"Good," she said. "I like it."

And twisting her body the way he'd seen her do springing up a wall in Chenyao or fighting assassins alone with two swords, she was above him again. Her mouth found his, and she did something with her teeth that made him realize, suddenly, that it hadn't been any fox-woman he'd been dreaming about so vividly those nights on the road from Chenyao. It had been her.

The strangeness of the world.

There was a brightness growing within him, vivid as the first spring flower against snow, and a sense that this was all deeply undeserved, that he was not worthy of such a gift.

There was also now-and Tai would not let himself turn away from it-a farewell taking place inside himself, a painful one: to green eyes and golden hair, music, and her own courage.

You were surely allowed to remember these things? It would be wrong not to remember, Tai thought.

Branching paths. The turning of days and seasons and years. Life offered you love sometimes, sorrow often. If you were very fortunate, true friendship. Sometimes war came.

You did what you could to shape your own peace, before you crossed over to the night and left the world behind, as all men did, to be forgotten or remembered, as time or love allowed.

EPILOGUE.

The Second Son of General Shen Gao crossed a bridge over the Wai River and reached his home on the same day that An Li, usually named Roshan, died at the hot springs retreat of Ma-wai, not far from Xinan.

Roshan, known to be unwell, did not die of the sugar sickness. He was murdered by a servant while he rested after taking the healing waters. The servant had been instructed to do this, and provided with a weapon, by An Li's eldest son. An Rong disagreed with certain of his father's policies and was impatient by nature.

The servant was executed. A man may agree to become an instrument of violent death in pursuit of rewards. These rewards are not invariably forthcoming.

Much farther north on that same day, in the grey hour before sunrise, Tarduk, the son and heir of the Bogu kaghan, was killed by a wolf in his yurt.

No dogs had barked, none had signalled in any way that a wolf had entered the campsite where the heir and some of his followers were in the midst of a hunt. Tarduk had time to scream before his throat was torn open. The wolf was struck by at least two arrows as it fled through the rising mist.

None of the dogs went after it.

Conjunctions of this sort-events occurring at the same time, far apart-are seldom perceived by those living (or dying) through the moments and days involved. Only the patient historian with access to records is likely to discover such links, reading diligently through texts preserved from an earlier time and dynasty. He might take a scholar's pleasure, or be moved to reflection, considering them.

The conjunctions found do not always mean mean anything. anything.

The timing of such moments doesn't necessarily change the course of history, or throw illumination backwards upon how and why men did what they did.

The prevailing view of scholars was that only if it could be shown that events emerged from the same impulses, or if a significant figure came to know know what had happened elsewhere, and when, did it become important to record such links in the record of the past. what had happened elsewhere, and when, did it become important to record such links in the record of the past.

There were some who suggested otherwise. Theirs was a view that held the past to be a scroll wherein the wise, unrolling it, could read how time and fate and the gods showed intricate patterns unfolding, and patterns could repeat.

Still, it is likely that even those of this opinion would have agreed that Shen Tai-that son of General Shen Gao, returning home-was not important enough in those early days of the An Li Rebellion for his movements to be part of any pattern that signified.

Only a tale-spinner, not a true scholar-someone shaping a story for palace or marketplace-would note these conjunctions and judge them worth the telling, and storytellers were not important, either. On this, the historian-mandarins could agree.

Shen Tai hadn't even passed the examinations at that point! He had no formal status, in fact, though any fair-minded chronicler had to give him credit for courage at Kuala Nor, and the role his Sardian horses eventually played.

His mother and Second Mother were in Hangdu, the prefecture town. They had taken a cart to buy supplies, Tai was informed by the household steward. The steward kept bowing and smiling as he spoke. You could say that he was beaming, Tai thought.

Yes, the steward said, Youngest Son Chao had escorted them, with several of the bigger servants carrying heavy staves.

No, trouble had not yet reached their market town in any serious way, but it was always best to be careful, Master, was it not?

It was, Tai agreed.

The steward, and the household servants piling up behind him in the soon-crowded courtyard, were clearly moved by the return of Second Son. Tai felt the same way himself. The creak of the gate was a sound that might make him weep if he wasn't careful.

