The White Mirror (35 page)

Li Du shifted his attention to Paolo Campo. He did not change his language, instead allowing Andruk to continue to translate. “You visited Yeshe's hut,” he said, “but you were not there all morning. And Sera—” Li Du turned to her. “—you left Lumo's home while she slept, and were for some time alone in the forest. You say that you saw Dhamo as he was approaching the hot springs. You could have stayed nearby, waiting, and followed him to the bridge.”

There was a chorus of protests. Yeshe tapped one of his walking sticks on the floor in a demand for attention. “It wasn't one of the family who did this,” he said. “You listen to me.”

Doso's voice rose above the others, silencing them. “I cannot accept this,” he said, with a gesture that encompassed himself and Kamala. “If one of us had crossed the pastures and fields to the forest with the intention of killing Dhamo, someone would have observed it.”

“But that is exactly what happened,” said Li Du. “The killer did stride across the pastures in plain sight, and the killer
was
seen. Seen, but not recognized.”

“A disguise?” The question came from Lumo.

“A strategy to avoid being noticed,” Li Du answered. “It was Yeshe who told me that in places where the distances are wide and the weather is cold, people become associated with their coats. If a coat is unfamiliar, its wearer is anonymous.”

Paolo Campo shifted uncomfortably in his seat, furrowing his brow at Andruk's rushed translation. Andruk concluded, then looked at Li Du. “The person in the dark coat,” he said. “That was the killer.”

Li Du nodded. “Under normal circumstances, an unfamiliar coat would have attracted attention, but on that morning the valley was unusually full of strangers. You and Yeshe both saw the figure in black, but it did not arouse your curiosity.” He addressed the group again. “This is an old, wealthy house with attics full of forgotten possessions. Perhaps the killer found a discarded coat among them. Perhaps it was already among the killer's own belongings.”

Li Du turned to Sera. “A third person saw this figure,” he said. “You recall the shadow you perceived in the forest near the hot springs?”

A small shudder passed through Sera's shoulders, but her self-possession wavered only for an instant. “I should not have crept away,” she said. “I might have prevented a murder.”

Doso's deep voice followed Sera's. “Who was it?”

Li Du took a moment to consider his words, then spoke. “Three people saw a person whom they could not identify. Consider that there is one person here among us who went to the hot springs that morning but was
not
seen, someone who would have been recognized even at a distance in his robes of yellow silk.”

Eyes turned slowly to where Rinzen sat. He regarded Li Du with an expression of mild surprise. “Is it of any consequence that no one happened to see me? Yes, I went to the hot springs that day. I admitted it to you freely.”

Li Du met Rinzen's eyes and held his gaze. “That is not entirely true,” he said. “You did
not
admit it to me freely. You confessed that you visited the hot springs only after I confronted you about your tarnished ring. Had I not questioned you, your presence at the pools on that day would have remained your secret.”

Rinzen frowned. When he spoke, it was in the authoritative tone of an official addressing an inferior. “I was under no obligation to speak to anyone here on the subject of my movements that day.”

“Perhaps not, but if your actions were innocent, why did you make such an effort to conceal the yellow garments that identify you? Why did you wear the black coat?”

“I did nothing of the kind. I went after Dhamo that day with the intention of engaging him in a private conversation. The nature of my communication with him is confidential. I will not discuss it in this public setting, and I am astonished that you would make such a demand of me.”

“You did not go after Dhamo,” Li Du said, quietly. “You went before him. You wore the black coat so that, in case the apparent suicide was not believed, you would not appear to have any connection to the events in the forest.”

Rinzen opened his mouth to speak, but Li Du continued in a firm, clear tone. “When your tarnished ring placed you at the hot springs, your plan to disassociate yourself from the area where the murder took place was thwarted. You thought quickly, and you invented, for my benefit, a collection of half-truths and lies. You claimed that you followed Dhamo to speak to him without being overheard. That was a lie. You could not tell me the truth—that you went
ahead
of Dhamo to the hot springs and waited for him in the forest—because it would have revealed that you knew he would be there. It would have revealed that it was you who emptied the cinnabar from the bowl in his studio in order to draw him away from the temple and the manor. It would have revealed you to be his murderer.”

