The Pirate Empress (6 page)

“Are you done?” he asked when she had sniffed her final sobs. He patted her hand and sighed. “Your tears are for Jasmine, I know. Forget her. She’s dead, as dead as Ju Jong is now. Take comfort in the fact that they will never again be tormented by the fox faerie.”

“How did she kill her?” Li asked quietly.

“I don’t know. I only know that one day Jasmine was your aunt and the next she wasn’t.”

Li gulped and sipped the water that Tao brought to her in a ceramic cup. “Why did she do that to Ju Jong?”

“He was a danger to her.”

“But he was so meek. He was harmless.”

“She couldn’t win him over. There was always the possibility that she’d lose control of His Majesty for a split second, that he might listen to his life-long financial advisor. The city’s coffers are all but empty because of the wanton spending in order to impress the foreign invaders. Starvation is not far from the door, but you wouldn’t know that living in the palace. The grand secretary was trying to keep the Empire economically intact.”

“But if she bewitched His Majesty, couldn’t she bewitch Ju Jong, too?” Jasmine’s power was far-reaching, and Li remembered too well Lieutenant He Zhu’s adulation of her aunt.

“Ju Jong was a eunuch. She had no power over him.”

“That’s why she has no power over you either!”

“You understand. Her power is in the bedchamber. That’s how she binds men to her will and feeds on them.”

Li inhaled, exhaled shakily. “Master Yun says I must leave the palace.”

Tao touched her hand. “He’s right. Jasmine has her eye on you and I don’t like the look on her face while she watches.”

“Where will I go? When can I leave?”

“Where you go is up to Master Yun.
When
you go depends on His Majesty. You are not quite ready to be a warrior, Li. You need to master weaponry. But you’re as strong a girl as any of the boys you’ve been training with. You can help to build a wall.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Fox Faerie

Ever since she had bound the Emperor’s heart and body to her side, the other palace women avoided her, and that included her erstwhile niece. In front of a polished silver mirror, Jasmine admired her reflection—very pretty, indeed—before she transformed into the fox.

Slipping out of the open window into Lotus Lily’s courtyard, she leaped over the lily pond, onto the arched bridge and up over the stone wall. The city folk noticed nothing amiss about the fleet-footed fox sailing along their streets, dodging houses and sheds, chickens and pigs, and carts loaded with vegetables. She headed for the outskirts of town across the fields and parklands to the north, over the streams and lotus-filled lakes, past the pagodas and villas and temples, and beyond the clustered ramshackle settlements of the poor.

The terrain was mountainous and she flew on all fours, swallowing ground, sending dust flying. She forged through the scrubby land until she reached the earth rampart that was eroding away. From there, she scoured the scene. Swathed in yellow mist, the familiar range of Black Mountains snaked, rolling in sharp peaks and valleys like a dragon that had fallen from the sky. Below the next ridge, several miles away in a shallow vale, she sighted the warlord’s encampment. The haunting tune of a barbarian’s flute pricked her ears. Clustered beneath the shadow of the foothills, the felt tents of the tribe ranged against a reed-filled lake. She followed the melodic notes of the flute into the camp.

She sniffed, listened outside the wolf-skin door, and then slipped into the tent. The golden fox alighted with barely a click of nails on the hard earth floor. Her glittering stare transformed from those of a beast to the sultry kohl-lined gaze of the concubine.

“Hello, Esen,” she said, standing before him in her woman form and shaking out the folds to her snowy white gown. The startled man was seated cross-legged on his sleeping furs, a young, naked girl performing oral sex in his lap. “Is this a bad time?”

The warlord rose, dumping his lover onto the floor. The girl scrambled to dress and he hustled her out, all the time making assurances that it was the bladder of rice wine she had drunk and not a fox faerie she was seeing. The interior of the tent was opulently graced with brocaded cushions and pillows pilfered from the Chinese; the felt walls were lined with hangings of colourful satin. The silk robe covering the fleeing girl was one of China’s finest. Jasmine shook her black hair, the mirth bubbling to get out. “So, my lord, this is how you entertain yourself while I’m at the Chinese court?”

The Mongol scowled, dressed roughly, not caring what she saw. “I want that girl—Lotus Lily. Why have you not brought her to me?”

“I came to tell you that you have nothing to worry about concerning the prophecy. Lotus Lily is still a virgin, and I see nothing in the offing for her in the way of a man. I will bring her to you when the time is right. Stop with these petty raids, Esen, you are wasting men and arms. The time will come when you will need all of your forces. You cannot demand an invitation to the Forbidden City, and even if you were successful in gaining an audience with the Emperor, you couldn’t kidnap Lotus Lily. Something protects her there. But I feel that force weakening, and when the opportunity arises, I’ll bring her to you. Now go. Pack up your camp and move it farther away from the capital. Your presence here makes Captain Chi Quan nervous.”

