River of Stars

He could see her register, after a moment, a change in him, just as he’d seen it in her. They were a match this way, he thought. They had carried each other to the brink of ultimate power. And now …

His wife took a step towards him. She bit her lip. She never did that inconsequentially. Alone or among others, it had a meaning.

Kai Zhen smiled, even as he felt his pulses change. “It will be all right,” he said. “It might take us a little time now, but we are not finished, wife.”

“Someone else is,” she said. “You must allow me a death.”

“Not the old man’s. I told you. It is too—”

“Not the old man.”

He waited.

“The girl. Her letter started this.”

He was startled, again. Stared at her.

“She is a disgrace,” Yu-lan went on. “An offence to decent women. She offered to teach our daughter to write poetry!”

“What? I did not know this.”

“They met at a banquet. Ti-yu told her that poetry was no proper thing for a woman. The other one, this Lin Shan, laughed at her.”

“I did not know this,” he said again.

“And now … now she writes a letter that sends catastrophe to us!”

That wasn’t entirely true, Kai Zhen thought, but his sleek, glittering wife had taken another step. Light fell upon her now.

“Indeed,” was all he managed to say.

“Leave this to me,” Yu-lan murmured. Meaning, he realized, many things.

With those words she had come right up to him, not so much smaller that it was difficult for her to draw his head down with her slender hands. She bit his lip, the way she often did when they began. Often, she drew blood.

“Here, wife? In our reception chamber?”

“Here. Now. Please, my lord,” whispered his wife in his ear. Her tongue touched him. Her hands became busy, with him, with his clothing.

Please, my lord. Across the courtyard, young and beautiful concubines, bodies washed and scented for him, were wailing for the fate that had overtaken all of them. The autumn light came into the room through the western windows. It had become late afternoon. It would be cold tonight in Hanjin.

KAI ZHEN WOKE. It was dark. He realized he’d fallen asleep among the scattered pillows. He tried to rouse himself. He felt languid, eased. He had scratches on one arm. He felt them on his back as well.

He heard a bird singing, a thin sound in the cold. The concubines were silent now. Yu-lan was gone. He knew what she had left him to do. She was making a mistake and he knew that, too. He just didn’t feel he could do anything about it.

He was an immensely assured man, competent, calculating, subtle. There were only two people alive he felt he could not control.

His wife, and an old, almost-blind man.

He stood up, adjusted his clothing. The room needed lamps lit. The one bird continued to sing, as if bravely denying the cold of the world. He heard a discreet cough from a doorway.

“Yes, enter,” he said. “Bring light.”

Three servants came in, carrying tapers. They would have been waiting outside the chamber. They’d have stood there all evening if necessary. He was—he had been—on the cusp of being the most powerful man in Kitai.

One of the servants, he saw it was his steward, was holding a lacquered tray, standing just inside the room. Kai Zhen nodded. The sorrows of the day descended upon him again, but he would not hide from them. He opened the sealed letter on the tray, read it by the light of a lamp, lit now, on his writing desk.

He closed his eyes. Opened them.

“Where is my lady wife?” he asked.

“In her chambers, my lord,” his steward said. “Shall I request her presence here?”

There was no point. He knew her. It was done by now.

Two people in the world. Yu-lan. And the old man who had written him this letter.

The day gone, the evening, the night to come. The bird outside, he thought, was not brave or gallant. It was foolish, beyond words. You couldn’t deny the coldness of the world just by singing.

CHAPTER VI

He didn’t know a great deal about them, they had been gone from the world for two hundred years or something like that, but Sun Shiwei often thought he’d have liked to be a Kanlin Warrior.

He’d have trained with them, wearing black, at their sanctuary on Stone Drum Mountain, now lost to Kitai, part of the surrendered Fourteen Prefectures.

He’d have done whatever rituals they did, slept with the women warriors among them (hard, lithe bodies!), been taught their secret ways of killing people.

