A whisper: "Mercenaries, m'lord."

"Somethingelse , Master Yi."

^What, m'lord?"

"Thepeople , Master Yi, the people. And my agents, here, there, wherever they need to be, all through the city. You know how dangerous it might be-for any foreigner. On the other hand-a foreigner who proved he was a friend-might find-imperialgrat.i.tude/'

"Please." Sweat rolled down the trader's face. "What do you want?"

"Why don't we go to a quiet place?" * * *

Guards came and went, slow patrol, up and down in front of the walls and the gate. Curved, elegant roofs rose up in tiers, porches lit with lanterns in the dusk. Guards there too.

"It's big as a castle," Taizu whispered.

"Almost," Shoka said, measuring the wall with his eye. And feeling the ache in his leg, that came with a cold night, a lot of riding and walking during the day. For a moment, considering that obstacle and the guards, he despaired. Too high, too far, too well guarded. He pushed Taizu back and retreated into the shadow of the winding lane that offered a view of the Lieng estate, where Master Yi waited in the nook of a much poorer gateway.

"What are you going to do?" Yi whispered. Dragged from the market to mid-city, spying on the Regent's headquarters . . . Master Yi was not a happy man.

Not alone in that state, Shoka thought sourly, and calmed himself with a glance at Taizu. No panic. Just the confidence master Shoka, after all this, was going to come up with something remarkable.

Except master Shoka could not scale a wall any longer.

"What are you going to do?" master Yi reiterated, at a higher pitch.

"Just be calm. I know what we need. Let's go."

"You're going to break in there."

He turned and laid a very gentle hand on master Yi's sleeve. "Master Yi, youknow what we're going to do. And you know what your choices are. I see no reason, if you're the cause of a disaster to us-not to elaborate your part in this when the authorities ask questions. Do you understand me, master Yi?"

A speechless nod.

"Good. Good. I suppose you've got some friend at the market that has a pushcart he'd let you rent."

It was nothing unusual that rattled up in the alley back of thePeony and stopped, a cart with two huge well-capped jars. A man pushing, an a.s.sistant panting along beside: nothing particularly remarkable that two tired soldiers came home about the same time as the slops-wagon arrived, in the night. "That's fine,"

Shoka said to the older of the pair. "You're done." Bad choice of words, perhaps. He patted Yi on the shoulder and picked up the bundle the cart carried besides the jars. "I owe you."

"I just want to get back!" Yi said.

"Taizu."

Steel came out. Yi and his servant looked that direction, flinging up hands that in no wise would protect against a longsword.

"Just walk upstairs, master Yi. You'll be safe-with men of mine. I just don't want a fuss right now.

Understand?" Chun was watching from the stairs. Chun came down, doubtfully, but when he nodded to him, Chun drew his sword and came on down to the alley. "Captain?"

"Just an old friend I want you to keep track of for a few hours. Give him a little wine, a little dinner. He's had quite a walk. His man here's a pleasant enough fellow. But I'd see he stayed seated. I promised the innkeep we wouldn't be brawling."

Upstairs. Downstairs again with a long bundle this time, two rag-wrapped slop-men, who shoved the bundle onto the cart beside the jars and set off again.

No rule against a couple of soldiers going about with a bow, maybe, counting that everyone was going about in full kit and rattling with swords, but in a city this anxious, in the Regent's neighborhood, it was a weapon that could get a second, calculating stare.

Slop-men never did. "It's something no one wants to notice," Shoka had said. "They come and they go.

Especially to the big houses. At night, so the master never has to notice at all."

"No worse than pigs," Taizu had said. "I've shoveled a lot of it."

Rumble and rattle across cobbles, half the width of Lungan. "d.a.m.n potholes," Shoka said, as the cart bucked and jolted against his hands. Numb to the wrist as they turned up the street next that of the Lieng mansion, his leg aching. They were in full kit under the rags, Taizu without her bandages, with her face m.u.f.fled up with a cap and a dirty brown scarf against an edge of river chill in the night, Shoka with a thick scarf and ragged layers of robes-perfectly comfortable if one were not wearing two stone of armor under it and pushing a d.a.m.n rickety cart loaded with two jars that made it impossible to see the rough spots ahead. Sweat poured on Shoka's face. "I can't say much for the Regent's streets, either."

