The Middle Kingdom Read online

  ‘Quick, Chung. Take me to her at once.’

  The doctors looked up from the bedside as he entered, then bowed low and backed hastily away. But the fear in their eyes told him more than he wanted to know.

  He looked beyond them, to her bed. ‘Lin Yua!’

  He ran across the room, then stopped, his fear transformed into an icy certainty.

  ‘Gods…’ he said softly, his voice breaking. ‘Kuan Yin preserve us!’

  She lay there, her face pale as the harvest moon, her eyes closed, a blue tinge to her lips and cheeks. The sheets were rucked up beneath her naked legs, as if from some titanic struggle, their whiteness stained almost black with her blood. Her arms lay limply at her sides.

  He threw himself down beside her, cradling her to him, sobbing uncontrollably, all thought of sovereign dignity gone from him. She was still warm. Horribly, deceptively warm. He turned her face and kissed it, time and again, as if kissing would bring the life back to it, then began to talk to her, his voice pleading with her.

  ‘Lin Yua… Lin Yua… My little peach. My darling little one. Where are you, Lin Yua? The gods help us, where are you?’

  He willed her eyes to open. To smile and say that this was all a game – a test to see how much he loved her. But it was no game. Her eyes stayed closed, their lids impenetrably white; her mouth devoid of breath. And, at last, he knew.

  Gently he laid her head against the pillow, then, with his fingers, combed her hair back lovingly from her brow. Shivering, he sat back from her, then looked up at his Chancellor, his voice hollow with disbelief.

  ‘She’s dead, Hu-Yan. My little peach is dead.’

  ‘Chieh Hsia…’ The Chancellor’s voice quivered with emotion. For once he did not know what to do, what to say. She had been such a strong woman. So filled with life. For her to die… No, it was an impossibility. He stared back at the T’ang, his own eyes filled with tears, and mutely shook his head.

  There was movement behind him. He turned and looked.

  It was a nurse. She held a tiny bundle. Something still and silent. He stared at her, appalled, and shook his head violently.

  ‘No, Excellency,’ the woman began, bowing her head respectfully. ‘You misunderstand…’

  Chung Hu-Yan glanced fearfully at the T’ang. Li Shai Tung had turned away; was staring down at his dead wife once again. Knowing he must do something, Chung turned and grabbed the woman’s arm. Only then did he see that the child was alive within the blankets.

  ‘It lives?’ His whisper held a trace of disbelief.

  ‘He lives, Excellency. It’s a boy.’

  Chung Hu-Yan gave a short laugh of surprise. ‘Lin Yua gave birth to a boy?’

  ‘Yes, Excellency. Four catties he weighs. Big for one born so early.’

  Chung Hu-Yan stared at the tiny child, then turned and looked back at the T’ang. Li Shai Tung had not noted the woman’s entrance. Chung licked his lips, considering things, then decided.

  ‘Go,’ he told the nurse. ‘And make sure the child is safe. Your life is forfeit if he dies. Understand me, woman?’

  The woman swallowed fearfully, then bowed her head low. ‘I understand, Excellency. I’ll take good care of him.’

  Chung turned back, then went and stood beside the T’ang.

  ‘Chieh Hsia?’ he said, kneeling, bowing his head.

  Li Shai Tung looked up, his eyes bleak, unfocused, his face almost unrecognizable in its grief.

  ‘Chieh Hsia, I…’

  Abruptly, the T’ang stood and pushed roughly past his Chancellor, ignoring him, confronting instead the group of five doctors who were still waiting on the far side of the room.

  ‘Why was I not summoned earlier?’

  The most senior of them stepped forward, bowing. ‘It was felt, Chieh Hsia…’

  ‘Felt?’ The T’ang’s bark of anger took the old man by surprise. Pain and fury had transformed Li Shai Tung. His face glowered. Then he leaned forward and took the man forcibly by the shoulder, throwing him backward.

  He stood over him threateningly. ‘How did she die?’

