‘You should be more careful,' he said, coming up to her, his fingers reaching up to smooth the horse's flank only a hand's length from her knee. ‘You're a good rider, Lady Fei, but that's not a stunt I'd recommend you try a second time.'
She looked down at him, her eyes defiant. ‘Because I'm a woman, you mean?'
He smiled back at her, a strange hardness behind his eyes, then shook his head. ‘No. Because you're not that good a rider. And because I'm responsible for you. What would your husband say if I brought you back in pieces?'
Fei Yen was silent. What would he say? She smiled. ‘All right. I'll behave myself in future.'
She climbed down, aware suddenly of how close he was to her, closer than he had been all morning, and when she turned, it was to find him looking down at her, a strange expression in his eyes. For a moment she stood there, silent, waiting for him, not knowing what he would do. The moment seemed to stretch out endlessly, his gaze travelling across her face, her neck, her shoulder, returning to her eyes. Then, with a soft laugh, he turned away, letting her breathe again.
‘Come!' he said briskly, moving up the slope, away from her. ‘Let's explore the place!'
She bent down momentarily, brushing the dust from her clothes, then straightened up, her eyes following him.
‘You asked me what monks were,' he said, turning, waiting for her to catch up with him. ‘But it's difficult to explain. We've nothing like them now. Not since Tsao Ch'un destroyed them all. There are some similarities to the New Confucian officials, of course – they dressed alike, in saffron robes, and had similar rituals and ceremonies – but in other ways they were completely different.'
‘In what way different?'
He smiled and began to climb the slope again, slowly, looking about him all the while, his eyes taking in the ruins, the distant, cloud-wreathed mountains, the two horses grazing just below them. ‘Well, let's just say that they had some strange beliefs. And that they let those beliefs shape their lives – as if their lives were of no account.'
They had reached the pool. Tsu Ma went across and stood there, one foot resting lightly on the tiled lip of the well as he looked back across the valley towards the south. Fei Yen hesitated, then came alongside, looking up at him.
‘What kind of beliefs?'
‘Oh...' He looked down, studying her reflection in the pool; conscious of the vague, moss-covered forms beneath the surface image. ‘That each one of us would return after death, in another form. As a butterfly, perhaps, or as a horse.'
‘Or as a man?'
‘Yes...' He looked up at her, smiling. ‘Imagine it! Endless cycles of rebirth. Each newborn form reflecting your behaviour in past lives. If you lived badly you would return as an insect.'
‘And if well, as a T'ang?'
He laughed. ‘Perhaps... but then again, perhaps not. They held such things as power and government as being of little importance. What they belm.<. Tsthey believed in was purity. All that was important to them was that the spirit be purged of all its earthly weaknesses. And because of that – because each new life was a fresh chance to live purely – they believed all life was sacred.'
A path led up from where they stood, its stone flags worn and broken, its progress hidden here and there by moss and weed. They moved on, following it up to the first of the ruined buildings. To either side great chunks of masonry lay in the tall grasses, pieces of fallen statuary among them.
In the doorway she paused, looking up at him. ‘I think they sound rather nice. Why did Tsao Ch'un destroy them?'
He sighed, then pushed through, into the deep shadow within. ‘That's not an easy question to answer, my lady. To understand, you would have to know how the world was before Tsao Ch'un. How divided it was. How many different forms of religion there were, and every one of them "the truth".'
She stood there, looking in at him. ‘I know my history. I've read about the century of rebellions.'
‘Yes...' He glanced back at her, then turned away, looking about him at the cluttered floor, the smoke-blackened walls, the broken ceiling of the room he was in. There was a dank, sour smell to everything, a smell of decay and great antiquity. It seemed much colder here than out in the open. He turned back, shaking his head. ‘On the surface of things the Buddhists seemed the best of all the religious groups. They were peaceful. They fought no great holy wars in the name of their god. Neither did they persecute anyone who disagreed with them. But ultimately they were every bit as bad as the others.'
‘Why? If they threatened no one...'
