The White Mirror (10 page)

Doso switched to the local tongue. “He is upset that our funeral customs are so different from his own.”

Li Du nodded. “He is a devout man.”

“I have no wish to burden my guests,” said Doso. “But I know you have experience with his people. Perhaps you can talk to him. He believes that we intend to consume the flesh of the dead man. I told him that such a ritual has never existed in my family, that it is our custom to cremate the dead. I am not sure that he understood me.”

“Of course I will speak to him,” said Li Du. “He is unsettled by what occurred, and eager for the snow to melt.”

Doso nodded and looked up at the sky. The clouds were so close that it felt as if they were descending slowly to engulf them. “There will be no thaw today.”

Rinzen glanced over Li Du's shoulder. “Did you find the temple's collection of books?”

Li Du shook his head. “I did not wish to disturb the Chhöshe in his prayers,” he said.

“What books?” Doso looked from Rinzen to Li Du.

Rinzen answered. “I remembered the charming collection of scrolls housed in the temple, and suggested to the scholar that he might examine them.”

“There are no books in the temple,” said Doso, gruffly.

Rinzen looked surprise. “Then my memory was incorrect.”

“There were books once,” amended Doso. “But they were destroyed years ago in a fire. The temple burned almost to the ground.”

With a slight grimace, Doso again adjusted the heavy basket on his back. Li Du, observing that Doso was anxious to continue upward, stepped aside to let them pass.

*   *   *

Li Du found Hamza at the manor's hearth telling the children a story while helping them to hull walnuts. Hamza's hands, like the children's, were black from walnut oils. Today he looked young. He could have been the eldest brother of the other three, who were looking at him with worshipful expressions. The old woman sat watching and spinning her prayer wheel. Her eyes were blurred, like spreading ink drops, and she appeared to be smiling.

Hamza gestured for Li Du to sit down. “I have been teaching the children that not every tale requires bandits in order to be entertaining,” he said, as he filled a bowl with butter tea and handed it to Li Du. “What did you think of the temple?”

“I went in search of books,” said Li Du, “but I did not see them.”

“Why not?”

Li Du blinked. “What was your question?”

Hamza raised his eyebrows. “My question was why you did not see the books, but now it has changed. What is it that preoccupies you?”

Li Du drained the bowl and stood up. “The books were lost in a fire. As for what preoccupies me, I will tell you, but perhaps it would be better to speak elsewhere.” He directed a meaningful glance at the children, now lost in their own little conversation about the cave of thieves that only opened when a password was spoken, and that contained a carpet that could fly through the air.

With Hamza in tow, Li Du traversed the hallway away from the kitchen. They passed the door to a sewing room, through which Kamala could be seen seated at a loom, sending a shuttle deftly between panes of white threads. Li Du turned right into the adjoining wing. An open shutter allowed him a glimpse down to the courtyard brazier, where Campo's translator, Andruk, sat alone in front of the flames.

Li Du did not speak until they were in his room, the door shut behind them. Then he said: “I do not believe Dhamo went to the bridge to die.”

Hamza moved a cushion from the bed to the floor and sat down on it, cross-legged, his back against a wall. “Perhaps not,” he said, “but Death was waiting for him there. Death often waits on bridges. Sometimes he is dressed in black armor. Sometimes he sits atop a black steed and challenges those who wish to cross.”

Li Du looked at his friend. “He did meet death there, but not the apparition you describe. I think there was another person on that bridge with him.”

“Ah,” said Hamza. “Then you think—” He stopped and waited for Li Du to complete the sentence.

“I think that Dhamo was murdered.”

“The temple told you this?” Hamza did not appear surprised. He rarely did.

Li Du lowered his voice to a whisper. “I saw the room where he painted his thangkas.”

“The room filled with color pots and brushes? I was there too.”

“No,” Li Du said. “There is a room behind that one. In it is a thangka that is incomplete.”

“Yes?” Hamza waited expectantly for Li Du to continue.

Li Du drew in a breath. “There were three colors applied to it: white, blue, and green. Do you know what color follows?”

