One of their customs was utterly strange to her. She did not meet any upper-class women, but the servants assured her it was quite true that the feet of wealthy and well-born Chinese women were tightly bound when they were small girls, to keep them from growing. The deformed results, which looked something like the hooves of horses, were known as lily feet, and the Chinese women were proud of them. Taniko could not imagine why, nor why the Chinese men would find such feet attractive, as they evidently did. Only a man like Horigawa, she thought, would want a crippled woman.

Towards the end of the Year of the Horse, the prince’s Chinese secretary told her that Horigawa had finally made contact with Chia Ssu-tao. Because of the chief councillor’s passion for sponsoring cricket fights, Horigawa had scoured the ten major marketplaces of Linan and all the lesser ones till he found a truly formidable fighting cricket, for which he paid one hundred bolts of silk. He sent the cricket to the great minister in an ivory cage, with the compliments of one who served the Emperor of Ge-pen in the same capacity that Chia served the Sung Emperor. It was an exaggeration, but there was no way Chia Ssu-tao could discover that. Chia sent for Horigawa. What they had discussed, precisely, the secretary had no idea.

Horigawa was invited to Chia Ssu-tao’s celebration ushering in the Year of the Sheep. The chief councillor entertained his guests on Linan’s great Western Lake, chartering a fleet of flower-bedecked pleasure boats, crewed by women and heavily laden with casks of spiced rice wine. Horigawa was among the most favoured guests, those who accompanied Chia Ssu-tao himself on the dragon barge that led the fleet. Not long after this, Horigawa sent a sealed dispatch on a trading junk to Takashi no Sogamori.

Taniko passed the days writing in her pillow book, embroidering, and playing mah-jongg with a Chinese maid who taught her the game. The elderly secretary taught her the art of painting in the Chinese manner. She compared languages with him, both of them fascinated by the way Taniko’s language was written in Chinese characters, but with the characters standing for completely different words. The old man explained that China was known as the Central Kingdom because all the other nations of the earth must come to China to learn.

One day in early spring of the Year of the Sheep, Horigawa came to her. His small, squarish face was alight with pleasure and triumph.

“I have come to advise my honoured wife to prepare herself for a long and arduous journey by land. We leave in three days’ time.”

“Where are we going?” Taniko asked coldly.

“West.” Horigawa waved expansively in that direction.

“There is war in the west.”

“Yes. Are you afraid?” He watched her keenly. Perhaps he hoped that the long months of suspense and confinement would have broken her down.

“I am not,” Taniko said firmly. “Wherever we are going, if you are not frightened, I can be quite certain I will not be frightened.”

“You have more to fear than I do.”

Once again Taniko carefully packed away her silks, jewels, combs and the other belongings she had brought with her from Heian Kyo. She had not yet worn any of her finery.

The day before they were to leave she sought out the old secretary to say goodbye. He prostrated himself before her and looked up with tears in his eyes.

Taniko smiled. “I hardly deserve such an outpouring of feelings. Perhaps if you knew me better you would weep less at this parting.”

He shook his head. “Escape, honoured lady. Run away. Do not go with the prince.”

“How can I escape? Where could I go?”

“You are being taken to your destruction. To think that I should advise a wife to defy her husband—it is a great wrong I do. But the evil he contemplates is greater.”

He would say nothing more. She passed that day and night in dread. Of course, she had always known Horigawa had some cruelty in store for her, though the uneventful voyage and the quiet months in Linan had lulled her into a feeling of safety. There was danger in the west.

How could she run away from Horigawa in an utterly strange land? Could she find her way to Jebu? How would she eat? Where would she sleep? She would either be returned to Horigawa or fall into the hands of criminals. She could only escape if she had help. She decided to ask the secretary, since he had warned her, to help her get away.

After a sleepless night she dressed quickly. As she finished, Horigawa swept into the room.

“We depart at once.”

“I—I am not ready.”

“That is unfortunate. I’m sorry, but we leave in any case.” The little man beckoned, and two large Chinese serving-women came into the room.

“I am not going with you.”

“I suspected as much. Rumour of our destination has somehow reached you. One can appreciate at such times the usefulness of the Chinese custom of binding women’s feet.”

“I am sure the idea of torturing and deforming women appeals to you.”