“A nervous captain is a captain under my control.”

“Do you want the girl or not?” Jasmine demanded.

Esen allowed a smile to erase his scowl.

“So, where is your pretty little brother?” she asked, changing the subject.

He went to the door of his tent and shouted, “Altan! Get in here.”

A lean copper-skinned warrior entered the tent wearing a single black pigtail and a leather falconer’s glove on his left hand. He bowed mockingly as he addressed her. “You have news?”

“I came to tell your brother to prepare for war, but first he must move his camp.”

The warlord cracked a smile as he winked at his younger sib, and then he threw wide his tent furs to step outside. He strode out into the afternoon sun while Altan remained behind, and Jasmine pinned the elder with a dark gaze. The oaf was strutting his stuff like one of his roosters, voice blaring like a Chinese trumpet, summoning all to prepare to move.

Amused, she turned to his baby brother who was watching her with lustful eyes. “You play with dragonfire,” she whispered, and inhaled deeply, before leaping on him like an animal in heat.

%%%

This time, Captain Chi Quan had no intention of announcing his arrival on Mongol turf with the rattle of drums or an army of hundreds of thousands. He needed only a small detachment, but to beat the Mongols at their own game, he would have to fight dirty.

Three days after Esen’s raid on Xuanfu, Quan was ordered by His Majesty to lead four thousand handpicked horsemen on a two-day ride into the western plains as far as Red Salt Lake on the edge of the Ordos Desert. No nomadic warriors blocked their arrival; Quan saw only a settlement of felt tents where Mongol women innocently fetched water, washed clothes, cooked, minded livestock and processed hides, meat and milk—totally unaware of the menace stalking them.

Zhu nocked an arrow; Quan raised a hand to stop him. Too late, the arrow flew into the camp and killed an old woman carrying a bladder of water. All four thousand horsemen took Zhu’s shot to be the signal for attack, and because only a small force of guards had remained to protect the settlement, they were soon overcome. None of the camp stood a chance, and no one—old, young, woman or child—escaped the wrath of the Emperor. The Mongols’ tents lined the lake, blocking escape by water. Hundreds were killed. The tents were looted and burned. Their camels, horses, cattle and sheep were captured as booty. The ground ran liquid with blood beneath the red wheel of the sun. The soldiers swarmed over the camp like beetles and then were replaced by crows. Stripped flesh from human bones hung in the brittle branches of trees.

When word reached the Mongol warriors in the south, they rushed home to their womenfolk only to be ambushed. Arrows flew and blades clashed, and those who escaped the Emperor’s vengeance fled north. It was now October. The wind howled and temperatures dropped to freezing. Robbed of shelter, food and weapons in a land where winter came early, Esen’s barbarians were finally crushed. The annihilation of the Mongol settlement had taken several weeks and had strayed horribly from Quan’s original plan; and although he was mortified by the massacre of women and children and elderly, the end result was just. A stop to the Mongol raids. The remaining barbarians would starve.

He Zhu was triumphant as they returned to Beijing. When His Majesty learned of their victory, the lieutenant was hailed as a hero. Now, was the time to build walls: with the Mongol terror at bay they had the freedom to link the ramparts from the mountain passes of Jiayuguan in the west to the Yellow Sea in the east. To Quan’s surprise, His Majesty agreed. He was tired of barbarians and wanted, once and for all, to keep them out.

%%%

Master Yun looked up as a golden fox hurled itself across the Koi Gardens onto the curved red roof of his temple. Should he trap her like the beast she was? She was fast, faster than any creature he knew, and smarter.

“Jasmine,” he said. “What game is this that you play? Do not pretend that you are faithful to the Emperor when I know you belong to Esen. Why didn’t you warn your Mongol master of Chi Quan’s ambush?”

The fox flitted her tail, lifted her regal head and wrinkled her nose at him. With the death of thousands of Mongols and peacetime here, his power waned. He must hide the extent of his weakness. A flash of gold leaped off the red-curled roof and slipped inside the temple door. Master Yun rose. The Koi Temple was sacred; the fox was the fish’s enemy. She had no power in the vicinity of the Jade Fountain.

He walked to the temple and went inside. What he saw by the fountain nearly gagged him. He was wrong about her abilities; the fox had transmuted into a beautiful, fair-skinned woman, eyes sparkling.

