Path of the Eclipse (16 page)

“And did you?” He rested his fingertips on the worn surface of the reading table.

“A few things, of little consequence, though I might put them to use, if only to give the farmers something to do.” She sighed once as she finished rolling the scroll. As she wrapped the two silken ribbons around the flaking paper, her eyes strayed to his face. “Tell me, why did you come so late?”

“I told you, I wasn’t through until a little while ago.” He could not keep from smiling, yet he could find no reason to smile.

When she was satisfied that the scoll was properly secured, she returned it to its appropriate container among the many that stood on the high shelves that flanked the northernmost window. A sudden rush of modesty came over her, such as she had not felt since she was a child. It confused her with its unexpected intensity that was combined with a new anticipation of pleasure. She clasped her hands, and then, most deliberately, opened them with the assumption of an ease she could not feel. “Shih Ghieh-Man,” she said as she turned to look at him.

“Yes, Warlord T’en?” There was a sad amusement in his eyes that intrigued her.

With an effort, she recalled the questions she had wanted to ask him earlier that evening. “Tell me, is it possible do you think, for this stronghold to withstand”—she looked away as lightning spurted through the clouds and was gone—“an attack by Mongols?”

“A real attack?” he asked kindly, wishing he could reach out and turn her face to him once more. “You mean a fighting force and not a raiding party?”

“Yes.” She felt his presence in the room as indisputably as she heard the drumming thunder.

“The storm is getting closer,” Saint-Germain remarked inconsequently. When he spoke again, it was in a different voice, one that was low, like the melody from deep strings. “Do I think this fortress could withstand a real onslaught by Mongols? No, I don’t. And neither do you.” He saw her lips tighten against an outburst and he leaned forward across the table. “You asked me for my thoughts, Chih-Yü, and I have given them to you. Would you rather I lied?”

“No,” she murmured. She was looking down at her hands now where they lay clasped in her lap. She had learned what she wished to know, she told herself sternly, and the fact that Shih Ghieh-Man agreed with her evaluation of their chances should not amaze her.

With his uncanny understanding, Saint-Germain said, “Don’t condemn yourself, my dear. It takes a great deal of courage to be willing to face reality and go on in spite of it. You have done more than many others have been able to.” The others included a few of the most illustrious and notorious names known to men, and he did not know how he could explain this to her.

“Go on?” She attempted to speak lightly and failed. “Shih Ghieh-Man, what choice is there? If I order the valleys evacuated and send the farmers into the hills, they will die at the hands of highwaymen or fall prey to starvation when winter comes, and it will not matter that they have been saved from the Mongols. It isn’t safe to send large numbers of people into the towns, for they are not skilled in any way that would give them work to do, and there is no place for them. They would be reduced to beggary…” She broke off as a sudden drunken shout came from the courtyard below, only to be quieted by a warning from the men at watch at the gate. There was a trace of a line between her brows that deepened as she continued. “Even in the towns, there is no assurance that they would not fall at the hands of the Mongols if the town is attacked. So what is left to me? As long as my people defend their own lands and their crops and their livestock, they have reason to fight, to resist the invasion and to keep good heart. But if this is lost to them, what is left?”

His face was moon-pale in the sudden jagged light, and then at once indistinct in the muted glow of the lanterns. “Chih-Yü,” he asked softly, steadily, “what do you want of me?”

She bit her lower lip, her usually purposeful expression marred by doubt. “I don’t know.”

“I haven’t sufficient cynicism to pretend that you want me to dismiss your anxieties as insignificant.” Thunder rang over the hills and rolled down the two small valleys. He waited until it had faded.

Chih-Yü shook her head forlornly. “No, don’t pretend. It’s bad enough without that.” She stared at the nearer lantern as if it were a beacon of safety. “I’ve spent most of my life in the company of soldiers and militiamen. It’s what I was born to. But I like the sound of the ch’in when it is played well, and I am truly sad that I can’t have a place for beautiful things here. It’s foolish to want such things, yet when I saw the exquisite things you have…”

Saint-Germain recalled the rapacious Magistrate Hao Sai-Chu, who had claimed the Byzantine mosaics as tribute, and his face hardened. “Yes?”