"Could be mud and raining," Taizu said cheerfully-who had walked free as a lark all the way, and doing a great deal better now that the streets were clear of day-traffic. They met the occasional night patrol, the occasional other service-cart, the occasional drunk; and a scattering of others with midnight business, mostly in groups.

But this street was conspicuously patrolled, conspicuously vacant of traffic, and lit with lanterns, a long, lonely way up to the lane they had spied out as the servants' access.

There were soldiers at the turn. Don't notice anyone, Shoka said. If you want to go invisible, it's a two-sided thing. Invisible people don't look at anyone when anyone's watching: that way no one looks at them.

So he kept his eyes on his cart, kept himself in a quiet little fog, the way he had told Taizu: There's a time to see everything. There's a time to see nothing. No one will attack us without warning. Who'd do a thing like that, to some poor slop-men? We're too humble ana too dull for soldiers to challenge, don't even be expecting it until we get to the scullery gate.

No challenge from the sentries at the corner. He took a look around the jars and aimed the cart down the middle of the lane, with the wheels rumbling and chattering.

Right up to the gate. "Evenin", sir," Shoka said. Three guards, one leaving the curb to look them over.

"You aren't the ordinary," the guard said.

"Bashed his foot," Shoka said. "He asked me swing over from my regulars an' take care o' his."

The guard grunted and opened up the gate. "You wait. Man brings it out."

d.a.m.n."I don't mind, sir, we can fetch it."

"Ain't the rule." The one guard turned his back. And went sailing into the wall. The second and third closed in, drawing swords. Shoka dodged one, whirled past and took one with a knee and an elbow, bending him over, pa.s.sing him to Taizu, as he spun again and knocked the third guard flying into the cart.

The first man let out a yell. Shoka kicked him, grabbed his sword from the bundle off the cart and Taizu grabbed her bow and quiver.

Into the scullery-court, then, fast as they could scuttle, and up a stairway to a garden terrace.

"I'msorry about that!" Taizu whispered as she crouched down beside him in the shadow of a potted pine and nocked an arrow.

"d.a.m.n, I've gotten soft! Stay here!"

He sprinted along the terrace, across the shadow-bars of the pines and the lantern-light of the porch above. The hue and cry was spreading. Shouts racketed off the walls and lost direction in the porches.

He knew Ghita. Nothing but the best. Center of the mansion, second or third level, in regal quiet and elegant splendor.

d.a.m.n mistake not to have knifed the poor sods out by the gate. It would have gained a little-not much, but a little.

Up a wooden stairs as lanterns flared above. He ducked low, dived off the stairs into a clump of juniper as guards came thundering down the walk, headed for the scullery gate.

No question whether Ghita was awake by now.

And one good thing about the guards: they made so much thumping on the wooden porches he could run full out. He scrambled up onto the stairs, up onto that porch and right through a fragile window-screen, crash! right into the second-level hall.

Guards ran to stop him. They spread themselves out. That was a mistake. One-two, three, four, and five-an arc of blood spattered across a fresco of mist and mountains. He ran the hall, shoved open the doors at the end.

More guards in a lighted hallway, a startled cl.u.s.ter of screaming women who had no time to scatter. He took one guard and the other, that second man down with a crippling wound, howling- A man in front of him. A face like a mask of terror; brocade robes, trailing hair. Not Ghita. Heknew the man, memory said, and a heartbeat later knew the boy inside the soft, plump face. The Emperor himself. Beijun.

"Shoka!" the Emperor breathed, under the clatter of arriving guards.

From the hall behind. A good score of them.

"Shoka, help me!"

He froze, sword lifted, guards behind, in a dead-end room.

