Path of the Eclipse (9 page)

“I am at your disposal,” Saint-Germain said, grateful for the diversion she had created. He watched Jui Ah closely, thinking that the Captain might consider this a further challenge.

“It is useless to talk to you,” he yelled, and stormed to the door. “You may do as you wish, Warlord T’en, but I will take my men and drill them.”

“Fine,” Chih-Yü answered evenly. “Just be certain that each man spends two days a fortnight digging the ditch.” She winced as the door slid shut with a crash.

Saint-Germain waited in the sudden silence. He did not move. He could see that Chih-Yü’s shoulders were hunched and the muscle in her jaw stood out against her umpampered skin.

When she spoke again, it was of inconsequent things. “Your quarters are to your satisfaction?”

“They are,” Saint-Germain said honestly. He had lived in hovels and palaces, in great forests and in the sewers of ancient cities. “The rooms are good-sized and I can set up my supplies quite satisfactorily. The view is pleasant.”

“I understand that you have a compound in Lo-Yang. I was told it is very beautiful.” Her voice had grown smaller but there was no meekness in it, only resignation.

“Yes, it is beautiful.” He came a few steps toward her. “Warlord, when you asked for my assistance, I told you I was willing to come here. That was true then and is true now. Yes, my home in Lo-Yang was more sumptuous than this, and there were things I love in it. Would you, given the choice, not prefer to live among beautiful things? But in Lo-Yang I was under suspicion. My studies were curtailed, and those who had previously been pleased by my company no longer wished to know me.” He smiled, and his dark eyes brightened. “I do not regret coming here, T’en Chih-Yü, though I deplore the reasons that compelled me to make the decision.”

The lacquer on the walls was old, and the grain of the wood showed through. With the windows open to the air, Chih-Yü’s quarters were frigid. She looked up at Saint-Germain and turned up one hand, indicating this. “You say that here?”

“Yes.” He sat in the chair opposite her. “I do not deceive you. Believe that.”

Her shoulders were less rigid now, and the tightness was fading from her face. “Why?” she asked.

He met her eyes. “Suspicion poisons everything it touches.”

“And Jui Ah?” she said, quickly. “His suspicions?”

“That’s for you to say. One man’s blustering is a nuisance only, but if you doubt me, tell me now.”

“You will return to Lo-Yang.”

“No.”

She blinked, though whether from surprise or sudden tears, neither of them knew. “I do not doubt you, Shih Ghieh-Man, but I cannot promise that my men will not side with Jui Ah.”

He took a deep breath that was not quite a sigh. “If you wish me to leave, you have only to tell me and I will go.”

One of her fingers rubbed at the corner of the map. “Is Hsing to your liking?” she inquired in another voice.

“She’s very beautiful and most acquiescent,” he said. “I thank you for sending her to me.”

“I have heard that you do not trouble her much.”

“It is not my way,” he explained obliquely. He had thought the prettiest servant girl, which Hsing undoubtedly was, was an obvious but malleable spy. He had only to treat her as he had Ch’uan-T’ing, coming to her in her sleep, and her reports to Chih-Yü would continue to be unremarkable. For an instant he wished that he had that greater intimacy, and the image of Olivia in distant Rome came to his mind, and Ranegunde in her bleak stone fortress.

Chih-Yü looked puzzled. “What is the matter?” she asked when his eyes were on her once more.

“Nothing. I was remembering those of my blood.” He did not want to admit to Chih-Yü how profoundly his loneliness had shaken him.

“Ah,” she said with understanding. Her finger was still on the map. “Perhaps, Shih Ghieh-Man, you will show me again where you would dig this ditch, and then later this evening, after the last meal, I will tell my soldiers what is required of them. Tomorrow morning, we will send word to the valleys so that work may begin at once.”

Saint-Germain held her gaze with his. “I am grateful, T’en Chih-Yü.” He managed to speak more lightly. “The ground is hard now, and digging in it will be arduous.”

“That is true enough,” she allowed, “but if we wait until the ground is softer, we may not be finished in time, and the Mongols may arrive before we are ready for them.” She took a brush and began to draw the line of the ditch.

