Tai was mesmerized by her movements. She had killed for him, he had seen her do it at Chenyao, in a garden. She was barefoot now, wore only thin Kanlin trousers, nothing down to the waist.

The last hairpin slipped free and she shook out her hair.

"Goodbye?" Tai said. "You were hired for ten years! You are mine until then!" He was trying to be ironic.

"Only if we live," she said. She looked away, he saw her bite her lip. "I am willing to be yours," she said.

"What are you saying?"

She looked back at him, and did not answer. But her wide-set eyes were on his, unwavering, and he thought, yet again, of how much courage she had.

And then, for the second time that day, Tai realized that within himself something had already happened, perhaps some time ago, and that he was only, in this lamplit, after-thunder moment, coming to know it. He shook his head in wonder.

"I can leave now," she said, "and be gone before morning, to collect the horses."

"No. I have to be there, remember?" Tai said. He drew a breath. "I don't want you to leave, Song."

She looked young, small, almost unbearably exposed.

He said, a roughness in his voice, "I don't want you ever to leave."

She looked away again, suddenly. He saw her draw a breath this time, then let it out slowly. She said, "Do you mean that? It isn't because I have been so ... because I did this?"

"I have seen women unclothed before, Song."

She looked up. "I know. And I am thin, and have this new wound, which will be another scar. And one more on my leg, and I know know I am insufficiently respectful and-" I am insufficiently respectful and-"

She wasn't very far away at all. He moved forward and put a hand, gently, over her mouth. Then he took it away and kissed her, also gently, that first time. Then he did so again, differently.

He looked down at her, in the one light left burning. Eyes on his, she said, "I am not greatly experienced in these matters."

SOME TIME LATER. Her left leg across his body where they lay in the bed, her head against his shoulder, hair spread out. The lamp had been extinguished some time ago. The rain had stopped dripping from the eaves. They could see moonlight, hear a night bird singing.

Tai said, "Not greatly experienced?"

He felt more than he saw her smile. "I was told men like hearing that from a woman. That it makes them feel powerful."

"Is that what it does?"

"So I was told." One of her hands was playing at his chest, drifting down towards his belly then back up. "You were on Stone Drum Mountain, Tai. You ought to remember what happens there at night. Or did none of the women ...?"

"I don't think I'm going to answer that."

"Not yet, perhaps," she murmured.

The moon laid a trail of light along the floor of the room.

"You seem to always be coming into my chamber," he said.

"Well, once I was saving you from a fox-woman, remember?"

"She wasn't a fox-woman."

"She was a trap. Extremely pretty."

"Extremely," he agreed.

She sniffed. "Even if it wasn't a daiji daiji, Sima Zian and I agreed you were not in a state to resist her that night, and bedding a governor's daughter would have put you in a very difficult position."

"I see," Tai said carefully. "You and the poet agreed on this?"

"We did. They wanted you in a difficult position, of course. Xu Bihai was after the horses."

"You don't think she might simply have fallen in love with me?"

"I suppose there's that possibility," said Song. Her tone suggested otherwise.

"She was very pretty," Tai said.

Song said nothing.

"So are you," he said.

"Ah. That will surely make me me fall in love." She laughed again. "I'd have attacked you if you'd come into my room on the road." fall in love." She laughed again. "I'd have attacked you if you'd come into my room on the road."

"I believe that."

"I wouldn't do that now," she said, mock-contrite.

His turn to laugh. "I am pleased to hear it." After a moment, he said, "Song, I wanted you on the first night at Iron Gate, when you came in."

"I know," she said. He felt her shrug. He knew that motion by now. "I didn't feel flattered. You'd been alone two years. Any woman ..."

"No. It was you. I think from when you walked up in the courtyard."

"My hair was down," she said. "Men are very predictable."

"Are we? Am I?"

A silence. "Not you so much."

They listened to the bird outside.

"I'll come north," he said.

