The Path (9 page)

MacLeod found the thought of royal spies was, in an odd way, comforting. He had been in courts around the world, been friend,
advisor—and sometimes lover—to all manner of nobility. All of them had an intelligence system, a means of keeping their ears
and eyes on the actions of their people. How else could they rule effectively?

It seemed the Dalai Lama, at least in this respect, was no different.
It made Duncan feel that he had a better idea of what he was dealing with now and how to act accordingly.

They reached the room Duncan had come to think of as the audience chamber. Without another word, the young monk bowed and
turned away. Duncan watched him go. Their conversation had only firmed his resolve to make certain the Dalai Lama was told
the truth about the Jesuits. He might know his people visited them, but that did not mean he understood their zeal for conversion
or the havoc their condemnation could incur.

Duncan knocked once on the door and then entered. As always, the Dalai Lama sat on his cushion, smiling serenely.

“Come in, Duncan MacLeod,” he called his customary greeting. “Come and sit so we may talk.”

As Duncan moved to obey, he wondered how to keep the conversation off his past travels and bring up the subject of the missionaries.
For once, however, the Dalai Lama had no questions about foreign lands.

“You went down into my city today, I hear,” the young man said. “Was your visit enjoyable?”

“Much of it was, Your Holiness,” Duncan replied. “But not all.”

“Tell me, Duncan MacLeod, what troubled you. Were my people unkind?”

“Oh, no, Your Holiness, it was not your people.” Duncan stopped and took a deep breath, then plunged ahead. “I met Father
Edward today.”

“Ah, one of the missionaries,” the Dalai Lama said with a nod. “But why does he trouble you, Duncan MacLeod?”

“Because I have known others like him and have seen what their presence can do. You should banish them from your city, Your
Holiness.”

“No, Duncan MacLeod.”

“But do you know what their purpose is?” Duncan could hear his voice becoming gruff, his tone curt as he tried to find the
words that would make this young man listen to what experience had taught him. The price of those lessons was something MacLeod
did not want to see the Tibetan people have to pay.

“Do you know that your people visit the priests?” he asked more softly.

“Of course my people visit them,” the Dalai Lama replied with a smile, his eyes calm and unperturbed. “How else may compassion
be shown? I know that these missionaries have come here to speak the words of their God to my people. We do not fear their
words. The Compassionate Buddha taught that all words of truth, whoever speaks them, are the words of Buddha. Let your mind
be at peace about these missionaries, Duncan MacLeod. They will bring no harm to my people.”

Duncan wished he could believe it. There was more, much more, he wanted to say, but he recognized the tone of royal command.
Father Edward and his intentions were a closed subject. Since he was a visitor to this city, Duncan would accept the Dalai
Lama’s wishes, but he would also watch carefully. If his fears were indeed groundless, he would say nothing more—but if Father
Edward or the others did anything that might harm the people of Lhasa, Duncan would not be so easily silenced again.

MacLeod cleared his throat. There was another question he still wished to pursue.

“Your Holiness,” he began, keeping his tone respectful, even humble, as past experience with royalty had taught him to do.
“Why did you invite me to stay here?”

The Dalai Lama put down the bowl from which he had been drinking and turned toward Duncan, looking at him in silence. As on
the occasion of their first meeting, Duncan felt as in the young man’s gaze plumbed the depths of his soul, both reading the
secrets hidden there and inviting Duncan to freely speak of them. It was an unsettling feeling, but odder still to see eyes
suddenly filled with such ancient awareness in such an inexperienced, unmarked face.

“Are you unhappy here, Duncan MacLeod?” the Dalai Lama asked. “Is there something more needed for your comfort?”

“No, Your Holiness. I am most happy here, and you have been very kind, but I know that you did not invite the missionaries
to live in the Potala when they were strangers in your city.”

“That is true.” The Dalai Lama again nodded, his voice remaining patient and undisturbed. “When they came to the
Potala and asked if they could live in my city, their eyes said they found no beauty here. They have room in their hearts
for no words but their own. So why waste the words of invitation? Your eyes said you needed to be here, and so you are. The
Wheel spins and brings all to where it should be.”

Duncan felt the conversation slipping away from him. It was not a sensation he particularly enjoyed. There were things he
needed to understand—perhaps for his own peace of mind, perhaps only to impose the familiarity of Western logic on the evasive
explanations of Eastern thought. In an effort to once more gain control, he tried another question.

“On the road outside Lhasa, why did you stop to talk to me?”

The young man seated next to him, cocked his head to one side, and smiled. “Every soul, Duncan MacLeod, has its own aura and
yours is very strong. I felt it reaching out to me as we approached, so I stopped. I found that your aura is also wounded
and in need of rest. You are here to rest and, I think, to heal.

“Now, Duncan MacLeod, what part of your travels shall we speak of today?”

There was no mistaking the tone of finality in the young man’s voice. Once again, MacLeod was reminded that in spite of the
Dalai Lama’s apparent youth, he was the leader of his country. MacLeod knew he would receive no more information, and no explanation
of the meaning behind the Dalai Lama’s words. They raised more questions than they answered and perhaps, Duncan realized,
that was exactly what was intended.

Aye
, he thought,
he’s a crafty young fox. He knows that sooner or later I’ll have to ask him to explain
.

Two hours later, Duncan took his leave of the Dalai Lama. After the door had shut behind him, the young man folded his hands
and closed his eyes. He let the silence of the room envelop him with its peace.

