So she does have some notion of time, after all, she tells herself. A pool of water two nights ago, a slight rise in the land last night in the open. No real shelter since the cave with the horses on the walls.

They have made no fires of their own at night. He hasn't touched her, except to help her on her horse. She has thought about that. Has thought about it a great deal.

She'd expected to have been taken physically by now, has been preparing for it from the time she waited in the yurt, in darkness. She is a woman alone with a man in an expanse of empty land-certain events usually follow upon that.

Meshag is too different, however, in visible, unsettling ways. She doesn't know what to think any more.

She has never made love to a man, has only played with the other girls at court, giggling or whispering explorations to little import. Some of the others have done more-with each other, with courtiers (or one of the princes) in the Ta-Ming-but Li-Mei has not. The empress, even when they were still in the palace, was devout and demanding: her her women were expected to observe rules of well-bred conduct, which were clear on this matter. women were expected to observe rules of well-bred conduct, which were clear on this matter.

Once, the emperor's named heir, Prince Shinzu (a special case, of course), had come to stand behind Li-Mei during a musical performance in the Min-Tan, the Hall of Light.

As the musicians played and the dancers began, she had felt sweetened breath on her neck, then a hand brushing her lower back, through silk, gliding down, back up, down again. Shinzu was regarded as vividly irresponsible, charming, rarely sober. There were endless rumours as to how long he'd remain heir, or even why he was Taizu's chosen successor among so many sons.

She remembers that day extremely well, remembers standing, eyes forward, towards the dancers, not moving at all, breathing carefully, suspended between outrage and excitement and helplessness as he touched her from behind, unseen.

He hadn't done anything more. Hadn't even spoken with Li-Mei afterwards, then or at any other time before she went away from the palace with the empress into exile.

With a murmured phrase (she hadn't even heard the words clearly) he'd moved on when the music ended. She'd seen him talking to another lady of the court, after, laughing, another wine cup in his hand. The woman was laughing, too. Li-Mei could recall ambivalent feelings, seeing that.

She has never considered herself the sort of beauty to drive a man to excesses of desire or recklessness. Nor, even, was she the kind of woman who normally elicited even transitory attention on an autumn afternoon in the Hall of Light.

Had her father been alive she'd be married by now, undoubtedly, and would know much more about this aspect of the world. Men and women. She's been ready to learn for a while. Were Shen Gao still living, his daughter would not now be alone with a barbarian rider and wolves among the grasslands of the north.

Meshag sleeps a little apart from her. The wolves take stations like sentinels in a wide circle around them. The stars have been more dazzling each night as the moon wanes. She sees the Weaver Maid set each evening, then the Sky River appear overhead as darkness deepens, and then the lost mortal lover rising east, on the far side of the River.

She is never easy about the wolves, still tries not to look at them, but they aren't going to harm her, she knows now, because of Meshag. Every day he has ridden away before sunrise, mist rising from the grass. He's made her keep riding alone, heading into the sun as soon as it is up and the mist has burned away. The wolves guide her, guard her.

She still hates them. You couldn't change a lifetime's thinking and feeling and fear in a few days, could you?

Each time, Meshag has caught up with them before midday, with food. He is hunting, in the hunter's time before dawn. He even brings firewood, kindling on his back. He tramples grass, shapes a space, builds low, careful daytime fires.

They eat rabbits, or marmots most recently-today-skinned and cooked, a whittled stick through them. He gives her some kind of fruit to peel. She doesn't know the name of it. It is bitter but she eats it. Drinks water. Washes her face and hands, always, more symbol than anything else. She is Kitan, and her father's daughter. Stands and stretches, does it before Meshag does.

They ride on, the sun overhead, clouds, no clouds, the days mild, evenings chilly, the nights cold. The plain stretches, all directions, unlike anything she's ever known, the grass so high, nearly hiding them, even on horseback, as they go. It does conceal the wolves, she can just about forget that they are there.

She can almost imagine they will ride like this forever, in silence, through tall grass, with wolves.

NOTHING IS FOREVER, not since the world changed after the war in heaven.

