The board lay on the desk in front of DeVore, its nineteen by nineteen grid part overlaid with a patterning of black and white stones. Most of the board was empty: only in the top right-hand corner, in ch’u, the west, were the stones concentrated heavily. There the first stage of the battle had been fought, with black pressing white hard into the corner, slowly choking off its breath, blinding its eyes until, at last, the group was dead, the ten stones taken from the board.
It was an ancient game – one of the ten games of the West Lake, played by those two great masters from Hai-nin, Fan Si-pin and Su Ting-an, back in 1763. He played it often, from memory, stopping, as now, at the fifty-ninth move to query what Fan, playing white, had chosen. It was an elegant, enthralling game, the two masters so perfectly balanced in ability, their moves so exquisitely thought out, that he felt a shiver of delight contemplating what was to come. Even so, he could not help but search for those small ways in which each player’s game might have been improved.
DeVore looked up from the board and glanced across at the young man who stood, his back to him, on the far side of the room. Then, taking a wafer-thin ice-paper pamphlet from his jacket pocket, he unfolded it and held it out.
‘Have you heard of this new group, Stefan – the Ping Tiao?’
Lehmann turned, his face expressionless, then came across and took the pamphlet, examining it. After a moment he looked back at DeVore, his cold, pink eyes revealing nothing. ‘I’ve heard of them. They’re low level types, aren’t they? Why are you interested?’
‘A man must be interested in many things,’ DeVore answered cryptically, leaning forward to take a white stone from the bowl, hefting it in his hand. ‘The Ping Tiao want what we want, to destroy the Seven.’
‘Yes, but they would destroy us just as readily. They’re terrorists. They want only to destroy.’
‘I know. Even so, they could be useful. We might walk the same path a while, don’t you think?’
‘And then?’
DeVore smiled tightly. Lehmann knew as well as he. Then there would be war between them. A war he would win. He looked down at the board again. The fifty-ninth move. What would he have played in Fan’s place? His smile broadened, became more natural. How many times had he thought it through? A hundred? A thousand? And always, inevitably, he would make Fan’s move, taking the black at 4/1 to give himself a temporary breathing space. So delicately were things balanced at that point that to do otherwise – to make any of a dozen other tempting plays – would be to lose it all.
A wise man, Fan Si-pin. He knew the value of sacrifice: the importance of making one’s opponents work hard for their small victories – knowing that while the battle was lost in ch’u, the war went on in shang and ping and tsu.
So it was now, in Chung Kuo. Things were balanced very delicately. And one wrong move… He looked up at Lehmann again, studying the tall young albino.
‘You ask what would happen should we succeed, but there are other, more immediate questions. Are the Ping Tiao important enough? You know how the media exaggerate these things. And would an alliance with them harm or strengthen us?’
Lehmann met his gaze. ‘As I said, the Ping Tiao are a low level organisation. Worse, they’re idealists. It would be hard to work with such men. They would have fewer weaknesses than those we’re used to dealing with.’
‘And yet they are men. They have needs, desires.’
‘Maybe so, but they would mistrust us from the start. In their eyes we are First Level, their natural enemies. Why should they work with us?’
DeVore smiled and stood up, coming round the desk. ‘It’s not a question of choice, Stefan, but necessity. They need someone like us. Think of the losses they’ve sustained.’
He was about to say more – to outline his plan – when there was an urgent knocking at the door.
DeVore looked across, meeting Lehmann’s eyes. He had ordered his lieutenant, Wiegand, not to disturb him unless it was vitally important.
‘Come in!’
Wiegand took two steps into the room then came sharply to attention, his head bowed. ‘I’ve a call on the coded channel, sir. Triple-A rated.’
DeVore narrowed his eyes, conscious of how closely Lehmann was watching him. ‘Who is it?’
‘It’s Stifel, sir. He says he has little time.’
‘Stifel’ was the code name for Otto Fischer in Alexandria. DeVore hesitated a moment, his mind running through possibilities, then nodded.
‘Okay. Switch it through.’
It was a non-visual, Fischer’s voice artificially distorted to avoid even the remote possibility of recognition.
‘Well, Stifel? What is it?’
‘The moon is down, sir. An hour past at most.’
DeVore caught his breath. ‘How?’
‘Eclipsed.’
DeVore stared across at Lehmann, astonished. He hesitated a moment, considering, then spoke again.
‘How many know about this?’
‘Three, maybe four.’
‘Good. Keep it that way.’ He thought quickly. ‘Who’s guarding our fallen moon?’