‘Ah, but they did. Their very existence was a threat. This place... it was but one of many thousand such monasteries throughout Chung Kuo. And a small one at that. Some monasteries had ten, twenty thousand monks, many of them living long into their eighties and nineties. Imagine all those men, disdainful of states and princes, taking from the land – eating, drinking, building their temples and their statues, making their books and their prayer flags – and giving nothing back. That was what was so threatening about them. It all seemed so harmless, so peaceful, but it was really quite insidious – a debilitating disease that crippled the social body, choking its life from it like a cancer.'
Tsu Ma looked about him, suddenly angry, his eyes taking in the waste of it all. Long centuries of waste. ‘They could have done so much. For the sick, the poor, the homeless, but such things were beneath their notice. To purge themselves of earthly desires – that was all they were worried about. Pain and suffering – what did suffering mean to them except as a path to purity?'
‘Then you think Tsao Ch'un was right to destroy them?'
‘Right?' He came across to her. ‘Yes, I think he was right. Not in everything he did. But in this... yes. It's better to feed and clothe and house the masses than to let them rot. Better to give them a good life here than to let them suffer in the vague hope of some better afterlife.'
He placed his right hand against the rounded stone of the upright, leaning over her, staring down fiercely at her as he spoke, more passionate than she had ever seen him. She looked down, her pulse quickening.
‘And that's what you believe?' she asked softly. ‘That we've only this one life? And nothing after?'
‘Don't we all believe that? At core?'
She shivered, then looked up, meeting his eyes. ‘One life?'
He hesitated, s, hem itated, his eyes narrowing, then reached out and brushed his fingers against her cheek and neck.
‘Tsu Ma...'
He drew his hand back sharply. ‘Forgive me, I...' He stared at her a moment, his eyes confused, pained. ‘I thought...' He looked down, shaking his head, then pushed past her.
Outside the sky was overcast. A wind had blown up, tearing at the grass, rippling the surface of the pool. Tsu Ma knelt at its edge, his chest heaving, his thoughts in turmoil. One life... What had she meant if not that? What did she want of him?
He turned, hearing her approach.
‘I'm sorry...' she began, but he shook his head.
‘It was a mistake, that's all. We are who we are, neh?'
She stared at him, pained by the sudden roughness of his words. She had not meant to hurt him.
‘If I were free...'
He shook his head, his face suddenly ugly, his eyes bitter. ‘But you're not. And the Prince is my friend, neh?'
She turned her face from him, then moved away. The storm was almost upon them now. A dense, rolling mist lay upon the hills behind the ruins and the wind held the faintest suggestion of the downpour to come. The sky was darkening by the moment.
‘We'd best get back,' she said, turning to him. But he seemed unaware of the darkness at the back of everything. His eyes held nothing but herself. She shuddered. Was he in love with her? Was that it? And she had thought...
Slowly he stood, his strong, powerful body stretching, as if from sleep. Then, turning his head from her, he strode down the slope towards the horses.
On the flight down to Nanking, Tolonen played back the recording, the words sounding clearly in his head. Listening to his own voice again, he could hear the unease, the bitterness there and wondered what Li Yuan had made of it. Prince Yuan was a clever one, there was no doubting it, so perhaps he understood why the T'ang had appointed him to oversee the Project rather than someone more sympathetic. Maybe that was why he had left things unresolved, their talk at an impasse. But had he guessed the rest of it? Did he know just how deeply his father was opposed to things?
He sighed, then smiled, thinking of the reunion to come. He had not seen Karr in more than three years. Not since he'd seen him off from Nanking back in November 2203. And now Karr was returning, triumphant, his success in tracking down and killing Berdichev a full vindication of their faith in him.
Tolonen leaned forward, looking down out of the porthole. The spaceport was off in the distance ahead, a giant depression in the midst of the great glacial plateau of ice – the City's edge forming a great wall about the outer perimeter. Even from this distance he could see the vast, pitted sprawl of landing pads, twenty li in diameter, its southernmost edge opening out on to Hsuan Wu lake, the curve of the ancient Yangtze forming a natural barrier to the north-east, like a giant moat two li in width. At the very centre of that great sunken circle, like a vast yet slender needle perched on its tip, was the control tower. Seeing it, Tolonen had mixed feelings. The last time he had come to greet someone from Mars it had been DeVore. Before he had known. Before the T'ang's son, Han Ch'in, had died and everything had changed.