Horigawa nodded to the two large women. With blank faces they stepped forward and reached for Taniko. She remembered her samurai training. She stepped towards the maid on her left, tripped her and sent her sprawling on her back. The other big woman threw her arms around Taniko from behind. Taniko drove her elbow into the woman’s stomach.

Horigawa tried to block the doorway, but Taniko thrust the heel of her hand into his chin. He fell back against the wall of the corridor.

She ran out of the room and into the arms of a steel-helmeted guard with a three-pointed sword swinging from his broad belt. He picked her up off her feet in a bear hug and held her impassively while she kicked against his massive body.

“Take her to the carriage and lock her in,” said Horigawa, panting as he picked himself up off the floor with the help of one of the maids. He bared his black-dyed teeth at Taniko. “I might say I will make things worse for you, to repay you for this. But your fate cannot be made any worse.”

The grizzled tuman-bashi started to turn away, then swung around and said, “You will regret your stubbornness. You should surrender now, while you have the chance. There will be no mercy for Kweilin when our tarkhan, Arghun Baghadur, resumes command.”

Chapter Six

From the pillow book of Shima Taniko:

The barbarians who have invaded southern China are said to smell so bad that the very stench of their approach forces their foes to retreat. They are described as hideous creatures, hunchbacked and twisted of limb. I have even been told that they bite off the breasts of women. Somehow, I suspect that those terrifying reports are spread to excuse the absence of Chinese victories. Jebu is sprung from the barbarians, and surely he is not twisted of limb. And he bites women only with the best of intentions.

The Chinese also have many strange notions about us. They believe that we eat human flesh and worship gods with the heads of animals. It makes one wonder if the things they say about the Mongols are any more true.

From one of the Chinese serving-maids I have heard the tale of a band of warriors from across the China Sea, short-statured and ferocious, who came to fight in the Sung Emperor’s service. That could only be Muratomo no Yukio’s men, and Jebu must be with them. They are now at a city called Kweilin, further from here than the Sacred Islands. I thought if I came here I would be closer to Jebu. We are in the same country, but this one country is as big as twenty countries. I am told they were in Linan a few months ago. Lord of Boundless Light, will I ever meet him again?

-Eighth Month, twenty-sixth day

YEAR OF THE HORSE

At its southern end, the brick-paved Imperial Way—which was to Linan what Redbird Avenue was to Heian Kyo—curved past the Imperial Palace and the base of Phoenix Hill. Aristocrats and rich merchants built their palaces on Phoenix Hill, and it was here Horigawa took up residence. The gateway of his mansion led into a formal courtyard surrounded by three imposing pavilions with blue and gold pillars. The window of Taniko’s room on the second storey of the women’s pavilion looked towards a lagoon covered with lily pads. The weeping willows and peach trees around it were green. At home this would have been the beginning of autumn, but here in Linan there was no autumn.

Horigawa’s negotiations with officials in the Chinese Court dragged on for months. He had arrived in Linan with the names of a few people who might be useful—mostly merchants who traded with the Takashi—and he used these like the rungs of a ladder to reach higher personages. But frequently there were waits of many days between his appointments with various great men. Hardest of all to arrange was an audience with the most important official in Linan, the Emperor’s chief councillor and the real ruler of southern China, Chia Ssu-tao.

Taniko remained in isolation, in effect a prisoner. As happened wherever she went, she quickly made friends with the servants, both her own people and the newly hired Chinese. Horigawa had instructed the household staff to keep a close watch on her and warned them that she was not to be trusted. But, consciously employing charm, candour and kindness, she eventually won them all over. Through the servants she was able to make contact with the outer world. An elderly Chinese secretary was especially helpful.

From him she learned some of the history of the Sung Emperors. Their dynasty had been founded almost three centuries earlier by a general who seized the throne. A hundred years ago they had lost northern China, first to the barbarian Cathayans, then to the Kin Tartars. And now the Mongols, having in turn overrun the Kin, had decided to unite the two halves of China under their rule. They had pierced the Sung territories from three directions with three armies; their Emperor, the Great Khan Mangu, in the far west; Mangu’s younger brother, Kublai Khan, in the west nearer the capital; and a famed and feared general, Arghun Baghadur, in the south. She thought she had heard of Arghun Baghadur before, but she could not remember where or when.

