PROLOGUE
THE SOUND OF JADE
SUMMER 2206
‘At rise of day we sacrificed to the Wind God,
When darkly, darkly, dawn glimmered in the sky.
Officers followed, horsemen led the way;
They brought us out to the wastes beyond the town,
Where river mists fall heavier than rain,
And the fires on the hill leap higher than the stars.
Suddenly I remembered the early levees at Court
When you and I galloped to the Purple Yard.
As we walked our horses up Dragon Tail Way
We turned and gazed at the green of the Southern Hills.
Since we parted, both of us have been growing old;
And our minds have been vexed by many anxious cares;
Yet even now I fancy my ears are full
Of the sound of jade tinkling on your bridle-straps.’
—Po Chu-I, ‘To Li Chien’ (AD 819)
It was night and the moon lay like a blinded eye upon the satin darkness of the Nile. From where he stood, on the balcony high above the river, Wang Hsien could feel the slow, warm movement of the air like the breath of a sleeping woman against his cheek. He sighed and laid his hands upon the cool stone of the balustrade, looking out to his right, to the north, where, in the distance, the great lighthouse threw its long, sweeping arm of light across the delta. For a while he watched it, feeling as empty as the air through which it moved, then he turned back, looking up at the moon itself. So clear the nights were here. And the stars. He shivered, the bitterness flooding back. The stars…
A voice broke into his reverie. ‘Chieh Hsia? Are you ready for us?’
It was Sun Li Hua, Master of the Inner Chamber. He stood just inside the doorway, his head bowed, his two assistants a respectful distance behind him, their heads lowered. Wang Hsien turned and made a brief gesture, signifying that they should begin, then he turned back.
He remembered being with his two eldest sons, Chang Ye and Lieh Tsu, on the coast of Mozambique in summer. A late summer night with the bright stars filling the heavens overhead. They had sat there about an open fire, the three of them, naming the stars and their constellations, watching the Dipper move across the black velvet of the sky until the fire was ash and the day was come again. It was the last time he had been with them alone. Their last holiday together.
And now they were dead. Both of them, lying in their coffins, still and cold beneath the earth. And where were their spirits now? Up there? Among the eternal stars? Or was there only one soul, the hun, trapped and rotting in the ground? He gritted his teeth, fighting against his sense of bitterness and loss. Hardening himself against it. But the bitterness remained. Was it so? he asked himself. Did the spirit soul, the p’o, rise up to Heaven, as they said, or was there only this? This earth, this sky, and Man between them?
Best not ask. Best keep such thoughts at bay, lest the darkness answer you.
He shivered, his hands gripping the stone fiercely. Gods but he missed them! Missed them beyond the power of words to say. He filled his hours, keeping his mind busy with the myriad affairs of State; even so, he could not keep himself from thinking of them. Where are you? he would ask himself on waking. Where are you, Chang Ye, who smiled so sweetly? And you, Lieh Tsu, my ying tao, my baby peach, always my favourite? Where are you now?
Murdered, a brutal voice in him insisted. And only ash and bitterness remained.
He turned savagely, angry with himself. Now he would not sleep. Bone-tired as he was, he would lie there, sleepless, impotent against the thousand bitter-sweet images that would come.
‘Sun Li Hua!’ he called impatiently, moving the curtain aside with one hand. ‘Bring me something to make me sleep! Ho yeh, perhaps, or tou chi.’
‘At once, Chieh Hsia.’
The Master of the Inner Chamber bowed low, then went to do as he was bid. Wang Hsien watched him go, then turned to look across at the huge, low bed at the far end of the chamber. The servants were almost done. The silken sheets were turned back, the flowers at the bedside changed, his sleeping robes laid out, ready for the maids.
The headboard seemed to fill the end wall, the circle of the Ywe Lung, the Moon Dragon, symbol of the Seven, carved deep into the wood. The seven dragons formed a great wheel, their regal snouts meeting at the hub, their lithe, powerful bodies forming the spokes, their tails the rim. Wang Hsien stared at it a while, then nodded to himself as if satisfied. But deeper, at some dark, unarticulated level, he felt a sense of unease. The War, the murder of his sons – these things had made him far less certain than he’d been. He could no longer look at the Ywe Lung without questioning what had been done in their name these last five years.