‘No one. A camera…’
‘Excellent. Now listen…’
He spelt out quickly what he wanted, then broke contact, knowing that Fischer would do exactly as he’d asked.
‘Who’s dead?’
DeVore turned and looked at Lehmann again. His face, like the tone of his words, seemed utterly devoid of curiosity, as if the question were a mere politeness, the answer a matter of indifference to him.
‘Wang Hsien,’ he answered. ‘It seems he’s been murdered in his bed.’
If he had expected the albino to show any sign of surprise he would have been disappointed, but he knew the young man better than that.
‘I see,’ Lehmann said. ‘And you know who did it?’
‘The agent, yes, but not who he was acting for.’ DeVore sat behind his desk again, then looked up at Lehmann. ‘It was Sun Li Hua.’
‘You know that for certain?’
‘Not for certain, no. But I’d wager a million yuan on it.’
Lehmann came across and stood at the edge of the desk. ‘So what now?’
DeVore met his eyes briefly, then looked down at the board again. ‘We wait. Until we hear from Stifel again. Then the fun begins.’
‘Fun?’
‘Yes, fun. You’ll see. But go now, Stefan. Get some rest. I’ll call you when I need you.’
He realized he was still holding the white stone. It lay in his palm like a tiny moon, cold, moist with his sweat. He opened out his fingers and stared at it, then lifted it and wiped it. The fifty-ninth stone.
The game had changed dramatically, the balance altered in his favour. The moon was down. Eclipsed.
DeVore smiled, then nodded to himself, suddenly knowing where to play the stone.
The dead T’ang lay where he had left him, undisturbed, his long grey hair fanned out across the pillow, his arms at his sides, the palms upturned. Fischer stood there a moment, looking down at the corpse, breathing deeply, preparing himself. Then, knowing he could delay no longer, he bent down and put his hand behind the cold, stiff neck, lifting the head, drawing the hair back from the ear.
It was not, physically, difficult to do – the flesh parted easily before the knife; the blood stopped flowing almost as soon as it had begun – yet he was conscious of a deep, almost overpowering reluctance in himself. This was a T’ang! A Son of Heaven! He shivered, letting the severed flesh fall, then turned the head and did the same to the other side.
He lowered the head on to the pillow and stepped back, appalled. Outwardly he seemed calm, almost icy in his control, but inwardly he quaked with an inexplicable, almost religious fear of what he was doing. His pulse raced, his stomach churned, and all the while a part of him kept saying to himself, What are you doing, Otto? What are you doing?
He stared, horrified, at the two thick question-marks of flesh that lay now on the pillow, separated from their owner’s head, then steeled himself and reached out to take them. He drew the tiny bag from inside his jacket and dropped them into it, then sealed the bag and returned it to the pocket.
Wang Hsien lay there, regal even in death, indifferent to all that had been done to him. Fischer stared at him a while, mesmerized, awed by the power of the silent figure. Then, realizing he was wasting time, he bent over the corpse again, smoothing the hair back into place, hiding the disfigurement.
Nervousness made him laugh – a laugh he stifled quickly. He shuddered and looked about him again, then went to the doorway. There he paused, reaching up to reset the camera, checking the elapsed time against his wrist timer, then moved the camera’s clock forward until the two were synchronized. That done, he pressed out the combination quickly. The lights at the top changed from amber to green, signifying that the camera was functioning again.
He looked back, checking the room one final time, then, satisfied that nothing was disturbed, he backed out of the room, pulling the door to silently behind him, his heart pounding, his mouth dry with fear, the sealed bag seeming to burn where it pressed against his chest.
Wang Ta-hung woke to whispering in his room and sat up, clutching the blankets to his chest, his mind dark with fear.
‘Who is it?’ he called out, his voice quavering. ‘Kuan Yin preserve me, who is it?’
A figure approached the huge bed, bowed. ‘It is only I, Excellency. Your servant, Wu Ming.’
Wang Ta-hung, the T’ang’s eldest surviving son, pulled the blankets tighter about his neck and stared, wide-eyed, past his Master of the Bedchamber, into the darkness beyond.
‘Who is there, Wu Ming? Who were you whispering to?’
A second figure stepped from the darkness and stood beside the first, his head bowed. He was a tall, strongly built Han dressed in dark silks, his beard braided into three tiny pigtails, his face, when it lifted once again, solid, unreadable. A handsome, yet inexpressive face.
‘Excellency.’
‘Hung Mien-lo!’
Wang Ta-hung turned and glanced at the ornate timepiece beside the bed, then twisted back, facing the two men, his face twitching with alarm.
