The Sword Dancer (3 page)

‘I don’t know what treasures you’re speaking of,’ she said blandly, her face showing nothing.

More raised eyebrows and a disconcerting touch of amusement at the corners of his mouth. That sort of smile in the right sort of light could disarm a woman, but Li Feng only gave him a hard look in return. She was already disarmed and this was definitely the wrong sort of light.

They loved telling stories about Thief-catcher Han in Fujian province ever since he’d defeated the bandit chief known as Two Dragon Lo. Zheng Hao Han had become somewhat of a romantic figure, yet her thoughts were anything but romantic while she was trussed and helpless before him. Especially when he seemed to be enjoying it.

‘Miss Wen.’ He suddenly appeared serious. ‘I’ve been wondering about your sword skill. You say you have no master, but if I had to guess your style, I would say its foundation is from Wudang Mountain?’

She tried not to let her surprise show. They’d had a brief exchange at the tavern, hardly enough for him to discern any particular technique.

He kept his gaze levelled on her, scrubbing a hand over the hard cut of his jaw. ‘From your silence, I think I must be correct. The Wudang forms are known for their fluidity and are often likened to dance.’

Whether or not she hated him, Li Feng had to admit that Han had captured her.
Again.
He was more than a dim-witted sword-for-hire. He had been carefully tracking her and assessing her abilities. All while she hadn’t given him a single thought. She deserved her defeat.

Li Feng looked at him now with new eyes—as the enemy. His fighting experience, like so many thief-catchers, probably came from serving in the military. His choice of weapon, the straight-bladed
dao,
confirmed that.

‘The shopkeeper in town told you about me,’ she ventured.

‘You seem to have a fondness for jade shops across the county. Yet you never have anything to sell. I would expect a thief to try to profit from her bounty as soon as possible.’ He was watching for her reaction. ‘I considered that you might be gathering information for more underhanded activities, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.’

‘I told you, I didn’t take any of the jade.’

He wagged a finger at her. ‘So you had accomplices. Don’t try to be clever with your words, Miss Wen. I’m wondering why, after such a grand take, you are not enjoying newfound riches? A falling out with your comrades, perhaps?’

‘If I told you, would you release me?’

‘No.’

‘I don’t suppose begging for mercy would do any good either,’ she remarked drily.

He paused at that. ‘No,’ he said finally, his expression inscrutable. After a tense silence, he spoke again. ‘If you are indeed guilty of the theft, you must accept the consequences. You might be sentenced to time in the cangue for theft. At worst, you may suffer a public beating. Most likely you’ll be sentenced to servitude to make up for your crimes.’ Han listed off the punishments as if reading from a code book.

‘Are you certain?’ she challenged. ‘There was quite an expensive amount of jade stolen…as I hear.’

‘The magistrate will be lenient seeing as you’re a woman.’

‘I’ll be shown mercy after I confess under torture.’

A frown creased his brow. It was clear he was disturbed by her directness, but said nothing to refute her claims. She may have lived for most of her life away from the affairs of the world, but she’d learned very quickly about how justice truly worked. Some magistrates were crueller than others, but none, by the very nature of their position, was particularly kind.

‘I will do my best to see that you are treated fairly,’ he said, though it was a faint promise. He apparently thought having her head and arms locked in the cangue or publicly beaten was ‘fair’.

‘Why would Thief-catcher Han want to help a suspected criminal like me?’

‘Because you rescued me.’ He wasn’t pleased to admit it.

She sat up straight, confused. ‘I did no such thing.’

‘On the rooftop, you could have let me fall.’

Li Feng recalled reaching out for him, her hand closing around his wrist. She hadn’t even remembered the incident until he brought it up. ‘I acted on instinct.’

‘Most criminals only have the instinct to save themselves.’

They regarded one another across the tavern. There was an undeniable connection between them. Like Han, she didn’t particularly like it. Li Feng didn’t believe in fate, but if she hadn’t caught him, he would have fallen. Perhaps he would have broken an arm or a leg. It would have been very difficult to pursue her while restricted to the use of one leg.

‘What are you smiling about?’ he asked warily.

She thinned out her lips. ‘Let me go and you can consider your debt repaid.’

‘No.’

‘But I’m a helpless woman.’

‘Justice is justice, for man or woman.’

She exhaled in exasperation. He spoke the words with such conviction, but she found it hard to believe him. A mercenary didn’t care about justice or injustice. He only cared about his reward.

‘Did you promise leniency to Two Dragon Lo?’ she asked.

