The detail was extraordinary.
The archer wore a topknot, pulled tightly to the left side of his head and held with a band. Stratton could count the hairs.
The archer's ears clung close to his skull. The eyebrows were high and stylized, as though they had been plucked. The nose was broad, classically Chinese. The warrior had affected a finely combed mustache and a tuft of hair on his chin. On the face, mirthless and resolute, were flecks of blue and red paint mixed two centuries before Christ was born.
The archer wore a studded jerkin that reached below his waist and ended high on the biceps. It afforded protection from sword slashes, while at the same time allowing mobility with which to wield a bow. Below the waist, the emperor's soldier wore a skirtlike loincloth, leggings and stout, square-toed sandals.
Nearby, a second archer wore the same uniform, but his face was different-rounder, a trifle older, no mustache. Every soldier, Stratton noted with awe, had a different face-in eternity, as in life.
Stratton paced the arms of the platform. Here lay a terracotta arm jutting out from the red clay. And there, a headless torso, being dusted by a young woman with intense concentration. Toward the back of the vast hall, new chambers had been carefully outlined in chalk, but had so far been unmolested. Working at their current painstaking pace, Stratton reckoned, it would take the Chinese technicians at least another ten or twenty years to exploit the dig completely.
Stratton was fascinated. He could have stayed for hours. Too soon, Mr. Xia was at his side.
"Director Ku will see you for a few moments, but you must hurry. It is nearly closing time."
Reluctantly, Stratton followed him out of the chamber.
"Mr. Xia, do you realize that this might be the most important archaeological discovery of this century?" Stratton asked.
"Yes, so many American friends have told us. The soldiers excite them very much, but there are many other discoveries as well."
"Can I see them?"
"I am sorry, but only the soldiers are open to the public."
Director Ku was a roly-poly individual with a ready smile and the callused hands of a worker. Stratton squatted on the inevitable overstuffed chair and tried not to drink the tea.
The pleasantries went quickly enough. Ku, Stratton suspected, was not a man to keep his dinner waiting. Even the set speech that seemed to come with every Chinese official's job seemed to sail by: the discovery had been made in 1965 by peasants digging a well. During the Cultural Revolution, not much happened.
Since then, the work had proceeded systematically, entirely in the hands of Chinese specialists; no foreigners were welcome. Test excavations were still being dug. So far, scientists had positively identified an armory, an imperial zoo, stables, other groups of warriors, the tombs of nobles sacrificed to mark the emperor's death, the underground entrance to the tumulus and exquisite bronze workings, including a chariot two-thirds life-size.
"I did not know about the bronzes," said Stratton. "Can they be seen?"
"They are in Peking," came back the translation. Stratton saw what he thought was a flash of annoyance on the director's lined face. Annoyance at the question? No, more likely at the thought that Xian's precious treasures had been preempted by the central government.
"Explain about my friend and his brother, Xiao-Xia, but this time don't ask if they were here. Say that my friend told me he would always remember the hospitality he received here."
At the translation, Ku's face lit. He reached into his breast pocket and extracted a silver ballpoint pen.
"The director says he remembers your friend very well. He calls him the 'gentle professor' and shows you the pen he was honored to receive as a gift," said Mr.
Xia.
Bingo. But now what?
"Ask the comrade director if it would be possible for me to see the special excavation that my friend and his brother visited. Be sure and use Kangmei's father's name."
That provoked a quick exchange in Mandarin before Mr. Xia finally said: "He asks if you have permission."
A direct hit. "Tell him yes."
Mr. Xia looked quizzically at Stratton.
"Do you really have permission?"
"Of course."
Stratton barely concealed his impatience at the Mandarin that followed. If he could see what David had seen, he might understand why the brothers had quarreled. Ku, who obviously took no pains to hide his own distaste for Peking, might even tell him. For him, Peking probably meant Wang Bin.
"The director regrets that the excavation is only opened when Peking advises him that an important visitor is coming. He regrets that the responsible officials in Peking did not inform him you were coming, but, he says, perhaps in a day or two it will be possible."
Damn. What that meant was that the director would check with Peking.
"I would be grateful," Stratton said. "Ask him if my friend-"
"The director also apologizes, but explains that he now must supervise the closing and meet with the technicians to discuss tomorrow's work schedule," Mr.
Xia interjected.
"Shit," said Stratton. It escaped. Mr. Xia looked perplexed. Stratton flushed.
"Say we are sorry for interrupting his work. Thank him for his hospitality and say we will return to look at the special excavation when the details have been arranged."
Darkness was falling and large numbers of workers had already left the site on a wheezy bus by the time Kangmei returned to the car.
"It happened here, Thom-as," she erupted. "My father and my uncle had an angry discussion, shouting. A young worker told me; he is a cousin of a friend of mine who also studied languages."
"What was it about? Why did they argue?"
"I do not know. My friend could not speak long. But later I will see him. He will tell me then."
"Kangmei, that's terrific."
Kangmei bubbled excitedly as the car returned to the old imperial city. After darkness had fallen, and she was sure Mr. Xia would not see from the front seat, she grasped Stratton's hand and clasped it tightly.
Stratton ate alone in the restaurant of the sprawling hotel complex, careful to time his arrival and departure to miss the art historians. To his astonishment, the food was awful. He retired to his room with wizened tangerines and a bottle of mineral water. He was half asleep, near ten o'clock, when the phone rang.
"Thom-as," she said without introduction. "In two minutes, you must walk to the end of the corridor with the vacuum bottle in your room and ask the floor attendant for more hot water."
Stratton understood; he was to be a decoy. "Are you sure that's wise?"
"Please."
Stratton obeyed, remembering to empty the thermos. The attendant, drowsing over the color pictures in a back copy of Time that a tourist must have left, smiled and obligingly padded into a kitchen with the bottle, leaving the hall un-watched.
When Stratton returned to the room, Kangmei was waiting. She embraced him. Her tongue played a sparrow's tattoo against his teeth. It was Stratton who broke the embrace.
"Kangmei… " he said uncertainly.
"It is so exciting," she said. "My friend told me everything, Thom-as, everything." She sat on the narrow iron-framed bed, leaving Stratton standing absurdly above her, thermos suspended.
"Would you like some tea?" he asked weakly.
"Yes, please."
Stratton turned and busied himself elaborately with the tea leaves. He tried to ignore the rustlings behind him. Was she getting into bed?
"Here is what happened," she began. "My friend saw it. There is a special place near the emperor's tomb, Thom-as. It is not controlled by the workers there, but by Peking directly-my father-and it makes all the Xian people very angry."
"What kind of a place?" Stratton asked.
"My friend called it a special place. No one may go there without permission.