Читать книгу The Jade Temptress - Jeannie Lin - Страница 13

CHAPTER FOUR

IN THE DAYS after his brief exchange with Mingyu there were no more visits, official or unofficial, and no more talk of dismissal. Kaifeng continued with his duties as prescribed, but remained on guard. When a scraggly figure appeared at the end of the street during his morning patrol, Kaifeng’s defenses were immediately raised.

The boy was panting when he came to a stop before Kaifeng. “Are you Constable Wu?”

“Yes,” he replied warily.

“Come quick.”

Kaifeng remained where he was, staring down at the street rat. The child would have to be a bold one to try to lure an armed constable into some trap. The boy paled beneath his scrutiny. “Please, sir.”

Kaifeng started toward him, but the boy turned to weave through the pedestrians.

“What is this?” Wu demanded, following easily with his long stride.

The boy shook his head and kept on moving, twisting through alleyways and side streets as he led Kaifeng farther away from the main market. Just north of the walls was a residential area dotted with small tea stands. They passed by a public bathhouse and a local temple on the corner.

Finally the boy came to a stop at a wooden gate. “Here, sir.”

It was clear that he didn’t intend to enter and Kaifeng once again considered the possibility of a trap. The gate was plain and unmarked. Kaifeng pushed it open to reveal a small, empty courtyard graced by a single willow tree. Its branches dipped to form a canopy over the space. The interior of the house was still and quiet.

Kaifeng didn’t reach for his sword, but he made sure his hands were ready as he entered the courtyard. The walking path was laid with stone and kept tidy. There was one entrance into the main part of the house and Kaifeng ducked beneath the doorway to find himself inside a spacious room.

Light filtered in from the courtyard. The first thing he saw was a desk in the corner, followed by a violent splatter of red. It took a moment for his mind to register it. Blood.

“I found him like that.”

He spun around at the voice. Lady Mingyu was pressed into the corner beside the window. Her usually sensual voice came out thin and strained. She looked entirely different from when he’d last seen her. Her lips had been tinted red and her complexion was moon pale in contrast, giving her an unearthly appearance. Even scared out of her wits, she presented a vision.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

She shook her head, though her eyes appeared dull. She clutched a silk handkerchief in her hand as if her life depended on it.

Kaifeng left her in the corner to approach the desk. At his first glimpse of the scene, his mind had receded. His natural instincts refused to accept or understand that what he was seeing was real, but he forced himself to look closely now.

There was a body seated in the chair dressed in a brocade robe. The head was missing and there was blood everywhere, splattered over the papers and staining the floor and walls.

“He was alive when they took off his head,” Kaifeng observed.

A gasp came from behind him. Mingyu was staring at him incredulously. Then her gaze returned to the headless body. If she could have disappeared into the wall, she would have.

“Do you wish to be elsewhere?” he asked.

A strangled sound escaped her lips, halfway between a cry and a laugh. Finally she nodded.

Kaifeng spared one final glance at the body, noting its position and taking quick stock of the surrounding items, before going to Mingyu’s side. He didn’t know if he should reach for her, but she seemed unable to move or look away. Taking a firm, yet careful grip on her arm, he directed Mingyu toward the door. After a moment’s resistance, she surrendered and went with him.

Once outside in the sunlight, her knees gave away. Kaifeng caught her in both hands. Mingyu’s soft weight momentarily sank against him, but she shoved him away to sink onto a wooden bench beneath the willow. He stood back while she struggled to find her breath. This was the Lady Mingyu he’d come to know—stubborn and determined not to show any sign of weakness.

“Who is that inside?” he asked.

“General Deng Zhi.” Her voice wavered despite her efforts. “He had just returned to the capital.”

“The general is your lover?”

She looked like she was about to break into pieces. “Not any longer.”

If what Mingyu said was true, one of the most highly ranked men in the empire had been killed not twenty paces from where he stood. He had to investigate the details of the death and report his findings to the magistrate immediately.

He looked down to Mingyu. “Did you send that boy to find me?”

She nodded, her hand trailing to her throat. Some of her color had returned, but she was far from composed.

“Do not leave this house,” he commanded. “If you flee now, I will have to consider you suspect in this murder.”

