The Path (29 page)

“Come now, Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod, you know our battles are not for mortal eyes.” Nasiradeen looked around then
pointed to the west. “My army will camp where they are and they will obey my orders not to disburb us. Let us meet over that
rise at dawn. Spend this night praying that whatever gods you serve will welcome you, for tomorrow Shiva will drink the blood
of your sacrifice.”

“Or yours,” Duncan said, still not lowering his sword. Nasiradeen laughed as he turned his horse and rode back to his waiting
men.

Duncan watched him go, not lowering his sword until the Gurkha commander had reached his men and Duncan saw them move out
of attack formation. Then it was as if a fist closed around his heart. The pain of it made it almost impossible to breathe.
To live.

Xiao-nan
…

was
…

Dead
…

Dead
…

Dead
…

Mingxia was kneeling by her sister’s body when Duncan turned again toward the city. Nearby, back through the gate, the bodies
of the monks lay limp and twisted in death, but Duncan could spare them only pity. The world swam, swirled around him as his
eyes focused on the one sight his heart wanted to deny.

Oh God, Xiao-nan
…

Duncan’s step faltered once. At the sound, Mingxia turned her tear-streaked face toward him. Duncan saw more clearly the deep
bruise upon her cheek, the cut lips, and that one eye was starting to discolor. He knelt beside her.

“Tell me what happened,” he said. He put an arm around her shoulders, and she sat trembling while she talked.

“I went to old Huilan’s,” she said, her voice thick with tears. “She needs help with her garden, and I had not been there
in two weeks. But when the order came to close the gates I knew I should return home. I left almost at once. I was not far
from Huilan’s house when
he
came hurrying down the street—Father Edward. He laughed when he saw me. He grabbed me and kissed me. It was horrible. I tried
to pull away from him, but he hit me. I screamed, and he hit me again. Then he kissed me again and began to pull me with him.
I tried to get away, but he was too strong.”

Her breath was coming in big gulps and trembling shook her body. Duncan tightened his arm around her.

“Shh,” he said. “You’re safe now. What happened next?”

“We reached the gates. The monk who was guarding came hurrying toward us. He told us to go home. Father Edward laughed. He
drew his sword… I screamed… I tried to pull away, I wanted to go home. He threw me against the wall… I hit my head… I couldn’t…”

Mingxia’s voice shook with tears and shock, making it difficult to understand her words. She took a deep breath and ran a
hand across her face, wincing at the pain of her own touch as she tried to collect herself enough to go on.

“The other monk was on the wall, watching for anyone who might still need to come inside,” she continued. “He hurried down
the ladder. Father Edward started to open the gates. The monk tried to stop him, but the sword… it went right through him…
I saw it. He screamed… I screamed, too. I tried to get up, but my legs would not work.

“Then Xiao-nan came. She ran to him and grabbed his arm, his sword. She tried make him stop. He hit her… he… killed her….”

A sob tore up from Mingxia’s throat, and she turned her face into Duncan’s chest. He let her cry until the worst of her tears
were past. He wanted to cry, too. He wanted to rage against the heavens for the death of his love, but he could not. Not yet.

Xiao-nan
…

Father Jacques came running toward them, hair and cassock in disarray. He stopped, his face white with shock at the vision
of grief before the gates of the holy city. Duncan saw him cross himself before he took the last lasting steps toward them.

“Blessed Jesu. I heard—” he said. “What has happened here? Where is Father Edward?”

“He was no priest to be called Father,” Duncan snapped. “He’s dead. Over there,” Duncan gave a curt gesture with his head,
not caring to even look in the dead man’s direction.

Father Jacques started to turn. “I must go to him. Shrive him—”

“Leave him,” Duncan ordered.

“But he must be shriven, no matter what has happened Prayers must be said for his soul.”

“Leave him, I said,” Duncan let his grief turn to anger. He welcomed it; it was a safer emotion for now. “He was a spy for
that army out there. Let his own kind deal with his body.”

“A spy?” Again Father Jacques crossed himself. “Oh, Dearest God, forgive me. This is all my fault.I should have seen, should
have listened to my suspicions. But I wanted to believe… Oh, I should have stayed in France studying plants, not people.”

“Stop it,” Duncan snapped. “What
should
have been done doesn’t matter. There are
living
souls that need your help now.”

“Yes… yes, of course,” Father Jacques said quickly. “What can I do?”

“Help me with Mingxia. We have to send word to the Potala about the monks—and we have to take Xiao-nan’s body home.”

Duncan’s voice cracked on the words.
Oh God—Xiao-nan
… The black abyss of grief opened, threatened to pull him down.
No, not yet. He could not give in yet
.…

Duncan stood, bringing Mingxia up with him. Her sobs were quiet now, though silent tears still ran down her cheeks. Duncan
knew there would be tears in her household for a long time to come.

He gave her over into the priest’s waiting arms, letting her be comforted as he, himself, could never be. As they turned away
toward the city to wait by the gate and close it when Duncan has passed through, Duncan knelt again beside Xiao-nan.

He looked at her face. Even in death she was so beautiful. His fingers trembled as one last time he touched the softness of
her cheek.

“For all the lives to come,” he whispered to her. He truly wanted to believe, at that moment he had to believe, they would
someday be together again. Drawing a deep ragged breath, he put his arms beneath her and lifted.

How light the body felt, as if her soul had been all that weighed her to this earth, and with its departure she had become
a creature of air. Duncan shifted her position in his arms. Her head fell against his shoulder where a few hours ago it had
lain in love. He could not stop the tears that filled his eyes. For one too-brief moment, he let them flow, burning like hot
lava down his cheeks. Then he shut them off, shut every feeling part of himself away, and turned to follow Mingxia and Father
Jacques.