And whirled and charged on the last instant, cut his way left and right and never looked to see what he hit, only where he was going. The leg burned as he ran, tore, G.o.ds knew what.

He ran, grabbed a corner, swung onto a stairway and took it with desperate abandon.

A matching screen. He hit it with his shoulder, rolled off the sill with his hip and somersaulted onto the wooden porch- No fear of burglars, had lord Lieng.

Right off the porch onto the junipers, thank G.o.ds for the armor. He clawed his way to the low wooden fence, swung his leg over, and pelted along the terrace with the shouts of guards in his ears and of a sudden the sharp whisper of arrows pa.s.sing him.

She was there, she was waiting for him in the shadow of the wall, and guards were dying behind him.

"Shed it!" he hissed as he reached her post. He stripped the rags off, pulled a bamboo pin off an armor strap and furiously grabbed up his topknot and pinned it. She threw down her bow then, dumped the quiver, the rags and the hat, and scuttled down the stairs with him, down to the scullery court.

Soldiers came in the open gate. "Up there!" Shoka yelled at them, pointing with his sword. "Move, dammit, they're up there! -You and you, get that gate!"

The soldiers poured past them. The designates turned to close the gate.

And died quietly.

"d.a.m.n," Shoka said, and walked over the body that blocked the doorway, out onto the sidewalk by the cart. There was one man moving faintly, of the injured. One was gone. One lay still.

They walked down the lane to the corner, where a sentry stood.

"One got out!" Shoka said hoa.r.s.ely.

"Haven't seen a thing!" the sentry said.

Shoka pointed with his sword, uphill, beyond the lights. "We'll check up this way!"

It was just that easy to walk away, into the alley, sheathe the swords, and vanish into the maze of Lun-gan streets. But he had to tell Taizu then: "I didn't get him. I couldn't get that far. -I ran into the Emperor."

"Here!"

Soft, terrified face.Shoka, help me!

When his arm had trembled on the verge of murder.

Help me!

G.o.ds, that he had the gall!

Chapter Twenty.

"Chun?" Shoka asked, arriving with Taizu at that door in thePeony's upstairs hall.

"Captain," came from the other side, m.u.f.fled, and a bar lifted and thumped. Chun opened the door. The men were on their feet, anxious: so was master Yi and his man, but Jian whipped out a sword and master Yi and his man sat right back down again.

Chun shut the door.

Shoka folded his arms, leaned against the wall and stared at master Yi, stared at him grimly, a long, long, considerate moment, while the men asked him questions he made no attempt to answer.

"I'm sure you understand," he said when the questions had died away into deathly silence, "master Yi, -we're talking about life and death here. I'm sure you know-I've gone to a great deal of inconvenience to keep you safe. Another man might just have cut your throats.Do you understand, master Yi?"

"Yes, m'lord," Yi stammered.

"You can go."

"Please-"

"Don'tworry , master Yi. You or your man. Unless somehow the Regent's men can trace that cart or the jars. I'm afraid it's in an inconvenient place right now. We'll have to depend on you to cover it with your friend.I'd tell him someone stole it. I don't think he'll want to know more than that. I don't think you do."

"No, m'lord." A whisper, in a room where a whisper was audible.

"I wouldn't let them trace it, master Yi. You're a wise man. You know how the police are. It doesn't matter whether you're in with us or not. You procured the incriminating cart. Your friend knows you did.

I suggest you tellhim how dangerous it would be to file a theft report-because I'd hate to see you arrested, a foreigner, being asked questions you can't answer. Ignorance is much the safer course-because we'll be watching you, master Yi. You can depend on that. You see we've kept you alive. We will.We remember favors. They don't. Think about that, master Yi." "I will. I will, m'lord."

"Make your friend believe it, master Yi. Tell him how dangerous it is. Tell him what he can be involved in. You have time, if you leave now. And I trust you can guarantee your man's silence."

"Yes, my lord!"

"Goon , master Yi."