How could Tai explain how hearing this quickened his heartbeat, set his mind spinning with the strangeness of it all?
It was almost undignified: the Kitan were famously dismissive, never allowing themselves to be more than languidly amused by the primitive beliefs of the barbarians on their borders. Beliefs that confirmed their barely human nature, the appropriateness, in a world rightly ordered, of Kitan pre-eminence. Really: a people that left their dead to be devoured by wolves?
He told himself he was gathering information for his report, that it would be useful to have a fuller understanding of the Bogü, make it easier to guide and control them. It might even be true, but it didn’t explain how he felt when they told him, riding past crimson-and golden-leaved birch woods, of three-eyed demons in the north among sheets of ice, of how the men there grew autumn pelts like bears and slept the snowbound winter away. Or—again—of midsummer’s Red Sun Festival, when all wars stopped on the grassland for the rites of the Death God, performed by shamans of all tribes with bells and pounding drums.
The shamans. The bogï lay behind or at the heart of so many of the tales. They were taking Meshag to one of them. If he lived so long. This one was a mighty shaman, Tai was told. She dwelled on the shore of a lake, remote and mysterious. If sufficiently rewarded, and ardently beseeched, she might intervene.
She. That was interesting, as well.
The journey was taking them into territory controlled by the current kaghan, Dulan, their enemy. That was another reason why Tai and thirty of his cavalry were with this party, riding through an increasingly up-and-down russet-coloured autumn land, past jewel-bright stands of larch and birch, into a growing cold. They had an interest in what happened to Meshag, in his survival, however less likely that seemed every day.
He was still breathing. Tai looked in on his litter to confirm it each morning, at midday, and at sunset, enduring tired, hostile glares from the little shaman who never left Meshag’s side. The patient lay on his back under a horsehair blanket, breathing shallowly, never moving. If he died the Bogü would leave him under this sky and turn back.
Tai could see his own breath puffs when they mounted up at first light now. The day warmed as the sun climbed, but mornings and the nights were cold. They were so far from the empire, from any civilized place, in unnervingly strange lands. He had grown used to the howling of wolves by now, though all Kitan—a farming people—hated them with an ancient intensity.
Some of the big cats that roared at night were tigers, which they knew about, but some were not. These had a different sound, louder. Tai watched his men grow more uneasy with every li they rode away from all they knew.
They were not travellers, the Kitan. The occasional exception, a far-farer who returned, was celebrated as a hero, his written record of the journey widely copied and read, pondered with fascination and disbelief. He was often regarded, privately, as more than slightly mad. Why would a sane man choose to leave the civilized world?
The Silk Roads were for merchants and wealth to come to them, not so that they could go—or ever wished to go—to the far west themselves.
Or the far north, for that matter.
Heavier forests now, brilliant and alarming with autumn colour under the sun. A scatter of lakes strung like necklace ornaments. The sky itself too far away. As if, Tai thought, heaven was not as close to mankind here.
One of the Bogü told him, around a night fire under stars, that as winter approached, so did darker spirits. That, the nomad added, was why the magic that had assaulted Meshag this season had been harder for him to resist and required a powerful shaman to redress.
The shamans were divided into white and black. The division turned on whether they cajoled demons in the spirit world they left their bodies to enter, or tried to battle and coerce them. Yes, some were women. Yes, the one they were approaching was. No, none of the riders here had ever seen her, or been so far north themselves. (This did not reassure.)
She was known by reputation, had never allied herself with any kaghan or tribe. She was one hundred and thirty years old. Yes, they were afraid. No living creature or man frightened a Bogü rider, the thought was laughable, but spirits did. Only a fool said otherwise. A man did not let fear stop him, or he was not a man. Was this not also so among the Kitan?
The creature roaring the night before? That was a lion. They were the size of tigers, but they hunted with others of their kind, not alone. There were different bears in these woods, too, twice the height of a man when they reared up, and the northern wolves were the largest—but men of other tribes were still the greatest threat this far from home.
They saw riders the next morning, for the first time.
Ahead of them on a rise against the horizon, about fifteen or so. Not enough to fear. The horsemen fled their own approach, galloping west and out of sight. Tai considered pursuit, but there was no real point. The riders had come from the north. Tai didn’t know what that meant, he didn’t really know what anything meant. The leaves of the trees were crimson and amber and gold and beginning to fall.
They saw arrows of geese overhead all the time now, countless multitudes, as if they were fleeing something that lay where the riders were headed, the way animals fled a forest fire. They saw two more swans on another lake at dusk, floating strange and white on darkening water as the moon rose. None of Tai’s men threatened these.
A fear of ongoing transgression had grown in the Kitan riders, as if they had crossed some inward border. Tai heard his men snapping and quarrelling with each other as they broke camp in the morning, as they rode through the day. He did what he could to control it, was unsure how successful he was.
It was difficult to feel superior here, he thought. That, in itself, was disturbing for the Kitan, altering the way they dealt with the world, intersected it. He wanted to call the forest colours and the autumn landscape beautiful, but the word, the idea, didn’t rise easily through the apprehension within him.