‘It is almost half two! What are you doing here? What’s happened?’
Hung Mien-lo sat on the bed beside the frightened twenty-year-old, taking his upper arms gently but firmly in his hands.
‘It’s all right, Ta-hung. Please, calm yourself. I have some news, that’s all.’
The young Prince nodded, but it was as if he was still in the grip of some awful dream; his eyes continued to stare, a muscle in his left cheek twitched violently. He had been this way for eighteen months now, since the day he had found his two brothers dead in one of the guest bedrooms of the summer palace, their naked bodies grey-blue from the poison, the two maids they had been entertaining sprawled nearby, their pale limbs laced with blood, their eyes gouged out.
Some said that the pale, wasted-looking youth was mad, others that it was only natural for one of his sickly disposition to suffer after such a discovery. He had never been a strong boy, but now…
Hung Mien-lo stroked the young man’s shoulder, comforting him, knowing the delicacy of what lay ahead – that what must be said might well send him deeper into madness. He spoke softly, reassuringly. ‘It is your father, Ta-hung. I am afraid he is dead.’
For a moment it didn’t register. There was a flicker of disbelief. Then, abruptly, the Prince pulled himself away, scrambling back until he was pressed up against the headboard, his eyes wide, his mouth open.
‘How?’ he said, the words the tiniest, frightened squeak. ‘How did he die?’
Hung Mien-lo ignored the question. He spoke calmly, using the same reassuring tone as before. ‘You must get dressed, Ta-hung. You must come and bear witness to what has happened.’
Wang Ta-hung laughed shrilly, then buried his head in his arms, shaking it wildly. ‘No-o-o!’ he cried, his voice muffled. ‘No-oh! Gods, no, not again!’
Hung Mien-lo turned and clicked his fingers. At once Wu Ming bustled off to get things ready. Yes, Hung thought, he at least understands. For now that the old T’ang is dead Ta-hung is T’ang in his place, mad or no. Indeed, the madder the better as far as I’m concerned, for the more Ta-hung relies on me, the more power lies within my hands.
He smiled and stood, seeing how the young man cowered away from him, yet how his eyes beseeched his help. Yes, indeed, Hung Mien-lo thought; my hour has truly come; the hour I waited for so long as companion to this young fool. And now I am effectively first man in City Africa. The shaper. The orderer. The granter of favours.
Inwardly he felt exultation, a soaring, brilliant joy that had lit in him the moment he had been told; yet this, more than any other moment, was a time for masks. He put one on now, shaping his face towards sternness, to the expression of a profound grief. Satisfied, he went over to the young Prince and lifted him from the bed, standing him on his feet.
‘It was so cold,’ the youth murmured, looking up into his face. ‘When I touched Chang Ye’s shoulder, it was like he had been laid in ice. The cold of it seemed to burn my hand. I…’He hesitated, then looked down, turning his hand, lifting the palm to stare at it.
‘That’s done with, Ta-hung. You must get dressed now and see your father. You are the eldest now, the Head of your family. You must take charge of things.’
Ta-hung stared back at him, uncomprehendingly. ‘Take charge?’
‘Don’t worry,’ Hung said, unfastening the cord, then pulling the Prince’s sleeping silks down off his shoulders, stripping him naked. ‘I’ll be there beside you, Ta-hung. I’ll tell you what to do.’
Wu Ming returned and began at once to dress and groom the Prince. He was only part way through when Ta-hung broke away from him and threw himself down at Hung Mien-lo’s feet, sobbing.
‘I’m frightened, Mien-lo. So frightened!’
Hung glanced at Wu Ming, then reached down and hauled the Prince roughly to his feet. ‘Stop it! You’ve got to stop this at once!’
There was a moment’s shocked silence, then the young Prince bowed his head. ‘I’m sorry, I…’
‘No!’ Hung barked. ‘No apologies. Don’t you understand, Ta-hung? You are T’ang now. Seven. It is I who should apologize, not you, Chieh Hsia.’
Chieh Hsia. It was the first time the words of imperial address had been used to the young man and Hung Mien-lo could see at once the effect they had on him. Though Ta-hung still shivered, though tears still coursed freely down his cheeks, yet he stood straighter, slightly taller, realizing for the first time what he had become.
‘You understand, then? Good. Then remember this. Let none but a T’ang touch you without your permission. And let no man, not even a T’ang, speak to you as I spoke then. You are T’ang now. Supreme. Understand me, Chieh Hsia?’