He was good at that, killing people, but only a fool would believe there weren’t ways to be better, and from what he’d always understood, legend and story, the Kanlins had been the best. They’d been couriers, emissaries, witnesses to treaties, custodians of documents and treasures, guides and guards … many things.

The killing part was what he liked, though. A shame they were gone. A shame there were no proper records. They’d never written anything down, the Kanlins. That was part of what made something a secret. Stood to reason.

He’d have liked to be able to run right up a wall and onto a roof. Who wouldn’t like that? Leap down into a courtyard and knife someone who thought they were safe in their compound because the doors and windows were barred and the walls high. Then up another wall and gone before an alarm could even be raised.

“It was Sun Shiwei!” the terrified whispers would run. “Who else could have done this? The doors were locked!”

He’d have liked that.

It was necessary to stop these drifting thoughts. He was on a mission, he had a task.

It was dark inside the compound of the imperial clan. The compound might be big, but it was also crowded. Everyone complained in here. It wasn’t Sun Shiwei’s task (or his inclination) to assess the living conditions of the emperor’s kin, but it did help him that many people continued to mill about between individual residences and courtyards in here, even after darkfall.

They went in and out, too. None of the compound gates was closed yet. Mostly it was younger men slipping out. It was formally forbidden but generally allowed, except when there had been trouble. They went in search of wine and girls, mostly. Sometimes to dinner parties at the houses of friends in the city. Women were brought in here, and musicians. The guards at the four gates weren’t especially concerned, as long as their share of whatever coins were changing hands was forthcoming.

All the better for him, of course. He’d come in with a group of giggling girls. Had even managed to feel up one or two of them. Got a saucy laugh from one. He couldn’t afford those women, of course—not the kind that got invited here. For the Sun Shiweis of the world, a squeeze through silk was as good as it got with courtesans of this class.

He’d been in the imperial compound before, knew his way around. He’d escorted his employer and her daughter to women’s gatherings, remained inside to take them back. He’d used the opportunities to get his bearings, in case he ever needed them. In case this evening ever came. He was skilled, even if he couldn’t scale walls on the run or do some sacred, mystical spinning movement that killed four people at once. He could probably manage three if he had a wall at his back, Shiwei thought. He wouldn’t have kept his job if he wasn’t good. His employer was exacting. She was hard and cold, chary with anything resembling praise, and disturbingly desirable.

He’d had many nights awake, truth of it, imagining her coming to him in the dark, slipping inside, closing the door quietly behind her, her scent in his own small room … There was fire inside her, he was sure of it. Some things a man could see.

Man could also get himself cut in half, sharing that sort of thought anywhere.

His thoughts seemed to be running away again. What happened when you had to wait in shadows for too long. He was in a covered passage between courtyards, dressed for a chilly night (part of being good at your job), and had an excuse prepared if anyone stopped to ask. They were unlikely to do that here. People came and went. The imperial clan was honoured, after a fashion, sequestered and kept track of, but ignored in almost every other way—unless they made trouble. In that case they were often killed.

Far as Shiwei was concerned, not that anyone had ever asked, they could all be drowned or used for archery practice, and Kitai would be better off. The clan cost the empire a huge amount of money every year, everyone knew it. Some of the women he’d keep, maybe. Aristocratic women had their own way of being, and he liked it, what he’d seen.

“You. What are you doing here?”

Shiwei kept his expression bland. The guard had a torch, was only doing routine rounds. He was chubby and his cloak was awry.

“Waiting for some girls. Take them back.” He stayed in shadow.

“You’ll wait a long time.”

Shiwei offered a chuckle. “Usually do.”

The torch was lifted. He saw the guard’s round face. The round-faced guard saw him.

“I know you,” the man said. Which was unfortunate. “You work for the deputy prime minister, not the pleasure district. Saw you with his wife here when—”

When you had to kill you did, and you needed to know when such a moment came. Couldn’t leave this one alive: he’d report later, could identify Shiwei. It was unexpected, an irritation. And it changed his timing, too.

