The Pirate Empress (9 page)

“You take a step down there and you’re on Mongol turf,” he warned.

“I know,” she replied. “But His Majesty will have my head. Not only am I no longer a virgin, but I am also a murderer. I’m also a girl masquerading as a boy. How do you think the Emperor will feel about one of his concubines orchestrating such a deception just to escape him?”

“I won’t turn you in.”

“You have to. If you don’t, Lieutenant He Zhu will do it for you. I’ll take my chances with the barbarians.”

Quan shook his head. “You have no food, no water and no weapon. What are you thinking, Li? Sometimes you have as much sense as a clay brick.”

She glared at him before fixing her gaze below the brambled rampart to the grasslands beyond. “Watch what you say, Captain. I have already killed a man for saying that.”

CHAPTER TEN

The Warlord’s Captive

Captain Chi Quan was taking no chances and escorted Li back to camp, warning her to be extra vigilant; no one else must discover that she was a girl. He packed his saddlebags and bridled his horse.

“Where are you going?” she demanded.

“Back to the Forbidden City to talk to Master Yun,” Quan replied.

“You weren’t supposed to know about me. He’ll be angry.”

“He should have told me who you were before he sent you to me. He wants me to protect you? But what does he want me to protect you from? Even you don’t seem to know.”

Li grabbed the reins from Quan’s hand. “He wants you to protect me from Jasmine.”

“Jasmine? Your aunt?” His brow arched before lowering into a frown. “Your aunt has changed.”

“Yes, and she wants me dead. But Master Yun won’t tell me why.”

“Then I’ll find out. Stay here. You’ll be safe as long as you keep to yourself. Work hard. Don’t speak unless spoken to and don’t cause any trouble. Try really hard not to draw attention to yourself, and keep your eyes down and your mouth shut. And for heaven’s sake, do not, whatever you do, go down to the river to bathe. Do you understand?”

Quan took the reins from her, but she was afraid to release them. She glanced at the men on the worksite, busying themselves with bricks and mortar, before deepening her voice. “Lieutenant He Zhu is not himself either.”

With Zhu’s suspicions rising, it was difficult to abandon Li. She was vulnerable but she was tough, and he had to trust that she would be safe until he returned. He mounted his horse, reared it until it circled, waved to her, then dug in his heels and the loyal steed galloped east toward Beijing as it started to rain. Over the countryside, he flew as fast as his horse could run, but by the time they reached the city, horse and rider were thoroughly drenched. The rain stopped and chickens and pigs scattered to give way, and he aimed his horse straight for the Koi Gardens. But when he arrived, Master Yun was nowhere to be found. Within the palace gates he left his horse at the stables. In the public square all was chaos, and despite the inclement weather horses were saddled and ready to travel, and a covered palanquin rigged to two steeds glistened with raindrops.

Inside the great hall, Military Governor Zheng Min’s heels resounded over the stone floor as he paced the room, waiting for His Majesty’s summons. Quan grabbed his arm and swung him to face him oblivious to the rainwater he was dripping all over the floor. “What’s going on?” he demanded. “The place is in an uproar.”

“His Majesty is in a rage,” Zheng Min answered. “One of his concubines is missing.”

Quan controlled the muscles in his face to make them expressionless while Zheng Min continued his diatribe, “It was the young girl, Lotus Lily. She’s run away. His Royal Highness requested her a fortnight ago, and when the eunuch went to fetch her, she was gone.”

A fortnight? Li had been with him for months and the Emperor had only recently noticed her missing? What was Jasmine’s plan? Why hadn’t she alerted His Majesty sooner? No doubt she would have noticed Lotus Lily’s absence from court; so if she wanted the girl, wouldn’t she have instantly deployed an Imperial search party?

“And that’s not the worst of it,” Zheng Min continued. “At first the Emperor was willing to let the runaway go, but it’s been revealed that the girl is not a concubine at all. Yesterday, I squeezed the truth out of the eunuch Tao. The girl is actually His Majesty’s daughter by Ling She.”

Although only a young boy when the scandal broke, Quan, like all peasant children, knew the tale of the condemned baby princess. As his chest heaved, Quan realized he had stopped breathing. He forced the air out of his lungs and managed to gasp. “Li—I mean Lotus Lily is His Majesty’s daughter? But he had mother and child executed after the birth!”