Though he strove to keep the tension from his voice, she heard it, for she looked up sharply. “I only meant that I wonder if it’s wise for you to risk those beautiful things.” The lightning was more prolonged, cleaving the length of the sky. “I’ve never risked keeping such things here. I’m sorry now that I didn’t choose one or two things, simple things, to make this room less austere.” She made a complicated gesture as she looked up at him once again. “You’ve been far, and yet you take precious things with you. I saw many of the treasures that came in those cases from Lo-Yang.”

“That was all that was left of my house,” he said softly. “You say that I take beautiful things with me. It’s true enough.” He could not tell her how much more he had left behind in his long years. Outside the window he could see the wavering flames of the torches on the walls, one or two of them sputtering in the rising wind.

“Oh,” she cried in quick sympathy. “You didn’t tell me. I assumed that you requested…”

“No.”

The thunder provided them both an excuse for silence. Saint-Germain felt his ancient loneliness as he looked at T’en Chih-Yü. He had lost so much more than beautiful things. And he had never been able to accustom himself to the loss. Memories sharp as claws tore at him and he turned away to conceal the pain that filled him.

“Hsing has received an offer of marriage,” Chih-Yü announced suddenly, and too loudly, as if she were embarrassed. Why was it so unpleasant a task to tell him this? He had never evinced anything beyond a mild fondness for Hsing. She decided it was his foreignness that perplexed her, though this, she sensed, was not the reason at all.

“Has she?” Saint-Germain asked with polite interest, nothing in his stance or his manner showing that her evaluation of his feelings for the girl was incorrect. He was aware of Chih-Yü’s eyes on him and he smiled enigmatically.

“As Warlord, it would be appropriate for me to make other provisions for you,” she said, letting the words dangle like a question as the lightning wiggled in the sky.

“Does Hsing like the match?” He could not look away from Chih-Yü.

“Gei’s younger brother has made the offer for her. Gei keeps the inn at the far end of So-Dui valley.” This was the larger of the two valleys guarded by the Mao-T’ou stronghold. “It is a much better proposal than she has ever hoped for. Considering how her life has been, she is very fortunate.” Her throat felt oddly hot, as if she had taken suddenly ill. She welcomed the thunder that boomed and cracked overhead. “I have given my permission to the match if it does not inconvenience you. From what Hsing has told me…” She faltered suddenly and looked to him for help.

“It won’t inconvenience me,” he said.

“I’ll be more than willing to assign you other eligible women. There are several who might please you. You have only to indicate your choice.” She wished now she had saved this discussion until morning. Here, in the night, with the storm gathering, she could feel a wildness growing in her, and the force of his dark eyes only fostered her abandon.

“Have I.” He was still, then bowed slightly, saying with absurd propriety, “Thank you, elder brother.”

She blinked, taken off guard, and then laughed. “Elder brother. You’re quite right, but…” Her mirth faded as lightning scythed down the air, followed almost at once by an avalanche of thunder. Chih-Yü put her hand to her mouth as the open shutters rattled. She forced herself to speak to the stranger on the other side of the table. “Is there a woman you would like?”

“Yes,” he said as the white glare of the lightning danced along the far end of the ridge, setting a little fire in the dry grasses. “Chih-Yü,” he said as he held out one small, beautiful hand to her, “can you trust me? A little?”

The thunder drowned her answer, but she put her hand into his and rose slowly to her feet. They stood, the table between them, and he spoke to her softly. “When you came to me in Lo-Yang, I was not what you wanted to find. You hoped for many soldiers and in the end were forced to settle for one foreign alchemist. I accepted your offer not because Mao-T’ou stronghold is important to me, but only because I had been warned that it would be wise for me to leave the old capital for a time. Since then, my home there has been destroyed, so doubtless my decision to come here was a sensible one. But now, do you know, I don’t regret my choice.” His penetrating eyes held hers. “I think my life would be the poorer for not knowing you.”

“Shih Ghieh-Man.” Her hand lay in his and she thought it odd that it was not shaking, for inwardly she trembled, restless as a flame. “But,” she protested rather breathlessly, “you haven’t answered my question.”

“I have, you know.” With his free hand he touched her cheek, so lightly that she was not certain she had felt it. “Offer me any woman here in this stronghold, in this district, in this empire, and I will choose you, T’en Chih-Yü. If you are willing.”

Raindrops spattered on the window ledge, and she was grateful for this distraction. She tore away from him and busied herself with closing and latching the shutters. Only when she finished did she realize her mistake, for now she and Saint-Germain were alone in the soft gleam of the lanterns, shut away from the wind and the splendor of the storm. She could hear a few shouts from the courtyard as the rain took the guards and revelers unaware. “But I am Warlord,” she said at last.