At first it seemed to Taniko that all Chinese were tall, grave and silent. Then she met several who were short, passionate and talkative. She thought the Chinese greedy, then heard tales of poor scholars and met beggar monks at the mansion kitchen. Gradually she realized that her quickly formed beliefs about the Chinese were as foolish as the Chinese notion that her people ate human flesh, and she settled down to studying the Chinese one by one.

One of their customs was utterly strange to her. She did not meet any upper-class women, but the servants assured her it was quite true that the feet of wealthy and well-born Chinese women were tightly bound when they were small girls, to keep them from growing. The deformed results, which looked something like the hooves of horses, were known as lily feet, and the Chinese women were proud of them. Taniko could not imagine why, nor why the Chinese men would find such feet attractive, as they evidently did. Only a man like Horigawa, she thought, would want a crippled woman.

So it was a surprise when, after a short stay in Linan, Yukio was given an Imperial appointment as military commander of Kweilin, the chief city of Kwangsi province on the western border of the Sung empire. The Mongols had invaded the independent kingdom of Nan Chao and taken its capital, Tali. Kweilin was their next likely target. If Kweilin fell, the nomads could move on to Changsha, the strongest city in the central region. The fall of Changsha would open the way to Linan. The Chinese rulers had given Yukio a crucial post.

After the Mongols had been camped outside the city’s walls for, three days, they sent an unarmed officer across Lake Rong hu in a sampan. Yukio said, “Let’s behead him in front of the gateway, where his countrymen can see it. That will encourage our people and teach the enemy that we are resolute.”

Jebu, who had a strong distaste for unnecessary bloodshed despite his years of combat, was surprised at Yukio. “The governor of the city might want to decide how to deal with this envoy,” he suggested mildly. “Let’s not antagonize our Chinese friends further.”

Governor Liu Mai-tse, an aged scholar, received Yukio, Jebu and the Mongol emissary in his marble hall of state. After bowing to the governor, who was seated on an ivory chair, Yukio addressed him in Chinese.

“I wanted to behead this Mongol at once, Your Excellency, without even hearing what he had to say. This weak-spirited monk who accompanies me persuaded me to bring the enemy to you instead. If it is your wish, though, I will gladly execute him now.”

For the first time Yukio spoke in a language the envoy understood. He showed no fear, but glowered angrily. Despite his age—his hair and moustache were grey—he had the powerful build and quick movements of a young warrior.

Governor Liu smiled. “I am not familiar with the humour of Gepen, but I believe you are joking about this monk. I observed him from the wall the day you fought the Mongols, and he is anything but weak-spirited. His advice to you is wise. The Mongols consider the person of an ambassador to be sacred. To slay this man would be an unforgivable offence.”

Yukio shook his head. “I’m sorry, Your Excellency. I was under the impression we had already offended the Mongols.”

Liu raised a slender hand in admonition. “You will admit the possibility that they might eventually take this city?”

“With reluctance.”

“Of course. If we had slain their ambassador they would assuredly put all the people of Kweilin to the sword. That is their custom. You do not have the right to condemn every person in this city to certain death. If we do not embark on a course that drives them to do their worst, there is hope. The Tao is infinite and infinitely surprising.”

Now the grizzled officer turned to Jebu. “Are you a Mongol?” he demanded angrily in Chinese. “How can you serve the degenerate Chinese and fight against your own people?”

“I am not a Mongol, though my father was,” said Jebu. “I was born of mixed parentage in the Sunrise Land and was raised there.”

The Mongol looked surprised and curious. He squinted at Jebu closely and seemed about to ask another question when Liu interrupted.

“If you are through quizzing this monk, tell us who you are and what you have to say to us.”

The Mongol drew himself up and addressed the governor. “I am Torluk, a tuman-bashi—a leader of ten thousand. I come from the commander of the army outside your gates. He does not wish to waste men or destroy a valuable city. Therefore he gives you an opportunity to surrender now. Open your gates to us and all will be spared—even the warriors from the Land of the Dwarfs.”

Land of the Dwarfs. Jebu had heard that expression once before, when he had listened in secret to Arghun’s conversation with Taitaro. Was it true that his people might be ridiculed for their stature? Perhaps it was so, for had he not always been the butt of jokes because of his height?

“I see.” Governor Liu stood and beckoned to Yukio and Jebu, drawing them to a corner behind a gilded pillar and leaving his pikeman to watch the envoy.