He’d finally admitted that fear, acknowledged it, the night before they came to the shaman’s lake.
There was a cottage, he saw, as they halted on the slope above and looked down in afternoon light: unexpectedly large timbers, well fitted, with an outbuilding and a fenced yard and firewood stacked against winter. This was not a yurt. Houses changed with the climate and they had left behind the grazing lands for something else.
Meshag was still alive.
He had not moved all the way north. It was unnatural. They had shifted his body at intervals, to prevent sores, but he’d done nothing but breathe, shallowly.
Someone came out from the cabin, stood by the door staring up at them.
“Her servant,” the little shaman said. “Come!”
He started quickly down, with the litter-bearers carrying Meshag, four of the Bogü riders flanking them.
A gesture was made, rather too emphatically: the Kitan escort were being told to remain on the ridge. Tai hesitated (he remembered that moment), then shook his head.
He spoke to his next-in-command, a quiet order to stay for now and watch, then flicked his reins and moved down the slope alone, following the unconscious man and his escort. The nomads glared at him, but said nothing.
He was here to observe. His people had an interest in this man, in the Bogü succession. It was not the place of barbaric herdsmen to deny them the right to go anywhere they wanted. Not when fifteen thousand Kitan were assisting Hurok in his rising. That many soldiers gave you rights.
One way of looking at this. Considered another way, they had no proper place here among nomads’ spell-battles, no business being this far away from home at all: alien sky, bright, green-blue lake, leaf-dazzle forest behind and beyond in sunlight, and the first hint in a far blue distance of mountains to the north.
He wondered if any of his people had ever seen those mountains. Or the cold jewel of this lake. That possibility should have excited him. At the moment, easing his horse down the slope, it didn’t. It made him feel terribl
y far away.
The riders reined up before the doorway. Those carrying the litter also stopped. There was no fence in front of the cottage, only around the back where the outbuilding was. Tai assumed it was a barn or animal shed. Or maybe this servant slept there? Were there others? There was no sign of the shaman herself, or any life within. The door had been carefully closed when the one man came out.
The nomads’ leader dismounted, he and the shaman approached the servant, spoke quietly, with unwonted deference. Tai couldn’t make out the words, too quick and soft for his limited grasp of their tongue. The servant said something brisk in reply.
The Bogü leader turned and gestured to the slope. Two more riders detached from the company. They started down, leading two horses, these carrying the gifts they’d brought all this way.
Magic and healing did not come without cost.
It was the same back home, Tai thought wryly, and that realization somehow calmed him. You paid for healing, whether or not it worked. It was a transaction, an exchange.
This one would be appallingly strange, but elements of what was to come would be exactly the same as going to an alchemist in Xinan or Yenling to cure a morning-after head, or summoning the plump, white-haired physician from the village to their home by the stream when Second Mother couldn’t sleep at night, or Third Son had a dry cough.
A memory of home, with that. Very sharp. Scent of autumn fires, smoke drifting. The ripple of the stream like the sound of time passing. The paulownia leaves would have fallen by now, Tai thought. He could see them on the path from their gate, almost hear the noise they made underfoot.
The shaman’s servant spoke again as the horses approached with their gifts. It wasn’t a suitable tone, even Tai could tell that, but he did know that shamans carried enormous honour among the Bogü, and that the one here was of particular significance—and power. They’d come a long way to her, after all.
The riders unloaded the gifts. The servant went inside with some of them, came out, carried another armful back in. It took him four trips. Each time, he closed the door behind him. He didn’t hurry.
After he went in for the last time, they waited in the sunlight. The horses shuffled and snorted. The men were silent, tense and apprehensive. Their anxiety reached into Tai, a disturbance. Was it possible they could come all this way and be rejected, sent back? He wondered what his own role should be if that looked to be happening. Would it be his task to try to coerce the shaman into seeing Meshag? Would he be sparing the Bogü riders from doing that, if the Kitan took it on themselves? Or would he be performing a gross impiety that endangered all future relationships?
It occurred to him—belatedly—that he might have a serious decision to make in a few moments and he hadn’t given it any thought at all. He had considered that Meshag might die before they came here, or that whatever the shaman tried to do would fail. He had never contemplated being refused treatment.
He looked around. There was smoke rising from the cabin chimney. Little wind today, the smoke went straight up before drifting and thinning towards the lake. From where he was, a little to one side, he saw two she-goats in the yard behind, huddled against the back fence, bleating softly. They hadn’t been milked yet. It didn’t make him any more impressed with this servant. Perhaps there were others, it was not his task?
The man came out again, finally, left the door open behind him for the first time. He nodded, gestured at the litter. Tai drew a breath. One decision he wouldn’t have to make. He was angry with himself; he ought to have anticipated possibilities, worked them out ahead of time.
Their own shaman looked desperately relieved, on the edge of tears. His face working, he quickly drew the litter curtain back. Two of the men reached in and eased Meshag out. One cradled him like a sleeping child and carried him into the cabin.