“The infant was rescued by her traitorous tutor and a reward is offered for anyone who returns Lotus Lily to her father.”

Zheng Min turned to go as a nervous eunuch beckoned to him from the massive arched doorway. Quan removed his wet mantle, followed, but the military governor shook him off. “Where do you think you’re going? We don’t need you. His Majesty wants you at the wall.”

“The walls are fine. We’ve not seen a peep out of the Mongols since we devastated their camp.” Quan was careful to use the pronoun ‘we,’ even though Zheng Min was nowhere near the Mongol camp when the Ming cavalry attacked the barbarians on the edge of the Ordos desert. Rather touchy when it came to the military governor’s lack of combat experience, it was best not to point this out.

Past the Lion Dog statues, the Emperor was seated on his throne, flanked by twin yellow pillars. Face obscured by cupped hands, he was enraged by the eunuch’s treason and the princess’s escape. He dropped his hands at the sound of footsteps, and glanced briefly at the emerald-glazed tiles patterned like fish scales across the vaulted ceiling before favouring them with his attention. Quan scanned the room; saw no sign of Jasmine, which was good, because without her hovering over the Emperor’s shoulder, he was free to speak.

“Majesty.” He bowed, painfully aware that he reeked of sweat mixed with horse, dust, and rain. “You seek the girl Lotus Lily.”

“She’s been living here under my nose all this time, and now she’s run away. The affront is unforgivable. All involved in the treachery have been punished.”

Quan’s throat was dry for he wished to ask after Li’s personal tutor, Tao, whom he knew Li loved very much. “All, Majesty?”

“All but Jasmine, who has been forever faithful.”

“What would you have us do, sire?” the military governor cut in. “Speak and it will be done.”

“Find her,” the Emperor said, slamming a fist onto his thigh, the sleeve of his Imperial yellow robe flapping like a crane’s wing as his curled fingernails raked the silk of his lap. “I want to see this daughter of mine. The officer who returns her to me will have her as his bride.”

%%%

Lotus Lily was no longer a virgin. That meant she could be pregnant.

“
Could
be,” Jasmine said.

“Don’t you know?” Esen demanded. “I thought you faerie spirits knew everything.”

“The tealeaves don’t tell all.”

“But they told you she was bedded by a man?”

“No. For that I needed no tealeaves. Fox faeries thrive on all things sexual. You know that, Esen. I could feel it, sense it. I knew the moment she ceased to be pure.”

“Then why don’t you know who the father is?”

“We don’t know yet that there
is
a father.”

“Why can’t you tell if there’s a child?”

Jasmine sighed. He sounded like a whiny child himself. “It’s too soon. My powers can only do what they do.”

“Then the information you give me is useless. I’ll have to kill her.”

The smell of sun-cured hides was strong as Esen tied his leather jerkin tight to his waist, fastened his armour, stolen from one of his raids on the Chinese garrisons, and thrust a knife into the sheath at his hip and two more into his boots. “Good thing you know where she is,” he informed Jasmine, and went to the tent door and lifted the fur flap. “Altan!” He shouted to his brother who was wrestling with a girl by the fire. “We ride tonight.”

The warriors honed their blades, tightened their bows and loaded their tempered arrows into barrel-shaped baskets strapped to their steeds. Every available horse was saddled and bridled. The Chinese had been lax over the past few months, and so, hidden by ruthless snows and camouflaged by wolf hides, the steppe men had watched behind scrubby hills and dead vegetation. While the wall builders worked the sentinels slept, and as the ice-hard ground gave way to tender shoots a plan unfolded.

At the beginning, when the bricklayers first started to link the existing barricades of the previous rulers, guards were stationed every mile to protect the workers from a surprise attack. But when no attack occurred, they grew careless. Now less than one sentinel watched per every five miles. What the Ming military failed to appreciate was that the Mongols had survived the winter and were growing fat on their enemy’s negligence.