He pulled his knife from the guard’s chest slowly, holding the man upright against him, shielded by the arch. He kept talking quietly, meaningless words, in case anyone passed close. He’d grabbed the torch from the dead man before he could drop it. A fallen, flaring torch would, sure as spirits flew at night, get attention. Fire was the enemy, everywhere.

Shiwei had picked his spot carefully. Edge of the courtyard where the house he wanted stood. Under cover, with a recessed space farther into the passageway where he could drag a dead man and lay him down, mostly out of sight.

Mostly was the best he was going to get. And that meant he had to move now instead of waiting for the crowd to thin and people in the compound to generally be asleep—including those in the house across the way, where he was going.

He didn’t regret killing the guard. He regretted the complications it caused. They might still be awake in that house. The woman he was here to kill might be.

He knew the house, he was just about certain he knew the room. That was why he’d come early, instead of waiting until dark. He’d pretended to deliver an empty letter to their door, after getting directions from a guard other than the ones who’d watched him come through with the singing girls.

Eventually he’d seen her come into the courtyard and cross it to her home, walking with a servant, no husband in sight. She’d been out without her husband, home at twilight, brazen as you please. There were no morals left among women in the world, Sun Shiwei had often thought.

The houses were mostly similar in the compound. Variations depended on status and degree of closeness to the emperor. A few were extremely large, more than one courtyard inside their walls, but not this one.

The bedroom she’d use—or they’d use, if the absent husband ever went in to indulge himself with her—would be on the women’s side, to the right at the back. Shiwei had intended to get over the wall into their courtyard then climb up to her room. He had even worked out his hand- and foot-holds for the wall, waiting here.

Couldn’t do it that way now. Too many people around for a man to safely climb a wall, even at night. They might think he was just a lover, and leave it alone, or they might not. There was a moon, too, almost full. He wouldn’t have picked a night with a moon, but he didn’t get to do the choosing in these things, did he?

He’d been told to make this look like an assault on the woman—some vicious predator in the clan compound having his hard way with a girl, then killing her. He could deal with that part. She’d have to be dead, first, for silence and safety, but he’d done that before.

He stepped out from the archway and began crossing the courtyard, not hurrying. Timed and angled it so he wouldn’t pass close to anyone, but he made sure not to seem obvious about that. He’d have liked to be wearing black. Kanlin Warriors had always worn black. It would have been pleasing to appear to victims that way: a dark apparition, a cold spirit, appearing in the night to destroy them.

But black would have been too noticeable. This wasn’t the old days. He couldn’t safely be distinctive. He was dressed the way an escort for musicians and singing girls would be: brown and green, tunic and trousers, a soft dark hat, no visible weapon (you didn’t carry visible weapons into the clan compound unless you were an idiot). There was blood on his cloak now, but it was night and the fabric was dark.

And there wasn’t anything he could do about it, was there?

He couldn’t climb the wall and risk being seen. He wondered if a high-level Kanlin would have known how to do that, be invisible for long enough, or sense the precise moment when no one was looking. He wondered if their training taught them that. The thought made him almost sad.

But there were other ways of doing what he was here to do. He went straight for the door of her house. The doorway was recessed, under a lintel (they all were), and it was dark there. They weren’t expecting guests, had no exterior torches lit. He pretended to knock, in case anyone passing looked over, but he made no sound. He wasn’t a fool. He fished from his inner pocket the tool he used for doors. He tried the handle first.

It moved with a small click. There might be fools here, but they lived inside the compound, inside this house, they weren’t standing in Sun Shiwei’s boots tonight.

The imperial clan would all have valuable objects in their homes, but they lived in such sublime assurance of favour and protection that they didn’t even lock their doors. He wondered, briefly, what kind of life could lead you to see the world that way.

He pushed the door open onto a dark hallway. Lifted a hand, as if greeting someone within. Stepped inside, closed the door silently behind him, not rushing at all. Inside, he drew a breath. It would be easy now. He was out of sight, and where he needed to be.