“If I wanted to run away, I wouldn’t have called you here,” she said irritably. Pressing the handkerchief to her nose, Mingyu presented him the hard point of her shoulder. “And I know that you consider me suspect, anyway.”

Her directness caught him off guard. If he knew anything about Mingyu, it was that she was unpredictable. After making sure she wouldn’t faint or lose her stomach, Kaifeng returned to the chamber.

He had seen death before. He’d witnessed it in battle as well as at public executions. The macabre scene was in many ways more shocking now than it had been on first sight. This time, Kaifeng noted the minute details he’d overlooked before. The body had fallen back against the chair and remained sitting. The neck protruded in a bloody stump. The headless torso seemed to be reclined comfortably in the chair, his last pose before leaving this world.

It was hard to believe a fighting man like Deng wouldn’t have managed to stand and defend himself in any way.

The blow had to have come from the front with the attacker facing the general. He noted the splatter around the chair and desk, and the lurid, metallic smell of fresh blood assaulted him. Gritting his teeth, Kaifeng walked around the desk and searched the floor. There was no head or murder weapon to be found.

Glancing up, Kaifeng could see Mingyu out in the garden. She remained on the bench where he’d left her with her head bowed. The position emphasized the graceful curve of her neck and the slenderness of her shoulders, making her appear vulnerable through the frame of the door.

Her robe was made up of shimmering layers of yellow silk and gold embroidery. The bodice was enticingly low, leaving her shoulders bared except for a shawl of the thinnest gauze wrapped around her. She had certainly come ready to visit a lover. His stomach twisted at the thought.

Her mere presence distracted him and he couldn’t allow that to happen. This was his duty and his calling and he needed to remain sharp to solve this puzzle, a puzzle that the courtesan was inexplicably a part of. A puzzle that Mingyu was making more complicated.

Kaifeng returned to the courtyard and breathed in the clean air, letting it fill his lungs and clear his head. Lady Mingyu didn’t raise her head even when he went to stand immediately before her. The pearl ornament in her hairpin caught his eye. A similar piece of jewelry had implicated her in another murder a year earlier.

“Once again I find you connected to a dead body,” he said.

“I know how this must seem.”

Mingyu wouldn’t look up at him as she spoke. It could be a sign of guilt, but it could be a sign of many things. She had belonged to the general and everyone in the Pingkang li had known it. Was she grieving for him now? Or had she somehow been involved in his death?

“I must notify Magistrate Li and summon my men to come retrieve the general’s body. Then you will need to come with me for questioning.”

“Of course, Constable.”

Her head tilted back slowly as if it were weighted down with lead. When she met his gaze, her eyes were fathomless. “I knew you would track me down regardless. That was why I sought you out.” Yellow silk whispered around her as she rose. “To save us both the trouble.”

* * *

MINGYU REMAINED BENEATH the shade of the willow tree as Constable Wu sent for a prison wagon to transport the body. When the other constables arrived, he instructed them to seal off the front gate and begin a search of the surrounding area. He was undaunted and efficient, an inhuman force, as if he had seen death a hundred times before.

By the time Wu Kaifeng came for her, Mingyu had stopped shaking. As she followed the constable into the street, she pulled her shawl tight around her shoulders even though the midmorning sun rose high in the sky. The chill that encased her came from within. It couldn’t be banished by the thickest of cloaks.

A covered litter was waiting outside the gate. Four bearers sprang to their feet and moved into position beside the poles while Mingyu glanced at Wu in surprise. He’d summoned transportation for her rather than requiring that she ride in the prison wagon. The gesture provided her with a measure of privacy and could have been considered thoughtful. Wu said nothing of it as he drew aside the curtain for her.

Mingyu climbed inside the compartment and the curtain fell over the front, shielding her away from the world. The litter then rose, hefted onto the shoulders of the bearers outside, and Mingyu let her head sink onto her hands.

Deng Zhi was dead.

She didn’t know what to feel. The general had been her patron for so long that it was impossible not to feel an emptiness in her chest. The general had been invincible in her eyes. Untouchable even by the Emperor.

