Portal of a Thousand Worlds Page 6

  No kowtowing and kneeling for her—she was much too dangerous to provoke, even if her own daughter was now the Empress Mother’s taster. She must always be treated with wary courtesy, allowed to sit on a cushion before the throne, the highest honor granted a commoner. Tea was brought, the flunkies dismissed, the weather deplored, but then the Empress Mother cut straight to the point.

  “I have decided to risk your proposal.” The second plan.

  Lady Twilight bowed her head. “Your Majesty does me great honor.”

  “I am still doubtful that it is possible, though. The hazard is mortal for all of us.”

  “I am confident that it can be done.”

  “How much?” Brutal, but the lethal topic would make delicacy even more hypocritical than usual.

  Twilight laid down her tea bowl and tucked her hands in her sleeves. “Too much to pay in money.”

  The Empress Mother nodded. She had expected this. “The city of White Rapids in Jingyan. Population: about eight thousand. Official tax revenue: forty-four thousand taels per year. You pocket that plus whatever else you can squeeze. And the rents.”

  Twilight displayed her Gray Sister training by showing no reaction whatsoever. “I believe it could be managed for that.”

  It certainly should be. The offer was staggeringly lavish. There was the minor problem that the Bamboo Banner might sack the town in the very near future, but news moved slowly along the length of the Good Land and here in Heart of the World only the government knew the extent of the Bamboo problem. The government was the Empress Mother.

  “However …” Twilight murmured.

  A ghostly warning bell tinkled ever so faintly, like a wind chime among the stars. “However?”

  “So generous an assignment may be difficult to conceal? Perhaps rather two smaller donations than one so large?”

  Ah! This promised to be interesting. The Empress Mother had often wondered about the division of income within the Gray Order. That its overall wealth must rival that of the throne itself there could be no doubt, and its expenses likewise, for it must have half the mandarinate on its payroll. She held out her bowl for more tea.

  “What ratio would you prefer between the two parts? Your own share, now … would be how much?”

  Twilight refilled the tea bowls in silence and then ventured to glance up and meet the Empress Mother’s eye. That was a breach of protocol, of course, but they were old … well, not friends. Never friends. Fellow conspirators, more like. Twilight dropped her gaze and pursed her lips, apparently recognizing that she had set her foot in a trap that would not open until the Empress Mother wished it to.

  “The normal division,” she conceded reluctantly, “would be two-thirds for the contributing abbey, with the remainder divided between the originating officer and the assigned aide.”

  “You being the originating officer and the youth you are to find for me being the aide?”

  “That is correct, Your Majesty.”

  “Divided equally?”

  “More or less equally. … It varies.”

  The Empress Mother would bet the Empire that it varied. “But in this case … ?”

  Twilight sighed. “In this case, to assign any share to the aide would seem to be superfluous, would it not?”

  True. He would own the Empire. He could pay himself whatever he wanted, for as long as he continued to breathe. Suddenly, the sheer immensity of the hoax they were planning snatched the Empress Mother’s breath away. She had considered the dangers and the odds of success very carefully, without giving much thought to how far it would go or what would happen afterward. Then she caught Twilight’s eye and saw that her personal assassin had already foreseen where the plot must eventually lead. Several people were going to die. How many and which ones would be established by events.

  “I see your point. I will locate two properties of approximately the same total value as White Rapids and you will decide which is to be yours. How will you proceed?”

  “I will go to Chixi,” Twilight said. “You need Outlander stock, and there is plenty of that in the hill country. Stalwart men.” Meaning big brutes.

  The Empress Mother nodded again. She had worked that out for herself very easily. The Eleventh Dynasty had been of Outlandish origin and Zealous had been very big, although rarely a brute to his concubines. The first time he had dropped his full weight on her and begun thrusting, she had thought that she would be crushed and her bones shattered. She had learned otherwise and could now look back on the terrifying experience with amused nostalgia.

