Li Feng clung to her. ‘What are you doing here? How are you alive?’
‘I prayed.’ Her mother’s fingers brushed frantically over her hair, her cheek, each touch like the brush of a bird’s wings. ‘I prayed I would see you again.’
Everything was happening so quickly. The sword was still in her hands. Her pulse was still beating from the fight with Han. She was confused, as if she were dropped suddenly into the middle of a dream where she could no longer follow her own thoughts.
Mother pushed her away suddenly. ‘Daughter, you have to go.’
‘No.’ She tried to grab at her mother’s hands with fingers that were trembling and clumsy. ‘Come with me.’
‘They’re coming.’ Her mother’s voice was choked with fear. Is that how she had lived all these years? As a prisoner in fear?
Heavy footsteps pounded towards them and the memories closed in on her.
Li Feng, don’t cry. Don’t cry.
‘Go quickly!’
Even now, with so many years gone by, a mother’s command was still to be obeyed. There was no time to think or ask questions. Li Feng ran at the outer wall and then up it, hooking on to the top with her fingers. Her mother called for her as she pulled herself on to the edge.
‘Xiao Feng.’ Mother stretched her hand up, palm flat against the wall.
After so many years, her mother still looked the same. That one memory for her had held true.
Li Feng reached down. The tips of their fingers barely touched. ‘I’ll come back for you.’
Armed soldiers invaded the garden as she slipped over the side of the wall. It was the rock once again shutting out the light. This time it was her mother who was trapped inside and it was Li Feng who was being dragged away.
Chapter Eighteen
H
an made a show of protecting the prefect while at the same time blocking the garden entrance. The courtyard had been razed and transformed into a battlefield. General Wang lay on the ground, bleeding. His soldiers formed a protective barrier while one of the men hovered over him, pressing his hands over the wound. The two assailants in black had been wrestled to the ground.
‘Keep them alive for questioning!’ Magistrate Tan was pale and shaking. With Wang incapacitated and the prefect in shock, the bureaucrat was taking control admirably.
Inevitably, the question came. ‘Where is the sword dancer?’ Tan asked.
Han indicated the archway with a jerk of his head and followed the team of guards into the garden with his weapon ready. To his relief, the area was empty. Li Feng was safe—for now.
‘It happened so quickly.’ Tan was beside him. ‘This rabble must have followed General Wang here. Violence breeds violence.’
His disdain for the general was clear. Han didn’t point out that Guan He was as much of a target as the general.
With a shaking hand, Tan drew a handkerchief from his sleeve and mopped his forehead. Then he looked down with alarm. ‘You’re bleeding.’
Han opened his fist and closed it again. He’d almost forgotten about his hand. The wound was a reminder of the woman who had given it to him. Li Feng’s eyes had been cold when she’d attacked him. The desolation in her face had cut him much deeper than the sword.
‘It’s not too bad,’ he said.
Han had carried a sword for ten years. The sight of blood, even his own, no longer made his head swim. He stared back at the ruins of the banquet. Tables were strewn throughout the courtyard. The entertainers had all fled. The lion costume lay abandoned before the tattered screen, lifeless and trampled like the corpse of a colourful beast. Wang had been moved inside while his men swept the area for other threats. Prefect Guan had retreated once again, leaving the magistrate to handle the aftermath.
‘There were three of them,’ Tan said. ‘The two captured ones had knives.’
‘What a senseless plan.’ Anger churned in his stomach. None of them could have expected to survive this. Had Li Feng become so lost that life and death no longer mattered to her?
Tan regarded him with an earnest expression. ‘How did you ever find out about it?’
An expression like that could fool one into thinking the man was simply curious, but Han was the son of a magistrate. Like his father, Magistrate Tan was always looking to separate truth from lies. He was watching Han’s every action to the slightest nuance.
‘I had no idea about this scheme,’ Han replied smoothly. ‘I came to look for you.’
The magistrate nodded, making a non-committal sound in the back of his throat. The matter was dropped and somehow not dropped. Magistrate Tan looked to where the attackers were being detained.
‘If you could accompany the prisoners to the holding cells. They’re a treacherous sort and might try to overpower the guards.’ He lowered his voice. ‘The warlord’s soldiers wanted to take possession of the prisoners, but he has no authority here. And we don’t want him to think he can seize control so easily.’
‘Of course, sir.’
‘I’m grateful.’
Han didn’t require any political insight to see how the magistrate was setting Han up as his man. With Li Feng in hiding and her companions in custody, Han might need to exploit his connection to the magistrate to keep her safe. She was wanted for attempted murder now as well as an attack against an appointed official.