His expression darkened and his light, casual demeanour disappeared. Everyone knew the story. Two Dragon Lo had murdered every other thief-catcher who had gone after him. His gang had even defeated a constable and his entire squad of hired swordsmen. Yet Zheng Hao Han had ventured alone into the forest that was Lo’s stronghold and had killed the notorious bandit with his own hands.

‘Two Dragon Lo was a different matter.’

Tension gathered in his shoulders as Han came forwards and wrapped a hand around her ankle. His touch was firm, but oddly gentle. She considered kicking him out of spite, but their gazes locked and he gave her a sharp and pointed look that was full of warning. In brusque, efficient movements, he coiled another length of rope around her ankles before extinguishing the lamp. She heard the sound of him settling on to the ground not too far away.

She didn’t know if Han deserved his reputation for being the god of thief-catchers, lowly god that it was, but he had thwarted her on her one advantage. Her joints, which had always been flexible, were made more so by rigorous discipline and practice. Irons were easy to slip out of. Coils and coils of rope, less so.

After some time passed, his breathing grew deep and steady. Quietly, she tried to wriggle her hands free beneath the ropes. Perhaps one of his knots could be worked loose.

‘Go to sleep.’ Han’s voice sliced through the darkness. ‘The sound of you struggling is keeping me awake.’

With that, he settled down again. She scowled at him, even though there was no light for him to see it.

Chapter Three

W
hen Han had originally decided to go after Wen Li Feng, his primary reason was that she was an oddity. She was too skilled with the sword to be just a dancer and she had demonstrated the ability to bypass heavy chains and locked doors.

Now, he was certain she was hiding something. Her behaviour was suspect, with her numerous visits to jade merchants. The same instinct that told him Li Feng was more than a dancer also told him that she wasn’t motivated by greed and that there was more at hand than theft.

His father had always told him to find the one detail that was out of place and start his search from there. Father always seemed more concerned with how things fit neatly together rather than any specific moral code. Right and wrong were values that were subject to interpretation. Order was the natural intended state of heaven and earth and to commit a crime was to violate that state. Their household had once been kept with that same philosophy in mind.

Father also believed that every time a crime went unpunished, society was one step closer to ruin and decay. It had been several years since Han had spoken to the man, but he was sure Father’s ideals hadn’t shifted one bit.

If Han didn’t hunt the sword dancer down, he was certain no one else would or could. So now that his prisoner was trussed up before him, society was safe from ruin.

‘This is absurd,’ Li Feng muttered.

She was face down and draped over the saddle in front of him with her wrists and ankles tied

‘It will take at least a week to reach Taining.’ She tried to lift her head, but failed. ‘Are you going to keep me like this the entire time?’

‘Yes.’

‘I won’t try to run away. You’d just capture me again.’

‘Liar.’

Han looked down to where she lay practically in his lap, squirming. He was trying very hard not to notice the squirming or the flush of warmth it brought to his lower half. She was his
prisoner.
Not a dancer. Not a woman. Definitely not a somewhat pretty woman with exceptional skills.

He still had an ache in his side. His ribs were likely bruised after their wrestling match. Li Feng might be slight, but she struck with purpose. If he untied her, if he even allowed her to have a single finger free, he had no doubt she’d somehow get her hands on a knife and leave it protruding from his heart.

‘I should thank you for providing the horse,’ he added
jovially.

She called him something impolite under her breath. He’d been called worse, but not much worse.

‘You’re no hero, picking on the small and weak.’

‘You’re far from weak, Miss Wen.’

‘Aren’t there more evil and loathsome villains for you to chase after?’

Li Feng looked neither evil nor loathsome at the moment. More troubling than the fact that he found her not unpleasant to look at—and that she had a very well-formed backside—was that he found her interesting. How did a young woman acquire such an extraordinary set of skills? Why would she be involved with thieves and vagabonds?

* * *

At the next rest stop, he slipped her from the horse like a sack of grain and propped her against a tree. After tending to the horse, he poured water into a cup and brought it to her.

She closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the trunk with a sigh. ‘The indignity.’

Han waited. Without its cynical expression, her face was delicately shaped, tapering only slightly towards her chin. Wen Li Feng was much easier to deal with when she was coming at him with a sword or spitting venom. This show of helplessness made him as uncomfortable as it did her. After a moment, she opened her eyes and tilted her head to accept the water. He had to kneel beside her to place the cup to her mouth. Her lips parted and she looked away as she drank. Han watched the lines of her neck as she swallowed, his own throat going dry.