A thread of excitement prickled along his blood. He suppressed it. Not yet, he told himself. She needed killing first, and there would be servants down here, or even upstairs. She might even be in bed with one of them, with the husband gone. Maybe with another woman. They were said to be like that, the wives of the imperial clan.

No light on this level, no sound of movement as he listened. It was just late enough that they might be asleep after all. He moved quietly to where he knew the stairway would be, and then up, testing each stair. One creaked slightly under light pressure and he double-stepped his way over it. You learned the tricks, doing this sort of thing long enough.

He took out his knife, already bloodied. He ought to have cleaned it, but there hadn’t been time. He preferred a clean knife. It felt … well, cleaner. Top of the stairs. Hallways ran left and right, elbow-bends to corridors each way. Women’s quarters would be on the right. Still no servants, no lights. They were asleep.

He went right, his eyes adjusting, saw calligraphy scrolls hanging on the inner wall, moved carefully around over-large tables with what looked like bronze vessels on them. He slowed down. If he banged into one of those the noise would rouse someone, bring men running from downstairs, people from outside, and everything would be marred.

He didn’t bump anything. He prided himself on seeing well in the dark, a skill in his profession. He turned at the long corridor towards the back of the house. It was open on his right side here, a waist-high railing above their small courtyard. There was moonlight. He saw more bronzes below, outside, and what looked liked a funerary stele in the centre.

He had no idea what these people were doing with such things, but why would he expect to have an idea, or care? He was a weapon, they were targets. Or she was. He had been told the husband didn’t matter. It was the wife who had offended. He didn’t know how. It wasn’t his job to know.

The corridor jogged left and then right again to where her room lay, at the back. She was on the right, over the courtyard. She’d have a balcony. He stopped and listened again. Creaks and groans of a night house. Sounds from the public spaces behind him. There was a shout back there and he stiffened, but it was an amused cry, followed by another, even more lively. Men coming back, or heading out—it wasn’t too late for that. It was never too late for the pleasure districts. He might go that way himself after, he thought.

Would have to change clothing first. And he might well be satiated. The thought set his pulses going again. He was close enough for that to be all right. You worked best when you were mostly calm, but also alert, excited enough to be quicker than otherwise.

He opened the door to her room. Moonlight fell through the far window, enough for him to see the sleeping shape in the canopied bed, under coverlets. More bronzes in here. Two of them, either side of the balcony. The silk window coverings were down but let in enough light for him. There was a breeze. She was obviously not afraid of the chill of an autumn night. Or of a man coming in from her balcony.

He wasn’t coming that way. He was already here. It was two long strides to the bed, and she needed to die before he enjoyed himself in the certainty of silence and night. Not that the knife wasn’t another kind of enjoyment. He crossed the floor, blade in hand. He chopped downward, hard and fast. Once, twice—

A crashing, thunderous pain at the back of his head. The onset of black, then black.

THERE WERE LAMPS LIT. The light wobbled and swayed, so did the room. He was face down on the floor. His hands were bound behind his back, expertly. His boots had been removed.

He knew that last, shockingly, because he was cracked on the sole of one foot with some sort of stick. He shouted with pain.

“As I thought,” came a woman’s voice, behind and above him. “I told you I wouldn’t kill him.”

“You might have,” a man said. Not angry, more an observation. “And we do need to ask our questions.”

“And you will kill him after?” she asked.

“That isn’t for me to say,” said the man.

Sun Shiwei twisted his head but he couldn’t see anyone. He had a sense there were several people in the room. The woman with the stick, at least three men. He could see the bed to his right. He had stabbed into cushions placed under coverings. One of them had fallen on the floor beside him, ripped open.

He didn’t know where his knife was. He wasn’t about to get it back. And if his boots were gone so was his second blade.

Through extreme pain and a pounding head an awareness emerged, took form: his coming here had been completely anticipated. He grunted, spat awkwardly, given his position. It dribbled on his chin.

He said, “I will join the army!”

Another hard blow, his other foot. He yelped again.

“Indeed?” he heard the woman say. “And why would the imperial army want an assassin?” She paused, then added, “A bad question. Why would they want an assassin with broken feet?”

