Part 32 (2/2)

Upon which thought he sank toward dark, grateful to let go for a while more.

But he saw through slitted, hazing eyes the motion of lord Kegi's men about them, saw them stop and saw them stare and whisper together- What are you looking at?he wondered. Stares he had had all his life; and whispers behind hands- But he heard the wordwoman , and then he knew the gist of it, and what they whispered, and why.

The demon-wife, the ensorceller: the rumor still spread, Kegi's messengers, this time. They saw a man snared, they whispered together, they wove details to suit their fancy-and Taizu if she did hear made nosound and no complaint.

He hated it. He had always hated it. d.a.m.n his moment's whimsy, d.a.m.n the whole madness they were involved in- G.o.ds knew how much she heard: whispers wondering at the scar on her face, about where he had come by her, at how muchwife meant-the story growing by the hour and the day, people whispering about her-who had so much expected of her and so little resources left; and no forty years' experience to armor her.

”I know,” he whispered into her ear, wrapping her in his arms, the h.e.l.l with the curious and the gawkers.

”Rest. h.e.l.l with them. They're crazed.”

”They'll get us killed,” she said, the first objection she had raised.

They. These people. Andus .

No one achieves perfection, master Yenan had said-how many times?

But on the mountain they had touched it. Everything on the mountain had been better than this. It always would be. And it seemed more and more remote from the place they had gotten to.

”Go down to Choedri,” he said. ”Wait this out. This isn't your kind of fight. I didn't teach you this.”

”No,” she murmured, working closer to bury her head against his shoulder, and he pulled the blanket over her to give her the dark she was hunting for. ”Not Choedri.”

She was close to sleep. He was. They had had the argument again and again. He knew the steps, one after another. ”Where, then?”

”Sleep.” Patiently, wearily, with a sigh against him, a tightening of her arms.

Horses can't take much more, he thought. Too little resources. Too few men. Should have gotten Reidi and his men back across the river, into Hoisan. I should have done everything from there. . . .

If I had the strength-if the horses did- She knows. I taught her better than this. . . .

She hasn't said a word since we took up with Reidi. Since I asked her-stay with me. . . .

Fool, girl, say it! d.a.m.ned fool!

I've known-I've known it. Too many well-intentioned, too many brave, without sense- Too late to turn this around. Too many committed, too many in too far- There's no d.a.m.n help in good intentions- -should have learned that, dammit, should have learned that, ten years and the land's not the same, the land's bled too long, the fighters are dead. This is becoming a disaster. No hope when we count our numbers in the hundreds and we're this close to Cheng'di- He slept, while he was trying to work that out . . . sleep like a roll off a cliff, just enough time to know he was going, thump! and gone, until he smelled cooking and woke by firelight, with Taizu's armored body up against his, and Reidi's lieutenant saying, close by them, ”Lord Saukendar, please, there's dinner. My master thinks you might want to wake now,”

Another little dark s.p.a.ce. ”Lord Saukendar?” the voice said, persisting.

Saukendar would have been awake the first time. Saukendar would not be caught that deeply asleep.

Shoka dragged his weary limbs up to a sitting position, raked his hair out of his eyes and rubbed his eyes at the firelight glare and the sting of smoke.

He coughed; it was the cold ground; and blinked again, finding Taizu no quicker at least-finding the very ground unsteady under him until he had had a moment to collect himself.

He should be scared, he thought. He had been fretting over their situation when he had fallen asleep and he should be worried now, except he could not remember the details of matters and he found himself lost in a kind of haze in which everything had equal importance-Ghita, their numbers, the horses' condition, the season of the year, his memory of the way ahead, that led to Lungan and the great bridge- His own calmness amazed him. He sat a moment letting his vision sort itself clear and he still could not muster any emotion about the chance of attack. Nothing was clear yet. Nothing made sense. Nothing was urgent, and it might have been ten years ago, himself suspecting nothing of the stirrings in the capital- -Meiya, perhaps, taking account of things that night and realizing, because Meiya had always been alert to such things, that his absence and Ghita's s.h.i.+fting this and that man's duty in the palace might mean harm- Meiya had sent for Heisu in the night. That much he knew- On that thin charge they had had Heisu's life; and she had had recourse to the cup- ”M'lord.” Taizu's voice, Taizu's hand on his. He had no more interest in remembering Meiya. It was the hall he saw around her that he tried to bring into focus, the exact recollection of the palace in a detail that he had not had in memory for all these years. He was there, and all Cheng'di was outside, the land beyond that, every detail of the road. . . .