‘Thank you.’ Her eyes were closed again.

The first time he’d seen her, her face had been heavily accented with make-up for the performance. Without it, her features were softer. A dancer’s true beauty was in the lines of her body and the way she moved. Her face was one that Han might never have noticed if he hadn’t seen her dance. Like the rest of her, its beauty was in movement. It was an expressive face, quick to show anger or amusement. Granted he’d seen more anger than any other emotion during their short acquaintance, but even that was beautiful in its intensity and fire. No one had ever schooled her to hide her emotions, to not let her face display her thoughts. It made one vulnerable to reveal so much, so easily.

When Li Feng performed, her expressions were coy and full of fire, but there was no such artifice now in stillness. Since he’d observed her so closely, the features which he might have considered plain or pleasant before took on a mysterious quality. Her eyelashes were long against her cheeks. Her skin was smooth, the tone of it warm with a natural flush. The shape and curves of her face were so subtle one might need to touch her to truly experience them.

He moved back, further away than he needed to, and seated himself on the grass opposite her. She opened her eyes, perhaps after sensing he had moved away, and had to lift both her arms to wipe her mouth with her sleeve. Then they just sat there, both watching each other warily.

‘Tell me how you caught Two Dragon Lo,’ she said after a pause.

His back stiffened. ‘Why would you want to know that?’

‘I want to hear your account.’

‘You mean whether I indeed walked on water or flew through the trees?’

She gave him a reluctant smile that was really just a twitch of her mouth.

Everyone asked him about the bandit lately and it seemed the stories were getting more fanciful no matter how much he denied them. Han settled his arm across his knees. ‘There isn’t much to say. I went into the woods to find him. We fought. I won.’

‘You don’t know how to tell a story, thief-catcher,’ she complained.

‘I think a more interesting story—’ he fixed his gaze on her ‘—would be why a girl who seems to like jade so much would steal it, yet not take any for herself. Save for one small trinket.’

She stared at him blankly, or at least she tried to. There was much, much more lurking there beneath the surface. If he could just feel along her smooth exterior, turn her this way and that to look for imperfections.

‘You were betrayed and cut out of the stake,’ he suggested.

Li Feng looked away, seemingly absorbed by the play of sunlight on the grass.

‘Your mother is aged and sick and you were stealing to save her,’ he threw out lightly.

Her gaze snapped back to him with a tinge of annoyance that told him he was wrong, but had hit upon something. ‘Is this effective, asking so many questions with no direction?’

His laugh was directed at himself. ‘I’ve actually been told by a very wise man that it is always best to say as little as possible.’

Criminals tended to reveal themselves. It was in their nature to want to confess, the crime staining their soul as it did.

‘I was only curious,’ he admitted. ‘And it’s a long way to Taining.’

Han usually wasn’t so interested in knowing the reasons behind the crime. That was for the tribunal to sort out, if the motivations of the accused were even pertinent. Han found that in most cases, the reasons were quite clear. Only in a few instances did the accused ever confound him. The bandit Lo was one. Wen Li Feng was another.

There was another reason Han wanted information. Once he handed the dancer over to the authorities in Taining, she would inevitably be questioned about her accomplices. If she was more forthcoming to him, she might avoid a more ruthless interrogation at the hands of the magistrate.

Li Feng shifted her weight from one shoulder to another against the tree, her bonds constricting her movement. The dancer was not one for remaining still.

‘Were you so cordial to Two Dragon Lo?’ she asked.

His stomach knotted. It was back to Lo again. He couldn’t escape the man. Han conjured the remote tavern in the hills and a long night of trading drinks and stories with a fellow traveller. The wine jug was nearly empty when they had raised their cups in a salute. Lo’s sleeve had fallen just enough to reveal the tail of a dragon.

‘You killed him,’ she remarked.

So the tale goes. ‘That wasn’t my intention. He was to be brought to trial like any other criminal.’

‘An outlaw like Lo would fight to the death rather than be taken alive.’

Her fascination with the bandit disturbed him. She spoke of killing and death too casually, with a worldly air that was unexpected in a young woman.

‘Lo was more than a common thief. He had been enlisted in the provincial army and trained to fight with sword and spear,’ Han explained. ‘He didn’t stop at attacking merchants on the open road. The bandit formed a gang of outlaws and started threatening local officials as well.’

‘You say that Two Dragon Lo needed to be stopped,’ she said. ‘He was growing in power and greedy for more.’