Late that same day, the sun behind them. Li-Mei is weary, trying to hide it, glad Meshag rides in front and seldom looks back. He leaves it to the lead wolf to be sure she is keeping up. She has been reciting poetry, not with any theme or coherence, only to distract herself, keep herself riding until he calls a halt.

Then he does halt, too sharply. She hasn't been paying attention, almost bumps his mount with hers. She pulls up quickly, twitches her reins, comes around beside him.

He is looking at the sky.

A few clouds ahead of them, some to the north, pink and yellow in the light of the low, long sun. No sign of rain, any kind of storm. The wind is easy. It isn't anything like that.

She sees a swan. Sees that this is what he is watching. His face has become very still. It is just a bird, It is just a bird, she wants to say. But she has been among strangeness long enough now to know that he would not be looking up like this, looking like this, if it were simply a bird flying by. she wants to say. But she has been among strangeness long enough now to know that he would not be looking up like this, looking like this, if it were simply a bird flying by.

She sees him draw the short, thick Bogu bow from his saddle.

He hadn't had a bow when he'd come for her. He'd taken this one when he stole the horse. Li-Mei moves her own mount away, to give him room. The swan is flying south, towards them.

It is springtime. Even she knows a swan should not be flying south in spring. It is alone. Perhaps lost, having wandered in the high roads of the sky? She doesn't really think that. Not when she looks at the man beside her, arrow now to bowstring, the bow lifted. It is a very long shot, she has time to think.

She hears the arrow's release. Red song of war arrows, red sun. Red song of war arrows, red sun. There are so many poems about bow-songs and war in Kitai, back a thousand years to the first shaping of the empire. There are so many poems about bow-songs and war in Kitai, back a thousand years to the first shaping of the empire.

Meshag has not looked awkward or rigid, she realizes. Not claiming his bow, fitting the arrow, letting it fly.

The swan falls out of the sky. So white against the colours of the clouds and the blue. It disappears into the grass.

She sees two wolves go after it, swift, avid. There is silence.

"Why?" she asks, finally.

He is looking back west. Sky and grass. He puts the bow away.

"He has found me," he says. "Ill chance."

She hesitates. "Your brother?"

He nods. The wind moves his hair.

"The ... a swan swan was searching?" was searching?"

He nods his head again, absently this time. It is clear that he is thinking. Devising.

He says, "Now when shamans will call it there is no answer. They know direction each bird was sent. Will know I killed it."

She is afraid again. It is the strangeness of all things that frightens her most. You killed a bird in the sky, just as you killed rabbits or marmots in morning mist, and that meant ...

"Couldn't it have been hunted for food? By someone else?"

He looks at her. The black eyes. "Bogu never kill swans."

"Oh," she says.

He continues to gaze at her, a longer look than any she can remember. His eyes take in light and swallow it.

He says, "My brother would hurt you."

She has not expected this. "Hurt me?" me?"

"He is ... like that."

She thinks a moment. "Some men are, too, in Kitai."

He seems to be working with a thought. He says, "When I was ... I was not like him."

When I was. When he was a man? She doesn't want to go towards that, it is dark in that direction.

She says, to fill silence, not really needing an answer, "Why would he hurt me? A Kitan princess, bringing him glory?"

He moves a shoulder, the awkward shrug. "Far too many questions. You are always asking. Not proper for women."

She looks away. Then back. "Then I need to thank you again, and be grateful I am not going to him, don't I? Will they catch us now? Where are we riding? What have you decided to do?"

They are a test of sorts, these swift, immediate inquiries. She is the way she is.

She sees the expression she has decided to call a smile.

There are ways of beating back fear, strangeness, the sense of being profoundly lost in the world.

THEY HAVE RIDDEN until darkness has almost gathered the land, eating cold meat in the saddle and the remains of the fruit. The waning moon has set. Li-Mei, in real discomfort, has continued to remain silent about it. They will be pursued now. He is trying to save her. This is no springtime ride in the Deer Park to see animals feeding or drinking at twilight.

He brings her to water again. She isn't certain how, this far from Bogu lands. It is the wolves, she decides.