In a low voice he said, “This commander who offers mercy is only second-in-command of the army outside. The tarkhan who leads all the Mongols in this region is in Szechwan conferring with their Emperor Mangu. The temporary commander has made many errors by Mongol standards. In the battle at the Green Belt Bridge his orders were delayed, and too many warriors died. Discipline in the camp is poor. The movements of his army are behind schedule. Now he fears that the tarkhan will punish him for his mistakes. He wants to take the city without a fight and present it to the tarkhan as a great conquest.”

“How do you know so much about what the Mongols are thinking, Your Excellency?” Jebu asked.

“I have agents who are able to get in and out of their camp with ease. I know also that even though you suffered great losses at the Green Belt Bridge, the Mongol commander fears you. You are strange to him, and you seem fiercer than the Chinese he has encountered. And he doesn’t know how few of you there really are.”

“Your Excellency wishes us to fight on?” Yukio asked.

“I do.”

Yukio nodded. “We will teach them that the men of the Sunrise Land are not dwarfs but dragons.”

Jebu was pleased that Yukio did not promise victory. Perhaps he had begun to absorb some of the Zinja teachings.

Governor Liu returned to his throne. “We reject the terms offered us. We will fight on against the barbarian invaders who would steal our lands, our cities and our lives.” He motioned his guards to escort the ambassador back to the south gate.

The grizzled tuman-bashi started to turn away, then swung around and said, “You will regret your stubbornness. You should surrender now, while you have the chance. There will be no mercy for Kweilin when our tarkhan, Arghun Baghadur, resumes command.”

Kweilin had hua pao of its own, which Yukio ordered positioned on the city’s towers, to be manned night and day by shifts of Chinese. Pots of oil were set up along the walls, to be ignited and dropped on the wooden Mongol machines. Within the city people gathered barrels of water on every street, buckets of water in every house. Fire was the worst enemy of a city under siege.

They were as ready as they could be, but there were certain aspects of their situation that mystified Yukio and Jebu.

Jebu said, “We know nothing of siege warfare, we know nothing of these fire-throwing tubes. We are ignorant of Mongol tactics. A wise man would have placed us under a Chinese general, so that we could learn and be used according to our skills. Instead we have been put in command of this city. The Chinese officers here resent us. Is Chia Ssu-tao a fool, that he would risk a city in this fashion?”

Yukio shrugged. “Perhaps he was overly impressed by us. People are often respectful of the strange, and contemptuous of the familiar.”

“Or perhaps he wants this city to fall,” Jebu said.

“But he is of the war party at the Sung Emperor’s Court. It was he who provoked the Mongols by breaking a treaty with them.”

Jebu nodded. “What if the Mongols desired that provocation?”

Yukio’s large eyes opened wider. “Are you suggesting that Chia Ssu-tao is a traitor? And that we are being sacrificed to his designs?”

“All we can do now is play the game out,” said Jebu. “We are learning more quickly than those who sent us here may have expected us to.”

At the time of their meeting with Chia Ssu-tao, it had seemed like the beginning of days of good fortune. For ten days, longer than it took to cross the China Sea, they had sweltered aboard their galleys in the almost tropical heat of the southern Chinese capital, Linan. Chinese troops guarded them. Yukio gave a port official a flowery letter to the Chinese Son of Heaven, offering the services of one thousand samurai, to be used as His Imperial Majesty saw fit. The letter had been written at the Teak Blossom Temple with the help of the Zen monk Eisen. After a time Yukio began to despair of receiving an answer. They would have to choose between rotting aboard these ships, setting sail for some other land where they might be more welcome, or breaking out, to become outlaws in the Chinese countryside.

Then a reply came. A huge red and gold palanquin borne by a dozen men and accompanied by a squad of clanking Chinese soldiers was set on the stone quay beside Yukio’s ship. A Chinese officer invited Yukio and three of his officers to ride in the palanquin to the palace of His Celestial Majesty’s chief councillor, the venerable Chia Ssu-tao. Yukio gaped at the palanquin.

“Back home, only the Emperor would be allowed to ride in a conveyance like that.”

“Things are different here,” Jebu said. “Get your best kimono on and let us visit this venerable councillor.”