“Master Yun,” she said, bowing mockingly. She swayed her provocative hips, swishing the white satin of her skirt, and stroked her ebony hair across her bare breasts as she moved. She leaned up against his chest until the scent of jasmine blossoms teased his nose, before sweeping back her hair to expose a duo of pale, ginger-tipped breasts.

He closed his nostrils to her perfume; shut the vision of her beauty from his eyes, though his eyelids remained open. The touch of her skin, soft like silk, had no effect on him.

“You’re wasting your time,” he said. “To me you are only the essence of evil.”

Jasmine wet her lips with her tongue. “There was a period when I was not wasting my time.”

“Those days are gone, Jasmine. You are not a woman. You’re a wicked spirit.”

“And you,” she said, still swishing her gown seductively. “You are nothing to me. You’ll be less than nothing before I’m through.”

Master Yun followed her every movement with his eyes. She had come from the direction of the Black Mountains, from Esen’s camp.

“So that’s your plan,” he said. “You let Quan’s warriors win this round in order to weaken me.”

“I never could put one over on you, could I, old man?”

“Why do you want the girl?”

Her scarlet lips quirked, and she shrugged, never lifting her gaze from him.

“You would incite the wrath of the barbarians and bring China to her knees,” he said.

“Something like that.”

“It’s a dangerous game you play,” Master Yun warned.

“I exist for no other reason, Warlock. I came to see what protects Lotus Lily. Now I see that you really are
just
an old man.”

She hissed and became the fox, leaped onto his chest as he threw up his hands to shield his face, but too slow to ward her off. As she tore at his throat, he called on the power of the Jade Fountain to rise. The trickle of water that fell from the rock escalated to a spray, and the forces that move the water in the earth shot forward and washed the fox from him. It was all Master Yun could do to haul himself upright from the floor; the effort to defend himself had sapped all of his energy. The time for battles had ended. Indeed, peace had come. He was weak.

The cold air slowed the bleeding and soon it would stop. He staggered to the temple entrance, clutching his neck, and hugged one of its yellow pillars. Another second’s delay and he would have died. He gasped for air and felt the saliva dribble at the corner of his mouth as he watched the golden fox escape and sail across the parkland toward the palace. It was worse than he feared; Jasmine’s strength was growing swiftly. Even she didn’t know how powerful she was. He had to get Lotus Lily out of the Forbidden City.

%%%

Today was the big day. Where was Master Yun? He was always at the exercise yard first. Li rubbed her hands together to fend off the bite of the February wind and squinted in the direction of the Koi Gardens. She inhaled and closed her eyes, practising
Chi
. To be as good at the martial arts as she was, one had to exercise control. Only rigid control was preventing her from succumbing to the anxiety in her mind or to the cold air that could paralyse her body. “Practice your form like you were sparring and spar like it was a form,” she murmured to herself. “Master your breath.”

Li repeated several simple movements until she began to feel warm, and after she completed a few more stances Master Yun walked into the yard with a dark look on his face, and a white bandage wound around his neck. All of the boys lined up in formation and began to imitate the exercises that the master performed. White uniforms flashed in the morning sun as each practiced sublime discipline. He nodded at her but warned her to keep silent.

After what she had witnessed—the horrendous torture of Ju Jong—Li was desperate to escape her Imperial prison. Although the grand secretary was two months dead, his screams sliced like a knife into her memory.

Not yet, his expression said. She forced herself to be patient, but all the time she practiced she thought of nothing except for one question: What had happened to his neck?

Master Yun stood on one leg, the other bent to his knee. His hands rose over his head, steepled like the snow-dusted mountain to the north. He moved smoothly, then paused, and Li turned to see what had caught his eye.

Captain Chi Quan was heading up the path with Lieutenant He Zhu and several other soldiers dressed in furred caps and boots. They entered the exercise yard and studied the thousand plus boys practising in the cold. Master Yun went to meet them and they spoke, then they came toward the students and Master Yun requested their attention. Everyone stopped to listen, and at Master Yun’s nod, Quan stepped forward and cleared the phlegm from his throat.

“I know you young men are training to be warriors,” he said, the fur of his cap quivering in the wind. “You weren’t expecting to leave the city until well after winter. Some of you will be sent to the garrisons at Guyuan, Yulin and Shanxi. Others will come with me to Datong after the New Year to begin the building of the border walls. The draw will take place in one hour, after practice.”

Five thousand men were needed to build the portion of the wall that linked the Datong garrison to the border town of Xuanfu and Xuanfu to the mountain pass at Shanhaiguan. Half of her classmates, including herself, were picked to go to Datong with Captain Chi Quan. Over the next few weeks, the remainder of the workers would be recruited from villages along the existing embankment. The wall would consist of seventy-two walled forts complete with signal towers.