”Don't,” he said to her. It was very close, all the recollection, Cheng'di to Lungan, and the bridge there. .

That.

He sat there a moment. He built the entire waterfront at Lungan in his mind, the great bridge-the walled garrison beside it on the esplanade, the street beyond, where it went through a town of red tile roofs and buff walls, of prosperous shops. Trinket-sellers and vendors who cajoled the travelers bound for the Gate of Heaven, in Cheng'di. The road outbound, across rolling land and rich pasture. . . .

”M'lord,” he heard someone say, but it was not Taizu. ”Let him alone,” her voice said fiercely. ”He'sheard you.”

And closer, working backward from the great bridge over the Hisei, nothing more than the shallow, slow-moving Paigji, crossable at virtually any point until it joined the Tei, well past Botai. . . .

”The Paigji ford will be open on our side,” lord Kegi said, by the firelight, over a plentiful supper of pork and rice and honey-cakes, and Shoka listened, between mouthfuls. ”I thought-” Kegi was a soft-spoken, nervous man, and the scroll, G.o.ds help them, was the works of general Bogi'in, six hundred years ago. Kegi had made a study of that book: the old lord had died, cousin Kegi had succeeded to the seat at Choedri, and while his overlord had not yet responded to Reidi's bird-sent messages-nor would respond, Kegi said, until he was sure others were moving-Kegi had taken the field with nothing but that d.a.m.n musty scroll for advice, that and his priest, his cook, his horse-doctor, and the men of his personal guard. It was Bogi'in this and Bogi'in that-”I thought, by what I read-it seemed good sense-lord Bogi'in said roads were the thing, Roads and Rice-”

Shoka regarded the man with dismay. A cla.s.sroom came back to him, master Tagyan-roads and rice, and the lazy song of cicadas; the council-rooms, the late Emperor's voice stern and incisive, regarding the incursions of the Fittha raiders and the security of remotest Feiyan- ”Open-on your side of the ford. How many of the Regent's men on the other?”

”Constantly four or five, on both sides.”

A cold chill ran through him, imagining the five from the other side, alarmed, taking flight and alarming the countryside all the way to Cheng'di. No d.a.m.n use except intimidating the peasants, and counting the traffic. Not a way in h.e.l.l the mercenaries could hold that border. The Paigji was too shallow, the crossings too numerous to guard.

”You've ordered attack,” Shoka said.

”Discreetly,” Kegi said.

”My G.o.ds,” Reidi said.

”My lord,” Kegi said to Shoka, nettled, ”your arrival in Chiyaden is already a matter of rumor. And speed down that road is surely worth the risk of an alarm-The lords will rally to you. The Appearance of Strength and Confidence-”

Shoka looked at Reidi and saw a face set like a statue's. Not panic. The old man was too disciplined and too politic, considering the men not far out of hearing; but his lieutenant was in the circle, and that man was frowning.

”When will they make this attack?”

”It should have been made by now. At dusk. The Advantage of Superior Numbers-”

One breathed very carefully. One nodded quietly and said, quoting Bogi'in, ”Speed and Stealth, m'lord Kegi. How many men do you have?”

”The Regent's policy-” Kegi said, ”of taking levies from the provinces-I'm sure lord Reidi has toldyou-”

Men conscripted and sent to the border wars, to provinces remotest from home, notably to the frontier up in Kiang-lords stripped of all but their personal retainers, even young men essential to the field work and young merchants from the towns, completely untrained for combat. For the defense of the Empire, the young Emperor had said. While Gitu hired a private army with funds far above what any lord of Angen ought to have; and the Emperor, with Ghita's hand firmly guiding his, hired more mercenaries-to maintain the strength of the army at home, with so many men away at war- ”How many men have you got, m'lord?”

”Mounted, a hundred,” lord Kegi said. ”Myself, my personal guard. Lord Jendei is with us-I had a message from him, and m'lord Reidi-”

With all the lords that have joined us, with all the rest-at best, less than two thousand men. Where are your allies, man, where are the rebels and what do they know, against the mercenaries? Where are all these conscripted soldiers in the Guard that ought to join us-if things are what you say?

People will save their lives, that's the sum of it. Did Bogi'in write that, fool?

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