The Last Concubine (10 page)

He almost dropped his sword when he heard Hüi Wei’s voice! He could not make out the words, but surely the tone was that of a man speaking endearments to one beloved of him, rather than the anger of a man bent on wreaking justice and death.

Ning placed his sword on the floor and bent to look through the keyhole. He could not see much but what he did see made him fall to his knees with a thud, he was so surprised. Luckily, his room also boasted a carpet that muffled the sound. After listening for any reaction from the next room, he concluded that the combatants were too occupied with each other to notice outside distractions.

Cautiously, he approached the keyhole on his knees, peering through it. He glimpsed a pile of clothing on the floor beside the bed, and the bed itself seemed to be moving or shaking.

Soft murmurs, rustling sounds, and a cry from the princess that could have been pain but sounded suspiciously more like ecstasy left Ning completely confused.

He pressed his ear to the door again. Hüi Wei raised his voice in a triumphant shout that mingled with breathy moans in the princess’s familiar voice. It did not sound much to Ning as if she was in dire need of rescue.

But perhaps he was not interpreting what he heard correctly. Perhaps Hüi Wei was torturing her as a prelude to killing her. The general might simply have stripped her to verify his guess as to her gender, resulting in the clothing left on the floor. If so, it was clearly his duty to come to her rescue. Now it sounded a bit like she was crying. Ning felt for his sword in the dark but froze when he heard her laugh.

Hüi Wei’s voice again, sounding rather threatening this time. Lan’xiu’s voice raised enough for Ning to make out that she was agreeing to obey some order.

Should he go in? Should he not? If he were wrong, Lan’xiu would be angry with him and that would be bad. If she were angry, how much angrier might Hüi Wei be, perhaps angry enough to have him killed! That would be bad too. Then Lan’xiu would be left all alone here in a strange land, perhaps to die alone, which would be much worse. Ning had always meant to beg that she be killed first so that at least she would have his friendly face to look upon when she died. But it sounded like she might actually be enjoying whatever was happening within.

The unmistakable squeak of the wooden bed frame under stress stopped Ning’s ruminations and he grinned in the dark. Lan’xiu was right; he would have been an excellent lawyer. Here he was, sitting in the dark, arguing all around the issue while in the meantime, she and her new master seemed to be entertaining each other very well.

Ning sat with his back to the door and leaned his head against it to enjoy a silent laugh. Whether Hüi Wei had ever enjoyed the company of a man in his bed before this, clearly Lan’xiu’s beauty was enough to seduce the most committed lover of females into testing strange waters.

Without a thought to the fact that he was intruding upon their privacy, Ning stayed where he was, enjoying the sounds of a passion he would never know. Even if Hüi Wei decided in the morning that his pride had been so compromised that he could not allow the princess and her servant to live, at least Lan’xiu’s last night on this earth might give her a taste of the kind of love she had dreamed of. For her sake, Ning was happy this had come to pass.

“Sheathing his sword indeed.” Ning smiled and closed his eyes, filled with contentment, at least for the moment.

T
HE
sound of the bed squeaking again jerked Ning from a sound sleep. He made a mental note to mend the frame for the princess. At the rate they were going, it sounded like her bed would be getting quite a workout, at least if Hüi Wei decided to permit them to live.

The sky was still dark, but the dawn was approaching. Ning could hear the song of a few birds outside. Apparently the general was an early riser—Ning covered his mouth and giggled at his inadvertent pun—and had decided to put in a little exercise before breakfast.

This time the murmurs and cries sounded soft and sleepy, and quite soon silence had fallen again within the room next door. Ning stretched his stiff neck from side to side, making another mental note to refrain from sleeping while leaning against a door in the future. If he had a future. He gazed out the window, and when a line of pale yellow stole across the horizon beyond the houses opposite, he knew he could delay no longer. It was time for Hüi Wei to go. It would be unseemly for his dependents to know the general had spent an entire night in the company of any of his concubines. That was simply not done.