Yukio, Jebu and two other samurai leaders rode in the palanquin. Linan seemed to them a city of giants. Its many-storeyed buildings towered over innumerable canals and elaborate stone bridges. Each city block seemed to hold as many people as all of Heian Kyo. The Zinja were taught to memorize landmarks, but before they had gone very far, Jebu realized he was completely lost. It was all too strange.

Chia Ssu-tao’s residence did not cover as much ground as the Rokuhara or the Imperial Palace back in Heian Kyo. Land was obviously precious in Linan. But the buildings were bigger and heavier than those of the Sunrise Land. Chia Ssu-tao’s palace was surrounded by vermilion columns resting on the heads of painted stone dragons. He was guarded by huge soldiers in silver armour. The halls of his palace were covered with heavy carpet, so that not a footfall could be heard.

Chia Ssu-tao received them seated on a throne painted with gold leaf. He was a man in his early forties, tall and lean with a large nose, a pointed chin and a small mouth. He wore a round hat topped by a ball of red coral, the mark of his high office. His welcoming smile was cold.

“Your command of Chinese is good,” he began, “but you write in the style of over three hundred years ago.”

Yukio blushed. “Forgive my blundering efforts, Your Excellency. There has been so little contact between your land and mine that we have not kept up with the progress in your manner of writing.”

Chia Ssu-tao nodded. “The last official embassy from your Emperor visited our Son of Heaven near the end of the T’ang dynasty. I presume you have heard of the T’ang dynasty?”

“Of course, Your Excellency,” said Yukio. “Our system of government is modelled on that of the T’ang. Our capital, Heian Kyo, is a copy of the T’ang capital of Changan.”

“Your people have a gift for aping their betters,” said Chia Ssu-tao with a patronizing smile. “However, it is time you visited us again to acquire a few new skills. The Central Kingdom is always pleased to aid the struggles of barbarian nations towards higher civilization.”

Yukio was good at masking his feelings, but Jebu knew from the tightness around his mouth that he was furious. “It is to help protect your great civilization against the barbarian invaders that we have come here, Your Excellency.”

Chia Ssu-tao nodded. “You show the virtue of filial piety, since our civilization is the father of yours. I shall ask the Ministry of War what role can be found for you. We will provide you and your men with quarters. By the way, do you hold cricket fights in your country?”

“Our children keep crickets in cages as pets, Your Excellency.”

“Indeed your people are backward if they consider such a sublime sport a pastime for children. Here we pit crickets against each other. They strive together like tiny dragons. We place bets on the outcome. You must attend my next evening of cricket fights.”

In the days that followed, Chia Ssu-tao introduced Jebu, Yukio and other high-ranking samurai to the aristocracy of Linan. They even had a brief audience with Sung Emperor Li-tsung, a stout, motionless figure seated on a jade throne. They attended several cricket fights, an obsession with Chia Ssu-tao that preoccupied him more than his duties as the Son of Heaven’s chief councillor. On all these occasions Jebu felt that they were being paraded as curiosities, not taken seriously as fighting men.

So it was a surprise when, after a short stay in Linan, Yukio was given an Imperial appointment as military commander of Kweilin, the chief city of Kwangsi province on the western border of the Sung empire. The Mongols had invaded the independent kingdom of Nan Chao and taken its capital, Tali. Kweilin was their next likely target. If Kweilin fell, the nomads could move on to Changsha, the strongest city in the central region. The fall of Changsha would open the way to Linan. The Chinese rulers had given Yukio a crucial post.

Yukio smiled, showing the slightly protruding teeth that gave his face a boyish look. “I will try to be— a joyous samurai.”

Chapter Five

Across the two lakes the Mongols set up their camp and their fortifications. In their numbers, energy and discipline they reminded Jebu of the fierce red ants that built their nests in the forest around the Waterfowl Temple and viciously attacked any trespassing creature, from insect to man. Once, as a child, he had unknowingly stepped on a red-ant hill. Instantly, his legs had been covered with a swarm of tiny, biting insects. He had run screaming to an elder monk who laughed and rescued him by throwing him into a horse trough.