He didn’t quite understand Li Feng’s cynical expression. ‘Many of the local armies have been disbanded in recent years. The situation has left too many dangerous men wandering with no direction, no discipline.’

She snorted. ‘Do you know who truly controls Taining? Not the magistrate or his constables. The county is controlled by a man named Wang Shizhen, who regularly extorts bribes of jade and silver and gold.’

‘General Wang Shizhen is the appointed commander of the southern garrison,’ Han pointed out.

‘You say there are too many soldiers without wars to fight and no commanders to keep them in line.’ Her gaze was unflinching on him. ‘Some of them turn into bandits like Lo while others forcibly take control with their armies. Is there any difference between them?’

‘This is dangerous talk,’ he warned.

She shrugged, too easily. ‘Just talk.’

Theft was punishable by beating or servitude, depending on the circumstances, but rebellion was unpardonable. The province had been plagued by famine and flood over the last ten years, pushing desperate men to banditry or insurrection. His own family had suffered in the aftermath of a rebellion in Fuzhou province to the east.

The singular punishment for rebelling against the state was both harsh and swift: public execution by beheading.

‘Time to go,’ Han muttered, his stomach knotted tight.

‘Are you going to carry me?’ she taunted.

It was awkward between them with her bound as she was. He was reduced to behaving like a servant, seeing to her needs.

Li Feng shrank back as he went to kneel beside her. Han paused with his hand at her foot, a pose that with any other woman would have only been possible in a moment of intimacy. He heard the quickening of her breath and tension built along her very well-formed calf.

She was his
prisoner,
he reminded himself.

The conversation had revealed more about Wen Li Feng than he’d intended, though it shouldn’t have mattered. If she was a criminal, she deserved to be punished according to the law.

‘Don’t try to run,’ he warned through his teeth. Han cut away the rope at her ankles and dragged her up. ‘If you do, I’ll catch you and beat you myself.’

* * *

The town was a fledgling one that had sprouted up at a convenient distance between two larger cities. The main road cut between two rows of buildings: an inn, a few shops and a stable. There was little else to the place aside from a few huts built of wood and thatched with hay.

They stopped beside a road stand serving food and drink. Han had to once again assist as Li Feng dismounted with her wrists still tied in front of her. His hands rounded her waist before settling her on to the ground. She shot him a look, though he hardly deserved it. The touch was purely innocent. There was just no getting around the fact that he was a man and she a woman.

‘I need to use the privy,’ she said.

He expected as much. The grey-haired woman standing behind the cooking pot pointed to the back area. Han followed closely behind as Li Feng started towards the outhouse.

She cast him a slanted look. ‘You’re going to follow me there?’

‘This is when every prisoner attempts to escape.’

‘I need my hands at least.’

‘Absolutely not.’

She huffed at him, blowing a strand of hair away from her face in the process. With a gesture, he beckoned the serving woman over and gave her a coin.

‘Please assist this young lady,’ he directed.

The old woman nodded. As they disappeared inside the hut, Han circled around to make sure there was no way to escape out the back. Then he returned to the benches where he had a full view of the door. By the time the old woman and Li Feng returned, the table had been set with a pot of tea and two bowls of mixed rice. She settled down quietly on to the bench beside him.

‘I asked for a serving spoon,’ he said, feeling quite generous. ‘So you can feed yourself with your wrists tied.’

It wouldn’t be the most elegant of meals, but he was sure she could manage.

‘Thank you,’ Li Feng murmured, head down.

She sniffled. He bent to see her face which was suddenly hidden behind a veil of hair.

‘Have you been crying?’ he asked incredulously.

Her nose and eyes looked red and she ducked away even further from him. Her shoulders were slumped and defeated. Her sniffling grew more pronounced. This was quickly becoming embarrassing.

‘Li Fe— Miss Wen?’ It was awkward having to be so polite to a prisoner, but there was no other way to address a woman. ‘What is this?’

She pushed at him, flinging his hands away. ‘No. Don’t touch me!’

Heaven and Earth.
‘Stop this nonsense,’ he demanded.

She scrambled off the bench and cowered away. ‘Please don’t beat me again.’

Too late, Han realised a crowd had gathered by the stand. A crowd of rather concerned, rather angry-looking townspeople and some of them quite large. There was no chance to explain. Rough hands grabbed at him. He shoved them away, took a punch in the jaw, threw a couple of strikes of his own.

He drew his
dao
and a few of the men backed off, but not all of them. They were in a fervour. He was grappled from behind while two other men clawed for his weapon while swearing and calling him a kidnapper and a slaver.