River of Stars Read online

  There were times when he wondered about this marriage, the speed with which he’d entered into it. But Tan Ming had an uncanny ability to sense when he might be musing along these lines, and even more unsettling skills at doing such things as altered his reflections.

  He’d thought Yu-lan had understood the nature of his needs. Ming was even more inventive and discerning in that regard. He had remarried quickly, there was no question, but it was also true that he’d felt an extreme need to swiftly distance himself from what his first wife had done.

  Her body had been burned. Attempted murder in the clan compound. The assassin, her assassin, had confessed. Wives, he thought, had an unfortunate tendency to undertake actions of their own, even in a dynasty where women were raised to know that this was not proper.

  He’d come to this conclusion long before two letters arrived in autumn rain one afternoon, changing his life again.

  The first was from the emperor (though not in his own hand). It summoned him back to Hanjin, to court. More, much more: it invited him to return as prime minister of Kitai.

  The gods were good, the heavens benevolent! The old man had finally elected to withdraw. And for some reason (which would need to be worked out) he was not putting forward his pallid son as successor.

  Reading the words again, Zhen’s heart began hammering as though it would burst the wall of his chest. He felt dizzy. He controlled himself, in the presence of the couriers. Not wise, to allow someone to see weakness before he took office! He sent them away with a lordly gesture, to be given rooms, baths, food, a girl, two girls each. Serving women would do for couriers, and he still had those.

  Then he sat down, alone in his workroom. There were lamps lit, though only two, lamp oil was expensive. There was a fire going, it had turned cold in the past week. He sat at his desk and opened the second letter.

  He read this one through twice, as well. Whatever Hang Dejin wrote required to be considered with extreme care. There were words beneath the words, brush strokes unseen but signifying more than what one read on the silk paper. The hand was the son’s, not the father’s. The father, may his soul rot in blackness forever when he died, was nearly blind, after all.

  Blackness now, blackness waiting, Kai Zhen hoped.

  There was much to assess, including a fairly clear indication of why the old spider was departing, and why the son was not to follow him. But it was the last lines, especially the very last sentence, that chilled Kai Zhen.

  He actually shivered, both times he read the words. It was as if a bony finger had reached down through all the li that lay between, past hills and valleys, slow and rushing rivers, orchards and rice fields, silk farms, cities and villages and outlaw-plagued marshes, to touch his heart.

  Control your woman, Hang Dejin wrote. End of letter.

  A finger like a knife, Kai Zhen thought. Those last words followed a terse description of a violent incident in the Genyue, the attempted killing of an imperial favourite.

  All the gods help me, Kai Zhen thought, at his desk, by the lamp there. At a moment when celebration should have been bursting within him like New Year’s fireworks, he was cold—yet sweating with fear.

  He cursed the old man for a long time, careless of who might hear him. The foulest words he knew, the most vile and savage imprecations. Then he took something from the desk and went looking for his wife.

  They sat together in the smaller of the two reception rooms. After a time he asked her to fetch her flute, to play for him. She always did what he asked of her, she was flawless in that way.

  While she was out of the room, and after the serving woman had been sent to bring food for the two of them, Kai Zhen poisoned his wife’s wine.

  She couldn’t be strangled or stabbed. Even in a place this remote, there was too much risk of someone—anyone—revealing that the mistress had died violently. That, in itself, could become another weapon for the old man who was stepping aside, but not truly stepping aside.

  No, Tan Ming would die in her sleep tonight, if precedents for this powder held true. They would mourn and bury her with a pearl in her mouth, to keep her spirit in.

  But he was cursed, he was utterly cursed if he’d allow her to live to be another sword at his throat, held by Hang Dejin. He needed to be more ruthless than the blind one, and he could be.

  There was violence in his new wife, he had reason to know it. But there was no possibility that she had devised an attempt on the life of that woman in the Genyue. Not from here, not timed so elegantly to coincide with his summons back to power.

