in imitation of an old, starchy courtier. "We'll be as
tight laced as a minister's corsets!"

He giggled,
unable to help himself, then saw she was watching him, enjoying his
laughter.

"Come,
Yuan. Let's go down."

She let him take
her arm. A flight of stone steps snaked steeply downward, following
the slope, ending with a tiny bridge of stone. But the bridge was
only wide enough for one to cross at a time. Li Yuan went first, then
turned, holding out his hand to help her across the tiny stream.

She took his
hand and let him draw her to him, brushing past him closely, then
turned to look back at him, her face in full sunlight for the first
time since he had met her in the bower.

"What's
that?"

She began to
smile, then saw the look on his face. "It's a mian
ye.
A
beauty mark, that's all. Why, don't you like it?"

He made the
slightest movement of his head, reluctant to find anything about her
less than perfect.

"Here, wipe
it off!"

He took the silk
handkerchief she offered him, realizing at once that it was the twin
to the one he had in his room, beneath his pillow. Resisting the
temptation to put it to his face, he reached out and made to touch
the mark, but Fei Yen laughed and pushed his hand away.

"Come here,
Li Yuan! How can you do it from over there? You'll Ijave to hold my
cheek while you rub the mark away. It isn't easy, you know!"

He moved closer,
then gently took her cheek and turned it, almost fearing to hurt her.
His body was touching hers now, brushing against her, and he could
feel her warmth and smell the scent of plum blossom on her clothes.
He felt a slight shiver pass down his spine, then began, brushing at
it, gently at first, then harder, licking the silk, then dabbing it
against her cheek, until the mark was gone.

And all the
while she was watching him, a strange, unreadable expression in her
dark, beautiful eyes. He was conscious of her breathing: of her warm
breath on his neck; of the soft rise and fall of her breasts beneath
the tightly fitting tunic; of the warm pulse of her body where it
touched his own.