  The old man glanced up fearfully, then scrambled to his knees again, lowering his head abjectly. ‘It was her age, Chieh Hsia. Forty-two is late to have a child. And then there are the conditions here. They make it dangerous even for a normal labour. Back on Chung Kuo…’

  ‘You incompetent butchers! You murderers! You…’

  Li Shai Tung’s voice failed. He turned and looked back helplessly at his dead wife, his hands trembling, his lips parted in surprise. For a moment longer he stood there, lost in his pain. Then, with a shudder, he turned back, his face suddenly set, controlled.

  ‘Take them away from here, Chung Hu-Yan,’ he said coldly, his eyes filled with loathing. ‘Take them away and have them killed.’

  ‘Chieh Hsia?’ The Chancellor stared at him, astonished. Grief had transformed his master.

  The T’ang’s voice rose in a roar. ‘You heard me, Master Chung! Take them away!’

  The man at his feet began to plead. ‘Chieh Hsia! Surely we might be permitted…’

  He glared at the old man, silencing him, then looked up again. Across from him the others, greybeards all, had fallen to their knees in supplication. Now, unexpectedly, Chung Hu-Yan joined them.

  ‘Chieh Hsia, I beg you to listen. If you have these men killed, the lives of all their kin will be forfeit too. Let them choose an honourable death. Blame them for Lin Yua’s death, yes, but let their families live.’

  Li Shai Tung gave a visible shudder. His voice was soft now, laced with pain. ‘But they killed my wife, Chung. They let Lin Yua die.’

  Chung touched his head to the floor. ‘I know, Chieh Hsia. And for that they will be only too glad to die. But spare their families, I beg you, Chieh Hsia. You owe them that much. After all, they saved your son.’

  ‘My son?’ The T’ang looked up, surprised.

  ‘Yes, Chieh Hsia. You have a son. A second son. A strong, healthy child.’

  Li Shai Tung stood there, frowning fiercely, trying hard to take in this latest, unexpected piece of news. Then, very slowly, his face changed yet again. The pain pushed through his mask of control until it cracked and fell away and he stood there, sobbing bitterly, his teeth clenched in anguish, tears running down his face.

  ‘Go,’ he said finally in a small voice, turning away from them in a gesture of dismissal. ‘Order it as you will, Chung. But go. I must be alone with her now.’

  YANG

  It was dark where they sat, at the edge of the terrace overlooking the park. Behind them the other tables were empty now. Inside, at the back of the restaurant, a single lamp shone dimly. Nearby, four waiters stood in shadow against the wall, silent, in attendance. It was early morning. From the far side of the green came the sounds of youthful laughter; unforced, spontaneous. Above them the night sky seemed filled with stars; a million sharp-etched points of brilliance against the velvet blackness.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ said Wyatt, looking down. ‘You know, sometimes just the sight of it makes me want to cry. Don’t you ever feel that?’

  Lehmann laughed softly, then reached out to touch his friend’s arm. ‘I know…’

  Wyatt let his head tilt back. He was drunk. They were all drunk, or they wouldn’t be speaking like this. It was treason. The sort of thing a man whispered, or kept to himself. Yet it had to be said. Now. Tonight. Before they broke this intimacy and went their own directions.

  He leaned forward, his right hand resting on the table, the fist clenched tightly. ‘And sometimes I feel stifled. Boxed in. There’s an ache in me. Something unfulfilled. A need. And when I look up at the stars I get angry. I think of the waste, the stupidity of it. Trying to keep it all bottled up. What do they think we are? Machines?’ He laughed; a painful laugh, surprised by it all. ‘Can’t they see what they’re doing to us?’

  There was a murmur, of sympathy and agreement.

  ‘They can see,’ said Berdichev, matter-of-factly, stubbing ou
t his cigar, his glasses reflecting the distant image of the stars.

  Wyatt looked at him. ‘Maybe. But sometimes I wonder. You see, it seems to me there’s a whole dimension missing. From my life. From yours, Soren, and yours, Pietr. From everyone’s life. Perhaps the very thing that makes us fully human.’ He leaned forward dangerously on his chair. ‘There’s no place for growth any more – no more white spaces on the map.’

  Lehmann answered him drily. ‘Quite the contrary, Edmund. There’s nothing but white.’

  There was laughter, then, for a short time, silence. The ceiling of the great dome moved imperceptibly, turning about the illusory axis of the north star.