  But the history of his family with that family—that fatuous court gentleman and his unnatural daughter—was widely known. If he were inclined to attach blame to himself (he wasn’t, really), it was true that he’d signed the order of exile for Lin Kuo to Lingzhou Isle. A mistake, though who could have known?

  He’d miss Tan Ming, he thought, sitting by the fire, waiting for her to return and drink the wine that would end her life tonight. He missed his first wife, still.

  He would never marry again, he decided, sipping his own autumn wine. Wives, lissome and subtle as they might be, were a vulnerability.

  An emissary to the barbarians, Lu Chao has told his nephew, must imagine himself a woman.

  He is to pursue the same closeness of observation, discreetly looking and listening, to apprehend the essential nature of the men they encounter.

  This is the way women live, at court and elsewhere, he’d explained to Lu Mah on the ship that carried them north along the coast. Women sought a space in the world this way.

  He has used this conceit in the past. He has been north in this capacity before, meeting twice with the emperor of the Xiaolu, bearing birthday gifts the first time, negotiating (fruitlessly) for the return of the Fourteen Prefectures, or a portion of them, on the second occasion. Slow travel overland, with very large retinues, for proper dignity.

  This is a different journey. By sea, only a handful with him, and done in secrecy.

  An emissary must not act in the normal manner of men, Chao believes. The court, the empire, are to glean knowledge and understanding from his journey beyond borders. He is not to allow any bold or reckless thing he does or says to impact upon events.

  He is to watch. Count horses and horsemen, observe the presence or absence of hunger or resentment, note those men around the barbarian leader who look away when certain words are spoken. Talk to these later, if he can. Learn who might have the leader’s ear, and who is unhappy because of that.

  He asks (courteous) questions, remembers answers, or writes them down—encoded. There have been incidents in the past when writings were seized, embarrassingly.

  He cheerfully eats (he has warned his nephew) appalling food, and drinks the fermented mare’s milk the barbarians love overmuch. He makes himself and Lu Mah begin doing so on the ship, to prepare. His nephew is seasick, and the kumiss is not a help. If Lu Chao had been a less kindly man, he might have laughed. He does record it, with amusement, in a letter to his brother, Mah’s father.

  But drinking is important on the steppe. Respect attaches or fails to attach depending on how one handles a great deal of it. In this regard, he has told his green-hued nephew, they are to show manhood.

  Also with the women they’ll be given. Mah is to understand that these will not be like the scented beauties from pleasure districts. The two of them will smile when offers are made, he admonishes, then perform with vigour when the women arrive in their yurts at night. Mah is to consider it a part of their task.

  They will not talk to these women, though it is not a real risk, as few of them will speak Kitan. One or another might, however, it is always possible, so careless speech to each other in their presence is also not to happen.

  There are, Lu Chao says, many things to learn, and many ways that missions can go wrong. Emissaries have been killed, though not for some time. The Xiaolu have an emperor, capital cities, aspire to being civilized.

  But they aren’t going to t
he Xiaolu.

  THE FIRST TASK is to assess how respectfully they are being treated. That turns, in part, on the distance inland they must travel with the escorts waiting for them when the ship finally makes landfall well north of the Wall.

  Is the kaghan of this new tribe, the Altai, meeting them after an equally long journey, or are they going farther towards him?

  If they’d been sent to the Xiaolu emperor, it would have been appropriate for him to greet them at one of his capital cities, but this is not an emperor they are meeting. This is a rebellious tribal leader, and they are extending—possibly—the support of the Kitan empire to him. He needs to come towards them.

  As they ride from the sea through a hilly landscape, not yet the unsettling emptiness of the steppe, Chao asks casual questions of the interpreter the Altai party has brought. Answers are unsatisfactory.

  The Altai ancestral lands are north of the Black River, towards the Koreini Peninsula, the man answers. Chao knows that. But their kaghan and his riders are not there now, of course, the interpreter says.

  “Where are they?” Chao asks politely.

  Vague gestures to the west are offered. There has been fighting, he is told.

