Spirit Hunter (22 page)

Does Swiftarrow not trust me? Or can I really trust him?
I push away the thought.

“Ishbal has chosen against us, Asena,” Swiftarrow says. “He has accepted the Empress’s bribe. Come.” He takes my hand, pulling me after him, not giving me the chance to speak. We run through the marketplace, dodging stalls and the shifting crowd till we reach the tree-lined road. It’s jammed with jackasses, carts and people shouting at one another to clear the way, as ever, but this day the throng is even thicker. A covered cart is moving slowly through the jumble of traffic, heavily guarded by Gold Birds and men in the livery of the palace. “There.” Swiftarrow points. “Lord Ishbal’s reward.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Then I will show you.” Swiftarrow breaks away, letting go of my hand. He runs straight to the cart, and not one of the guards turns his head to look, not even when Swiftarrow springs up onto the back of the cart. What is he doing? The crowd shifts again and I can no longer see.

“See.” He is at my side again, one arm around my shoulders. He holds up a glittering rope of newly minted ring-shaped coins, each threaded on to a leather cord like beads on a necklace. “Straight from the Moneyer’s hall. The whole hoard will reach Lord Ishbal’s hands by nightfall.”

“Hide it, for the love of Mother Earth!” I hiss, cold with horror.

It is coming. My death. Hand-in-hand with that of the Empress of the T ’ang, the spider who waits in the middle of this web. I wanted to die knowing the Tribes were safe, but there must be a thousand coins on this string alone. How much more money lies piled up in the cart? Lord Ishbal will ride out with the Empress’s army, and together, they will sweep my people from the face of the earth.

Swiftarrow drops the string of coins into the lap of a beggar crouching outside a tavern. Her astonished blessing fades away as we run, holding hands once more. At last we stop, back in the bustle of the marketplace, and Swiftarrow wipes a tear from my face with the tip of a finger. “Ah, not you, brave one. Don’t weep again. We still have a chance of stopping them. Even if Ishbal has chosen the path of cowardice, we know there are men in his camp ready to rebel, and most likely women, too. It is only that we have scarcely any time to rouse them for a fight.” He frowns. “What is wrong?”

“Tell me,” I say, “why did you go to Ishbal, when we agreed that I would be the one to do it.”

“I didn’t want you to go,” he replies, quickly. “If something were to happen— I am falling in love with you, Asena.”

Joy floods through me. It is so cruel that I should know this only to leave it behind. I never thought I should have it at all. I thought I should always be alone. And all along, I could have loved Swiftarrow and been a shaman, too. My people were wrong. Shaman Tulan was wrong.
Love only makes our souls grow, Asena,
White Swan told me. Now I will neither be loved nor a shaman. I will not live to be a mother, bear his children. Swiftarrow and I hold each other so close I feel the beating of his heart; we are one, standing in the rain in the marketplace.

“I love you,” he whispers, and I lean against his chest. I do not want him to see these tears. I am leaving him today, for ever. I am going to kill the Empress, and afterwards, I will be killed.

I am the first to break away. “What shall we do?” This is the last time I will see him. I try to fix his face in my mind, the slanting green eyes, the rare smile, so that I shall take the shadow of his beauty with me to the World Below, and his bravery, too.

As if he knows, as if it is goodbye for him, too, Swiftarrow leans closer and kisses me once on the mouth. He smiles, his last gift to me. “We must separate. Two apart can do more than two together.”

That is what Baba told me the night of the ambush and I never saw him again. Oh, Baba, I am sorry that you will never find me.

“Return to the Forbidden Garden,” Swiftarrow goes on. “I will go straight to the camp and spread word as fast as I can among those who are ready to rebel. They must all ride away from here by dawn.” He kisses me again.

I turn and run. I cannot bear to look back and see him for the last time.

Eighth Daughter runs up to me as I sprint into the courtyard. “Where did you go? I waited and waited after the acrobats had finished and you never came!” She looks me up and down. “And you didn’t get the onions, either – Hano will—”

“Never mind Hano.” I glance around the yard. “Where is everyone?”

“In the hall,” Eighth Daughter says. “But listen—”

I’ve no time for listening. In the hall, Autumn Moon, Red Falcon and Hano sit at the feet of the great bronze statue of the Enlightened One, together with a black-clad Shaolin I’ve never seen before, and a woman in white commoner’s robes. She turns, and I hide my shock: it is White Swan. She has left the House of Golden Butterflies –
she has escaped
. My heart pounds.
What is happening?