  It had been a good night. They had just returned from the Clay, the primitive, unlit region beneath the City’s floor. Eight days they had been together in that ancient netherworld of rotting brick and savage half-men. Days that had marked each of them in their own way. Returning, they had felt good, but now their mood had changed. When Wyatt next spoke there was real bitterness in his voice.

  ‘They’re killing us all. Slowly. Irreversibly. From the inside out. Their stasis is a kind of poison. It hollows the bones.’

  Lehmann shifted uneasily in his chair. Wyatt turned, then saw his friend’s discomfort and fell silent. The Han waiter came out from the shadows close by, holding a tray before him.

  ‘More ch’a, sirs?’

  Berdichev turned sharply, his face dark with anger. ‘Have you been listening?’

  ‘Sir?’ The Han’s face froze into a rictus of politeness, but Wyatt, watching, saw the fear in his eyes.

  Berdichev climbed to his feet and faced the waiter, leaning over him threateningly, almost a head taller than the Han.

  ‘You heard me clearly, Old Hundred Names. You were listening to our conversation, weren’t you?’

  The waiter lowered his head, stung by the bitterness in Berdichev’s voice. ‘No, honoured sir. I heard nothing.’ His face remained as before, but now his hands trembled, making the bowls rattle on the tray.

  Wyatt stood. ‘Soren, please…’

  Berdichev stood there a moment, scowling at the man, his resentment like something palpable, flowing out across the space between them. Then he turned away, glancing briefly at Wyatt.

  Wyatt looked across at the waiter and nodded. ‘Fill the bowls. Then leave us. Put it all on my bill.’

  The Han bowed, his eyes flashing gratitude at Wyatt, then quickly did as he was asked.

  ‘Fucking chinks!’ Berdichev muttered, once the Han was out of earshot. He leaned forward and picked up his bowl. ‘You have to watch what you say these days, Edmund. Even small Han have big ears.’

  Wyatt watched him a moment, then shrugged. ‘I don’t know. They’re not so bad.’

  Berdichev laughed scornfully. ‘Devious little shit-eaters. That’s what they are.’ He stared out across the green, pulling his silk pau tighter about his neck. ‘I’d rather hand all my companies over to my bitterest rival than have a single one of them in a senior management position.’

  Lehmann sighed and reached out for his bowl. ‘I find them useful enough. In their own way.’

  ‘As servants, yes…’ Berdichev laughed sourly, then finished his ch’a and set the bowl down heavily. ‘You know what they call us behind our backs? Big noses! The cheek of it! Big noses!’

  Wyatt looked at Lehmann and both men laughed. He reached out and touched Berdichev’s nose playfully. ‘Well, it’s true in your case, Soren, isn’t it?’

  Berdichev drew his head back, then smiled, relenting. ‘Maybe… But I’ll be damned if I’ll have the little fuckers taking the piss out of me while they’re drawing from my pocket!’

  ‘But isn’t that true of all men?’ Wyatt insisted, feeling suddenly less drunk. ‘I mean… it’s not just the Han. Our race – the Hung Mao – aren’t most of us like that?’

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ Lehmann said, leaning back, his whole manner poised, indifferent. ‘However, the Han rule this world of ours, and that changes things. It makes even the most vulgar little Han think he’s a T’ang.’

  ‘Fucking true!’ said Berdichev, wiping at his mouth. ‘They’re arrogant little shits, one and all!’

  Wyatt shrugged, unconvinced, then looked from one of his friends to the other. They were harder, stronger men than him. He recognized that. Yet there was something flawed in each of them – some lack of sympathy that marred their natures, fine as they were. He had noted it, down there in the Clay: had seen how they took for granted what he had found horrifying.

  Imagination, he thought. It has to do with imagination. With putting yourself in someone else’s place. Like the waiter, just then. Or like the woman I met, down there, in the awful squalor of the Clay.

  He shivered and looked down at his untouched ch’a. He could still see her. Could see the room where they had kept her. Mary, her name had been. Mary…

  The thought of it chilled his blood. She was still there. There, in the room where he had left her. And who knew which callous bastard would use her next; would choose to beat her senseless, as she had been beaten so often before.