He tells her they can rest only a short while, that she is to sleep right away. They will ride in darkness now, will do this every night. But then, after staring towards her in the almost-lost gloaming, his features difficult to see, he orders her to lie face down on the short grass by the pond.

She obeys. Now it begins Now it begins, she thinks, her heart beginning to race against her will. (How does one control a heartbeat?) But she is wrong, again. He comes to her, yes, but not in need, or hunger. He kneels beside her and begins to work the muscles of her back, his fingers mingling pain with the easing of pain. When she tenses, wincing, he slaps her lightly, the way you might slap a restive horse. She tries to decide if she's offended. Then makes herself settle into his hands. She is going to be riding again soon, this is no time or place to carry pride. What can offended offended mean here? His movements remain stiff, but very strong. She cries out once, apologizes. He says nothing. mean here? His movements remain stiff, but very strong. She cries out once, apologizes. He says nothing.

She wonders abruptly-perhaps an illumination?-if his physical restraint, this indifference to her being a woman, is caused by what happened to him those years ago. Could it be he has been rendered incapable of desire, or the accomplishment of it?

She knows so little about this, but it is possible, surely. And it would explain ...

Then, at one point, as his hands slow, and then slow again, and linger near her hips, she becomes aware that his breathing has changed. She cannot see anything by then, is face down in the grass, can only be aware of him as a presence, touching her.

And though Shen Li-Mei, only daughter of an honourable house, has never shared a bed or couch with any man, or explored very far along even the first pathways of lovemaking, she knows-with instinctive certainty-that this man is not indifferent to her as a woman in the dark with him, and alone. Which means, if he is holding himself back it is not because he cannot feel- And in that moment she understands another part of what is happening. Now, and since he came for her between the campfires, back west. She closes her eyes. Draws her own slow breath.

His is, in truth, a gesture, from a largeness of spirit she's not been prepared for. These are barbarians. Everyone living outside the borders of Kitai is a barbarian. You didn't expect ... grace from them. You couldn't, could you?

She listens to his breathing, feels his touch through her clothing. They are alone in the world. The Weaver Maid, alone as well, is shining in the west. Li-Mei realizes that her heartbeat has steadied after all, though she is aware of something new within herself.

She thinks she understands more now. It calms her, it always has. It makes such a difference. And Shandai Shandai was, after all, the first word he'd spoken to her. The name. was, after all, the first word he'd spoken to her. The name.

She says, softly, "Thank you. I think I will sleep now. You will wake me when it is time to ride?"

She shifts position, onto her side, and then up on her knees. He stands. She looks up at him against the stars. She cannot see his eyes. The wolves are invisible. She knows they are not far.

Still on her knees, she bows to him, her hands touching the earth.

She says, "I thank you for many things, son of Hurok. For my unworthy self, in my father's name, and in the name of my brother Shen Tai whom you are honouring by ... in the way you guard me." She does not say more. Some things cannot be made explicit, even in the dark.

Night breeze. He says nothing, but she sees him nod his head once. He walks off, not far but far enough, nearer the horses. Li-Mei lies down again, closes her eyes. She feels the wind, hears animal sounds in the grass and from the waters of the pond. She becomes aware, with surprise, that she is crying, for the first time since the cave. Eventually, she sleeps.

Spring Rain has not thought of herself by the name her mother gave her since she left Sardia years ago.

She had come to Kitai as part of a small company of musicians and dancers sent as tribute to Taizu, the Son of Heaven. The Sardians were a careful people, offering annual gifts to Kitai and Tagur, and even to the emerging powers west of them. When your small home-land lay in a fertile valley between mountains, that was what you needed to do. Sometimes (not always) it sufficed.

She wasn't enslaved, and she wasn't abducted, but she hadn't had a great deal of choice choice in the matter. You woke up one morning and were told by the leader of your troupe that you were leaving your home forever. She'd been fifteen years old, singled out for her appearance already, and for skill in singing and on the in the matter. You woke up one morning and were told by the leader of your troupe that you were leaving your home forever. She'd been fifteen years old, singled out for her appearance already, and for skill in singing and on the pipa pipa, all twenty-eight tunings of it in the Kitan fashion, which may have been why she was chosen.