She looks up, eyes resting on me. I feel the heat of her gaze. Her eyes are dark with sorrow as she looks away.

Autumn Moon smiles, calm as ever. “Asena,” she says, “come, sit with us. There is much to talk of.”

I bow before speaking: “Autumn Moon, Lord Ishbal has accepted the Empress’s bribe. He will ride out at dawn: they are going to hunt down the Tribes. We must stop them. Swiftarrow has gone to the camp to see if he can persuade Ishbal’s men not to follow him, to rebel.”

White Swan draws in a sharp breath. Red Falcon turns his head, very slightly, to look at her. Their eyes meet.

What goes between the two of them? It is as if they spoke without making a sound.

“It shall be Swiftarrow’s last task in Chang’an,” Autumn Moon says. “Our time here has come to an end. Brother Snake-eye has returned from Mount Shaoshi with the holy Abbot’s permission for us to leave.” She lays a hand on the stranger’s shoulder, who nods – a slim, serious-faced man. “Asena,” Autumn Moon goes on, “I must beg you and Swiftarrow to come with us. There is no longer any need to stay in Chang’an. For your own sake, come with us and leave this behind.”

But even as Autumn Moon speaks, her eyes are filled with sorrow: she is no fool, and she knows what I am going to say.

“I cannot.” Tears slip unbidden down my face. “I must try to save the Tribes. It is my duty.”

Autumn Moon smiles at me, and I know I will never see her again once I leave the Forbidden Garden. “Your courage is deep, Asena. At dawn, Red Falcon shall be waiting by the guard-house on the south road, beyond the city walls. He will wait till the sun is just above the horizon.”

“Asena?” says White Swan, sharply. “Will you be there?”

“Make sure you send word to Swiftarrow,” I reply, trying to keep my voice steady. “I don’t know if I will see him again tonight. There will be many people in Ishbal’s camp, and it would be easy to miss him.”

But I am not going to Lord Ishbal’s camp to join forces with Swiftarrow.

He will meet Red Falcon at the rising of the sun. I will not. I am going to the palace.

I
have come to the heart of the spider’s web.

I lie face-down on the beam, looking at the dark chamber below – without Swiftarrow this time. In the middle of the floor sits a high, curtained bed draped with heavy silks. The shutters have been left slightly open and a screen arranged before the window, so that the fall-of-leaf breeze shall not disturb the sleeper when she comes. The faint, earthy scent of cinnabar-paste drifts up to me. The knife strapped to my leg digs into my flesh. What is the quickest way to kill with a knife? I must hammer it straight into her heart. Cutting her throat will take too long, although I would like the Empress of the T ’ang to drown in her own blood.

To save my people, I must kill her. There is no choice, and I thirst to do it.

But not yet, not yet. I must wait. Darkness deepens and my limbs stiffen, burning with the strain of keeping so still. The silken drapes hanging about the Empress’s bed billow as a stronger breeze blows past the screen, chilling my skin.

When I slid away from the Forbidden Garden they were rolling up spare clothes, gathering weapons: taking only what could be carried. On foot, the Shaolin will go from Chang’an like swallows flying south for the winter, leaving the temple of the Forbidden Garden empty as a nutshell. The fallen leaves of autumn shall blow across the courtyard with no one to watch them.

Where is Swiftarrow now? Has Autumn Moon sent him the order to leave Chang’an? Is he already in the camp?

Wait. What is that sound?
I listen. The song of the palace swells by a hair’s breadth: distant voices, the soft thud of an ink-pot laid down on a wooden table, footfalls growing louder. Someone is coming. The door opens, throwing a pool of butter-yellow light across the floor. An old woman shuffles across the chamber holding a lamp, slow with age. She stops and sighs, lays down her lamp on the table beside the bed and turns back the coverings, smoothing them carefully. She turns and shuffles out, closing the door behind her. It shuts with a click.

The Empress is coming to her deathbed.

The lamplight flickers, throwing shadows across the walls. The fire-snakes painted on the screen seem to shiver and uncoil of their own will.