  He knows this, too. This is a rebellion, after all. That is the reason for his presence here. Representing his emperor. Offering an assessment, negotiating. Should they support this rebellion? What will the Altai offer in exchange?

  The Fourteen, of course, are the prize.

  Lu Chao is hesitant about his mission. He’s kept that to himself (of course), but his thinking is not intricate. If this emerging tribe is strong enough to destabilize the steppe, then it is strong enough to disturb a secure border relationship for Kitai. But if this is simply another restless, transient tribal rising, what is the point of supporting it and antagonizing the Xiaolu?

  This is all, in a word, unpredictable. Are the Altai simply unhappy with Xiaolu assertions of power, but ready to be submissive to Kitai if helped to triumph, or are they wild, like wolves?

  The Kitan hate wolves. They cannot be tamed.

  “Where is the fighting?” Chao asks, looking this time at the party leader, hating that he needs an interpreter. Only one of the small, bare-chested, bowlegged men sent to meet them speaks Kitan, or admits he does. They all ride brilliantly.

  Eastern Capital, he is told.

  Their party leader is an exceptionally ugly man, not young.

  “They are attacking the Xiaolu’s Eastern Capital?” Chao asks, keeping surprise from his voice. That is very fast, if it is true.

  The interpreter translates for the leader, waits for an answer, permits himself a smile.

  “We have taken it,” he says. “We are dealing with it now, and recruiting new riders there.”

  Dealing with it. Chao can imagine. He has noted that smile. He keeps his own expression bland, though he is startled.

  “Your kaghan is all the way there?” he says. “How will he come this far to meet us?”

  He is listening carefully. A slight hesitation in the exchange between interpreter and leader. A sharp question and answer. Lu Chao makes himself, hearing this, become very calm.

  “You will meet with our war-leader,” says the interpreter. “It is Wan’yen who comes.”

  “The kaghan does not come?” Lu Chao is thinking fast. The interpreter is not smiling as he translates.

  “The kaghan is fighting. I said this.”

  “You said the kaghan’s brave riders have already taken the Eastern Capital.”

  His words are translated.

  The leader shakes his head, an obstinate movement. The interpreter shakes his head.

  “The war-leader is coming,” he repeats.

  Sometimes it happened on missions such as this that you needed to do something that placed you—and your party—at risk of death.

  You prayed then, and hoped to be remembered by your family. There would be no grave or proper burial. Not here.

  Lu Chao, a modestly capable rider, no more than that, succeeds in reining in his dark-brown horse. He lifts a hand and calls out, in his own language, to the six men here with him so far from home. They all come to a halt.

  “We are going back,” he says to them. “To the ship.”

  He looks past the interpreter, his expression cold, his eyes on the leader of the Altai party. “I require you to escort us back,” he says. “With our gifts. The august emperor of Kitai will demand this of me. His emissaries do not meet with lesser figures. You have cost us time and effort. The emperor will not be pleased with the Altai.”

  The interpreter translates. Chao is watching the leader, his hard, expressionless eyes. The man looks at him. Their gazes lock.

  The Altai leader laughs, but not with real amusement. He barks some words. The interpreter hesitates, then says, “He say Wan’yen is not lesser man. He is war-leader. He say you are only seven men. You can be killed and your goods claimed. You will keep riding, he say.”

  Lu Chao stares at the Altai leader. There is a wind blowing from the west, the man’s hair is whipped by it. There are woods to the north. Not yet the steppe he remembers.

  “All men die,” he says, slowly, clearly. “We can only go to our gods with honour, serving our lords as best we can.” He turns to his men, including the nephew he loves and honours. “Let us go. Back to the ship.”

  Their ship will be waiting. It will wait as long as it must. Until they return or word comes that they are dead.

  Lu Chao manages to turn his horse. It is a good horse, he knows enough to know that. It is difficult to start back east, the sun high, wind blowing, aware that he can be killed from behind, right now, this moment. Death is here. He moves without haste, not looking back. A prickling sensation.