With the arrival of warm weather food was easier to get, but the stomachs of Esen’s people were not yet full. Included in his spring menu was the sweet blood of revenge, and he would not have long to wait. If there was one thing his warriors were noted for, it was their vicious ambushes. The key to success was a surprise attack; to catch the enemy off-guard one had to calculate the perfect moment to strike, and at that instant turn wolf-like and swarm.

Several spies were deployed to survey the current situation, and one of these was his baby brother Altan who already was covered with battle scars. When he returned from infiltrating the enemy camp, the golden fox slithered by his side. “I saw the one you’re looking for,” he told his brother.

“Good,” Esen said. “I want her captured
alive
so that I can kill her myself. That girl is deadly; she can bring down our people. Never forget that, Altan. Lotus Lily is not a fox faerie, she’s something worse. Now muster your men and ride.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

First Emperor’s Bargain

The
clank, clank, clank
continued. After awhile, all was quiet again and Master Yun spun to see what grisly apparition followed him. He lifted a fist, aiming in the direction of the sound until the Moonstone on his forefinger glowed, pearly white. At first he saw nothing, and then a clay warrior materialized, a white shadow in the blue luminescence. Its pottery form was trimmed into the shape of a sentinel replete with clay helmet and scalloped chest armour. It had a steely demeanour reminiscent of his protégé Chi Quan and held a staff of polished bronze, pointed end up.

“What do you want here?” a voice boomed from the statue.

“I have come to ask First Emperor for his help.”

“He will not help you, Warlock.”

“I don’t ask on behalf of myself. I ask on behalf of the people of the Middle Kingdom.”

“What are these people to him? His people died more than a millennium back, and he killed most of them himself.”

“They are his descendants.”

“He cares nothing for the lives of the living.”

“How dare you speak for him, Sentinel; I command you to take me to your ruler,” Master Yun ordered.

The blue luminescence surrounding the sentinel glowed deeper, while the light of the Moonstone made the pottery soldier gleam whiter. Had he made a disastrous error? “Why did he accept the dragon banner I drew for him?” Master Yun demanded. “Why did he open the gate if I am unwelcome?”

“Warlocks are not welcome in the seat of First Emperor’s Military Command. Who knows what secrets you came to steal and where you intend to use them.”

“First Emperor
will
see me,” Master Yun said.

For a long while there was silence, then three sharp
clanks
came from somewhere above. The ground beneath his feet shifted, he aimed his Moonstone to the floor of the vault, and clamped his arms to his side just as the earthen floor gave out. The sensation of falling overwhelmed him, but soon he realized he wasn’t falling, he was rising. A floorless vacuum, a vertical wind tunnel, hoisted his body above the vault of First Emperor’s Military Command. The lift slowed, stopped before his head crashed into an invisible ceiling, and beneath him, the air solidified to stable ground.

He stood in stark blackness and even his Moonstone failed to glow. Slowly, his vision adjusted and he saw that the place wasn’t totally without light. Before him, shapes materialized: a hundred soldiers armed with scimitars with the same sharpened bronze staffs as the sentinels below, while four bronze horses pulled the golden chariot of Emperor Qin. Even in the dull light it glimmered like the vehicle of some unearthly being, and standing and rising above all else was the statue of First Emperor himself.

The regal figure did not move. Nor did the hundred member clay sentry.

“Majesty,” Master Yun said, bowing gravely. “I’ve come to ask for your help.”

“I have waited here for more than a thousand years and you have not come to pay tribute before. Do you think I don’t remember you, Master Warlock?”

“I had no knowledge you desired my company.”

The stiff form of Emperor Qin dropped the reins to his four steeds and turned to face him. “I cannot leave this place, but you
can
. I cannot lift my feet from this chariot. Tell me how I can leave this place and I will grant you any request.”

“I need your army.”

The power of the ghost army was invincible. These men were already dead and could not die again, but their energy could rise once more.

“You want power,
my
army’s power, so that your own desire can consume it. You’ve forgotten, Warlock, I know all about you. A millennium and more of death has not erased my memory.”

“All of the Middle Kingdom is at risk,” Master Yun implored. “The Mongol Esen threatens to bring down the Empire and place himself on the throne.”

Ghostly laughter rattled the vault. “You fear Esen? If only you knew. That one is the least of the Empire’s worries. Look at your gemstone, Master Warlock; its gift is not only to bring you sight in black places. If you are afraid to see the future, why should I help you?”