I hear footfalls again. Three sets. Three people. Louder, louder. They are here. The door swings open once more. It is her: the Empress, wrapped in stiff court robes, hair piled high, stuck with peacock feathers, studded with pearls. She is flanked on either side by plain-faced maidservants. So it is true, the old rumour that the Empress will have no fair-faced women within sight. Without a word, the maidservants begin to undress her, untying the robe, lifting it away from her pale, maggoty body. The smell of stale wine billows from her clothes. The last feast of the Chrysanthemum Festival is done with, and soon winter will come. I turn away, letting fresh air drift across my face. When I turn back, the Empress is clad in a night-robe, fluttering blue silk stitched with clouds of butterflies. She sits straight-backed on a stool, and silently the maidservants work at her hair, pulling out pins and combs, unravelling pearls, setting the hair free from its coils.

At last, the maidservants bow low. Will they go now? No. They help the Empress into bed, drawing up the covers, letting the silken drapes fall about the bed, then kneel and take out a pair of sleeping mats from the chest next to the window. Without a word, the maidservants unfold padded quilts, one blows out the lamp, and they lie down side by side at the foot of the Empress’s bed like a pair of Eighth Daughter’s wooden dolls, ready to do her bidding at any moment.

I wait in darkness, clutching the beam. One after the other, all three women drift into slumber, the Empress and her maidservants, equal in sleep. All helpless.

Things are never as they seem.

What did Swiftarrow mean when he said that? Fear floods through me, sickening.
Where is he now?
The same questions return. Why did Swiftarrow go to Ishbal when we’d agreed the task was mine? If it was to stop me going, why did he not tell me about it sooner?

What if Swiftarrow is not what I think he is?

Did he really go to the camp, begging Ishbal’s men to rebel?
What if he did not?

Has Swiftarrow always been a traitor, and I just a fool? Did he ever really change? If I were still truly a shaman, I would know by looking at his spirit-horse.

I am shaman, as you once were, White Swan had said to me. The great power in you is broken and twisted.

What have I done? I must go to the camp myself. I must warn everyone there to ride hard away from Chang’an before General Li’s men are ready to leave, and I must go now. But if I do not kill this spider first, she will live to spin another web.

I draw in one long breath, releasing it slowly. I close my eyes, hearing the voice of Autumn Moon in my mind:

Our sister the swallow thinks nothing of the earth: her place is the sky. Make it yours. Believe this, and so it shall be.

I am a swallow with a forked tail and black wings; I swoop in the warm air, the sun on my back. Leaping, I fly and my heart soars with the thrill of it.

I am Shaolin.

I land in a crouch, silent.
Good
. Autumn Moon would be proud of me. I wait, still. One of the maidservants sighs in her sleep, turns. Her breathing slows again. Three heartbeats pound along with my own, the last music I shall ever hear.

I am coming, O Imperial Majesty. I am coming for you.

All is quiet.

A breeze slides in through the window, past the screen. Silk drapes billow about the Imperial bed. Rising, I slide free the knife from the scabbard strapped to my calf. The blade shines, moonlit. I run to the bed. The Empress lies on her back, mouth slightly open, breathing heavily. Her face is pale. Her eyebrows are faint, sea-green paint wiped away till tomorrow – but tomorrow will never come. Not for her. Her lips are slack.

Goodbye, O Majesty.

I lift the knife— What is that? Another heartbeat: a fourth heartbeat. There is someone behind me.
Shaolin.
I whirl around to face them.

It is Swiftarrow. He grabs my arm, squeezing my wrist.

“Drop the knife,” he hisses.

I should never have trusted him.

On the bed beside us, the Empress opens her eyes. She screams, sitting up, clutching the covers to her chest. Swiftarrow knocks the knife from my hand. The maidservants are screaming, too. I hear the pounding rhythm of heavy men running, their feet hammering the floor; I hear their ragged breathing. I stand still, staring at Swiftarrow. Once an enemy, always an enemy. How foolish I was to think it would be any different.

“Give me the knife,” I say, calm as if I were speaking of a cook-room spoon. “I will finish this.” He has betrayed me again. He did not truly love me. Most likely all that was a trick. All just a trick.

“No!” begs the Empress. “You cannot kill me.” Her voice rises to a high-pitched whine. “My guards will cut your throat. You are just a young girl. You do not want to die.”

Swiftarrow grabs at my arm again but I dodge him, snatching back the knife, moving faster than flame-hot mercury. The guards come closer, closer, their footfalls louder and louder.