The paulownias shading the walkway still had all their leaves. Autumn was not yet fully upon them. The peaches and plums had all been picked, he was informed. The family was being diligent about that this year. The Lady and Second Lady were supervising the preservation of the orchard's fruit against winter and a possible shortage of food.

Tai reminded himself that he needed to get to Hangdu as well. A man named Pang, one-legged. Owed money for supervising a hidden supply of grain. Liu had told him that.

Liu would be buried here by now.

He went through the compound and into the garden, carrying wine in an agate cup. He went past the pond where he'd spent so much time with his father, watching Shen Gao toss bread for the goldfish. The fish were large and slow. The stone bench was still here. Of course it was. Why should such things change because a man had been away? Were two years any time at all?

For human beings they were. Two years could change the world. For stones, for trees growing leaves in spring, dropping them in autumn, two years were inconsequential. A stone in a pond makes ripples, the ripples are gone, nothing remains.

When those one has loved are gone, memories remain.

Tai walked through the orchard and he came to the elevated ground where the graves were, not far from where their stream flowed south to meet the Wai and be lost.

There was a new mound for Liu. No marker above it yet, no inscription considered and incised on stone. That would come after a year had passed. No time at all for trees or stone or the circling sun, a single year. But who knew what it would bring to men and women under heaven?

Not Tai. He had no gift of sight. He was not, he thought suddenly, a shaman. He flinched, wondered why that image had come to him.

He stood before his father's grave. It was peaceful here. The ripple of the stream, some birds singing, wind in leaves. Trees shaded the place where his family lay and would lie, where he would one day rest.

He set down his cup and knelt. He bowed his head to touch the green grass by the grave. He did this three times. He stood, reclaiming the cup, and he poured the libation on the ground, for his father.

Only then did he read the words his mothers (or perhaps his brother Chao, not so young now) had put there.

It was not, it really was not so great a coincidence that they'd have selected lines by Sima Zian. The Banished Immortal was the pre-eminent poet of their age. Of course they'd have considered his words in choosing an inscription. But even so ...

Tai read: When choosing a bow choose a strong one, When choosing a bow choose a strong one, If you shoot an arrow shoot a long one, To capture the enemy capture their leader, But carry within you the knowledge That war is brought to bring peace.

Sometimes, Tai thought, there were too many things within you at once. You couldn't even begin to sort through them, do more than feel the fullness in your heart.

"It is well chosen, isn't it?" someone behind him said.

The fullness in your heart.

He turned.

"It was Chao who decided on the inscription. I'm proud of him," said his sister.

Fullness could overflow, like a river in springtime. Seeing her, hearing the remembered voice, Tai began to weep.

Li-Mei stepped forward. "Brother, do not, or I will, too!"

She already was, he saw. Speechless, he drew her into his arms. She was clad in Kanlin robes, which he could not understand, any more than he could grasp that she was here to be enfolded.

His sister laid her head against his chest and her arms came around him, and they stood like that together by their father's grave and stone.

SHE WAS WEARING Kanlin black for safety. She had travelled that way. It was too soon to make her presence more widely known. The family knew her and the household servants, but the village understood only that some Kanlins had come from the east to the Shen estate, and then others had arrived bearing the body of Eldest Son for burial, and one of the Warriors, a woman, had remained behind as a guard.

There were three more Kanlins now, they had come with Tai from the border.

"You saved my life," Li-Mei said.

First words, when they moved to the stone bench by the stream (Shen Gao's favourite place on earth) and sat together.

She told him the tale, and the wonder of how the world was devised felt overwhelming to Tai, listening.

"He had me place my handprint on a horse painted on the wall in a cave," she said.

And, "Tai, I killed a man there."

And, "Meshag is half a wolf, but he did what he did because of you."

(As of earlier that same morning, he was no longer half a wolf.) And then, towards the end, "I wanted to stay on Stone Drum Mountain, but they refused me, for the same reason they said they rejected you."

"I wasn't rejected, I left!"

She laughed aloud. The sound of her laughter, here at home, healed a wound in the world.

He said, "Li-Mei, I have chosen a woman. A wife."

"What? What? What? Where is she?" Where is she?"

