Ice and Fire: Chung Kuo Series (12 page)

She met his gaze fiercely, almost defiantly, making the blood run thicker, heavier
in his veins. ‘He is my husband and I a dutiful wife. He wished me here, so here I
am.’

DeVore looked down, keeping the smile from his face. He had not been wrong. She had
spirit. He had seen that when he had been watching her; had seen how she looked at
everything with that
curious, almost arrogant stare of hers. She had strength. The strength of twenty Sungs.

He took another step then shook his head. ‘You’re wrong, you know. You’re here because
I said you should be here.’

She did not answer him this time, but stared back at him almost insolently, only a
slight moistening of her lips betraying her nervousness.

‘What’s your name, Sung’s wife?’

She looked away, then looked back at him, as if to say, Don’t toy with me. Do what
you are going to do and let me be.

‘Your name?’ he insisted, his voice harder now.

‘My name is Si Wu Ya,’ she answered proudly.

This time he smiled. Si Wu Ya.
Silk Raven
. He looked at her and understood why her parents had given her the name. Her hair
was beautifully dark and lustrous. ‘Better an honest
raven than a deceitful magpie, eh?’ he said, quoting the old Han adage.

‘What do you want me to do?’

He shook his head. ‘Don’t be impatient, Si Wu Ya. We’ll come to that. But tell me
this – is Sung a good man? Is he good in bed? Does he make you sing out with
pleasure?’

He saw how she bridled at the question, but saw also how the truth forbade her to
say yes. So, Sung was a disappointment. Well, he, DeVore, would make her sing tonight.
Of that he had no doubt.
He took a step towards her, then another, until he stood before her, face to face.

‘Is he hard like bamboo, or soft like a rice frond? Tell me, Si Wu Ya. I’d like to
know.’

For a moment her eyes flared with anger, but then she seemed to laugh deep inside
herself and her eyes changed, their anger replaced by a hard amusement. ‘Don’t mock
me,
Shih
Bergson. I’m here, aren’t I? Do what you want. I’ll be good to you. I’ll be very good.
But don’t mock me.’

He looked back at her a moment, then reached down and took her left hand in his own,
lifting it up to study it. It was a big, strong hand, roughly calloused from field-work,
but she had made an
effort. It was clean and the nails were polished a deep brown.

He met her eyes again. ‘My friends tell me you Han women wear no underclothes. Is
it true?’

In answer she took his hand and placed it between her legs. His fingers met the soft,
masking texture of cloth, but beneath them he could feel her warmth, the firm softness
of her sex.

‘Well?’ she asked, almost smiling now, determined not to be cowed by him.

‘Strip off,’ he said, standing back a pace. ‘I want to see what you look like.’

She shrugged, slipped the one-piece off and kicked off her briefs, then stood there,
her hands at her sides, making no effort to cover her nakedness.

DeVore walked round her, studying her. She was a fine woman, unspoilt by childbirth,
her body hardened by fieldwork. Her breasts were large and firm, her buttocks broad
but not fat. Her legs
were strongly muscled yet still quite shapely, her stomach flat, her shoulders smooth.
He nodded, satisfied. She would have made a good wife for a T’ang, let alone a man
like Sung.

‘Good. Now over there.’

She hesitated, her eyes showing a momentary unease, then she did as she was told,
walking over to the corner where he had indicated. He saw how she looked about her;
how her eyes kept going to
the saddle. As if she knew.

‘What do you want me to do?’

DeVore smiled coldly. He had watched her earlier. Had seen, through the camera’s hidden
eye, how fascinated she had been with the saddle. Had witnessed her puzzlement and
then her shocked
surprise as she realized what it was.

It was a huge thing, almost half a man’s height and the same in length. At first glance
it could be mistaken for an ornately carved stool, its black and white surfaces for
a kind of
sculpture. And in a way it was. Ming craftsmen had made the saddle more than seven
hundred years before, shaping ivory and wood to satisfy the whim of a bored nobleman.

‘Have you seen my saddle?’

She watched him, eyes half-lidded now, and nodded.

‘It was a custom of your people, you know. They would place a saddle in the gateway
to the parental home before the bride and bridegroom entered it.’