He looked down sharply. Five years. Was that all? Only five short years? So it was. Yet it felt as though a whole cycle of sixty years had passed since The New Hope had been blasted from the heavens and war declared. He sighed and put his hand up to his brow, remembering. It had been a nasty, vicious war; a war of little trust – where friend and enemy had worn the same smiling face. They had won, but their victory had failed to set things right. The struggle had changed the nature – the very essence – of Chung Kuo. Nothing would ever be the same again.
He waited until the servants left, backing away, bowed low, their eyes averted from their lord’s face, then went across and stood before the wall-length mirror.
‘You are an old man, Wang Hsien,’ he told himself softly, noting the deep lines about his eyes and mouth, the ivory yellow of his eyes, the loose roughness of his skin. ‘Moon-faced, they call you. Maybe so. But this moon has waxed and waned a thousand times and still I see no clearer by its light. Who are you, Wang Hsien? What kind of man are you?’
He turned, tensing instinctively, hearing a noise in the passageway outside, then relaxed, smiling.
The three girls bowed deeply, then came into the room, Little Bee making her way across to him, while Tender Willow and Sweet Rain busied themselves elsewhere in the room.
Little Bee knelt before him, then looked up, her sweet, unaffected smile lifting his spirits, bringing a breath of youth and gaiety to his old heart.
‘How are you this evening, good Father?’
‘I am fine,’ he lied, warmed by the sight of her. ‘And you, Mi Feng?’
‘The better for seeing you, my lord.’
He laughed softly, then leaned forward and touched her head gently, affectionately. Little Bee had been with him six years now, since her tenth birthday. She was like a daughter to him.
He turned, enjoying the familiar sight of his girls moving about the room, readying things for him. For a while it dispelled his previous mood; made him forget the darkness he had glimpsed inside and out. He let Little Bee remove his pau and sit him, naked, in a chair, then closed his eyes and let his head fall back while she began to rub his chest and arms with oils. As ever, the gentle pressure of her hands against his skin roused him. Tender Willow came and held the bowl with the lavender glaze while Sweet Rain gave him ease, her soft, thin-boned fingers caressing him with practised strokes until he came. Then Little Bee washed him there and, making him stand, bound him up in a single yellow silk cloth before bringing a fresh sleeping garment.
He looked down at her tiny, delicate form as she stood before him, fastening his cloak, and felt a small shiver pass through him. Little Bee looked up, concerned.
‘Are you sure you are all right, Father? Should I ask one of your wives to come to you?’
‘It’s nothing, Mi Feng. And no, I’ll sleep alone tonight.’
She fastened the last of the tiny, difficult buttons, looking up into his face a moment, then looked down again, frowning. ‘I worry for you, Chieh Hsia,’ she said, turning away to take a brush from the table at her side. ‘Some days you seem to carry the whole world’s troubles on your shoulders.’
He smiled and let her push him down gently into the chair again. ‘I am Seven, Mi Feng. Who else should carry the burden of Chung Kuo?’
She was silent a moment, her fingers working to unbind his tightly braided queue. Then, leaning close, she whispered in his ear. ‘Your son,’ she said. ‘Why not make Ta-hung your regent?’
He laughed shortly, unamused. ‘And make that rascal friend of his, Hung Mien-lo, a T’ang in all but name?’ He looked at her sharply. ‘Has he been talking to you?’
‘Has who been talking to me, Father? I was thinking only of your health. You need more time to yourself.’
He laughed, seeing for himself how free from subterfuge she was. ‘Forget what I said, Mi Feng. Besides, I enjoy my duties.’
She was brushing out his hair now, from scalp to tip, her tiny, perfectly formed body swaying gently, enticingly beside him with each passage of the brush. He could see her side on in the mirror across the room, her silks barely veiling her nakedness.
He sighed and closed his eyes again, overcome by a strange mixture of emotions. Most men would envy me, he thought. And yet some days I think myself accursed. These girls… they would do whatever I wished, without a moment’s hesitation, and yet there is no joy in the thought. My sons are dead. How could joy survive such heartbreak?
He shuddered and stood up abruptly, surprising Little Bee, making the others turn and look across. They watched him walk briskly to the mirror and stand there, as if in pain, grimacing into the glass. Then he turned back, his face bitter.
‘Ta-hung!’ he said scathingly, throwing himself down into the chair again. ‘I was a fool to let that one be born!’
There was a shocked intake of breath from the three girls. It was unlike Wang Hsien to say such things. Little Bee looked at the others and nodded, then waited until they were gone before speaking to him again.
She knelt, looking up into his face, concerned. ‘What is it, Wang Hsien? What eats at you like poison?’
‘My sons!’ he said, in sudden agony. ‘My sons are dead!’