Constable Guo arrived to shackle the prisoners at hands and feet. Han recognised one of the two men immediately. He had a scar at the corner of his mouth and a black stare that was unmistakable. Li Feng’s brother. The other one was a stranger. His posture remained proud and defiant even in chains. These men had no fear of death. Apparently Li Feng didn’t either.
The prison wagon waited in the street and the two men were herded inside the compartment. The constable took one side and Han the other as the wagon rolled through the streets towards the hall of justice.
At the prison house, Han supervised as the men were locked inside individual cells. Liu Yuan looked over the closet-sized area without emotion and Han was reminded of the first time he had encountered Li Feng. She had looked over the prison house with the same calculating manner when Han had attempted to put her in chains.
He wondered whether the bandit shared any of the same skills that made it so hard to keep Li Feng confined. But where Li Feng had escaped from what amounted to a village stable, Minzhou had a sturdy prison secured within the walls of the magistrate’s yamen.
Liu Yuan didn’t speak until the door thudded shut and the chain was locked. He brought his face to the small opening cut into the door.
‘Thief-catcher.’
Han turned to face him, but refused to acknowledge him in any other way. Liu Yuan killed out of a sense of duty towards his family. He might have been driven by filial piety, but he was still an outlaw and a murderer.
‘If you harm my sister, I’ll hunt you down,’ the bandit threatened.
‘I’m not the one who has put her in danger,’ Han retorted.
Two dark, piercing eyes stared back at him from the holding cell. They were disturbingly similar to the eyes that already haunted his days and nights.
* * *
Prefect Guan sent a messenger to Han later that evening. As he left the yamen, the sky was dark around him and the city lanterns had been lit. The number of guards outside the prefect’s mansion had doubled and there were sentries standing watch on the street corners.
Inside the walls, the courtyard had been swept and scrubbed clean. There were no signs of the attack that had occurred just hours earlier. Han was lead through the grounds to a room beside the garden. The prefect’s study was lavishly decorated with wall scrolls and ostentatiously placed vases and art sculptures. Guan sat behind a fortress of a desk fashioned from rosewood.
‘Welcome, Zheng Hao Han.’ The prefect stood to greet him. ‘Please sit.’
He called for tea, asked if Han wanted anything else, made overly polite overtures.
Han had no choice but to wait for the tea to be brought and poured. He sat across from a man who was lecherous, corrupt, and both a bully and a coward; however Guan He’s demeanour showed none of those traits. He had a stately appearance: tall and aristocratic, with a thin face that was approaching gauntness, his features absent of the well-fed fleshiness one would expect from a wealthy official.
Han had expected a fearful, cowering man after the way Guan had hidden for the last weeks, but the man he approached presented himself with a semblance of dignity. The stark shadows beneath his eyes were the only sign that something plagued him beneath the still surface.
‘You are to be commended for your service today, Mister Zheng. Your courage was unparalleled,’ the prefect said.
Han wondered whether it was study of the classics and poetry that gave such men so many extra words that meant nothing. ‘It was my duty.’
‘I will ensure that you are duly promoted. There are many posts within our city in need of a worthy individual such as yourself.’
‘Thank you, sir, but I cannot accept.’
He would become a beggar before taking orders from such a man, but as soon as he had spoken, Han realised he finally had the opportunity to question the prefect directly.
‘Magistrate Tan has already enlisted my services,’ he amended. ‘As I understand, a man under your employment was murdered a month ago.’
‘Hmm? Yes, a tragedy.’ The prefect seemed to be occupied with other thoughts.
‘I was hired to find the killers. It’s likely the very same bandits were responsible for today’s incident. Does the prefect know of any reason why he would be targeted?’
‘They’re outlaws, Mister Zheng.’ Guan spoke the words dismissively, but his hand tightened into a fist. He rapped his knuckles over the desk in an agitated gesture. ‘They care about nothing. Besides, it appears as if General Wang was the one they meant to attack. He has made many enemies throughout the province.’
Had the official forgotten how Li Feng’s blade was aimed at his throat? It occurred to Han at that moment that Prefect Guan hadn’t done much to apprehend Liu Yuan and his bandits after the murder. Despite being in a position of power, Guan had chosen to hide. Even if there were a dozen bandits hiding in the hills, he could have organised the city guards and swept through the woods as Han had done.
Instead, Prefect Guan had locked himself away and stationed guards around his home as if he was under siege. He feared a greater enemy, someone he was powerless against. Someone like Wang Shizhen.
Han had assumed that the prefect and the warlord were allied with one another, but what if General Wang hadn’t come to the city as an honoured guest? Perhaps he’d forced himself through the gates.