Yukio summoned his men and called the roll. Their losses were as he had predicted, over two hundred. Yukio announced that he was keeping a written record of every battle. The slain would be listed carefully, and all meritorious deeds would be recorded. Feats of sublime valour like that of Sakamoto Michihiko would be memorialized in full. Yukio promised that whatever befell them, even if they all died defending Kweilin, he would get the record of their deeds through to the Emperor’s Court at Linan, and from there it would be sent to the Sacred Islands. Thus, their families would remember their heroism for ever. Had he promised his men riches and long life, he could not have done more to win their loyalty. To die was nothing to a samurai, but to die unnoticed would be a calamity.

Their cheers for Yukio echoed against the high limestone walls. If they had any doubts about his leadership, those doubts were resolved for the time being. The Chinese spectators, unable to understand the language of Ge-pen, as they called the Sunrise Land, wondered how the strange warriors could be so happy after such terrible losses.

Kweilin lay along the west bank of the Kwei Kiang River, a wide, deep, swift-running stream bordered by blue hills riddled with caves and sinkholes and eroded into fantastic shapes. The river was not only a natural moat but also provided the city with an easy supply route and escape route. Any relief troops that might be needed could sail up the Kwei Kiang from Canton.

The besiegers pitched their camp on the west and south sides of the city. Every hill, all the way to the horizon, was covered by round grey felt tents arranged in regular rows. At night the campfires twinkled, as innumerable as the stars.

After several days of watching, Yukio estimated that there were seventy thousand fighting men in the army camped around Kweilin. Thirty thousand were Mongols, organized into three tumans, divisions of ten thousand. The rest were auxiliary troops drawn from the various peoples the Mongols had conquered, mostly Kin Tartars, northern Chinese, Turks and Nan Chaoans. Accompanying these warriors was a host of camp followers, women, servants and slaves.

The Mongols were far from being the ragtag horde of savages Jebu and Yukio had imagined. They were better organized and more carefully equipped than many armies of civilized nations. They wore leather helmets, sometimes topped with spikes or other ornaments, and trimmed with felt and fur. Their armour was of fire-dried, black-lacquered rawhide, which, Jebu knew, was as strong as steel. Each rider carried two bows and two quivers of arrows in saddle cases, a curved sabre in a scabbard slung across his back, a lance, an iron mace, and a round leather shield. Each warrior had at least six remounts—compact steppe ponies about the size of samurai horses, much smaller than those of the Chinese. The Mongol ponies had powerful necks, thick legs and dense coats. Their manes and tails hung almost to the ground. They foraged for themselves in huge herds in the hills near Kweilin.

Life in the city of felt domes seemed quiet and orderly, amazingly so, considering that these were supposedly barbarians whose only interests in life were conquest, killing, looting and rape. Jebu remembered what the Zen monk Eisen had said about the strict laws of the Mongols.

The head of Sakamato Michihiko remained on a pole at the spot where he had fallen, a trophy to be pecked at by birds, gradually changing from the head of a comrade to an anonymous skull. And close to the two lakes was an even more wretched sight. A huge corral had been built. Thousands of tattered, woebegone Chinese were penned within it, mostly men but with many women and even some children among them. They sat or lay on the ground without shelter from the hot sun and the frequent summer rains; the more energetic paced like caged animals. They were fed once a day. Every day parties of these prisoners, each herded by a single mounted warrior, would trudge out to the hills and return pulling cartloads of brush which they laid in a huge pile beside their stockade.

Jebu, Yukio and Moko spent hours every day watching the Mongols. In his few moments of leisure Jebu contemplated the play of light in the flashing depths of the Jewel of Life and Death. Even though he and his comrades had gone, seemingly, from certain death in their homeland to certain death in a foreign country, he felt calm and cheerful.

Across the moat from the city walls the besiegers built a wooden counterwall, with towers higher than those of the city. Behind it they deployed mobile towers, large and small catapults, giant crossbows, rams and the long-barrelled iron firethrowers the Chinese called huapao.

Moko studied the many different kinds of siege machines, explained their uses to Yukio and suggested how they might be countered. “They will send miners to dig under the moat and try to blast our walls with the black powder,” he said. “They have contingents of engineers among their auxiliary troops. We must have men constantly posted along the base of the walls listening for sounds of digging.”

Kweilin had hua pao of its own, which Yukio ordered positioned on the city’s towers, to be manned night and day by shifts of Chinese. Pots of oil were set up along the walls, to be ignited and dropped on the wooden Mongol machines. Within the city people gathered barrels of water on every street, buckets of water in every house. Fire was the worst enemy of a city under siege.