"Taking my horses to the emperor."

"I don't-"

"She's a Kanlin. She's taking them north with sixty other guards."

"North? Through this? And you let let her do that?" her do that?"

Tai shook his head ruefully. "That isn't the right way to describe it. When you meet her you'll understand. Li-Mei, she is ... she may even be a match for you."

His sister sniffed dismissively, in a way he knew very well. Then she smiled. "Is she a match for you?"

"She is," he said. "Listen, I will tell you a story now."

He started at Kuala Nor. While he was talking, the sun crossed the sky, passing behind and emerging from white clouds. A servant came, unable to stop smiling, to say that his two mothers and his brother were back from Hangdu, and Tai stood up and went to them in the principal courtyard and knelt, and stood, and was welcomed home.

WATCHING, A LITTLE APART because she's already had her moments with him and her own homecoming, Li-Mei is annoyed to find herself crying again.

Tai has already told her he intends to stay here, not go to the new emperor. She understands this, of course she does: there is a long tradition in Kitai, all the way back to the Cho Master himself, of a strong man striving to balance the desire to be of service, part of the court, "in the current" ... and the opposite yearning for quiet, for rivers and mountains and contemplation, away from the chaos of the palace.

She knows this, understands her brother, realizes that some of what Tai is feeling has to do with Liu.

But she has a sense-already, that first day when he's come home-that her own needs go the other way. The empire is too much larger than this quiet estate by the stream. She has even been beyond the borders now. And she has too deep a hunger for knowing knowing things, for the thrust and dazzle of the world. things, for the thrust and dazzle of the world.

In time, Li-Mei tells herself. She is not in a hurry.

There are steps and stages involved in this, traps to be avoided. But the man who is their emperor now, glorious and exalted Shinzu, had once trailed a hand down her back while watching a dance in the Ta-Ming Palace. She wonders if he remembers. If he can be caused to remember.

She looks around, sees the servants weeping and smiling, and finds herself unexpectedly remembering another dance: this is the courtyard where she'd tried once, very young, to offer a performance for her father, and had fallen into leaves because of the wind.

Tai had suggested that was why she fell. Liu had ... Liu had told her never to let the performance stop, even if you made a mistake. To carry on, as if you'd never failed at all, as if you couldn't imagine failing.

She still hasn't poured a libation for her oldest brother. She isn't sure if she ever will.

Many years later she does do that-pour an offering for Shen Liu-but only after the immediate past had become the distant past. How we remember changes how we have lived.

Time runs both ways. We make stories of our lives.

Autumn came. The paulownia leaves fell one night, were on the ground when they woke. They left them on the path for a day, a family tradition, then the leaves were swept away by all of them together the morning following.

In winter, a message came from the court of the Emperor Shinzu, from his temporary court in Shuquian.

The glorious and exalted emperor acknowledged receiving a communication from his trusted servant, Shen Tai. He confirmed the arrival at Shuquian of nearly two hundred and fifty Sardian horses, a gift to Kitai from the same loyal servant of the empire.

It was understood by the compassionate emperor that after his labours in the west, and disruptions within his family, Master Shen might wish to spend an interval with his mother, attending to affairs at his family estate. The emperor approved such devoted impulses.

It was expected that Master Shen would agree that all loyal and capable men were needed by Kitai in times so vexed as the current ones, and his presence at the court, wherever it was, would be welcomed by his emperor in due course.

In confirmation of this imperial benignity, and in recognition of services performed, the emperor saw fit to extend a grant of lands in the south and east beyond those already given by the revered father-emperor to Shen Tai. Documents were attached. The emperor was also pleased to graciously accede to Master Shen's request for seven of the Sardians. The emperor went so far as to express the personal view (this was unusual) that, under the circumstances, it was a modest number. These seven horses would be arriving, under escort, soon, if the gods willed it so.

Tai drew a series of very deep breaths, reading this and then rereading it. He had succeeded, it seemed.

The land wasn't really the emperor's to give, he thought. There was too much uncertainty in the east. Still, the documents were his, Tai held them in his hands, and fortune might one day smile upon Kitai and the Ninth Dynasty again. The important thing was that his absence from court was accepted. Or it appeared that way.