“Show me where the stream goes,” Saint-Germain said, giving his attention to the map. “There should be a way to rig a spillway that we can regulate from inside the walls.”

Her features sharpened. “Excellent.” She pushed a stray tendril of hair off her face and began to make notations on the map as she and Saint-Germain went over the plans again.

An order from the District Magistrate Wu Sing-I to all the militias in his region, including T’en Chih-Yü’s.

On the Feast of the Lanterns in the first fortnight of the Year of the Ox, the Fourteenth Year of the Sixty-fifth Cycle, to all the Militia Commanders within the Shu-Rh District.

Your Magistrate does not doubt that any of you are unaware of the grave dangers that confront us as the winter comes to an end. Though many of us have rejoiced that the crop losses of last autumn were not compounded by deep snows and empty hearths, yet the rain has been as unrelenting as the snows, and where frost did not claim lives, hunger did. Surely none of you make light of these problems. However, this spring we must prepare not only for the tasks that always renew themselves with the year, we must be ready to confront a deadly and terrible foe.

Each of you has heard by now of the devastation wrought by the horsemen of Temujin in areas to the east and north of here. It is criminally blind to deny the possibility that we will come under similar attack. For that reason, the district is ordered to prepare for the contingency of war. Let no one regard this as an exercise. It is essential that all be willing to do every task carefully and thoroughly. Remember that if you fail now, you will be at the mercy of your own failure as much as the rapacity of the Mongols.

Word has been sent from K’ai-Feng and Lo-Yang that ministers from the Secretariat of Armies and Militias will visit this district during the summer on an inspection tour. Their report will determine how much aid and armed protection we will receive from the capitals. We must not let ourselves rely on the judgment of these men, for it may be that there will be others who demand more. We are an outlying district, and will not be at the highest place on their schedule of priorities.

Each fortress and stronghold should provision itself to withstand two months of summer siege. You must not assume that crops planted in spring will be harvested. Provision for livestock should be considered, and an adequate plan of evacuation of villages be drawn up. No stronghold or fortress should guarantee protection to more farmers than they can house and feed for two months. If the facilities of your stronghold or fortress are not adequate to this demand, hidden camps should be established in the mountains. If you have shepherds in your area, deal with them, and with foresters. Leave nothing to chance. Be certain that every man is aware of what he must do should the Mongols attack.

Set your smiths to your forges making pikes and spears and arrows and quarrels. Every weapon will be needed. If you command militia, take time to drill them so that they know what they must do. If you have only guardsmen, see that they are prepared for every contingency. A lax guardsman could be the ruin of a stronghold or fortress.

Those whose strongholds and fortresses guard roadways, make certain that the road is under constant guard. Unless it is impossible, find ways to make traps along the road. String wires across the road at important places, and be certain that there is someone on guard who can raise the wire to trip the horses.

Fields, too, may be given extra protection by the judicious building of traps. Concealed pits may be put around a field. That way, nothing will stop the farmers from tending their crops and livestock, but the hazard will be there for the incautious Mongol who charges the farmer. Hods may be filled with stones and placed on roofs or hillsides, and tipped over on those below.

Turn your own ingenuity to these problems, good Commanders. All of you are aware that we stand in grave peril. It is your wit and determination that will be the greatest defense we possess.

I charge each of you to send fortnightly reports to my Tribunal so that preparations and knowledge may be shared. Do not use militia or guardsmen as messengers, but select a groom or other servant who can be sent without decreasing your preparedness. If the reports are not indicative of sufficient activity, the judgment of the Tribunal will go against you, and your name and rank singled out for disgrace, here and in the capitals.

From the hand of the Scribe Keh at the order of the District Magistrate, Wu Sing-I, chief administrator of the Shu-Rh District, affixed with his chop.

5

None of the farmers looked up from their planting as T’en Chih-Yü rode by the newly turned field. The air was filled with the ripe smell of the earth, and the cool spring breeze scampered over the land like a puppy.

Saint-Germain rode beside her, his eyes moving quickly over the field and farmhouse. “They have not yet built up their fences nor finished the stockade around their houses and barns,” he said to her.