  That Twilight hailed from Meritorious Aspect in Chixi was good fortune.

  “And it is remote,” Twilight said. “Poor communications, less gossip. No one travels at this season without urgent cause. My sister in Meritorious Aspect is failing, and Your Majesty has graciously granted me leave to go and visit her.”

  “The abbot of Meritorious Aspect is … ?”

  “Abbess. She is my sister.”

  “Ah, good!” Truly, Twilight was a treasure. Of course, she had always denied having family, but truth was a seasonal fruit. “And when you are there?”

  “I will personally send out appeals for candidates to all the minor chapters in Chixi. Some of them must have novices of the right size and age. I will choose the best fit, of course.”

  “How soon can it be managed?”

  Twilight turned to scowl out at the blizzard. “In this weather?”

  “The hill will soon become impassable. You must leave at once. The Grand Canal and the river should still be navigable, and by the time you reach Chixi, the snow will have melted.”

  Twilight nodded. She would not dare argue very hard, but her ready acceptance suggested that the Empress Mother had offered too high a price. No matter, the future of the dynasty was at stake. Twilight took her hands out of her sleeves but did not rise.

  “Anything else?” the Empress Mother demanded.

  “If I need to send word to Your Majesty, what name should I use?”

  “Use your own name. The sick sister is a perfect excuse, if anyone dares wonder.” She chuckled softly.

  “But a code word for your new aide, Majesty. How about Butterfly Sword?”

  “So obvious an oxymoron would be too memorable.”

  “You have not heard the expression? A butterfly sword is a large dagger, intended to be hidden in a sleeve.”

  The Empress Mother did not encourage humor. “As you please. You have our leave to withdraw.”

  Both plans were now under way.

  The idea of being nice to someone was very alien to the Empress Mother. She had employed every trick in the book and most of the crimes in the legal code during her rise to power, both before the Zealous Righteousness’s death and after it, so the hand of friendship hiding the poisoned dagger was part of her stock in trade. She was well aware that she might be creating a future rival in Snow Lily, but the risk was low and must be taken. The child had to be befriended, at least for now.

  The Empress Mother summoned her army of body servants and had them remove two-thirds of her decoration. When the noon gong sounded, she was no more bedecked, bejeweled, bedizened, and bespangled than the wife of any senior moderately corrupt mandarin. She felt naked.

  For this interview, she had chosen a modest meeting room looking out on an ornamental lake. The blizzard still raged, so the water was stark black and everything else white, with snow piled up in head-high drifts on roads and roofs and bridges; reminiscent of a painting by the minimalist Cherry-Tree Master. A dozen large braziers made the chamber toasty. Inviting. Homely, even.

  As the trembling child was led in and shuffled forward to the place where she would begin her kowtow, the Empress Mother actually smiled in welcome. A venerable servant, catching an edge of that smile, almost dropped a priceless porcelain tea service.

  Snow Lily was ev
erything Chief Eunuch had called her, a small dream of young womanhood, understandably nervous but not gibbering in terror. Her face paint could not mask a perfect complexion and features of classical delicacy. As soon as the servants had withdrawn, she was given leave to sit on a rug, a great honor for a candidate concubine.

  “I won’t eat you, you know,” the Empress Mother reassured her, thinking of Chief Eunuch’s gastronomic vocabulary. “In my youth, I went through very much what you are having to go through.”

  Not quite. There had certainly been no tea party, for the Empress Mother of her day had taken no interest in her son’s numerous bed toys. One night, when the omens were auspicious, the latest approved candidate had been stripped naked to ensure she bore no weapons, wrapped in a sheet, and carried into the imperial bedchamber. Her first night had gone quite well. Zealous Righteousness—never shy about his duty to breed heirs, although rarely successful at it—had taken to his new girl with unusual enthusiasm. He had called for her the following night and she had done even better. She had won promotion to a higher rating. Nine months later, she had given him a son and the world had opened for her like a blossom.