  He would like to see his wife again, his sons. His brother. He would like to see his brother again.

  Life does not always give you what you want.

  Hoofbeats, coming fast. The leader of the Altai is beside him, grabbing Chao’s horse’s reins. He forces the animal to a halt. He does it easily.

  Chao turns to him. With an instinct he cannot explain (how do you explain an instinct?) he snaps, “You speak Kitan, I know this. Or you would not be here. So hear me. You can kill us, take these gifts. You can force us to go with you. Either way you destroy forever any hope your kaghan has of Kitan support. You make an enemy of the emperor of Kitai and an army of a million soldiers. Is this your task? Is it your wish?”

  He is watching, as closely as he can. The way a woman watches. He sees anger, black as a forest, in the man’s cold eyes, but also—it is there!—he sees uncertainty, and Lu Chao knows, sometimes you do know, that he has won.

  And sometimes you don’t know, or you are simply wrong.

  The Altai leader says, no pretense of not knowing Kitan, “Pick a man to die. One will be shot, and then each one, until you are left. Then you will come west with us.”

  He has ignored his own guidance, Lu Chao is thinking: about being careful. An angry man is one thing, an angry man who is uncertain and afraid is unpredictable. Every woman at the court, every woman in her own household, could probably have told him that.

  He looks at the Altai rider, but does not meet the man’s eyes now—that was a mistake, too obvious a challenge. Death may be among them, but it need not be summoned.

  He says, quietly, keeping this to the two of them, “And what do you think happens when I am forced to go west? What will I do? What will I say when I return home with my party murdered? What will I advise my emperor about the Altai?”

  The man says nothing. He licks his lips. His horse skitters sideways. Chao decides that is significant. No steppe horse would move like that unless the rider was unsettled.

  Chao adds, “I do not care which man you shoot, or if you kill me. Every one of us knew his death might come when we began this journey. But what will you tell your kaghan? That you killed the entire Kitan party? What will he do to you?”

  Still, no reply. The horse is calm again.
Chao is looking at the man’s hair, avoiding his eyes: the shaved forehead and top, the long growth at the sides, whipped by wind. He had told the others about this, that they might be ready for the strangeness.

  He speaks a third time. Silence after this, he tells himself. After this he must start east again. They may be killed in the next moments. He would like to sit with his brother again and drink summer wine.

  He says, “It is your choice. But I do not think every man in your party likes you, and some will be ambitious. The tale they tell may not be the one you want told, if we die. We are riding to our ship. Do what you choose.”

  He lifts a hand, preparing to call to his party.

  “Wait,” says the Altai leader, low and fierce.

  Lu Chao lowers his hand.

  Blue sky, white clouds racing east, wind down here as well, in the grass. They are too far from the forest to hear the sound of it in leaves.

  The Altai clears his throat. “There is no disrespect. The war-leader commands beside the kaghan. Perhaps more than him now. He is younger. They act together. We ... we went farther and faster than we thought. The kaghan would have come to you if the Eastern Capital had not surrendered so quickly.”

  His Kitan is better than the translator’s. He says, “The kaghan had to stay, to bring the Xiaolu warriors into our riders, joining us. That is Yan’po’s skill. Wan’yen and his brother lead in battle. That is their skill. Battle is finished, so Wan’yen can ride to you.”

  Chao looks past him, out over the grass. They have heard words to this effect in Hanjin, in the memoranda prepared for him when he accepted this embassy. That these Altai are really led by two brothers, not the old kaghan. They know little more. It is why he is here. To know more.

  And he sees a way now to move forward. Not to be killed in this windy, faraway place. He nods twice.

  “Thank you,” he says, makes it as gracious as he can, as civilized, a lord accepting something offered. He is the voice of the emperor of Kitai. He says, “We can wait here for the war-leader.”

  He sees the other man take a breath, and realizes how afraid this one had been. He’d have had to shoot if Chao had turned and started back east. No choice, his fellows watching, having heard what he’d said.