DeVore laughed, then looked away thoughtfully. "Who knows, Soren? Who knows?"
THE HUGE BED was draped with veils of silk-white voile, -the thin, gauzelike cotton decorated with butterflies and delicate, tall-stemmed irises. It filled one end of the large, sumptuously decorated room, like the cocoon of some vast exotic insect.
The air in the room was close, the sweet, almost sickly scent of old perfumes, masking another, darker odor.
The woman lay on the bed, amid a heap of pale cream and salmon-pink satin cushions which blended with the colors of the silk shui t'an i camisole she wore. As he came closer, she raised her head. The simple movement seemed to cost her dearly, as if her head were weighted down with bronze.
"Who is it?"
Her voice had a slightly brittle edge to it, a huskiness beneath its silken surface.
He stood where he was, looking about the room, noting with disgust its excesses. "I am from Shih Bergson, Fu Jen Maitland."
"You're new. . . ." she said sleepily, a faintly seductive intonation entering her voice. "Come here where I can see you, boy."
He went across and climbed the three small steps that led up to the bed, then drew the veil aside, looking down at her.
She was a tall, long-limbed woman with knife-sharp, nervous facial features, their glasslike fragility accentuated rather than hidden by the heavy pancake of makeup she was wearing. She looked old before her time, the web of lines about each eye like the cracked earth of a dried-up stream, her eyeballs protruding slightly beneath their thin veils of flesh. The darkness of her hair, he knew at once, had been achieved artificially, for the skin of her neck and arms had the pallor of albinism.
Yes, he could see now where his own coloring came from.
Bracelets of fine gold wire were bunched about her narrow wrists, jeweled rings clustered on her long, fragile fingers. About her stretched and bony neck she wore a garishly large ying lo, the fake rubies and emeralds like pigeons' eggs. Her hair was unkempt from troubled sleep, her silks creased. She looked what she was—a rich Han's concubine. A kept woman.
He watched her turn her head slowly and open her eyes. Pale, watery blue eyes that had to make an effort before they focused on him.
"Ugh . . . pale as a worm. Still. . ." She closed her eyes again, letting her head sink back among the cushions. "What's your name?"
"Mikhail," he said, adopting the alias he had stolen from DeVore. "Mikhail Boden."
She was silent a moment, then gave a small, shuddering sigh and turned slightly, raising herself onto her elbows, looking at him again. The movement made her camisole fall open slightly at the front, exposing her small, pale breasts.
"Come here. Sit beside me, boy."
He did as he was bid, the perfumed reek of her filling his nostrils, sickening him. It was like her jewelry, her silks and satins, the makeup and nail polish. All this—this ostentation—offended him deeply. He himself wore nothing decorative. His belief was in purity. In essence.
Her hand went to his face, then moved down until it rested on his shoulder.
"You have it?"
He took the two packets from his jacket pocket and threw them down onto the bed beside her. If she noticed his rudeness, she said nothing, but leaned forward urgently, scrabbling for the tiny sachets, then tore one open with her small pointed teeth and swallowed its contents down quickly.
It was as he had thought. She was an addict.
He watched her close her eyes again, breathing deeply, letting the drug take hold of her. When she turned her head and looked at him again she seemed more human, more animated, a slight playfulness in her eyes revealing how attractive she must once have been. But it was only a shadow. A shadow in a darkened room.
"Your eyes," she said, letting her hand rest on his chest again. "They seem . . . wrong somehow."
"Yes." He put a finger to each eye, popping out the contact lenses he had borrowed from DeVore's drawer, then looked back at her, noting her surprise.
"Hello, Mother."
"I have no..." she began, then laughed strangely, understanding. "So. You're Pietr's son."
He saw how the muscles beneath her eyes betrayed her. But there was no love there. How could there be? She had killed him long ago. Before he was born.
She swallowed. "What do you want?"
In answer he leaned forward and held her to him, embracing her. DeVore is right, he thought. Trust no one. For there's only yourself in the end.
He let her fall back among the satin cushions, the tiny, poisoned blade left embedded at the base of her spine. Then he stood and looked at her again. His mother. A wpman he had never met before today.
Carefully, almost tenderly, he took the device from his pocket, set it, then laid it on the bed beside her. In sixty seconds it would catch fire, kindling the silks and satins, igniting the gauzelike layers of voile, cleansing the room of every trace of her.
Lehmann moved back, away, pausing momentarily, wishing he could see it, then turned and left, locking the door behind him, knowing that no one now had any hold on him. Especially not DeVore.
LI YUANLAY there in the darkness, listening to the rain falling in the garden beyond the open windows, letting his heartbeat slow, his breathing return to normal. The dream was fading now and with it the overwhelming fear which had made him cry out and struggle back to consciousness, but still he could see its final image, stretching from horizon to horizon, vast and hideously white.
He shuddered, then heard the door ease open, a soft tread on the tiled floor.
"Do you want company, Li Yuan?"
He sighed, then rolled over and looked across to where she stood, shadowed and naked, at the foot of his bed.
"Not now, Sweet Rose. Not now. ..."
He sensed, rather than saw, her hesitation. Then she was gone and he was alone again.
He got up, knowing he would not sleep now, and went to the window, staring out into the moonlit garden. Then, taking a gown from the side, he wrapped it about him and went to the double doors that led out into the garden, pulling them open.
For a while Li Yuan stood there, his eyes closed, breathing in the fresh, sweet night scents of the garden. Then he went outside, onto the balcony, the coldness of the marble flags beneath his feet making him look down, surprised.
"Prince Yuan?"
He waved the guard away, then went down, barefoot, into the garden. In the deep shadow of the bower he paused, looking about him, then searched blindly until he came upon it.
"Ah!" he said softly, finding the book there, on the side, where she had laid it only hours before. It had been in the dream, together with the horse, the silks, the scent of plum blossom. The thought made his throat dry again. He shivered and picked the book up, feeling at once how heavy it was, the cover warped, ruined by the rain. He was about to go back out when his fingers found, then read, the pictograms embossed into the sodden surface of the cover.
Yu T'ai Hsin Yang.
He moved his fingers over the figures once again, making sure, then laughed shortly, understanding. It was a book of love poetry. The sixth-century collection New Songs from a]ade Terrace. He had not read the book himself, but he had heard of it. Moving out from the bower he turned it over and held it out, under the moonlight, trying to make out the page she had been reading. It was a poem by Chiang Yen. "Lady Pan's Poem on the Fan."
White silk like a round moon
Appearing from the loom's white silk.
Its picture shows the king of Ch'in's daughter
Riding a lovebird toward smoky mists.
Vivid color is what the world prefers,
Yet the new will never replace the old.
In secret I fear cold winds coming
To blow on my jade steps tree
And, before your sweet love has ended,
Make it shed midway.