  Snow Lily sipped tea with peerless lips and nibbled cake with flawless teeth. She had been taught to make conversation. She was talented. She might grow to be a rival if she managed the highly unlikely feat of producing a Grandson of the Sun, but the Empress Mother was confident that she could deal with that threat if and when it arrived. As Empress Grandmother for an orphan Emperor, she would have another twenty years of autocracy ahead of her.

  Yes, the girl would do if any girl could do. The older woman bent the conversation away from the palace art collection to matters more pertinent.

  “You have seen my son in processions, I expect.”

  “I have had that honor only once, Your Majesty. At the Acclaim of Imperial Ancestors.”

  And at a distance. There were some ceremonies that even the most reclusive Emperor could not evade without provoking speculation that he had died, but there were ways of keeping secrets even then.

  “You will meet him soon.”

  The child took it well and spoke of unimaginable honor.

  “Before you do, I must tell you something, my dear. You will be surprised. This is a state secret—that you have not only been chosen to be one His Majesty’s concubines, but you will be the very first.”

  Snow Lily’s eyes widened as if she had been jabbed with a bamboo eel spear. It was well known that the Son of the Sun had been born in the Year of the Nightingale and the birthday he had recently celebrated had been his eighteenth. Most noblemen became fathers at sixteen.

  “Very soon after his dear father ascended to the Fifth World,” the Empress Mother explained, “he was stricken by a serious disease.” The nature of the disease had never been established but had probably included snake venom and quicksilver. “The astrologers almost despaired of his life. It slowed his development, but he has caught up now.” Meaning that his voice had broken and he had produced a few pubic hairs. The eunuchs insisted that he did sometimes have erections. In theory, it was possible.

  “I have frightened you, child. Come, let us go and call on him right away.”

  The Empress Mother actually took Snow Lily’s hand for the short walk this visit entailed, which was another singular honor as well as a precaution against either of them falling over in their absurd court shoes. Absolute Purity had been moved to a room nearby for this occasion. As they crossed the hall to it, the Empress Mother heard baritone screaming and guessed that the Son of the Sun did not approve of the break in routine. The moment the guards opened the door, china shattered and it was clear that the Lord of the High and the Low was throwing things again.

  She had promised Snow Lily a surprise. She had not said it would be a pleasant one.

  Chapter 4

  Face to the Sun was the most southerly city in the Good Land, the largest in Dongguan Province, and the greatest port in the world. From dawn to curfew, its streets were rivers of people: rapids of darting pickpockets, pools of plodding porters, whirlpools of babbling beggars, peddlers offering trinkets and snacks, stinking night-soil collectors, itinerant barbers, fortune-tellers, astrologers, cobblers, rag merchants, harlots, and thousands more. Wagons, rickshaws, mule trains, palanquins, and overburdened camels came swirling along like logs in the torrent; barrows and stalls constricted the flow like rocks. Shouts and curses mingled with the sound of pipes, gongs, and bells in a deafening clamor.

  Through all this reeking confusion, the esteemed and learned Mountain Water, mandarin of the second rank, was being transported in his painted cart. He had two carriers in tandem to pull it, a gong beater and two guards out in front to clear the way, two secretaries trotting behind. Mountain Water was an extremely important man, senior deputy to the city governor. Being late for his luncheon of rice and fish sauce, he had ordered maximum speed, but that was barely faster than a walk in the noontime turmoil, no matter how eagerly his gong beater gonged or his guards wielded their bamboo rods.

  As his guards were bracing themselves to fight their way through the absurdly narrow Gate of Prosperity that led into Celestial Vista Square, a gunshot rang out ahead of them. Then another. Then three in quick succession.