Their shaman made to follow. The servant shook his head decisively, making a peremptory, stiff-armed gesture. The little shaman opened his mouth to protest, then closed it. He stayed where he was, head down, looking at no one. Humiliated, Tai thought.
The servant went into the cabin, reappeared an instant later escorting the man who’d carried Meshag. The servant went back in. Closed the door. They still hadn’t seen the old woman, the shaman of the lake. They were left outside, in front of the cabin, in the bright, clear stillness of an autumn afternoon.
Someone coughed nervously. Someone glared at him, as if the sound might undermine whatever was happening inside. Their shaman was still staring at the ground before the door, as if unwilling to meet anyone’s gaze. Tai wanted to be inside, then realized that, no, he actually didn’t. He did not want to see whatever was taking place in there.
The nomads clustered before the cabin, looking more uncertain than Tai had ever seen them. The rest of the riders, including Tai’s own men, remained above on the slope. The lake glittered. Birds were overhead, as always now, streaming south. Some were on the water. No swans that he could see.
Restless, edgy, he dismounted, left his horse to graze the sparse grass and walked around to the back where the outbuilding was and the yard with the two goats. He had a thought of milking them if he could find a pail. Something to do. A task. He slipped the gate latch and went in, closing it behind him.
The fenced yard was good-sized. Two fruit trees, a tall birch for shade. An herb garden at the far, eastern end. He could see the lake beyond it, across the fence. The goats huddled against the shed at the back, clearly unhappy.
No pail to be seen. Probably inside, but he wasn’t about to knock on the rear door of the cabin and ask for one.
He crossed the yard towards the garden and the birch. He stood under the tree, gazing across the fence at the small lake, the brightness of it in sunshine. It was very quiet except for the soft, distressed bleating of the two animals. He could milk them without a pail, he thought. Let the servant suffer for his laziness if the shaman had no milk today.
He was actually turning to do that, irritated, when he noticed the freshly dug mound of earth at the back of the garden.
A single thump of the heart.
He could still remember, years after.
He stared, unmoving, for a long moment. Then he stepped carefully to the edge of the neatly ordered garden space, the order undermined—he saw it now—by boot marks and that narrow, sinister mound at the back, right against the fence. The goats had fallen silent for the moment. Tai felt a stir of wind, and fear. It was not a shape, that mound, you could confuse for something else.
He stepped into the garden, fatuously careful not to tread on anything growing there. He approached the mound. He saw, just the other side of the fence, an object that had been thrown over, discarded.
Saw it was a drum.
He swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly dry. Too much silence now. Trembling, he knelt and, drawing a steadying breath, began digging at the earth of the mound with his hands.
But he already knew by then. One of the goats bleated suddenly, making Tai’s heart jump in fear. He looked quickly over his shoulder at the rear door of the cabin. It remained closed. He kept digging, scooping, his fingers shifting the black, freshly turned soil.
He felt something hard. A low cry escaped him, he couldn’t help it. He looked at his fingers. Saw blood. Looked at the earth he’d moved.
A head in the soil, emerging as from some desperate nightmare into hard sunlight, or from the other world, where the dead went.
There was a single deep, downward gash in it, almost splitting the face in half—and the blood from that blow lay thick in the soil of the garden, and on his own hands now.
Tai swallowed again. Made himself move more earth, wishing so much he had a tool, didn’t have to do this with shaking fingers.
He did, however, he did do it. And in a few moments he’d exposed the blade-ruined face of a woman. A very old woman, her eyes still open, staring upon nothingness or into the sun.
He closed his own eyes. Then opened them again and, pushing and digging more qu
ickly now, uncovered her body farther down. She was clothed, wearing tangled bone necklaces and a strange, glinting collection of metal polished to be … to be mirrors on her body, he realized.
Mirrors to frighten demons away. His fingers, clawing at the soil, shifted her a little, inadvertently. He heard muted bells in the blood-wet earth.
Tai stood up. A very old woman. Drum, mirrors, bells.
He looked at the heavy cabin door that opened on the yard.
He ran, sunlight overhead, darkness behind him and before.
CHAPTER VI
In Xinan, some years later, after he had found Spring Rain among the singing girls in the North District (or, more accurately, once she had noticed and chosen him among the student-scholars) and they had begun to talk frankly when alone, before or after music, before or after love, she asked him one night why he never spoke about his time north of the Wall.
“It didn’t last very long,” he said.
“I know that. Everyone knows that. That’s what makes it talked about.”
“It is talked about?”
She shook her golden hair and gave him a look he knew well by then. I am enamoured of an idiot who will never amount to anything was, more or less, the import of the glance.
Tai found it amusing, sometimes said so. She found his saying so a cause of more extreme irritation. This, too, amused him, and she knew it.
She was a glory and a wonder, and he worked hard at not thinking about how many men he shared her with in the North District—one, in particular.
“You were permitted to withdraw from the cavalry. With honour and distinction—during a campaign. That doesn’t happen, no matter who your father is. Then you go to Stone Drum Mountain, but leave there not a Kanlin … and then you show up in Xinan, having decided to study for the examinations. It is all … mysterious, Tai.”
“I need to clear up the mystery?”