Deng had barely spoken a word to her the first time she’d come to his bed. She hadn’t been a virgin, but she was young. Mingyu had been afraid there would be pain, that the general would be rough. All things considered, he hadn’t been careless with her, but Deng had held his hand over her throat the entire time, with her pulse beating frantically beneath his hand.

Deng had wanted no doubt in her mind that he owned her. Whenever he returned to the city, she still felt the weight of that hand, ready to bestow life or take it crushingly away.

And now she was free of him, but what did that freedom truly mean? Mingyu pulled aside the curtain to peer outside. Wu Kaifeng walked alongside the litter, his long stride keeping pace easily with the carriers.

Wu’s focus was on the road ahead, but he must have possessed the instincts of a wolf. He turned and caught her watching him. His expression was grim.

“We will arrive shortly, Lady Mingyu.”

The litter turned down a side street and stopped at the western entrance of a large gated compound with walls built of rammed earth hardened into stone. Wu Kaifeng bent to help her from the litter, offering a hand which she pointedly avoided. Without a word, Wu withdrew it, letting his arm fall to his side.

“I had hoped to never come back here,” she said, staring at the guardsmen stationed at either side of the entrance.

“Death seems to follow you.”

A shudder ran down her spine. “What an awful thing to say.”

“I apologize, then.”

Along with his wolf’s instincts, he had the manners of some wild creature. Wu Kaifeng unnerved her. He always had, from the first moment she’d seen him. The constable looked at everyone around him as if he would expose all of their secrets, but she had to trust him now.

Mingyu didn’t know who had killed General Deng or why, but she knew that this was Wu’s domain and he wouldn’t let anything happen to her until he uncovered the truth.

She entered the compound under his charge, with Wu walking slightly behind. At every step, she was aware of his considerable height towering over her. There was a quiet fierceness in the way he held himself, as if Wu Kaifeng feared nothing in this world or beyond it. His intimidating presence was an odd comfort at the moment. Whoever had conspired against General Deng, whoever might also mean her harm, couldn’t reach her while Wu stood watch.

The yamen guards raised their spears and stepped aside as they passed. She could feel their gazes raking over her while she kept her head held high. Everyone who was brought here was assumed to be a criminal. Even those who had been wronged were considered tainted.

It had been a year since Wu had led her through this very entrance. She clenched her hands to keep them from shaking and tension gathered in her shoulders as he approached the dark corridor where the accused were locked in prison cells to await trial.

She remembered that forsaken hallway from her one night in captivity. There were no windows and the floors were hard and unforgiving, made of packed dirt. The cells were barely larger than a closet. She had been cold and hungry and alone in the dark except for Wu Kaifeng who remained to await her confession.

The constable directed her past the corridor to another door that she recognized. The interrogation room.

Mingyu stopped cold. Her feet refused to move farther while her heart pounded as if it would punch through her chest. It was a mistake to go to him. She had been locked inside that room with Wu once before. What made her think he was any more forgiving now?

Wu paused with his hand against the wooden frame. His face was turned away, but tension gathered in his shoulders before he took a step back. Without a word, he continued on.

A moment later, she found herself in a more welcoming room lined with shelves and cabinets. A desk stood near the window and Wu sat her down on a stool while he gathered a writing box and scroll.

“Am I under arrest?” she asked.

Instead of answering, Wu positioned himself behind the desk facing her. Anyone else would have given her some indication of what was to come, either reassure or threaten her, but Wu Kaifeng did neither. He took his time grinding the ink stick down and mixing it with water before unrolling the scroll.

“When did you go to see General Deng?” he began.

“This morning. I left the Lotus immediately after the gong for the Snake Hour sounded.”

“He was expecting you?”

“Yes.”

After setting a stone weight at each corner of the paper, Wu lifted the brush and began recording her answers.

“Payment was sent to Madame Sun yesterday,” she continued. “The instructions in his letter were very clear when I was to arrive. I was to be his companion exclusively for the week.”

Wu paused and his fingers tightened momentarily over the brush before continuing. “And you had gone to that same house in the past to see him?”

“He owns the place. General Deng would hold gatherings and private meetings there.”