“I am aware of that. I talked to Mrs. Zhie. She is the oldest member of the family. She claims that it is because they do not have sufficient wood.” Her mouth set. “I will see to it that more wood is provided, and if she has another excuse, it will be necessary to order her children out of the fields until the work is done. I don’t wish to do that.”

“Mrs. Zhie,” Saint-Germain repeated. “The names here are not like those in other regions.”

Chih-Yü chuckled. “You mean that they are impossible. I agree. Do you know that the farmers in Oa-Du”—she nodded toward the road that led through the low pass to the other, smaller valley—“speak differently than they do here in So-Dui?”

“I thought it might be the case.” He pulled his gray into a walk as they neared a freshened stream. “The words I have picked up confused me until I learned about the two dialects.”

She was riding her bay this morning, and she reined him in by the stream, letting him lower his head to drink. “Yes, and the scholars in the capitals look down upon us because the language is so distorted. They are not willing to learn…” She twisted in the saddle to look at Saint-Germain. “There was a scholar here some years ago. He came to visit my father, and to make a report on the Shu-Rh District. Though he stayed at Mao-T’ou fortress for more than a year, he never bothered to learn more than a dozen words of the local dialects, and then, when he returned to Lo-Yang, he informed his superiors that the people here were unintelligent clods who were little better than cattle.”

Saint-Germain said nothing, for he had heard the scholars at the university in Lo-Yang discuss their countrymen most unflatteringly. Even Kuan Sun-Sze, for all his erudition, thought of farmers, shepherds and foresters as intolerably dull, hardly more capable than the beasts and fields they tended.

“What will happen, is that the inspectors will come, very thorough and grave, most certainly, and they will listen to my reports and the reports of the other commanders in the district, and they will look at my stronghold and see nothing but the old buildings and the rough-hewn stockade, and will listen to Jui Ah, hearing only his accent and not his words. Then, having made their inspection, they will return to Lo-Yang and they will submit their report, along with fifty others, and these will be reviewed by the undersecretaries, who will add their own comments and pass them to their superiors. Eventually the secretaries themselves will read a representative selection of reports, and they will advise the Emperor and the Commanders of the Armies and the Council of Generals. And some time after that, orders will be sent out from K’ai-Feng and Lo-Yang to the garrisons, authorizing them to act in certain ways in certain areas.” She had grown increasingly caustic as she spoke and her eyes traveled over the So-Dui valley with restless concern. “By that time, the Mongols may well have come and gone, and there will be nothing left here but bones and ashes.”

“And you cannot form an alliance with the other Militia Commanders in the area, can you?” He could read her distress and shared it more than he wished to admit.

“Why, certainly not,” she said with a bright, artificial smile. “He who takes command of armed men without the authorization of the Emperor or his duly appointed Ministers and Secretaries is considered a traitor to his country and is condemned to public dishonor and execution by the Death of a Thousand Cuts. You have to be very courageous or very desperate to risk that.” She nodded toward the ridge of hills. “Two valleys away, the Mongols struck. They executed every person living on a farm and put most of the crops to the torch. Their Warlord was away and the militia had no leadership. That didn’t matter, because the Mongols destroyed the fortress as well as the town.”

“What would you have done?” Saint-Germain asked as he brought his gray’s head up from the stream. “General She went against Imperial edict and saved most of his district…”

“And they killed him for it,” she finished. “His integrity is most unusual, no matter what you hear about the correctness of men in high office. You know that’s true.”

“What would you have done?” he repeated.

“With the Mongols? What I did do, which was little. We took half of the militia to escort those few who escaped, and kept spies on the crest of the hills in order to make a full, accurate and complete report on the extent of the devastation.” She turned away from the road between farms and started up the track toward the high meadows. “I have two shepherds and a forester’s family to see yet before returning to Mao-T’ou stronghold. Do you mind coming with me?” Her tone, the angle of her head, the way she sat her horse showed that she was more tense than she wanted to admit. “It is peaceful here, just now, but it could all be gone in a night unless we prepare.”