She remained with that troupe for two years in Xinan, all twelve of them coming to terms with the fact that the great and glorious emperor had twenty thousand musicians. They all lived in a vast ward east of the palace-it was like a city in itself, larger than any in Sardia.

In two years they had been summoned to play three times, twice for minor court weddings, once at a banquet to welcome southern emissaries. On neither occasion was the Son of Heaven present.

You might be green-eyed and yellow-haired, lovely and lithe and genuinely skilled in music, and still see your life disappearing down the years. You could be invisible and unheard among the Ta-Ming Palace entertainers.

To the court, perhaps, but not to those on watch for a particular sort of woman. Rain had been noticed at that second wedding, apparently. She'd been seventeen by then. It was time to begin achieving something, she'd thought. A life, if nothing else.

She accepted an invitation to enter the pleasure district and be trained in one of the best houses there-trained in many things, and on terms that were (she knew by then, having paid attention) better than most girls received. Green eyes and yellow hair made a difference, after all. Her ability to leave the musicians' district was a matter of bribing the eunuchs who controlled the Ta-Ming entertainers. It happened all the time.

She was to become a courtesan, and was under no illusions about what that meant. She was taught to be a mistress of the table, the highest rank among the pleasure district women. They were the ones hired to perform at banquets by aristocrats or high mandarins. To perform, also, more privately and in other ways after the feasting had ended.

And when there were no wealthy courtiers on a given evening or afternoon in the Pavilion of Moonlight, there were always the students studying for the examinations-or not actually studying (not if they were in the North District) but aspiring to the rank that would come with passing the exams.

Spring Rain tended to like the students more than the courtiers, which wasn't the cleverest way for a girl to be. But their enthusiasms, their dreaming, spoke to something in her that the extravagance and hauteur of Ta-Ming aristocrats didn't touch-and they made her laugh sometimes.

The palace guests gave better gifts.

It was a life-while a woman was young, at any rate. A better life, most likely-though no one could ever say this for certain-than she'd have had back home. Xinan, under Emperor Taizu, was the centre of the world. She did sometimes wonder if the centre of the world was always the best place to be.

She can remember the moment, years before, as they'd passed through Jade Gate Fortress into Kitai, when she'd made the decision to leave her name behind.

The girl born to that name was gone, she'd decided. She was almost certainly never coming back-to home, family, the view of the mountains north of them, range upon range, to heaven. The girl travelling east would leave her name with her memories.

At fifteen, it had felt like a way to go forward, to survive.

But if her birth name is long since gone, that does not mean she must accept, in her mind, the one Wen Zhou has chosen for her, as if selecting among fabrics or polo horses.

She answers in the compound to Lin Chang because she must, and does so smiling, effortlessly gracious, but that is as far as she will go. The surface of a lake.

He cannot see what she is thinking or feeling. She has a talent for deceiving men by now. She's had time to learn. It is a skill like any other a woman can teach herself: music, conversation, lovemaking, simulating yearning and the tumult of desire.

She ought to be more grateful, she tells herself many times a day, or lying at night, alone or beside him. Hers is a destiny, thanks to Zhou, that marks, like a banner, the highest summit of the dreams of every courtesan in the North District.

He is the second most powerful man in the empire-which means in the world, really. She lives in a vast compound with servants at her whim and call. She entertains his guests with music or witty talk, watches him play polo in the Deer Park, shares his pillow many nights. She knows his moods, some of his fears. She wears silks of the finest weaving, and jewellery that sets off her eyes or dazzles by lamplight at her ears, in her golden hair.

He can dismiss her at any moment, of course. Cast her out, with or without any resources to survive-that, too, happens all the time to concubines when they age. When skilful use of masicot, onycha, indigo sticks for beauty marks, sweet basil, plucked eyebrows and painted ones, powder and perfume and exquisitely adorned hair are no longer enough to sustain necessary beauty.