  He saw himself again. Watched as he lifted her face to the light and traced the bruise about her eye with his fingers. Gently, aware of how afraid she was of him. He had slept with her finally, more out of pity than from any sense of lust. Or was that fair? Wasn’t curiosity part of what he’d felt? She’d been so small, her arms so thin, her breasts almost non-existent. And yet pretty, strangely pretty, for all that. Her eyes, particularly, had held some special quality – the memory, perhaps, of something better than this she had fallen into.

  He had been wrong to leave her there. What choice did he have? That was her place, this was his. So it was fated in this world. And yet there must be something he could do.

  ‘What are you thinking, Edmund?’

  He looked up, meeting Lehmann’s eyes. ‘I was thinking about the woman.’

  ‘The woman?’ Berdichev glanced across at him, then laughed. ‘Which one? There were hundreds of the scrawny things!’

  ‘And boys…’

  ‘We won’t forget the boys…’

  He looked away, unable to join their laughter, angry with himself for feeling as he did. Then his anger took a sudden shape and he turned back, leaning across the table.

  ‘Tell me, Soren. If you could have one thing – just one single thing – what would it be?’

  Berdichev stared across the darkened green a while, then turned and looked back at him, his eyes hidden behind the lenses of his glasses. ‘No more Han.’

  Lehmann laughed. ‘That’s quite some wish, Soren.’

  Wyatt turned to him. ‘And you, Pietr? The truth this time. No flippancy.’

  Lehmann leaned back, staring up at the dome’s vast curve above them. ‘That there,’ he said, lifting his arm slowly and pointing. ‘That false image of the sky above us. I’d like to make that real. Just that. To have an open sky above our heads. That and the sight of the stars. Not a grand illusion, manufactured for the few, but the reality of it – for everyone.’

  Berdichev looked up solemnly, nodding. ‘And you, Edmund? What’s the one thing you’d have?’

  Wyatt looked across at Berdichev, then at Lehmann. ‘What would I want?’

  He lifted his untouched bowl and held it cupped between his hands. Then, slowly, deliberately, he turned it upside down, letting the contents spill out across the table’s top.

  ‘Hey!’ said Berdichev, moving backwards sharply. Both he and Lehmann stared at Wyatt, astonished by the sudden hardness in his face, the uncharacteristic violence of the gesture.

  ‘Change,’ Wyatt said defiantly. ‘That’s what I want. Change. That above everything. Even life.’

  PART 6

  A SPRING DAY AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

  SPRING 2196

  ‘A spring day at the edge of the world.

  On the edge of the world once more the day slants.

  The oriole cries, as though it were its own tears
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  Which damp even the topmost blossoms on the tree.’

  —Li Shang-yin, Exile, 9th century AD

  Chapter 26

  FIRE AND ICE

  Flames danced in a glass. Beyond, in the glow of the naked fire, a man’s face smiled tightly.

  ‘Not long now,’ he said, coming closer to the fierce, wavering light. He had delicate, oriental features that were almost feminine; a small, well-shaped nose and wide, dark eyes that caught and held the fire’s light. His jet black hair was fastened in a pigtail then coiled in a tight bun at the back of his head. He wore white, the colour of mourning – a simple one-piece that fitted his small frame loosely.

  A warm night wind blew across the mountainside, making the fire flare up. The coals at its centre glowed intensely. Ash and embers whirled off. Then the wind died and the shadows settled.

  ‘They’ve taken great pains, Kao Jyan.’

  The second man walked back from the darkness where he’d been standing and faced the other across the flames, his hands open, empty. He was a much bigger man, round-shouldered and heavily muscled. His large, bony head was freshly shaven and his whites fitted him tightly. His name was Chen and he had the blunt, nondescript face of a thousand generations of Han peasants.

  Jyan studied his partner momentarily. ‘They’re powerful men,’ he said. ‘They’ve invested much in us. They expect much in return.’

  ‘I understand,’ Chen answered, looking down the moonlit valley towards the City. Then, unexpectedly, he laughed.

  Jyan narrowed his eyes. ‘What is it?’

  ‘See?’ Chen pointed off to his right. ‘There! Up there where the mountains almost touch the clouds.’

  Jyan looked. Thin strands of wispy cloud lay across the moon’s full circle, silvered by its intense light. Beyond, the sky was a rich blue-black. ‘So?’