What Ward wanted, that he knew. Ward wanted to link the stars - to lay a great web of light between those distant burning points. But why he wanted that - what dream had spawned that mad desire - he did not know.
And my father?
He tapped the rail softly with his fingers, then turned, making his way across to join the women.
What did his father want? What drove him in the way that Ward was driven?
Darkness, came the answer. My father is in love with the.
darkness.
Opposite poles they were, Kim and Ben. Like twin planets, circling, orbiting each other, the force of attraction and repulsion between them balanced perfectly.
Like Sampsa and me, he thought, and briefly he pictured r meeting Sampsa, physically touching him. How would that feel? To touch someone who for so long had been a presence in your head, a window through which you'd seen so many things.
In two days he would know. On Wednesday evening, at the banquet, they would finally come together.
Emily stood by the embankment wall, holding Ji up so he could see, staring out past the child's shaven head as the great barge slid by in the middle of the river. It was a huge boat, its broad gold-painted hull splendidly adorned with dragons and other mythical beasts, its antique superstructure like a miniature palace. As it passed, a ripple of awe passed through the watching crowd. This was Majesty. This was evidence of nnwer - nower bevond their wildest dreams. Emily watched the young man turn from the rail and felt a momentary twinge of regret: regret for a life she had chosen to abandon. But such regret was brief; was more for the man she'd left - for Michael Lever, her once-husband - than for the luxuries she'd chosen to renounce.
She turned her head, taking in the marvelling faces of the two older boys and smiled warmly. No, given the choice again, she would change nothing. Given the choice she would be right here, right now, despite the heat, the flies, despite the smell of unwashed bodies, the ever-present stench of decay. Here at least she had a role to play. Here she could do something real.
She spoke softly to the older boys: "Pei, Lao, fetch the cart. We'd best be getting back."
With obedient nods, the two boys turned from the spectacle of the barge and scampered barefoot to where the loaded cart was parked against the wall and, one pushing, one pulling, turned it so they could manoeuvre it down the narrow alleyway.
She helped Ji down, then went across, taking over from Lao, who put a hand out for young Ji to take.
"Master Lin will wonder where we've got to," she said cheerfully, looking about her at the boys who were watching her closely. "He'll be pacing the compound, asking himself why we are so late."
Ji frowned, his big eyes troubled. "Will he be angry, Mama Em?"
She laughed gently. "Is Master Lin ever angry? No. But he will worry until we are home. You know how he always worries."
It was no more than the truth - a truth she often reminded the boys of - yet for once she realised what that meant and understood at the same time just how fortunate she was. Someone to care for you: that was all you ever needed in this life. Someone who worried when you were not back on time.
And these boys . . . they understood that too. For they had once been lost, abandoned by the greater world. They knew what it was like to have no one care; to have no one worry whether they lived or died, let alone were late.
She smiled and began to push the heavily-loaded cart, Pei straining beside her to match her efforts, ignoring the buzz of insects in the afternoon heat. And as she pushed, she looked at what they had collected. Broken things, Thaf s all they ever brought Lin. Broken, discarded things. And he would mend them. She could see him now, sorting through the spread contents of the cart and stooping to pick up this and examine that, his mind already calculating how to make them good again.
Like the boys.
It had been her idea originally. There had been so many of them, after all. Thousands of them, lost or abandoned after the great city's fall. A thousand million orphans, it had seemed, and no one to care. She had seen little Chao crying hopelessly in the ruins and had taken him home to Lin.
That was the start of it. Now they had eight of them. Boys who were cared for. Boys who would now make something of themselves in this world, thanks to her and Lin.
And that, surely, is true richness, she mused, thinking of the golden barge and all it represented. Against that even the most lofty T'ang ought to count himself the lowest pauper.
Only now did she understand. Only now, in her fiftieth year, grey hairs among the black, had she finally made sense of things.
"We did well today, didn't we?" Lao said, beaming at her.
She smiled back at the ten-year-old. "We did, Lao Chan. Master Lin will be very pleased. It would not surprise me if there were seconds tonight."
"Really!" Young Ji's eyes lit up like lanterns. "And will there be cake, Mama Em?"
She laughed, brushing away a persistent fly. "Maybe not cake, young Ji, but we'll see, eh?"
They went on, laughing, happy, talking all the while, making their way through the bustling market square then cutting through the crowded back-alleys. As ever, friends and well-wishers called to them as they passed. Emily returned their greetings warmly, the certainty of knowing she belonged here filling her, taking away the tiredness in her limbs.
It had been a long day.
As they came into Ch'in Shao Street, the lamps at the far end of the road were being lit. Stalls were being packed away, while others - food stalls mainly - were being set-up for the evening ahead. Their compound was halfway up on the right, the doors open as ever, the span of the low brick arch broken by Lin's hand-painted sign reading tso tso chia - "Make Do House". Seeing it, she smiled. It was Lin's idea of a joke, yet it was also his philosophy. Making do - it was what they did best.
Sending young Ji ahead to pull the doors right back, they manoeuvred the cart across, bumping it over the raised stone step and into the outer yard.
At once they were surrounded by the rest of the boys.
"Mama Em! Mama Em!" they cried, beaming at her, their hands reaching out to touch her.
"Chao . . . Han Ye... let us through now!" she cried, mock-stern, her laughing eyes giving her away. "Haven't you boys work to do?"
"We've finished it, Mama Em," the eleven-year-old Chao said, coming alongside her. "We were waiting for you, Mama Em. We . . ."
"Pei, get the doors!" she said, gesturing toward them, then looked back at Chao. "You what, Chao?"
"We got a letter, Mama Em," Chao said, excitement shining from his eyes. "From the Big House."
"The Big House? You mean from the Merchant, Tung Wei?"
Chao nodded. "From his First Steward, Liu Yeh. He says he has something for us. He says you must call. Tonight."
"Tonight?" She frowned, then heaved the cart into motion again as the inner doors swung open. Beside her half a dozen of the boys strained to help her push it across the cobbles. "And what does Papa Lin say?"
A figure appeared in the opening ahead, tall and grey-haired, his face disfigured on one side. "Papa Lin says where have you been, Mama Em? The boys are hungry."
She looked up from the cart and smiled. "And you can't cook?"
"Oh, I can cook all right," Lin answered, stepping back as they squeezed the cart through the narrow space, "but then how could I mend? And mending's what I'm best at."