Ta-hung’s voice when he answered was different, almost calm. ‘I understand you, Mien-lo. My father is dead and I am T’ang now.’
‘Good. Then, with your permission, we will go to see your father and pay our respects, neh?’
The slightest shudder passed through the young man’s wasted frame, the smallest cloud of revulsion momentarily crossed the sky of his face, then he nodded. ‘As you say, Mien-lo. As you say.’
Wang Sau-leyan heard their voices coming nearer – the rustle of silks and the sound of their soft footsteps on the tiled floor – and slid the door open, slipping out into the dimly lit corridor. He pulled the door to quietly, then turned, facing them. They came on quickly, talking all the while, not seeing him until they were almost on top of him. He saw the look of surprise on Hung Mien-lo’s face, heard his brother’s gasp of fear.
He smiled and gave the slightest bow. ‘I heard noises, Ta-hung. Voices calling softly but urgently in the darkness. What is happening, brother? Why do you wander the corridors at this early hour?’
He saw how Ta-hung looked to his friend, at a loss, his face a web of conflicting emotions, and smiled inwardly, enjoying his brother’s impotence.
‘I’m afraid there is bad news, Wang Sau-leyan,’ Hung Mien-lo answered him, bowing low, his face grave. ‘Your father is dead.’
‘Dead? But how?’
He saw how Hung Mien-lo glanced at his brother and knew at once that Ta-hung had not been told everything.
‘It would be best if you came yourself, Excellency. I will explain everything then. But excuse us, please. We must pay our respects to the late T’ang.’
He noted how pointedly Hung Mien-lo had emphasized the last two words; how his voice, while still superficially polite, was a register of how he thought things had changed. Wang Sau-leyan smiled tightly at Hung, then bowed to his elder brother.
‘I will get dressed at once.’
He watched them go; then, satisfied, slid the door open again and went back into his rooms.
A voice from the bed, young, distinctly feminine, called softly to him. ‘What was it, my love?’
He went across to her and, slipping off his robe, joined her, naked beneath the sheets.
‘It was nothing,’ he said, smiling down at his father’s third wife. ‘Nothing at all.’
Wang Ta-hung stood in the doorway of his father’s room staring in, fear constricting his throat. He turned and looked at Hung Mien-lo beseechingly. ‘I can’t…’
‘You are T’ang,’ Hung answered him firmly. ‘You can.’
The young man swallowed, then turned back, his fists clenched at his sides. ‘I am T’ang,’ he repeated. ‘T’ang of City Africa.’
Hung Mien-lo stood there a moment, watching him take the first few hesitant steps into the room, knowing how important the next few minutes were. Ta-hung had accustomed himself to the fact of his father’s death. Now he must discover how the old man died. Must learn, firsthand, the fate of kings.
And if it drove him mad?
Hung Mien-lo smiled to himself, then stepped inside the room. Kings had been mad before. What was a king, after all, but a symbol – the visible sign of a system of government? As long as the City was ruled, what did it matter who gave the orders?
He stopped beside the old man’s chair, watching the youth approach the bed. Surely he’s seen? he thought. Yet Ta-hung was too still, too composed. Then the young T’ang turned, looking back at him.
‘I knew,’ he said softly. ‘As soon as you told me, I knew he had been murdered.’
Hung Mien-lo let his breath out. ‘You knew?’ He looked down. There, beneath him on the cushion, lay the T’ang’s hairbrush. He leaned forward and picked it up, studying it a moment, appreciating the slender elegance of its ivory handle, the delicacy of its design. He was about to set it down when he noticed several strands of the old T’ang’s hair trapped amongst the darkness of the bristles; long, white strands, almost translucent in their whiteness, like the finest threads of ice. He frowned then looked back at Wang Ta-hung. ‘How do you feel, Chieh Hsia? Are you well enough to see others, or shall I delay?’
Wang Ta-hung looked about him, then turned and stared down at his father. He was still, unnaturally calm.
Perhaps this is it, thought Hung. Perhaps something has broken in him and this calmness is the first sign of it. But for once there seemed no trace of madness in Ta-hung, only a strange sense of dignity and distance, surprising because it was so unexpected.
‘Let the others come,’ he said, his voice clear of any shade of fear, his eyes drinking in the sight of his murdered father. ‘There’s no sense in delay.’
Hung Mien-lo hesitated, suddenly uncertain, then turned and went to the door, telling the guard to bring Fischer and Sun Li Hua. Then he went back inside.
Wang Ta-hung was standing at the bedside. He had picked something up and was sniffing at it. Hung Mien-lo went across to him.
