Li Shai Tung turned to Shepherd, who had been silent throughout their exchange. "I do this for the sake of the living. You understand that, Hal, surely?"
Shepherd smiled sadly. "I understand, Shai Tung."
"And the Seven?" Tolonen stood there stiffly, at attention, his whole frame trembling from the frustration he was feeling. "Will you not say to them what you feel in your heart? Will you counsel them to wuweil The T'ang faced his General again. "The Seven will make its own decision. But yes, I shall counsel uiuwei. For the good of all."
"And what did Li Yuan say?"
Tolonen's question was unexpected; was close to impertinence, but Li Shai Tung let it pass. He looked down, remembering the audience with his son earlier that day. "For your sake I do this," he had said. "You see the sense in it, surely, Yuan?" But Li Yuan had hesitated and the T'ang had seen in his eyes the conflict between what he felt and his duty to his father.
"Li Yuan agreed with me. As I knew he would."
He saw the surprise in his General's eyes; then noted how Tolonen stood there, stiffly, waiting to be dismissed.
"I am sorry we are not of a mind in this matter, Knut. I would it were otherwise. Nonetheless, I thank you for speaking openly. If it eases your mind, I shall put your view to the Council."
Tolonen looked up, surprised, then bowed deeply. "For that I am deeply grateful, Chieh Hsia."
"Good. Then I need keep you no more."
After Tolonen had gone, Li Shai Tung sat there for a long while, deep in thought. For all he had said, Tolonen's conviction had shaken him. He had not expected it. When, finally, he turned to Shepherd, his dark eyes were pained, his expression troubled. "Well, Hal. What do you think?"
"Knut feels it personally. And, because he does, that clouds his judgment. You were not wrong. Though your heart bleeds, remember you are T'ang. And a T'ang must see all things clearly. While we owe the dead our deepest respect, we must devote our energies to the living. Your thinking is sound, Li Shai Tung. You must ensure Li Yuan's succession. That is, and must be, foremost in your thinking, whatever your heart cries out for."
Li Shai Tung, T'ang, senior member of the Council of Seven and ruler of City -Europe, stood up and turned away from his advisor, a tear forming in the corner of one bloodshot eye.
"Then it is wuwei."
THE SMALL GIRL turned sharply, her movements fluid as a dancer's. Her left arm came down in a curving movement, catching her attacker on the side. In the same instant her right leg kicked out, the foot pointing and flicking, disarming the assailant. It was a perfect movement and the man, almost twice her height, staggered backward. She was on him in an instant, a shrill cry of battle anger coming from her lips.
"Hold!"
She froze, breathing deeply, then turned her head to face the instructor. Slowly she relaxed her posture and backed away from her prone attacker.
"Excellent. You were into it that time, Jelka. No hesitations."
Her instructor, a middle-aged giant of a man she knew only as Siang, came up to her and patted her shoulder. On the floor nearby her attacker, a professional fighter brought in for this morning's training session only, got up slowly and dusted himself down, then bowed to her. He was clearly surprised to have been bested by such a slip of a girl, but Siang waved him away without looking at him.
Siang moved apart from the child, circling her. She turned,
wary of him, knowing how fond he was of tricks. But before she had time to raise her guard he had placed a red sticker over the place on her body shield where her heart would be. She caught his hand as it snaked back, but it was too late.
"Dead," he said.
She wanted to laugh but dared not. She knew just how serious this was. In any case, her father was watching and she did not want to disappoint him. "Dead," she responded earnestly.
There were games and there were games. This game was deadly. She knew she must leam it well. She had seen with her own eyes the price that could be paid. Poor Han Ch'in. She had wept for days at his death.
At the far end of the training hall the door opened and her father stepped through. He was wearing full dress uniform, but the uniform was a perfect, unblemished white, from boots to cap. White. The Han color of death.
The General came toward them. Siang bowed deeply and withdrew to a distance. Jelka, still breathing deeply from the exercise, smiled and went to her father, embracing him as he bent to kiss her.
"That was good," he said. "YouVe improved a great deal since I last saw you."
He had said the words with fierce pride, his hand holding and squeezing hers as he stood there looking down at her. At such moments he felt a curious mixture of emotions; love and apprehension, delight and a small, bitter twinge of memory. She was three months short of her seventh birthday, and each day she seemed to grow more like her dead mother.
"When will you be back?" she asked, looking up at him with eyes that were the same breathtaking ice-blue her mother's had been.
"A day or two. I've business to conclude after the funeral."
She nodded, used to his enigmatic references to business; then, more thoughtfully. "What will Li Shai Tung do, Daddy?"
He could not disguise the bitterness in his face when he answered. "Nothing," he said. "He will do nothing." And as he said it he imagined that it was Jelka's funeral he was about to go to; her death he had seen through others' eyes; her body lying there in the casket, young as spring yet cold as winter.
If it were you, my blossom, I would tear down Chung Kuo itself to get back at them.
But was that a deficiency in him? Were his feelings so unnatural? Or was the lack in Li Shai Tung, putting political necessity before what he felt? To want to destroy those that have hurt your loved ones—was that really so wrong? Was he any less of a man for wanting that?
Tolonen shuddered; the thought of his darling Jelka dead filled him with a strange sense of foreboding. Then, conscious of his daughter watching him, he placed his hands on her shoulders. His hands so large, her bones so small, so fragile, beneath his fingers.
"I must go," he said simply, kneeling to hug her.
"Keep safe," she answered, smiling at him.
He smiled back at her, but his stomach had tightened at her words. It was what her mother had always said.
A COLD WIND was blowing from the west, from the high plains of Tibet, singing in the crown of the tree of heaven and rippling the surface of the long pool. Li Shai Tung stood alone beneath the tree, staff in hand, his bared head bowed, his old but handsome face lined with grief. At his feet, set into the dark earth, was the Family tablet, a huge rectangle of pale cream stone, carved with the symbols of his ancestors. More than half the stone—a body's length from where he stood—was marble smooth, untouched by the mortician's chisel. So like the future, he thought, staring at Han Ch'in's name, fresh cut into the stone. The future . . . that whiteness upon which ail our deaths are written.
He looked up. It was a small and private place, enclosed by ancient walls. At the southern end a simple wooden gate led through into the northern palace. Soon they would come that way with the litter.
He spoke, his voice pained and awful; like the sound of the wind in the branches overhead. "Oh, Han . . . oh, my sweet little boy, my darling boy."