Duncan did not stay long with Xiao-nan’s parents. Their grief threatened the numbness in which he wrapped himself. He left
them in Father Jacques’s care, knowing that for all his protestations, he would be better suited to comfort them.

Duncan had no comfort to give anyone—not even himself.

Xiao-nan
…

Her presence was there in every beat of the heart he could not allow himself to feel. It was part of every breath he must
force himself to take.

Xiao-nan
…

The silent streets of the city accused him. He had not protected her, not kept her safe. She was dead.

Oh, God… Xiao-nan was dead
….

Duncan stopped and drew a deep shuddering breath. Another. He forced his thoughts away from the pain in his soul and focused
on strategy, on what could be done to keep this city safe if he was defeated tomorrow.

Lhasa would only have to hold out a few days, only until the troops from the Chinese Emperor arrived. With help, he should
be able to accomplish that much. For Xiao-nan’s sake, he would save these people she had loved as he had not been able to
save her.

Xiao-nan
…

A slow, loud pounding echoed through the mission house as Brother Michael hurried toward the front door, the soles of his
sandals slapping on the hardwood floors, the long brown robe of his habit hampering his haste. Deep inside, some half-forgotten
part of him tensed; this intrusive pounding was so unlike the well-mannered tap usually heard in Lhasa.

Brother Michael reached the door and pulled it wide, interrupting the next blow of the closed fist. With a quick glance he
saw MacLeod standing there, a glance that filled with horror as the monk’s eyes took in the sight of the blood staining the
blade in Duncan’s hand, the clothes spattered and smeared with drying gore.

But that was not what make the monk tremble. It was the face—Oh, Dearest God, the face.

Duncan’s face was cold—hard as iron. His eyes were burning coals of rage and pain straight from the deepest pit of Hell. Brother
Michael knew that face; those eyes were burned into his memory. He had taken his vows, praying to God never to see them again.

Many years ago Brother Michael had worn that face.

He stepped from the mission house and closed the door behind him. His Brothers, gentle and young, must be spared this.

“Oh, my friend,” he said, “you have been in a fight.” It was a statement, an understanding offered and he saw MacLeod’s relief.

“Aye,” the Highlander answered, briefly closing those death-embittered eyes. “And I must face another at dawn. If I fall,
can you defend the walls of Lhasa against an army?”

For a single moment Brother Michael stood still, feeling the impact of Duncan’s words. It was like a hammer blow to his insides;
how could he become, even for a day, the person he had turned from, he had fled. Yet if he did not, how many more deaths would
his soul carry?

Wordlessly, he nodded once, accepting the role into which he was once more—
Oh, please, Sweet Jesus, let it be for the last time—being
thrust.

Stepping away from the mission house, he let his eyes rove over the parts of the city walls that he could see.

“It’s meant more to keep out sheep and goats than an army,” he said, raising an eyebrow in the black irony of the statement.

“Can you hold the wall?” Duncan asked again.

Brother Michael shook his head. “Myself, my Brothers, maybe Father Jacques—four men to hold three, no, five miles of wall?”

He saw MacLeod open his mouth to speak and held up a hand to stop him. Then Brother Michael rubbed his chin, the sergeant
once more, and considered with a soldier’s eye all that he had seen since coming to Lhasa.

“The merchants sometimes cross the borders and travel through lands thick with bandits. They do not trust to spinning prayer
wheels for the safety of their goods and profits. I have seen them hide their weapons when they reach this city. They honor
the Dalai Lama and the teachings of Buddha, but—”

He turned back to MacLeod. Glancing around at the few people hurrying through the streets, he continued, “I think there are
others who will understand that the cost of keeping a peaceful mind will be the rape of their wives and daughters, the murder
of everyone they love—their lives torn into shambles and horror. They will join us.”

Brother Michael heard Duncan’s sigh, saw the weariness take hold of the man. His eyes asked the question once again.

“Tomorrow morning,” the monk answered him, “I will be on
the wall with every soul I can muster. The rest will be in God’s hands.”

Duncan nodded and turned, his footfalls leaden as he started toward the Potala.

Brother Michael reentered the mission house, preparing to call his Brothers together. His eyes fell on the crucifix hanging
from the wall. Two quick steps, then he dropped to his knees. The last few minutes had reopened scars the monk bore upon his
soul, and he felt them now as the wounds in the Sacred Body.

“Sweet Jesu,” he whispered, “help me. I know my vows have called me to another path, but I cannot let these gentle people
die. Give me strength to do what must be done.”

Brother Michael bowed his head. When this was over he would have to do penance, forty hours of fasting and prayer before his
Lord in the Eucharist. He would pray to cleanse his heart—and he would trust that a carpenter who had made tables and chairs
from imperfect wood would not fail to forgive his imperfect servant.

Crossing himself, the monk-now-sergeant, rose. “Brother Peter, Brother Thomas, to me,” he called in a booming voice he had
not used in years. “We have many things to do and only a night to do them.”

Duncan fought the weariness of black and heavy grief as he walked with dragging feet up the Potala steps. He should go back
to Xiao-nan’s house and be with her family, but he could not make himself look again so soon at her dead body.

He wanted to remember her warmth, not her death.

His grief was a private thing, and he would work it out as he always did. He would go to the silence of his room and to his
kata
. Sweat and tears would mingle as he pushed himself through the pain.

And on the other side of it, what would he find? Acceptance? Peace? No. Only his own Immortality.

He reached the great doors of the Potala and stood with his forehead pressed against them. For a moment, he did not even have
the will to open them.

Xiao-nan
, his heart screamed, and this time he let it have voice. The sob that rose from his throat was like the cry of a
wounded beast. His knees slowly buckled beneath him. He slid to the ground and let the worst of the tears come.