“This is nonsense.” With tensed lips and lifted chin, Rinzen was a portrait of offended nobility. “I realize now that it was a mistake to confide in you. Clearly you have not only succumbed to a gross misunderstanding of the situation but also indulged in absurd fantasies that have no connection to truth.”

“You deny that you killed Dhamo.”

“I do, and I challenge you to offer any evidence that I did.”

Li Du was silent. He lowered his gaze and rubbed the back of his neck. “I wish,” he said, “that I had been able to do so before tonight.” In the hush that followed, he turned and went to the stairs. He knelt, reached down, and picked up the the thangka and the book. Then he returned to the hearth and set them down on the floor, visible to everyone.

While the others craned their necks to look at the objects, Li Du turned his gaze to Rinzen, whose cheeks had become sunken beneath eyes that burned with fury.

“You waited for Dhamo at the hot springs,” Li Du said. “You arrived there prepared to effect the plan you had devised days earlier. You already had in your possession the paint, stolen from the temple and folded in rawhide.”

The muscles of Rinzen's throat were taut and visible along the column of his neck. “I had no reason to kill Dhamo,” he said, but his affronted mien had deserted him. From the moment Li Du had retrieved the thangka and the book, the atmosphere in the room had changed. Rinzen was alone among strangers who were looking to Li Du for answers to their questions.

Doso spoke in a low, dazed voice. “How is this possible?”

“To explain, I must speak of empires,” Li Du said. “I must speak of my own empire, and of its Emperor. In the forty years since the Kangxi began his rule, these mountains have never strayed far from his thoughts. Beyond them lies Lhasa, a city that taunts him, a beautiful city full of knowledge that he does not possess and strength that is not the same as his own. And so, in the course of those forty years, he has sent spies into the trade routes like beads on a tangled string. They appear as pilgrims and merchants and travelers. They watch and learn and make their reports.”

Li Du paused, summoning to his mind a vision of the past. “A little more than thirteen years ago,” he went on, “this place, this hidden valley, came to the attention of one of the Kangxi's most powerful spies in Lhasa: Rinzen Ngawang. He received a detailed description of it from one of the spies sent to search for a location from which messages could be taken secretly to China. When he heard of this valley—near to the main routes but removed from them, owned by an old family uninvolved in political intrigues—he concluded that it was ideal for his purposes.”

Sera-tsering was sitting beside Lumo. She rested her elbows on her knees and turned her head to look at Rinzen. “How much you must know,” she said in a low voice. She looked up at Li Du. “Then Dhamo was a spy?”

“No. Dhamo was, from Rinzen's perspective, another fortunate discovery. He was a brilliant thangka painter and a man preoccupied with demons. He was also highly suggestible. The code that was devised to conceal messages in thangkas might have been inspired by Dhamo's unique qualifications, but Dhamo knew nothing about it. He thought that he spoke to benevolent spirits. He painted what they told him to paint, and the completed thangkas were delivered to monasteries near Beijing where the Kangxi's agents waited to retrieve them.”

Andruk had been watching Li Du intently, while dutifully and succinctly continuing his translations for a confused and exhausted Campo. Now he spoke. “But if what you say is true, then Rinzen is correct. He had no reason to kill Dhamo. It was Dhamo who ensured the continued success of his enterprise.”

Li Du nodded. “That is also what I thought. I did not know that, only a few days before Rinzen arrived here, something happened to alter his situation. He and the Chhöshe met someone on the road, someone who had traveled from this manor.”

“The pilgrim,” whispered Pema.

“Yes.” Li Du turned to Tashi. “You and Rinzen met a pilgrim who shared your fire. You told me that he and Rinzen conversed late into the night. When I discovered that this was the same pilgrim as the one who had commissioned a thangka days before, I came to the conclusion that he must have been a spy, and that he and Rinzen must have realized that they served the same cause. He would have told Rinzen about the thangka he had commissioned, and the message it contained. And it was in that conversation that Rinzen heard something he did not expect. He heard that the thangka being produced at that very moment in Dhamo's studio contained the news that the Kangxi's highest-ranking spy in Lhasa had shifted his allegiance to the Dzungars and could no longer be trusted.”