‘Not all your sons,’ she answered gently, taking his hands in her own. ‘Wang Ta-hung yet lives. And Wang Sau-Leyan.’
‘A weakling and a libertine!’ he said bitterly, not looking at her; staring past her into space. ‘I had two fine, strong sons. Good, upstanding men with all their mother’s finest qualities. And now…’ He shivered violently and looked at her, his features racked with pain, his hands gripping hers tightly. ‘This war has taken everything, Mi Feng. Everything. Some days I think it has left me hollow, emptied of all I was.’
‘No…’ she said, sharing his pain. ‘No, my lord. Not everything.’
He let her hands fall from his and stood again, turning away from her and staring at the door that led out on to the balcony.
‘It is the most bitter lesson,’ he said fiercely. ‘That a man might own the world and yet have nothing.’
Little Bee swallowed and looked down. She had seen her master in many moods, but never like this.
She turned, realizing there was someone in the chamber with them. It was Sun Li Hua. He stood in the doorway, his head bowed. In his hands was the lavender glaze bowl that Tender Willow had taken out to him only moments earlier.
‘Chieh Hsia?’
Wang Hsien turned abruptly, facing the newcomer, clearly angered by the interruption. Then he seemed to collect himself and dropped his head slightly. He looked across at Little Bee and, with a forced smile, dismissed her.
‘Good night, Chieh Hsia,’ she said softly, backing away. ‘May Kuan Yin bring you peace.’
Sun Li Hua stood there after the maid had gone, perfectly still, awaiting his master’s orders.
‘Come in, Master Sun,’ Wang Hsien said after a moment. He turned away and walked slowly across the room, sitting down heavily on his bed.
‘Are you all right, Chieh Hsia?’ Sun Li Hua asked. He set the bowl down on the small table at the bedside, then looked up at his master. ‘Has one of the maids done something to upset you?’
Wang Hsien glanced at his Master of the Inner Chamber almost without recognition, then shook his head irritably. ‘What is this?’ he said, pointing at the bowl.
‘It is your sleeping potion, Chieh Hsia. Lotus seeds mixed with your own life elixir. It should help you sleep.’
Wang Hsien took a deep, shuddering breath, then reached out and took the bowl in one hand, sipping from it. The ho yeh was slightly bitter to the taste – a bitterness augmented by the salt tang of his own yang essence, his semen – but not unpleasant. He drained the bowl, then looked back at Sun Li Hua, holding out the empty bowl for him to take. ‘You will wake me at five, yes?’
Sun Li Hua took the bowl and backed away, bowing again. ‘Of course, Chieh Hsia.’
He watched the old T’ang turn and slide his legs between the sheets, then lower his head on to the pillow, pulling the covers up about his shoulders. Two minutes, he thought; that’s all the good Doctor Yueh said it would take.
Sun Li Hua moved back, beneath the camera, waiting in the doorway until he heard the old T’ang’s breathing change. Then, setting the bowl down, he took a key from inside his silks and reached up, opening a panel high up in the door’s frame. It popped back, revealing a tiny keyboard and a timer unit. Quickly he punched the combination. The timer froze, two amber lights appearing at the top of the panel.
He counted to ten, then touched the EJECT panel. At once a thin, transparent card dropped into the tray beneath the keyboard. He slipped it into his pocket, then put its replacement into the slot at the side and punched SET.
‘Good,’ he said softly, closing the panel and slipping the key back inside his silks. Then, taking a pair of gloves from his pocket, he stepped back inside the bedchamber.
Six floors below, at the far end of the palace, two soldiers were sitting in a cramped guardroom, talking.
The younger of them, a lieutenant, turned momentarily from the bank of screens that filled the wall in front of him and looked across at his captain. ‘What do you think will happen, Otto? Will they close all the companies down?’
Captain Fischer, Head of the T’ang’s personal security, looked up from behind his desk and smiled. ‘Your guess is as good as anyone’s, Wolf. But I’ll tell you this, whatever they do there’ll be trouble.’
‘You think so?’
‘Well, think about it. The volume of seized assets is so vast that if the Seven freeze them it’s certain to damage the market badly. However, if they redistribute all that wealth in the form of rewards there’s the problem of who gets what. A lot of people are going to be jealous or dissatisfied. On the other hand, they can’t just give it back. There has to be some kind of punishment.’
The lieutenant turned back to his screens, scanning them conscientiously. ‘I agree. But where do they draw the line? How do they distinguish between those who were actively against them and those who were simply unhelpful?’