In truth he had dared not look since Lotus Lily’s birth, but now the clean light of the Moonstone burned his eyes: Two babies born, one a Mongol, born in a tent honed to brutality by the wolf-haunted steppe; the other Chinese, born in the Waterworld aboard a ragged, stolen junk.

“The Mongol is the spawn of Altan,” the statue said. “You know who the other belongs to.”

“Altan is the younger brother of Esen.”

“He is also the father of the Mongol who will rule the Middle Kingdom by force.”

“Then I need your help even more than I feared.”

“Indeed. But what do I care if I am dead?” Master Yun was powerless to grant First Emperor his wish except for a few short days, and only at a cost. His freedom required the entombment of someone else to take his place, a being of transcendent power.

“I know your thoughts,” the statue said. “I know how this enchantment works. Bring me the fox faerie to take my place and I will grant you what you wish. If you fail to bring her to me, then
you
will take her place. The army will be yours and victory ensured, but I must lead them. Only I have the power to move them. But first—first you must pass a test. Are you worthy Master Warlock? Are you worthy to be the vessel of Emperor Qin’s Military Command?”

The terracotta soldiers broke ranks, gliding into a circle in which Master Yun found himself the focus. With the floor exposed, he saw that the ground was lavishly decorated with huge, glowing maps. Quicksilver flowed over the terrain, forming lakes, rivers and streams. If the statue could have smiled, a deep smirk would have creased its face. “Oh, you
will
be tested.”

The terracotta head barely moved, but Master Yun recognized the dismissal. The Emperor resumed his lifeless brittleness, and all returned to what it was.

A black veil descended over his eyes and he frowned into the dark. He raised a fist to aim the Moonstone, but before he could see anything clearly, the floor beneath his feet gave way. He clamped his arms to his side and squeezed his eyes shut. As he fell a hundred feet, he murmured a mantra to still his reverberating heart, held his breath to prevent his
Chi
from escaping his body. When he opened his eyes, he saw that he had regained the seat of the Military Command.

Swiftly, he passed the sentinels with their pointed bronze staffs, exited the polygon-shaped cavern and retraced his steps until he entered the chamber where the pottery soldiers stood in T-formation. He had entered the burial mound via the vault of the Night Guards Army, and there he would find his gateway.

Master Yun moved into the corridor that would lead him to his destination, and rammed into something solid that knocked the breath out of him. When he stepped back, he saw a giant of a terracotta warrior blocking his path.

%%%

The idea of that milksop of a military governor forcing Li to marry him was unthinkable, and even marriage to Quan himself was probably not in her plans, but he’d do it—even against her will if it would save her from the hirsute paws of Zheng Min.

“Military Governor!” Quan shouted over the pandemonium of their departure. He would send Zheng Min on a wild goose chase. “It’s likely the girl is not far if she was only missed a fortnight ago. She has no horse I hear. On foot, she would have probably gone north to hide among the broken walls.”

No delicate palace-woman-runaway would ever head north. It was more likely she would aim for the nearest large city, preferably near a watercourse. But, of course, Li was no delicate palace woman.

“We go south,” Zheng Min said, “to Dengzhou. That town is a port on the seaside where ships come and go. If she really wanted to escape His Imperial Highness, she’d get passage on a junk, not race into the greasy arms of the waiting barbarians.”

Quan shook his head. “I say north. She would think that that’s the last place we would look.”

“Do what you want, Captain; I want Lotus Lily for my bride. The search party goes with me. Form your own if you wish—if you can find anyone who will go with you on your ridiculous hunt. My men are waiting.” He paused, smiled, showing his large yellow teeth. “See you back at the palace, and may the best man win!”

With that, Zheng Min was gone and the troops in his wake. Two stragglers towed the covered palanquin. Quan waited until they were well out of sight, and then he laughed out loud. He made one more scan of the gardens and the Koi Temple for Master Yun, before he headed north.