“How did you discover this?” The question came from Sera.

“By finding the thangka where Rinzen had hid it, and by decoding its message with the codebook I located among his belongings.”

Rinzen was staring at Li Du, his eyes bright with hatred.

“Where was the thangka?” The question came from Andruk.

“Rinzen concealed it within the wrappings that shrouded Dhamo's body,” Li Du replied. “I thought at first that someone had stolen the thangka, but that was not exactly true. Rinzen did not want to possess it—he wanted to destroy it. Every moment that the thangka remained in its frame was an opportunity for someone to take it or to read its message.

“But he was constrained by the activity at the temple following Dhamo's death. The body was being wrapped and the pyre was being built. He was surrounded by people. He could not throw the thangka into a fire—the hearth in Dhamo's studio was cold, and the flames of the butter lamps were not enough to destroy thick cloth and paint quickly. His search for a flame that would consume the thangka is what gave him the idea of where to hide it. He knew that Dhamo's body would be cremated. If the thangka was hidden on the body, it would be destroyed with it. The message it contained would be lost or, at least, delayed. An opportunity presented itself when the Chhöshe went to circumambulate the high shrine. While he was gone, Rinzen cut the thangka from its easel. He wrapped it around Dhamo's body and covered it in another layer of shroud.”

A log broke in the fire. Li Du watched Rinzen through the sparks that burst from the blackened wood. “I think,” Li Du said, “that if we were to go to the place where you and the Chhöshe camped that night, we would find the body of that lone spy not far from it. I suspect you killed him while the Chhöshe slept. From that moment, you began to plot Dhamo's death.”

“And Sonam?” Kamala's voice came from the corner where she sat with the children.

“Sonam had witnessed the murder. He knew only that Rinzen had killed Dhamo, not why he had killed him, but what he knew was enough to threaten Rinzen. It was Sonam who suggested the cave as a meeting place. Pema had shown it to him, and he knew they would not be disturbed there. Rinzen came to the place Sonam described, but he did not know what it was. He knew only one painter in the valley, and he assumed that the cave was Dhamo's secret refuge, not Pema's. He thought the body would never be discovered.”

“But what about the white mirror?” The question came from Sera. “What is the meaning of the white mirror?”

Li Du kept his eyes on Rinzen. “He told me what it was, but I did not understand. The white mirror was a warning. It was a symbol in the code that had never been used before. It was to be used only in one situation—to command the spies to destroy the network, to scatter to the winds, to burn their codebooks and to disappear. Rinzen needed time to escape before the truth of his betrayal spread and reached Beijing. He knew that any pilgrim who came to the manor and asked to commission a painting from the recluse in the temple would hear the terrible report of Dhamo's death. They would receive the message of the white mirror long after Dhamo's body was gone. The paths of the spies would dissolve, and Rinzen would gain the time he needed to save himself.”

*   *   *

Rinzen was sitting at the ornate desk in his room writing by the light of a candle. A fur rested on his shoulders. His brush moved silently across a page. When Li Du came in, Rinzen looked up and set his brush down. Its handle clinked softly on the porcelain rest. Rinzen stood up and gestured for Li Du to take a seat in a chair of carved and lacquered wood cushioned in crimson silk. Then he slid the paper he had been writing on to the edge of the desk, turned the chair, and resumed his seat, now facing Li Du.

“I was overcome by my emotions earlier this evening,” he said. “I hope you will pardon me for becoming overwrought.”

Li Du looked behind him. Following his look, Rinzen said, “I know that the door is watched. The Khampa muleteers reveal their usefulness. But I have no intention of running out into the night. Such dramatic behavior would be unsuitable.”

“You asked to speak to me.”

“I did. I understand we are to travel together.”

“Kalden Dorjee has agreed to escort you to the next official outpost.”