She wet her lips. ‘What of it?’

He shrugged. ‘
An
, it was. A saddle.
An
. Almost the same sound as for peace.’

He saw her shiver, yet the room was warm.

‘Have you studied my saddle?’

She nodded briefly.

‘And did it amuse you?’

‘You’re mocking me again,
Shih
Bergson. Is that what you want me to do? To play that game with you?’

He smiled. So she had worked it out. He went across and stood there beside the saddle,
smoothing his hand over its finely polished surfaces. What at first seemed a mere
tangle of black and white
soon resolved itself. Became a man and woman locked in an embrace that was, some said,
unnatural; the man’s head buried between the woman’s legs, the woman’s head between
the
man’s.

He looked across at her, amused. ‘Have you ever done that with Sung?’

She blinked. Then, unexpectedly, she shook her head.

‘Would you like to do that, now, with me?’

He waited, watching her like a hawk watching its prey. Again she hesitated, then she
nodded.

‘You think you’d like it, don’t you?’

This time she looked away, for the first time the faintest colour appearing at her
neck.

Ah
, he thought.
Now I have you. Now I know your weakness. You are dissatisfied with Sung. Perhaps
you’re even thinking what this might lead to. You’ve ambitions, Si Wu Ya.
For all your social conscience you’re a realist. And, worse for you, you enjoy sex.
You want to be made love to. You want the excitement that I’m offering here.

‘Come here.’

He saw how her breathing changed. Her nipples were stiff now and the colour had not
left her neck. Slowly, almost fearful now, she came to him.

He took her hand again, guiding it down within the folds of his
pau
, then heard her gasp as her hand closed on him; saw her eyes go down and look.

DeVore laughed, knowing the drug would last for hours yet – would keep him at this
peak until he had done with her. He leaned closer to her, drawing her nearer with
one hand, his voice
lowering to a whisper.

‘Was he ever this hard, Si Wu Ya? Was he ever this hot?’

Her eyes went to his briefly, the pupils enlarged, then returned to the splendour
she held. Unbidden, she knelt and began to stroke him and kiss him. He put his hands
on her shoulders now,
forcing her to take him in her mouth, her whole body shuddering beneath his touch,
a soft moaning in her throat. Then he pushed her off, roughly, almost brutally and
moved away from her.

She knelt there, her breasts rising and falling violently, her eyes wide, watching
him. Almost. She was almost ready. One more step. One more step and she would be there.

He threw off the
pau
and stood there over her, naked, seeing how eagerly she watched him now. How ready
she was for him to fuck her. With one foot he pushed her back, then knelt and
spread her legs, watching her all the while, one hand moving between her legs, seeing
how her eyes closed, how her breath caught with the pleasure of it.

‘Gods,’ she moaned, reaching up for him. ‘Goddess of mercy, put it there! Please,
Shih
Bergson! Please put it there!’

His fingers traced a line from her groin up to her chin, forcing her to look back
at him.

‘Not like this,’ he said, putting her hands on him again. ‘I know a better way.’

Quickly he led her to the saddle, pushing her face down onto its hard smooth surface,
his hands caressing her intimately all the while, keeping her mind dark, her senses
inflamed. Then, before
she realized what was happening, he fastened her in the double stirrups, binding her
hands and feet.

He stood back, looking at his handiwork, then crossed to the wall and switched off
all the lights but one – the spot that picked out her naked rump.

She was shaking now. He could see the small movement of the muscles at the top of
her legs. ‘What’s happening?’ she asked in a tiny, sobered voice. ‘What are you
doing?’

He went over to her and placed his hand on the small of her back, running his fingers
down the smooth channel that ended in the tight hole of her anus, feeling her shudder
at his touch.

Pleasure or fear? he wondered. Did she still believe it would all turn out all right?

The thought almost made him laugh. She had mistaken him. She had thought he wanted
ordinary satisfactions.

He reached beneath the saddle and dipped his fingers in the shelf of scented unguents,
then began to smear them delicately about the tiny hole, pushing inward, the unguents
working their magic
spell, making the muscles relax.

He felt her breathing change again, anticipating pleasure; knew, without looking,
that she would have been newly aroused by his ministrations; that her nipples would
be stiff, her eyes wide with
expectation.