Ning stood up and knocked quietly at the door. There was no response from within. He knocked a little louder. Still nothing.

Finally, he turned the knob and eased the door open. He paused then, not knowing precisely what to do in this situation. Nothing had fitted him for this in his training. Then he found himself wishing that he knew how to paint so that he would have a tangible image to look at for all his days to remember the scene of the two lovers lying together.

Hüi Wei slept on his back, holding Lan’xiu close so his head was nestled upon his muscular shoulder. Their legs twined together, the darker skin of Hüi Wei’s thighs making Lan’xiu’s gleam ivory in contrast. Lan’s long hair covered his face and his naked body was relaxed, the elegant line of his spine leading to the curve of his buttocks.

Ning realized that Hüi Wei had opened his eyes and was looking at him, moving one hand to caress Lan’xiu’s naked shoulder as if protecting him from harm.

“My Lord, it is almost dawn,” Ning whispered.

“Thank you.” With infinite care, Hüi eased himself away from Lan’xiu, positioning a pillow for support in his place. He climbed out of the bed and stretched with no apparent worry for his display of nakedness. Then he stooped to retrieve his clothing, sorting them from where they lay upon the floor mingled with Lan’xiu’s ruined hanfu. When he was dressed, he bent over the sleeping young man and pressed a kiss to the tumbled hair.

He came toward Ning with an intent look in his eyes.

Ning held up a hand to stop him. “Your sword, my Lord.”

Hüi nodded and looked vaguely about for it. Ning came forward silently and drew it out from under the bed where it had landed, handing it to the general. Hüi Wei led the way out of the room, and Ning closed the door softly.

“This way, my Lord,” Ning said. He led the way downstairs through the sleeping house. He went to open the front door, but Hüi Wei stopped him.

“I have decided not to execute the princess for the time being,” he announced.

Ning had to force down his untimely laughter. It would never do to offend the man at such a delicate moment, but after having witnessed the tender kiss Hüi Wei had bestowed upon the sleeping princess, Ning would have placed bets that the general was more likely to declare his undying love for her than to kill her. “Princess Lan’xiu will be most grateful to receive this auspicious news when she awakes, I am sure. I thank you humbly on her behalf.”

Hüi Wei peered sharply at the smooth, impassive face. His lips twitched as if he noticed Ning’s suppressed mirth and might have joined in, if it had not been unseemly to indulge a servant in this way. “You do know that the princess is not—”

Ning raised a finger in front of his mouth and gave a quick wink. “I know everything there is to know about Princess Lan’xiu.”

“You call her ‘she’.”

“It is safer for all concerned,” Ning answered. “Did you hear that? The first cock begins to crow.” Again he had to resist the urge to cackle at his own lewd wit.

“Thank you, Ning.” Hüi Wei rested his hand on the eunuch’s shoulder for a moment and then was gone.

Ning shut the door and rubbed his hands together in glee. “I know not how long we have left to live, but at last, it is my turn to poke fun at Lan’xiu! I thought the day would never come! I wager she will be eating her dinner standing up for a day or two!” Then he composed his face, thinking of the tasks at hand. “First, I must discover where these people keep their chickens. And I am sure Lan’xiu will enjoy a bath when she awakes.” Chuckling to himself, Ning went to the back of the house and down the stairs to find Jia.

H
ÜI
W
EI
hurried to put the harem square behind him before the sky grew light. He had never yet been spied having lingered so long in one of the houses. As a soldier, one did not wish to give the curious reason to suppose one could be seduced from one’s duty by the pleasures of the flesh. Hüi made it his custom to be sparing in all things in the name of discipline. Besides, if only to save Mei Ju pain, he would prefer to be gone before she took her accustomed place at her window.