“Were you invited to these gatherings, as well?”

“One needs entertainment at such affairs.”

She tried to remain as calm as possible, but her throat was painfully dry. These were ordinary questions really, one any lawman might ask. She had expected this when she’d put herself at Wu Kaifeng’s mercy. What she hadn’t expected was how his demeanor had changed toward her. The difference was subtle, but it was there. She’d sensed it when Wu had approached her the other day. The events of the past had created a connection between them that remained unresolved. It was fate. Yuán fèn.

Wu kept his head bent as he transcribed her words onto the paper. His profile was rugged and his expression completely focused. His characters emerged in tight, efficient columns with little space in between them.

The scholar-gentlemen of the North Hamlet worshipped the art of writing. A practitioner’s technique and posture were supposed to reveal his character, how patient and cultured he was. Wu Kaifeng held the writing brush like a barbarian, without any technique or refinement. It was merely a tool in his hands, the same way a shovel or a pick served a peasant laborer.

“Isn’t that task usually performed by a clerk?” She indicated the scroll with a nod of her head.

“My writing should be passable.”

“Where did you study?”

“My father taught me.” He paused for an uncomfortable space of time. “My foster father,” he amended.

“Was he a constable, as well?”

“A physician.”

Mingyu knew she was stalling. It made her feel better to have him talking. Wu seemed quite civil in conversation. It was when he remained deathly quiet that he seemed to be judging her.

“You didn’t keep such meticulous records the first time we conversed,” she ventured.

“You weren’t saying very much.”

His hand continued inking the report onto the paper while they spoke.

“You were being unpleasant,” she reminded him.

“It was my duty.”

“To be unpleasant?”

Mingyu thought she caught the corners of his mouth tightening and her pulse jumped. It was dangerous for her to taunt him. Like throwing stones at a tiger in a bamboo cage.

But something had happened the last time they were here. Something that she had never told anyone because she couldn’t understand it herself. It had weighed heavily on her mind before seeking Wu out that morning.

“I have many other tasks to see to. If we could continue,” he said stiffly. She wasn’t the only one affected by their exchange. “When was the last time Deng summoned you?”

“Over a year ago. General Deng hasn’t returned to the city since before Emperor Xuānzong took the throne.”

“Not until now.”

“Not until now,” she echoed.

He met her eyes directly. “I recall you were shameless about using Deng’s name for your own purposes while he was away.”

If Wu was waiting for her to flinch, then he would be disappointed. “Sometimes exploiting a man’s power is the only influence a woman can wield.”

His gaze narrowed on her before moving on to more additional questions.

“What happened when you arrived at the house?”

“There was no one at the gate. I went inside and saw...saw exactly what you saw.” She pressed the back of her hand against her mouth as a wave of nausea churned her stomach. “There was blood everywhere.”

“Did you approach the body or get close to him in any way?”

She shook her head. “I ran out into the street and found someone to fetch you.”

“Deng was no longer alive when you came into the room?”

“No.”

“And there was no one else in the house. You didn’t see or hear anyone?”

She recalled this approach from the last interrogation. Wu Kaifeng would ask every question two or three different ways, looking for inconsistencies in her answers.

“There was no one,” she said evenly.

He was writing again, the report flowing neatly from the tip of his brush. From a quick glance, he was recording her words exactly as she spoke them without embellishment or interpretation. When he looked up again, his gaze pierced her.

“Did you kill the general?”

Mingyu stared at him, startled by his bluntness. “Do you think I could have cut a man’s head off?”

“No.”

She started to relax, but it was too soon.

“Not personally,” Wu amended. “But you could have had it done. You have a way of getting others to do your bidding, Lady Mingyu. Of wielding influence, as you called it.”

“Then why would I want to be rid of General Deng? I have everything to lose and nothing to gain from his death.”

“Sometimes there is no reason.”

Some unnamable emotion flickered in his eyes, but she was unable to catch it. Mingyu was skilled at reading a man’s desires. Not only when it came to lust or sensual pleasure, but other desires, as well. The desire for notoriety, for respect, for achievement. The pleasure quarter was there to feed into all of them. Maybe she couldn’t read Wu Kaifeng because he had no desires. He was as dark and fathomless inside as on the outside.