“I do know it,” said Hamza. “The order is set by custom. Red follows blue and green.”

Li Du nodded. “Dhamo needed red to continue the painting.”

“And he had a room full of pigments ready to grind and mix with glue,” said Hamza. “I saw the cotton soaked with lac dye.”

“But he did not need lac dye,” said Li Du. “Lac is a weak red. It is used to paint details. For the foundational color, he needed true vermilion. He needed cinnabar red.”

Now Hamza was leaning forward. “How does this relate to his death?”

“I found a bowl in Dhamo's studio,” Li Du said. “It is empty of all but a few granules of the vermilion Dhamo needed to continue his work. I think that Dhamo left his studio yesterday not to kill himself, but to renew his supply of cinnabar.”

Hamza leaned back against the wall again. “That is not credible,” he said. “You suggest that this eccentric painter set out in a storm on a journey to the nearest market town—which, my friend, is ten days' travel from here at least—to purchase cinnabar? I am not a logical man, as you know, but even to me that seems unlikely.”

“He did not need to go to the market for red pigment.”

Hamza gave an exasperated huff. “But you just said that his supply was empty.”

“It was. But according to
The Making of Pigments,
cinnabar grows on stone touched by the water of hot springs. And I have just learned that there are hot springs just on the other side of the bridge.”

“Well, scholar, I could have told you about the hot springs if you had asked me.”

Li Du stared at his friend. “But how do you know of them?”

Hamza, pleased with himself, pinched his beard to a finer point. “
Your
reason for traveling remains mysterious, but I have always been honest about mine. I am a collector of tales. I heard about the hot springs from an old man in the village who told me not to visit them.”

“Doso said that the villagers do not visit them because they are unlucky.”

“Unlucky.” Hamza made a scoffing sound. “Simple answers like that allow important truths to be forgotten. Here is what the villager told me. There is a curse on the pools. When the dead journey through the realms between death and life, we cannot see them and they cannot see us. But these pools are enchanted. The dead can see them, and are drawn to them as snakes are drawn to woodpiles. So they go to the pools, and become trapped under the water. That is more interesting than simply ‘unlucky,' I think you would agree.”

“It is,” said Li Du, “but there is no mention of cinnabar in this story.”

“No,” said Hamza. “But even if Dhamo went to the hot springs to collect pigments, as you say, what makes you think he did not kill himself on the way back? If the story of the pools is true, he might have seen a terrible vision there. He might have been pursued by ghosts that emerged from the dark waters.”

Li Du began to pace the room. “Then where is the cinnabar he collected? There were a few shards of it near him on the bridge, but there should have been a basket or a pouch full of red rocks. What happened to it?”

Hamza's forehead creased. “And because of this you suspect that someone murdered him? It is a tenuous conclusion.”

Li Du rubbed the back of his neck. Hamza was right. “I know,” he said quietly. “Even so, I intend to visit the hot springs.”

A speculative look settled on Hamza's features. “What is it that you expect to find? Do you think Dhamo will be trapped in the pool waiting to explain to you how he met his end?” Hamza paused and reflected on his own words. “That is not such a bad thought—if he was murdered he may be there waiting to tell someone who it was that killed him.”

When Li Du did not answer immediately, Hamza went on. “Red,” he said thoughtfully, “from the stones of a hot spring. Did I ever tell you about the woman in a forest who once tried to sell me a pot of red paint from the Caspian Sea? She claimed that the sand used to make the paint came from the crushed skeletons of insects who lived in the fires that filled the earth's crevices before there were oceans. She told me that a certain kingdom of seafaring warriors used it to paint their faces, and that unknown to their enemies, the paint granted them invincibility in battle.” Hamza paused expectantly, as if he was waiting for a question.

Li Du pulled himself from his own musings and looked at Hamza. “Did you buy the paint?”