%%%

The horses trampled the young grass as they approached the pass at Quingshuiying. From there, they crossed the wall at Shanxi, where the ramparts formed an inner circle that joined Juyongguan, Xuanfu and Datong to Shanxi. They stopped once inside the wall. The sentries, as anticipated, were sleeping, playing games, or drinking cheap wine. No one suspected an invasion from an inland route. Esen whistled to his men, making calls like a night bird and they rode quietly on the rich-smelling earth softened by last night’s rain. The Chinese camp lay ahead, totally unaware, for the workers were busy with the evening meal, none armed, and some half-dressed. Esen raised a hand and his unit of horsemen stopped twenty paces away.

How secure you Chinese are: how utterly smug. And stupid.
He sighted the girl dressed like a boy, tall, but slimmer than the others, and gave the signal to charge. He raced straight for her, just as she rose to investigate the ruckus, and with one hand on the reins, snatched her around the waist with his free arm and hoisted her onto his horse, flopping her facedown onto her stomach.

He grinned. That was easy. But he had underestimated the concubine dressed in ram’s clothing. A sharp pain pierced his calf as a cooking knife stabbed the muscle of his left leg directly above the boot. He leaned forward, grabbed her wrist to shake the weapon out of her hand, which caused him to lose his balance, and sent the horse careening. He scissored the girl around the waist as they both tumbled onto soft mud. She broke free of him, and might have gotten away had she run, but she stayed, kicked out as he rose, and felled him once more. She tried it again, but this time he was ready for her.

He grabbed her foot, hamstringed her to the ground with a fist-chop to the thigh, and dropped his entire weight on her. He could crush her or let her breathe. The choice was hers.

He whistled for his horse and the young mare obeyed, got to his feet with the girl in his arms and slammed her into the side of the horse, making her gasp and the horse neigh. He drew a dagger from the sheath at his hip and warned her against making a run for it. “Mount the horse,” he commanded, one hand on the reins. “Or I will slice off your leg where you injured mine.”

She scowled, obeyed. When firmly seated on the saddle, he mounted behind her. The rest of his men were hacking and chopping away at the panicked workers. A few escaped, and a big warrior, that some men were calling He Zhu, fought relentlessly with a bow and then a sabre.

Esen gave the signal to pull back. He had what he had come for. He raced across the garrison over the brick wall, across miles of grassland back to his camp, and to the waiting arms of Jasmine.

%%%

Li’s hands were bound behind her back and her ankles laced together. Esen dropped her onto his sleeping furs with the ease of a poacher who had just bagged an ewe.

“Why didn’t you kill her?” Jasmine asked.

Esen glowered. “I want to use her first. Such a waste to destroy such beauty without at least a taste.”

“She doesn’t look like much now. Her face is bronzed and her hair a squirrel’s nest. Her hands are those of a common labourer and she’s covered in mud.”

“I will get my women to clean her up.”

Jasmine shook her head. “You should kill her. To be sure the prophecy does not come true, the safest bet is to shove your dagger between those lily white breasts.”

“I intend to do exactly that, but in my own time. First, I would like to sample those lily white breasts.”

“All right, but be quick about it.” She jerked up suddenly.

“What is it?”

“Something in the air moves, someone is coming. And they are coming for
her
.”

Jasmine strolled out of the tent and went to the fire where the women were making tea, and sent them to their lord before cupping a bowlful of boiling water from the skin drum. She reached into a pouch that she carried around her waist and withdrew a fingerful of her own special tealeaves. These she sprinkled in the hot water and waited for them to settle. An image of Chi Quan galloping full speed in the direction of the wall builder’s camp, just east of Datong, appeared in the dappled liquid. It was exactly as she suspected, and even as she watched, his scent was strong in her nostrils. And now, as she gazed more deeply, she saw another warrior: a man of determination, flying the Imperial standard of green dragon and yellow triangle. Zheng Min.

She looked up at the warlord’s tent. Two women had been ordered to prepare a bath for the captive, and carried bladders of clean water and fresh robes of Turkish make, the fabrics flowing like a shimmering river. Jasmine frowned, felt an energy rising from the earth, threatening her own power. The leaves in the tea bowl flittered, the amber liquid trembled, and then the vision was gone. Her black eyes blinked, became wild, and her soft white skin transformed into the pelt of the golden fox. More quickly than any of Esen’s people could turn to witness her transformation, she dashed off into the night toward the Yellow Sea.