“Be careful.” The same man’s voice again. “We need him to talk. And depending on what he says …”

“You’d let him live? Really?”

There was no reply. The man might have nodded his head or shaken it—there was no way to tell. Sun Shiwei seized on this, though, through pain in his head and both feet.

“I will fight for Kitai!” he rasped. “I will go to the northwestern war!”

You could escape from the army, you could rise in it, you would be alive!

“Might he be castrated?” the woman asked, musingly. “That might be acceptable.” She didn’t sound like Lady Yu-lan, but she didn’t sound the way a woman should, either.

“For others to decide, gracious lady. A magistrate is on his way. Maybe others of rank. I am not certain.”

There came a sound from the corridor. Footsteps stopping at the doorway, a shadow across one lamp’s light.

“There’s a dead guard across the courtyard, sir. Someone found the body. Stabbed, probably a knife.”

Inwardly, Sun Shiwei swore viciously. He took a ragged breath, trying to think through pain and panic. You needed to be loyal to those who paid you, but if you were dead, loyalty didn’t help much on the far side, did it?

“Ah. That’s why he came in so early.” The woman again! How was she so assured, and how would she know that? She added, “That body is what will prove he isn’t just an angry drunk looking to rape a woman while her husband is away.”

He’d been planning to say that! No one had been killed, no one even harmed. Put me in the army, he’d say again. The army needed soldiers, any soldiers.

Harder now, with the dead guard out there. In fact, it became impossible.

“Mind you,” the woman added thoughtfully, “we did know what he was really doing. You will allow my husband and me to thank the prime minister, later, I hope? He saved my life.”

“You did much of that yourself, Lady Lin.” The unseen man’s voice was respectful. Shiwei still couldn’t see any of them. He’d been—it was now clear—deceived and knocked unconscious by a woman.

“Only with your warning,” she said. “I grieve for the guard. That will have been unintended. It forced this one to change his plans.”

Exactly! thought Shiwei. It did!

“He’d have intended no other harm, only to kill me, then rape me after,” the woman went on. She was unnaturally composed.

“After?” said the man.

“To ensure silence. The indignity to my body would have been to hide the reason for my death.”

Fuck you, thought Sun Shiwei. Fuck you and your gelded husband!

Though that last thought brought him back to his present circumstance, and words just spoken, about castration.

“I will tell everything,” he muttered, still trying to look around enough to see what he was dealing with.

“Of course you will,” said the man behind him. “Everyone does under questioning.”

Shiwei felt as if he was about to choke on what was suddenly lodged in his throat. His heart was pounding. His head hurt. He said, urgently, “It was the deputy prime minister! It was Kai Zhen who—”

He screamed. She’d slashed him across the back of the calves.

“A lie. You are the wife’s instrument, not his,” she said. “Kai Zhen is many things, but not this foolish. Not the same day he is exiled.”

“You’ll tell us the truth later,” said another person, speaking for the first time. A colourless voice. A civil service figure? The court, someone with rank?

“I … I can tell you right now! What do you need me to say?”

The man laughed. He laughed.

“You don’t need to torture me! I will tell. Yes, it was the wife. Lady Yu-lan. It was. You don’t need torture!”

A longer silence. The woman, for once, said nothing. It was the third person who spoke again, finally.

“Of course we do,” he said gravely. “No one will believe a confession if there isn’t any torture. And then you will probably die. Under interrogation, a regrettable accident, the usual way. This was all extremely foolish, as Lady Lin says. And too predictable.”

He sounded almost regretful, Sun Shiwei thought. Not for the torture to come, but as if for the folly of men and women in the world.

The woman said, “If that is the case … if he is not going to be gelded and sent to the army, may I be permitted to strike him again? I am afraid I do feel angry. It may also be foolish, but …”

Sun Shiwei squeezed his eyes shut. The cold-voiced man spoke, judiciously. “He was here to destroy your honour and end your life. I think it can be permitted, gracious lady.”