“I did not,” Hamza replied. “She wanted a lock of my hair, and nothing good could come of an exchange like that. You are determined, then, to search the cursed pools for crystals red as blood. Before you do, come with me to the caravan. Norbu is using the time we have here to experiment with spices he bought back in the Gyalthang market, and the fragrance of the smoke through the roof reminds me of the time I dined with the ghost of the sultan's own chef.”

*   *   *

Avoiding the outdoor stairs to the courtyard, which had not been swept since the second snowfall and looked treacherous, they went to one of the interior staircases. It was dark and ladderlike, descending from a rectangular opening in the floor. The storage room below it smelled of barley, a wistful reminder of the sunshine that had dried it.

Hamza went first. Li Du was halfway down, his hat just level with the floor, when he heard footsteps. They came from the room in which he had glimpsed Kamala weaving. Li Du took one more step down and ducked his head into the shadows as someone stepped out of the room into the hallway. Looking up, Li Du could just see the embossed leather boots of the trader, Sonam. As he watched, they pivoted. Sonam had turned as if he meant to reenter the room.

“I have offended you,” said Sonam, addressing someone inside.

Li Du looked down at Hamza, who appeared slightly blurred through a thin haze of flour in the air. He motioned for Li Du to stay quiet and listen.

Kamala's voice answered. “I cannot accept your gifts.”

Sonam's tone became soft. “The women in the palace wore these jewels on golden chains as fine as the threads on your loom. They are considered the most beautiful women in the world, but their loveliness does not compare to yours. That is why I brought you the jewels—they should adorn a woman worthy of their luster.”

Li Du heard a sound below him and glanced down to see Hamza looking disdainful.

The faint clatter of the loom had stopped. “Doso brings me jewels as fine as these.”

Sonam gave a contemptuous laugh. “From the markets in Gyalthang and Dajianlu? Nothing fine passes through those rough villages, save a few bricks of good tea. Hold that blue stone to the light. Do you see the star inside it?”

Kamala's reply was sharp. “And I suppose you will tell me that you paid for these?”

“You wound me with your distrust,” replied Sonam. “I only wanted to please you.”

“It would please me if you left my house and never returned to it.”

Sonam took a step forward into the room. “Is that really what you want? And what will happen if the lord of the manor, who for all his strength and honor, is not a young man, should join the ancestors that he speaks of so often, and at such length?”

Li Du heard wood scrape across the floor, followed by light footsteps. When Kamala spoke again, her voice was much closer. “Do you threaten my husband?”

“I would never threaten Doso,” said Sonam. “Our families are as one.”

Li Du heard faint rustling and clinks. “Take back your gifts,” Kamala hissed. “Doso may be bound to his promises, but I will protect my children from thieves.”

There was a silence. Then Li Du heard the heavy boots start purposefully in his direction. He ducked deeper into the shadows and began to descend the stairs as quietly as he could. Above, he heard Sonam's muted reply. “I wonder,” he was saying, “if you will regret your words.”

*   *   *

“I found his wooing unimpressive,” said Hamza, once they were outside the manor walls and walking toward the caravan camp.

“I do not believe your opinion was the one that interested him,” Li Du said, “but I do not think she was impressed either.”

“Bad behavior, to try to seduce the wife of the manor lord while he is away honoring the dead.”

Li Du nodded his agreement. He had seen Kalden and the muleteers in enough villages to know that flirtation with local wives and daughters was usual and, for the most part, harmless. But that was not the interaction they had witnessed. “I wonder what secures his welcome here,” he said.

“Perhaps a life owed for a life,” said Hamza. They were passing Yeshe's hut.

Li Du was still musing. “She called him a thief.”

Hamza looked sideways at Li Du. “I interpreted that as a general insult. Are you saying now that you think Sonam killed Dhamo?”

“I do not see why he would have.” Li Du thought for a moment. “I do not see why anyone would.”

A voice hailed them, and they turned to see Andruk coming toward them through the snow. He reached them and stopped, slightly out of breath. “Have you seen Paolo Campo?” he asked.

“I met him on the stairs from the temple,” Li Du said. “I believe he was heading for the kitchen hearth, but I did not see him there. He is not in his room?”