He had seen her watching for him before when he visited other houses, and he schooled his face to be serious and thoughtful, although he wanted nothing more than to shout his triumph from the rooftops. Never with any woman he had deflowered had he experienced the thrill of conquest so strongly as when he had taken Lan’xiu.

The beautiful young man’s responses had been artlessly genuine; he had never experienced the tender touch of a lover before. He had come to their bed pure, Hüi Wei was positive. Taking his virginity and giving him pleasure in the same night made him feel proud. He, an accomplished lover, had only taken Lan’xiu on the first of many steps to discovering a universe of untapped pleasure together, and it made him feel dangerously adventurous. His cock felt heavy and a burst of adrenaline made the prospect of a bath and breakfast seem tame.

He turned his steps toward the stable. The stablemaster was not yet about, and the stable boys were still cleaning out the stalls. When they saw him, they stood with their mouths hanging open, not knowing enough even to bow. Ordinarily, he might have voiced a few sharp words to school them, but he was anxious to be off and away. He had much to think about. Instead of exhorting one of the stunned lads to do it, he saddled his own horse and trotted to the city gates.

His soldiers were alert and on guard, he was glad to see. One of them sprang forward to open the gate for him with a sharp salute. The clatter of his horse’s hooves on the stones of the street echoed against the walls of the tightly packed houses. Hüi Wei permitted himself a smile at the thought of some sleepy merchant opening his window to shout his irritation out into the street and retreating when he saw it was the lord governor making the untimely row.

He turned his mount east, heading toward the rising sun. In that direction lay a hill where he went often to look down upon the city and province he guarded in the name of the emperor. There were times when a man needed to be alone to think.

When he reached the apex of the tallest hill, Hüi Wei dismounted and allowed his horse to graze in the grass. The horse was well trained for war; he would not run away and leave his rider behind.

Looking down upon the fortress of his palace, Hüi Wei was able to pick out the seventh house of his harem, gilded by the light of the rising sun. He wondered if Lan’xiu was awake yet and if he would wake thinking of him. Hüi chuckled with pride at the thought that he had certainly given Lan’xiu enough to make him remember, even if it was only a sore ass.

It had been some years since Hüi Wei had had sex more than one time in a single night, and the score of three in itself was a source of pride for him. There was something about Lan’xiu—of course he had submitted to Hüi’s desires most properly, denying him nothing he had demanded, but there was something secret and intriguing about him.

His head was filled with the novelty of making love to another man, feeling again the firmness of Lan’s muscles rather than yielding womanly softness, Lan’s resilience no matter how hard Hüi had fucked him, the eagerness with which he responded, the astonished gratitude at the pleasure Hüi had given him—

Hüi Wei closed his eyes to better savor the vision of the lushly rounded bottom he had taken, the only softness of the finely muscled body. His hand strayed to the bulge in his trousers and he rubbed himself. If only Lan’xiu had been there, by the gods’ pleasure, Hüi would have taken him again!

His eyes flew open at the thought. Already all thoughts of killing Lan’xiu or sending him away had flown from his mind. Hüi could barely wait to see Lan again.

And yet….

He remembered his conversation with Ning. How difficult would it be to continue to keep Lan’xiu in his harem and prevent anyone from finding out? Would he need to school his tongue to refer to him as her? What about children? If he continued to have her lantern lit, it would soon become obvious to everyone that Lan’xiu was unable to bear children. How would he explain that? Not that he needed more children; he had been blessed with many, but a man had his reputation to think of. If he could not get his youngest wife with child, some might question his potency, a dangerous position to be in when one was a general and governor and entrusted with keeping the emperor’s northern border safe.

The difficulty of how to keep Lan’xiu’s secret and still get what he wanted consumed Hüi’s brain. All his life he had punctiliously made his responsibility to the emperor his first priority—now his entire being cried to him to grab what he wanted! He realized that before this, doing his duty had been easy. Lying with women had been a pleasurable diversion in his busy schedule; making love to Lan’xiu was a sublime experience, one he feared he might never tire of.