‘What is this?’ Ta-hung asked, handing him a bowl.
It was a perfect piece of porcelain. Its roundness and its perfect lavender glaze made it a delight to look at. Hung turned it in his hands, a faint smile on his lips. It was an old piece, too, K’ang Hsi perhaps… or perhaps not, for the colouring was wrong. But that was not what Ta-hung had meant. He had meant the residue.
Hung sniffed at it, finding the heavy, musky scent of it strangely familiar, then turned, hearing voices at the door. It was Sun Li Hua and the Captain.
‘Master Sun,’ he called out, ‘what was in this bowl?’
Sun bowed low and came into the room. ‘It was a sleeping potion, Chieh Hsia,’ he said, keeping his head lowered, addressing the new T’ang. ‘Doctor Yueh prepared it.’
‘And what was in it?’ Hung asked, irritated by Sun’s refusal to answer him directly.
Sun Li Hua hesitated a moment. ‘It was ho yeh, for insomnia, Chieh Hsia.’
‘Ho yeh and what?’ Hung insisted, knowing the distinct smell of lotus seeds.
Sun glanced briefly at the young T’ang, as if for intercession, then bent his head. ‘It was mixed with the T’ang’s own yang essence, Chieh Hsia.’
‘Ah…’ He nodded, understanding.
He set the bowl down then turned away, looking about the room, noting the fresh flowers at the bedside, the T’ang’s clothes laid out on the dresser, ready for the morning.
He looked across at Fischer. ‘Has anything been disturbed?’
‘No… Excellency.’
He noted the hesitation and realized that though they knew how important he had suddenly become, they did not know quite how to address him. I must have a title, he thought. Chancellor, perhaps. Some peg to hang their respect upon.
He turned, looking across at the open door that led out on to the balcony. ‘Was this where the murderer entered?’
Fischer answered immediately. ‘No, Excellency.’
‘You’re certain?’
‘Quite certain, Excellency.’
Hung Mien-lo turned, surprised. ‘How so?’
Fischer glanced up at the camera, then stepped forward. ‘It is all on tape, Excellency. Sun Li Hua’s assistants, the brothers Ying Fu and Ying Chai, are the murderers. They entered the room shortly after Master Sun had given the T’ang his potion.’
‘Gods! And you have them?’
‘Not yet, Excellency. But as no one has left the palace since the murder they must be here. My men are searching the palace even now to find them.’
Ta-hung was watching everything with astonishment, his lips parted, his eyes wide and staring. Hung Mien-lo looked across at him a moment, then turned back to Fischer, giving a curt nod. ‘Good. But we want them alive. It’s possible they were acting for another.’
‘Of course, Excellency.’
Hung Mien-lo turned and went to the open door, pulling back the thin, see-through curtain of silk and stepping out on to the balcony. It was cool outside, the moon low to his left. To his right the beam of the distant lighthouse cut the darkness, flashing across the dark waters of the Nile delta and sweeping on across the surrounding desert. He stood there a moment, his hands on the balustrade, staring down into the darkness of the river far below.
So, it was Fu and Chai. They were the hands. But who was behind them? Who beside himself had wanted the old man dead? Sun Li Hua? Perhaps. After all, Wang Hsien had humiliated him before his sons when Sun had asked that his brothers be promoted and the T’ang had refused. But that had been long ago. Almost three years now. If Sun, why now? And in any case, Fischer had said that Sun had been like a madman when he’d come to him, feverish with dismay.
Who, then? Who? He racked his brains, but no answer sprang to mind. Wang Sau-leyan? He shook his head. Why should that no-good wastrel want power? And what would he do with it but piss it away if he had it? No, Ta-hung’s little brother was good only for bedding whores, not for intrigue. Yet if not him, then who?
There was an anguished cry from within the room. He recognized it at once. It was Ta-hung! He turned and rushed inside.
Ta-hung looked up at him as he entered, his face a window, opening upon his inner terror. He was leaning over his father, cradling the old man’s head in the crook of his arm.
‘Look!’ he called out brokenly. ‘Look what they’ve done to him, the carrion! His ears! They’ve taken his ears!’
Hung Mien-lo stared back at him, horrified, then turned and looked at Sun Li Hua.
Any doubts he had harboured about the Master of the Inner Chamber were dispelled instantly. Sun stood there, his mouth gaping, his eyes wide with horror.
Hung turned, his mind in turmoil now. His ears! Why would they take his ears? Then, before he could reach out and catch him, he saw Ta-hung slide from the bed and fall senseless to the floor.