He reached under the saddle a second time and drew out the steel-tipped phallus that
was attached by a chain to the pommel. The chain was just long enough. Longer and
there would not be that
invigorating downward pull – that feeling of restraint – shorter and penetration would
not be deep enough to satisfy. He smiled, holding the hollowed column lovingly between
his hands
and smoothing his fingers over the spiralling pattern of the
wu-tu
, the ‘five noxious creatures’ – toad, scorpion, snake, centipede and gecko – then
drew it on,
easing himself into its oiled soft-leather innards and fastening its leather straps
about his waist.

For a moment he hesitated, savouring the moment, then centred the metal spike and
pushed. His first thrust took her by surprise. He felt her whole body stiffen in shock,
but though she gasped,
she did not cry out.

Brave girl,
he thought,
but that’s not what you’re here for. You’re not here to be brave. You’re here to sing
for me
.

The second thrust tore her. He felt the skin between her anus and vagina give like
tissue and heard her cry out in agony.

‘Good,’ he said, laughing brutally. ‘That’s good. Sing out, Si Wu Ya! It’s good to
hear you sing out!’

He thrust again.

When he was done he unstrapped himself, then took one of the white sheets from the
side and threw it over her, watching as the blood spread out from the centre of the
white; a doubled circle of
redness that slowly formed into an ellipse.

Hearing her moan, he went round and knelt beside her, lifting her face gently, almost
tenderly, and kissing her brow, her nose, her lips.

‘Was that good, Si Wu Ya? Was it hard enough for you?’ He laughed softly, almost lovingly.
‘Ah, but you were good, Si Wu Ya. The best yet. And for that you’ll have your
tape. But later, neh? In the morning. We’ve a whole night ahead of us. Plenty of time
to play our game again.’

Sung was kneeling on the top of the dyke, staring across at the House as the dawn
broke. He was cold to the bone and his clothes were wet through, but still he knelt
there,
waiting.

He had heard her cries in the night. Had heard and felt his heart break inside his
chest. Had dropped his head, knowing, at last, how small he was, how powerless.

Now, as the light leached back into the world, he saw the door open at the head of
the steps and a figure appear.

‘Si Wu Ya
…
’
he mouthed, his lips dry, his heart, which had seemed dead in him, pounding in his
chest. He went to get up but his legs were numb from kneeling and he
had to put his hand out to stop himself from tumbling into the water far below. But
his eyes never left her distant, shadowed figure, seeing at once how slowly she moved,
how awkwardly, hobbling
down the steps one by one, stopping time and again to rest, her whole body crooked,
one hand clutching the side rail tightly, as if she’d fall without it.

He dragged himself back, anxious now, and began to pound the life back into his legs.
Once more he tried to stand and fell back, cursing, almost whimpering now in his fear
for her. ‘Si Wu
Ya,’ he moaned, ‘Si Wu Ya.’

Once more he tried to stand, gritting his teeth, willing his muscles to obey him.
For one moment he almost fell again, then he thrust one leg forward, finding his balance.

‘
Si Wu Ya
…’ he hissed.

Forcing his useless legs to work, he made his way to the bridge, awkwardly at first,
hobbling, as if in some grotesque mimicry of his wife, then with more confidence as
the blood began to flow,
his muscles come alive again.

Then, suddenly, he was running, his arms flailing wildly, his bare feet thudding against
the dark earth. Until he was standing there, before her, great waves of pain and fear,
hurt and anger
washing through him like a huge black tide.

He moaned, his voice an animal cry of pain. ‘What did he do, Si Wu Ya? Gods save us,
what did he do?’

She stared back at him almost sightlessly.

‘Your face…’ he began, then realized that her face was unmarked. The darkness was
behind her eyes. The sight of it made him whimper like a child and fall to his knees
again.

Slowly, each movement a vast, unexplored continent of pain, she pushed out from the
steps and hobbled past him. He scrambled up and made to help her but she brushed him
off, saying nothing,
letting the cold emptiness of her face speak for her.

On the narrow bridge he stood in front of her again, blocking her way, looking back
past her at the House.