  Firearms were tightly controlled in the Good Land, but apparently people knew them from fireworks. The crowd in front surged back like a tidal wave. A great mob rushed away from the gate, trampling all before it. Screams of terror drowned out all the other mingled dins. Children seemed to fly through the air. Mountain Water’s entourage was forced to a halt, and his guards found themselves in a real battle. Switching from flicks of their rods to vicious head strokes, they fought to protect their master from being overrun by the human avalanche.

  “Floor them!” the senior guard barked and his helper obeyed, taking a two-handed grip on his bamboo and striking to hurt. In a few moments, they had felled a dozen or so semiconscious men and women to provide a barricade. Latecomers tripped over them and were struck down to add to the heap. Mountain Water was a very important personage and must be protected.

  The flow faltered and the noise level dropped.

  “Senior guard!” Mountain Water shouted.

  Man Valor turned and squeezed his way back along the shafts, past the terrified gong beater and the panting bearers.

  “Most Honored Master, we should be on our way again in just a—”

  “No, no! I want to know what is going on and who is firing guns. You go and investigate and hurry right back here.” Truth be told, Mandarin of the Second Rank Mountain Water looked almost as frightened as his gong beater. More, even.

  Man Valor saluted and retraced his steps to the front. The crowd had gone and most members of the human barricade were already back on their feet. Some had limped away, some were still lying injured, but he pushed his way through and trotted along to the Gate of Prosperity. The immediate area of Celestial Vista Square was deserted, as he had never seen it, but an immense crowd had gathered in the center. Drums were beating. A gang of young men there had erected a human pyramid, as if they were celebrating a festival day, and even as he watched, another acrobat shot up from the midst of the crowd and added himself to the top. The onlookers roared approval.

  Then there was another shot. And another roar of approval.

  Man Valor had no idea what to make of this.

  He started to run. His master would want a complete report.

  Man Valor’s father had been a soldier, leader of a hundred. He had named his firstborn Man Valor because, as he had explained to the boy when he was old enough to understand, valor defines a man. A man without valor is useless. A man may be strong or clever, but if he is not valorous, he is dirt. Man Valor could barely remember his father, but he remembered that.

  When he was ten, the honored governor had sent ships to destroy a nest of wicked pirates and Man Valor’s father h
ad died bravely. Man Valor, escorted by his mother, had gone to the governor’s palace to receive a small bag, which he had been told contained his father’s ashes. He had thus become head of the family, responsible for his mother and sisters.

  He had been working like a man ever since. He had done many things, some not very honorable but necessary. He had been a runner and grown nimble. Working in the docks had made him strong. Eventually, some approving ancestor had sent him a job as one of the honorable Mountain Water’s personal guards. Now he was chief guard and twenty-four years old. His sisters were married off at last, his mother did not have to work quite as hard as she used to, and he was thinking of taking a wife.

  He arrived at the back of the big crowd. He could hear drums and shengs and men singing. The pyramid had added more men—lithe young men, bare-chested, wearing only cotton trousers and green headbands. The crowd was chanting a name: Bamboo! Bamboo! Bamboo!

  Man Valor pushed into the crowd. He was not tall, but he was strong and his tunic would not close around a tea bale. He went through the people like a boat through reeds and no one tried to stop him. He reached the front just in time to watch the human pyramid dismantle, its parts dropping nimbly to the ground, landing on bare feet in perfect formation. The drums thundered and he joined in the crowd’s wild cheers. He had always adored watching acrobats; as a child, his fondest dream had been of being one.

  There was much more going on—acrobats running, leaping, vaulting over one another, or turning somersaults in midair; singers and musicians; and dozens more men in the same unbleached cotton trousers and green headbands, holding back the crowd with bamboo staves heavier than the one he carried. There must be more than a hundred of them, possibly two hundred. Who were these people and where had they come from?

  Remembering that he had come to find out who was using firearms, Man Valor grabbed a spectator beside him, obviously a porter, for he had a pack by his feet. “Who are these men?”

  The porter glanced angrily around, recognized Man Valor’s tunic as the governor’s livery, and flinched. “I do not know, Guardsman.”