She shook her head emphatically. "No. You've made that decision, Tai, bad luck to start a journey after that. Finish your letter. We will take it with us. We have decided that your sister and the fact that Zhou tried to kill you should keep you safe. With the horses."

"You have decided that?"

"Yes, Lu Chen and I."

"And what if I decide-?"

"Tai, you already did. It was an honourable choice. I was only afraid."

"And now I'll be afraid for you. There is a war, you're going a long way."

She laughed softly. "I'm a Kanlin Warrior, riding among sixty others. That is one fear you need not sensibly have."

"When is fear sensible?"

Her hand stopped moving, lay against his chest.

"And after?" he asked. "After you reach the emperor?"

She hesitated. "There is one thing I need to do."

He lay there remembering: We wish to kill two of them later. It must be done. We wish to kill two of them later. It must be done.

He squeezed her arm. "Song, if you kill those two yourself, and anyone links you to me-"

"I know," she murmured. "That isn't it. Those two from the Second District army are likely dead already. They shamed us, and our sanctuary will not permit that. I think the emperor knows it. I don't think he will be unhappy. That is not what I meant."

"Then what ...?"

"I have to ask leave to withdraw from the Kanlins. I must do it at my own sanctuary."

He said nothing. He was deeply moved.

She misunderstood his silence. "I ask for nothing, Tai. If this is only tonight, I am-"

He placed a hand over her mouth again. "You have to come back, Song. I need you to show me another way to live."

"I have only been a Kanlin," she said, as he moved his hand away.

"Might we teach each other?"

He felt her nodding her head. "But I don't believe the world will let you stay by that stream all your days."

"It might not. But I do not want to be lost in the dust and noise. To be what Liu became. In the Ta-Ming."

"If they even reclaim the Ta-Ming."

"Yes."

"Do you ... do you think they will?"

Tai lay in darkness, thinking about it.

"Yes. It may take time, but the new emperor is wiser than Roshan, and I think Roshan will die soon. This is not the end of the Ninth Dynasty."

"There will be changes."

He ran a hand through her hair: the unimaginable gift of his being able to do so. "This is a change, Song."

"I see. You prefer me this way? Obedient and submissive?" Her hand began moving again.

"Submissive? Is that like the inexperience, before?"

"I have much to learn," she murmured. "I know it." And she lifted her head from his shoulder and slipped down towards where her hand had gone.

A little later, Tai managed, with some effort, to say, "Did they teach you that on Stone Drum Mountain?"

"No," she said, from farther down the bed. And then, in a different voice, "But I'm not a concubine, Tai."

"Hardly," he murmured.

He felt her head lift. "What does that mean? I lack the skills you are accustomed to?"

"You could possibly acquire them," he said judiciously. "With effort and time enough to-"

He made a sharp, strangled sound.

"I didn't hear that last," she murmured sweetly.

He made an effort to compose himself. "Oh, Song. Will I survive a life with you?"

"If you are more cautious about what you say," she said, sounding meditative, "I see no reason why not. But I'm not a concubine, Shen Tai."

"I said I know that," he protested. "Before you bit me."

He cleared his throat. He felt amazingly sure of himself. Sure of the world, or this small part of it.

He said, "It would be a great honour if, Mistress Wei Song, before you took my horses north, I were permitted to learn your father's name, and your mother's, and the location of their home, that my mother might correspond with them as to possibilities for the future."

She stopped moving. He had a sense she was biting her lower lip.

She said, "Your servant would be pleased if your honourable mother were willing to initiate such a correspondence."

Which formality, given where she was just then, and what she now resumed doing, was remarkable.

He reached down and drew her up (she was so small), and laid her upon her back, and shifted above her. She began, shortly thereafter, making small sounds, and then more urgent ones, and then, some time after, with the bird still singing outside, she said, halfway between a gasp and a cry, "Did you learn that in the North District?"

"Yes," he said.