‘In any case, now that these scoundrels have been captured, we must resolve this case swiftly and make an example of these outlaws.’ The prefect’s expression darkened. He turned his tea cup around in a half-circle. ‘Has…has the dancer been apprehended?’
Han tensed at the mention of Li Feng. ‘Not yet, my lord.’
Though she hadn’t succeeded in the assassination, she certainly wasn’t free of guilt.
Guan He nodded absently. His gaze had become distant while his hands clenched and unclenched restlessly. Han suspected he knew why. The man had watched Li Feng’s mother dance before him fifteen years ago, putting into motion the events that would bring about her death and the death of her husband. Prefect Guan had seen a ghost at the banquet, a ghost intent on killing him. He was feeling the tumult of a guilty soul.
Han decided to press his advantage. ‘I found something in the courtyard after the outlaws were subdued. I thought it might belong to you.’
He reached inside his robe to pull out Li Feng’s pendant. As Han placed it on the desk, Guan He pressed his palms flat just beneath it, refusing to touch the jade. Weariness flooded over him, dragging his shoulders down like a puppet with his strings cut.
‘Have you ever been struck by lightning?’ Guan asked.
Han shook his head, not comprehending.
‘Have you ever met a woman and knew you had to have her? Knew that fate had destined her for you and it didn’t matter that the two of you were from different worlds?’
The prefect’s passionate outburst unsettled him. The words, though spoken by such vermin, struck too close to the vein.
‘I’ve never experienced such a thing, sir,’ Han replied stiffly.
But the first time he had seen Li Feng with her sword in hand, the rest of the world had disappeared. Before he knew what was happening, he was chasing her over the rooftops. Han hadn’t run after her because he suspected she was a thief. He had gone after her because she had started fleeing and, for reasons he could not understand, he couldn’t let her get away.
‘When it happens to you, that one moment changes you for ever,’ Prefect Guan went on, almost feverishly. ‘A long time ago, there was this dancer—’ He stopped, embarrassed at having revealed so much.
The man had twisted the destruction of Li Feng’s family into a tale of passionate love. In his eyes, he had fallen madly in love with a young, beautiful dancer and had to have her no matter what the consequences. It was a tragic, romantic tale, the sort that poets told. Why, the prefect was as much a victim of fate in this story as the poor dancer.
Han wished he could have let Li Feng have her revenge on this man. But then she and her brother would go to the executioner just as their parents had done. The cycle of heartbreak and loss would be complete. He hardly found such tragedy poetic.
‘Sir, what does this have to do with anything?’ Han asked.
‘Nothing. Nothing at all.’ The prefect regained his composure and hastily put the jade away in a drawer. ‘Thank you for recovering this. You will be compensated for your services.’
Han started to take his leave, but Guan stopped him at the door.
‘If you find the sword dancer…’ The prefect struggled for his next words. ‘If you could bring her here. To me.’
Han could have strangled the man himself. He forced out a cordial nod and exited the study. The house steward offered him a string of cash as reward for recovering the jade. It would have been too conspicuous to refuse the money. Instead, Han dropped the coins into the first beggar’s bowl he encountered as he made his way back to the main street.
He had nothing but contempt for Guan He, yet Han had saved the man’s life. He defended a set of laws that dictated the bastard had to be protected due to his rank and status. The social order had to be preserved at all costs. It sickened him.
Back in the market area, the restaurant where Han was staying roared with activity. The two floors were packed with hungry labourers and tradesmen and the kitchen sizzled with the sounds of food cooking. The smell of hot grease and garlic assailed him as he descended the stairs to his room.
As Han pushed back the bamboo screen, he was met by a faint glimmer of light. He had only a moment to consider the oddity of it before the knife was at his throat.
‘Bastard,’ Li Feng hissed, pressing the blade against the soft tissue at the base of his throat. ‘Meddling, no-good bastard.’
Her gaze burned through him. Though her voice trembled with anger, her hand was as steady as the earth beneath his feet.
He had been expecting this. He had even hoped she would be there waiting for him, knife and all.
* * *
‘Guan He owed me blood,’ Li Feng spat out.
‘Blood.’
His eyes never left hers. ‘I couldn’t let you kill him.’
She had been forced to leave her mother, her brother, Bao Yang, all behind. Everyone she cared for was in enemy hands because of Han. Yet here he was watching her, his face an impenetrable mask, as calm and forbearing as a Buddhist monk. She hated it.
‘Everything is so straight and narrow for you. Justice is justice.’ Li Feng tightened her grip on the hilt. ‘Don’t you know? There is no such thing as justice!’
Even with a knife at his throat, he wouldn’t fight back. His gaze shifted to her jaw, to the place where he’d struck her.