“I am telling the truth,” she insisted as calmly as she could. “Remember that I was the one who came to you.”

“As you did last time. You are a strategist, Lady Mingyu. You like to control the board.”

There was no denying that. Better to know the positions on the battlefield, even if it put her at the mercy of someone as heartless as Wu Kaifeng. Fighting blind was the worst disadvantage of all.

“Why come to me?” he demanded. “Why not one of your many protectors? You despise me, Lady Mingyu.”

She was taken aback. “I don’t despise you.”

It was a horrible mistake going to Wu. He was suspicious of everything and everyone. She should have known he would tear her apart, just like this, but she’d been scared and alone.

“If you were so frightened, why did you wait for me in that house?” he challenged. “Weren’t you afraid the murderer could have still been nearby?”

“You were the only person I knew I could trust.”

Mingyu regretted the confession as soon as she’d made it. He reared up and leaned onto the writing table to loom over her.

“What game are you playing?” His quiet tone held a warning.

Instinctively, Mingyu shrank back. “There is no game.”

“I’m the last man you should trust. You and I both know why.”

She had no choice but to lay out all the pieces between them, which meant uncovering the past. The first time Wu had interrogated her, he’d taken out six bamboo sticks and laced them between her fingers. He’d held her hand still in his own as he completed the task, a gesture that was grotesquely intimate.

Each time she’d refused to answer, he would tighten the string around the sticks, crushing her knuckles against the bamboo. Mingyu had tried to bite her tongue, to refuse to beg, but it had been useless.

The entire process had been conducted with cold precision. Wu Kaifeng watched her suffer without a hint of emotion on his face, but then the pain stopped without explanation. The questioning came to an abrupt halt, as well.

“Why did you spare me that night?” she asked him now.

For the first time, Wu was the one to look away. “You were not going to reveal anything, even under torture.”

Mingyu hadn’t been so certain of it. Tears had flooded her eyes while her screams echoed off the walls of the barren cell.

Wu Kaifeng was the man who had done that to her. No one came to her defense. For all the compliments and praise that scholars bestowed upon her, she was still nothing more than a diversion. Admired in passing fashion like the brightness of a full moon, beautiful in one moment, easily forgotten in the next.

“I would have never expected you to be the merciful type, Constable.”

“It wasn’t mercy on my part.” He rose to his feet, forcing her to crane her neck to meet his eyes. They were black and unreadable, as always. “You may go now.”

“You aren’t going to put me in chains?”

Wu, perhaps finding the question unnecessary, didn’t answer. Instead, he busied his hands with the writing implements, setting them carefully aside and then lifting the report to make sure the ink had dried.

She stood to leave, but stopped at the door. They were separated by the span of the room, giving her space to breathe. Wu’s presence was too overwhelming when he was beside her.

“I hated you for a long time, Constable. I hated you for rendering me helpless. For seeing me at my most vulnerable.”

“I took no pleasure in it,” he assured her.

“This is far from over, isn’t it?”

“There will be an imperial inquiry. Someone must be punished for this crime.”

Mingyu knew she was in danger from the moment she’d stepped into the study to see Deng’s corpse waiting for her. She had been linked to one murder in the past and here was another.

Conspiracy, the gossipers would declare. The general’s lover lured him to a secret tryst where he was then assassinated.

“You asked me why I summoned you and what game I was trying to play. It is a game,” she admitted. “I don’t trust you because you are kindhearted and honorable, Constable Wu. I trust you because you don’t care who Deng Zhi is or how vast his forces are. You don’t care who I am, which means you don’t care that a lowly courtesan was found with her dead and high-ranking lover. Or that her life means nothing to the magistrate or his superiors. All you care about is finding the truth.”

“If you’re looking for protection, you need someone more powerful than I,” he warned her.

Her chest squeezed tight. “There is no one else.”

“That is unfortunate.”

He regarded her impassively, his face a mask. If there was any hint of kindness earlier, it was long gone. She pushed the door open, eager to escape. Part of her envied Wu Kaifeng and his unyielding approach. It must be freeing to walk through this world and feel nothing.