I said you have a strong aura, Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod
, he thought into the silence,
and today in your agitation, it boiled around you, filling this room like a fire. I know you were angry that I would not let
you speak your words against the missionaries. You fear for my people—but I fear for
you. You carry so much pain. I could not let you speak and give it more strength, more power over your soul. You must let
go of your pain and your anger. They are passing. They are insubstantial
.

The Dalai Lama opened his eyes and stared at the tapestry on the wall across from him. There was no Buddha figure in this
one, no figures of fierce or compassionate deities, no saints or monks or Bodhi tree; no obvious symbols of Enlightenment.
But this tapestry was Enlightenment itself. It was of the Kalachakra Mandala, the Wheel that is Time. During his fifth incarnation,
the Dalai Lama had it hung in this room where so many came to him for counsel, to remind himself that all existence is fleeting;
it was one of his most clear memories from that life. The reminder was often indispensable to his peace, for it helped ease
the burden he too often felt as he opened his heart to compassion for those who came to him. And somehow the Dalai Lama felt
that helping Duncan MacLeod was going to be both his greatest challenge and greatest necessity.

As the Dalai Lama stared at the tapestry, at the brightly colored designs flowing clockwise, his thoughts again returned to
the
age
he felt surrounding MacLeod. It puzzled him. An old soul that had seen many other lifetimes, perhaps, but that was not the
only answer. It was too simple—and the Dalai Lama knew there was nothing simple about Duncan MacLeod.

Tomorrow, my friend
, the Dalai Lama thought,
tomorrow, I think, we will cease this game we have been playing. Tomorrow we begin to walk the path of deeper truth. Are you
ready? The only way to walk that path is to release your secrets and the pain they cause you
.

But what is a man except his secrets—and his pain?

Down in the city of Lhasa, the man known as Father Edward was also thinking about Duncan MacLeod. The other Europeans in the
city—his companion, Father Jacques, the three Capuchin Brothers—posed no threat, but MacLeod worried him.

The way he carries himself he must be a soldier, maybe a mercenary
, Father Edward thought as he wandered through the rooms of the house that served as both home and church, tugging with irritation
at the stiff white collar around his throat. He
hated it, just as he hated the European clothes and the long black cassock he was forced to wear.

He wanted to be back m uniform again, riding beside the invincible Nasiradeen, leader of the Gurkhas; he wanted to be sword
in hand against the foe, any foe. Instead he was stuck here, pretending to be a priest because he had been educated by European
missionaries. He spoke their language and knew the things they said about their God.

He had hated the missionaries and their school when he was a child, and he hated them now. He smiled into the silence as he
remembered the real Father Edward. How easy it had been to walk up to him, speaking a greeting in his own language. How the
priest had smiled a welcome—a smile that turned to a scream when the sword pierced his heart.

That sword, the one that had killed the priest, the spy had had to leave behind when he assumed Father Edward’s identity.
He missed his weapon, but its discovery would have been a threat to his mission. Soon he would find another one, or something
that would serve, and he would use this identity he had assumed to get within striking distance of the Dalai Lama. He, too,
would soon fall by Edward’s hand.

Nasiradeen, himself, had been pleased by this plan. The Gurkah leader wanted Tibet; he wanted to rule this city as he wanted
few other things, and if it could be delivered to him, the rewards would be well worth the current discomfort.

This thought brought the false priest’s mind back to MacLeod. What was he doing here?
Are you a scout for some advancing army?
he wondered,
Or a fortune hunter on your own? What is your secret, Duncan MacLeod? Whoever you are, I will not let you stop me
.

The other Jesuit, Father Jacques, was already in bed. He would be up before dawn, full of energy and ready for the day ahead.
But the Nepalese man he knew as Father Edward preferred the night. The darkness and the silence set his mind free and gave
him solitude for his real work.

He walked out into the little courtyard behind the house where rows of birdcages had been built. The Tibetans who visited
here thought this was an amusing hobby, but it was much, much more. It was communication and contact with his real
people and purpose. It had been an easy communication line to establish, effective in its simplicity.

The cages contained pigeons. They had traveled here amid Father Edward’s belongings, but were trained to return to their cages
in Nepal, to the great temple in Kathmandu. Their counterparts had been bought here in Tibet, trained to these cages in Lhasa,
then sent to Nepal with a traveling merchant. The birds gave Nasiradeen the eye into Tibet he craved and gave Edward a way
to please his master; he took very good care of them.

The pigeons cooed a gentle greeting as Edward reached behind for the paper and writing stylus he kept hidden there. A few
quick lines and he was ready. He carefully folded the scrap of paper and placed it inside a metal ring that would soon grace
a pigeon’s leg. Then he opened one of the cages.

The bird he chose was a fine black male with a silver ruff around his neck. Father Edward put the ring on his leg, then stroked
his back gently.

“Fly well, my beauty,” he whispered, “and when you reach your destination there will be a special treat. Before long we’ll
both have our rewards.”

The next morning Duncan rose early, before the first light of dawn appeared in the narrow window of his room. He had not slept
well, and his mind was even more restless than his body, still filled with foreboding about the priests’ presence in Lhasa.

Duncan had seen too much. He had lived through the Reformation and Counter-Reformation movements in Europe; he had seen the
anger, hatred and betrayal they caused. He had both seen and heard tales of the Church’s ventures into other lands, other
cultures; and where the Church went, fortune hunters and soldiers were never far behind.

His thoughts flew back to his nomad friends and the way they had welcomed him into their tents and their lives. These were
true innocents—and if the greed of the West came here, innocence would not survive.

Perhaps the warlords were right in banning Westerners from Japan
, Duncan thought for the first time. He still could not forgive the law for causing the death of Hideo Koto, but in the stillness
of the Tibetan dawn, he could for the first time understand it.