“Yes,” he agreed, coming across the room toward her. His Egyptian finery, though alien in appearance, gave him a majesty that surprised her. She watched him, fascinated, wondering how she could have missed seeing him clearly before.

“Hsing has told me…” she began, as if to fend him off, though he stopped a few paces away from her. “Would it be any different with me?”

His dark eyes were sad. “Do you mean would I take you as another man might? No. It isn’t in … my nature. But it would be different I promise you. If you will trust me. You know that I am not as other men. If you find that repugnant, you must tell me…”

“No,” she murmured, “not repugnant.”

“… so that I will not upset you.”

“But don’t all alchemists keep their seed within them, to lend its strength to their work?” She had heard that maxim of alchemy many times over the years, and knew that some men in an excess of dedication to their art had themselves emasculated in order to perform the work more perfectly.

“It is not a question of alchemy,” he said dryly as he stepped back from her.

“If not alchemy, what? Are you like the other Western Black Robes who vow to forgo the pleasures of the flesh?” Outside, the rain was falling more heavily and the thunder crashed along the ridges. The torches in the courtyard were out, as was the fire started on the ridge.

“No.” It would be wisest, he thought, to leave and let Chih-Yü select another woman for him, but he could say nothing to her. He touched the open neck of his black kalasiris, trying to remember how it felt to sweat.

“Then what are you?” As she asked the question, she feared he would be so deeply insulted that he would not be able to stay with her. She knew with a start that she very much wanted him to stay with her.

He looked at her gravely. “A vampire.”

“A vampire?” she repeated, not able to laugh at him. “A p’o?”

Saint-Germain shook his head, though he knew the legends well enough. “Not precisely,” he said carefully, watching to see if she was horrified or angry. “Didn’t Hsing tell you what I required of her?”

“You mean the blood?” She saw him nod. “Hsing described it as very pleasant, better than what other men had done to her.” She had been curious when Hsing had told her how Saint-Germain used her, and what it was like.

“Does that bother you?” He spoke lightly enough still, but the pain was in the back of his eyes again.

Chih-Yü considered her answer carefully. “I am a virgin, Shih Ghieh-Man. It is not through choice. My father was never able to find a husband for me who was willing to let me continue here as Warlord, and so I have never been promised. I’m too old now—twenty-four. I would like to know pleasure.”

“Only pleasure?” He had come nearer, and now reached out to turn her face to his. “Look at me, Chin-Yü,” he commanded her softly. “If it is pleasure you wish for, I will give it to you within my limitations as often or as rarely as you want.”

The yearning she had felt so many times in the past possessed her once again. Her body ached to be pliant, to be molded by passion. She knew, as most women did, what was expected of her in order to please a husband, but she had not been able to account for the way her blood stirred at the thought. “What more is there?”

His face clouded with grief. “There is love.”

“I am not a depraved woman,” Chih-Yü declared.

Saint-Germain took her face in his hands. “No one has said that you are,” he whispered before he touched her lips with his. It was indefinably sweet to sense her response through his mouth and fingers, to feel her spirit waken, vital, eager. There had been too many complacent, passive women in the last few years. He did not know how unsatisfactory his life had become until he drew this woman into his arms and for the first time in many years felt his desire ignite with an ardor he had almost forgotten. This was no quiet creature, unable to meet his need with demands of her own. There was strength in Chih-Yü, and deep-burning fire.

“Shih Ghieh-Man,” she breathed as he drew back from her. Shamelessly she put her arms around him to prevent their separation. Her head was pressed against his shoulder, the fluted linen of his kalasiris creasing her cheek. There had been many times in her childhood when she had been told tales of amorous courtesans who were foolish enough to love the men who paid for them, and who were overcome by despair when their lovers proved faithless. Listening to these stories and the sensible injunction of her father’s two concubines, she had assured herself that she would never be so unwise as to be snared by so useless an emotion as love. Love was for the family and the empire, not for one foreign man. Her whole body trembled as his fingers loosened her belt to open her sheng go. “What will you do?” she asked so quietly that the muffled blast of the storm submerged the question. The legends of the p’o spoke of the malignant wandering spirit who would inhabit abandoned corpses in order to prey on the living. There was nothing of that in Saint-Germain, in his strength, his cradling arms, his dark eyes. “What will you do?”