Fischer shrugged. ‘I don’t know, Wolf. I really don’t.’
They were discussing the most recent spate of Confiscations and Demotions, a subject never far from most people’s lips these days. In the past eighteen months more than one hundred and eighty thousand First Level families had been ‘sent down’ and all their material goods confiscated by the Seven as punishment for what had been termed ‘subversive activities’. A further five thousand families had simply vanished from the face of Chung Kuo – to the third generation as the law demanded – for active treason against the Seven. But now, with the War in its final stages and the clamour for peace growing daily, the Confiscations had become a delicate subject and a major bone of contention between those who wanted retribution and those who simply wanted to damp down the fires of resentment and bitterness that such retribution brought in its wake.
The lieutenant turned, eyeing his captain speculatively. ‘I hear there’s even talk of reopening the House.’
Fischer looked back at his junior officer sternly, his voice suddenly hard. ‘You would do best to forget such talk, Lieutenant.’
‘Sir.’ The lieutenant gave a curt bow of his head, then turned back to his screens.
Fischer studied Rahn’s back a moment, then leaned back, yawning. It was just after two, the hour of the Ox. The palace was silent, the screens empty of activity. In an hour his shift would be over and he could sleep. He smiled. That is, if Lotte would let him sleep.
He rubbed at his neck, then leaned forward again and began to catch up with his paperwork. He had hardly begun when the door to his right crashed open. He was up out of his seat at once, his gun drawn, aimed at the doorway.
‘Sun Li Hua! What in Hell’s name?’
The Master of the Inner Chamber looked terrible. His silks were torn, his hair dishevelled. He leaned against the doorpost for support, his eyes wide with shock, his cheeks wet with tears. He reached out, his hand trembling violently, then shook his head, his mouth working mutely. His voice, when he found it, was cracked, unnaturally high.
‘The T’ang…’
Fischer glanced across at the screen that showed Wang Hsien’s bedchamber, then back at Sun Li Hua. ‘What is it, Master Sun? What’s happened?’
For a moment Sun Li Hua seemed unable to speak, then he fell to his knees. A great, racking sob shook his whole body, then he looked up, his eyes wild, distraught. ‘Our master, the T’ang. He’s… dead.’
Fischer had known as soon as he had seen Sun Li Hua; had felt his stomach fall away from him with fear; but he had not wanted to know – not for certain.
‘How?’ he heard himself say. Then, seeing what it meant, he looked across at his lieutenant, pre-empting him; stopping him from pressing the general alarm that would wake the whole palace.
‘Touch nothing, Wolf. Not until I order you to. Get Kurt and Alan here at once.’
He turned back to Sun. ‘Who else knows, Master Sun? Who else have you told?’
‘No one,’ Sun answered, his voice barely audible. ‘I came straight here. I didn’t know what to do. They’ve killed him. Killed him while he slept.’
‘Who? Who’s killed him? What do you mean?’
‘Fu and Chai. I’m certain it was them. Fu’s stiletto… ’
Fischer swallowed, appalled. ‘They knifed him? Your two assistants knifed him?’ He turned to his lieutenant. ‘Wolf, take two copies of the surveillance tape. Send one to Marshal Tolonen at Bremen. Another to General Helm in Rio.’
‘Sir!’
He thought quickly. No one knew anything. Not yet. Only he and Wolf and Sun Li Hua. And the murderers, of course, but they would be telling no one. He turned back to his lieutenant. ‘Keep Master Sun here. And when Kurt and Alan come have them wait here until I get back. And, Wolf…’
‘Sir?’
‘Tell no one anything. Not yet. Understand me?’
Wang Hsien lay there on his back, his face relaxed, as if in sleep, yet pale – almost Hung Mao in its paleness. Fischer leaned across and felt for a pulse at the neck. Nothing. The flesh was cold. The T’ang had been dead an hour at least.
Fischer shuddered and stepped back, studying the body once again. The silk sheets were dark, sticky with the old man’s blood. The silver-handled stiletto jutted from the T’ang’s bared chest, the blade thrust in all the way up to the handle. He narrowed his eyes, considering. It would have taken some strength to do that, even to a sleeping man. And not just strength. It was not easy for one man to kill another. One needed the will for the job.
Could Fu have done it? Or Chai? Fischer shook his head. He could not imagine either of them doing this. And yet if not them, then who?
He looked about him, noting how things lay. Then, his mind made up, he turned and left the room, knowing he had only minutes in which to act.