8. First Blood

The figure that followed Zhao through the darkening streets did not belong to Steward Feng. It belonged to someone far more dangerous, someone who had been watching Zhao for much longer than three days, someone whose patience made Zhao's own seem like the impatience of a child. But Zhao did not know this yet. He walked through the alleys of Luoyang with the oilcloth-wrapped testimony pressed against his chest, and he thought about the clerk named Sun, and he did not notice the shadow that moved when he moved and stopped when he stopped.

The lantern makers' quarter was quiet when he reached it. Old Hu's workshop was dark, the old man having retired to his rooms at the back of the building hours ago. Zhao climbed the narrow stairs to his room, lit his lamp, and spread Lao Bai's testimony across his workbench. The characters were crude, the writing of a man who had learned his letters late in life, but they were clear enough. Every detail of that morning was recorded. The black horse. The laughing rider. The girl with the river stone. The hoof that struck her down. The words the rider had spoken as he looked back at the body: "Stupid child, running in the road like a stray dog."

Zhao read the testimony three times. Then he folded it carefully, wrapped it in oilcloth once more, and hid it beneath a loose floorboard that he had discovered during his first month in the room. The board fit perfectly, its seams invisible to anyone who did not know where to look.

When he straightened up, the lamp flickered. A draft had found its way through the paper window, a cold breath of air that made the flame dance and gutter. Zhao turned toward the window, and that was when he saw it. A small slip of paper had been pushed through a tear in the paper screen. It lay on the floor beneath the window, white against the dark wood, as out of place as a bone in a bowl of rice.

Zhao did not move for a long moment. Then he crossed the room, picked up the paper, and read the message written on it in the same crude characters as the first warning.

The clerk Sun drinks at the Pavilion of Distant Clouds every seventh night. He leaves at the hour of the rat. The guards who escort him are bribable. Bring silver.

There was no signature. There was no indication of who had sent it. But the message was specific where the first had been vague, helpful where the first had been threatening. Someone was not just warning him anymore. Someone was assisting him.

Zhao sat down on his bed, the slip of paper in his hand, and tried to make sense of this development. The first warning had told him to leave Luoyang. This message was telling him how to find the clerk. Either the sender had changed their mind, or there were two different people watching him, with two different agendas.

Neither possibility was comforting.

He slept poorly that night, his dreams filled with images of faceless figures who watched him from the shadows, their eyes glittering with unknown intent. When he woke, the first gray light of dawn was seeping through the window, and the slip of paper was still clutched in his hand.

He showed it to Old Hu over their morning meal. The old lantern maker examined it with the same care he gave to his bamboo frames, holding it close to his eyes and tracing the characters with one calloused finger.

"The handwriting is different from the first message," Old Hu said. "The first was written by someone who learned to write in a hurry, probably as an adult. This one was written by someone with more practice. See how the strokes are more confident, more fluid."

"Two different people, then."

"Or the same person disguising their hand. But if they wanted to disguise their hand, why not disguise it more thoroughly? Why make it obvious that the writing is different?" Old Hu set the paper down. "I do not like this, Zhao. Someone is playing a game with you, and I do not know what game it is."

"Neither do I. But the information is good. If Sun drinks at the Pavilion of Distant Clouds every seventh night, I can find him there. I can talk to him."

"And if it is a trap?"

Zhao had considered this. He had considered it at length during the long hours before dawn. "Every step I take is a risk. Going to the Golden Carp was a risk. Going to the tannery was a risk. If I let the fear of traps stop me, I will never move at all."

Old Hu shook his head but said nothing. He had learned, over the months, that there was no arguing with the man from the southern market once his mind was made up.

The seventh night arrived three days later, cold and clear, with a moon that was just beginning to wane from its fullness. The Pavilion of Distant Clouds was a wine house in the merchant quarter, a place frequented by clerks and minor officials who had coin to spare but not enough to drink in the establishments favored by their betters. It was a place where a lantern maker's apprentice would not seem out of place, and so Zhao went as he was, in his plain brown robes, with a pouch of silver coins hidden in his sleeve.

He found a table in the corner, ordered a jug of the cheapest wine, and settled in to wait. The hour of the rat was still two hours away, and he wanted to be in place long before Sun arrived.

The wine house filled slowly as the evening wore on. Clerks came in small groups, laughing at jokes that were not funny, complaining about superiors who did not appreciate them. Merchants came alone, drinking in silence, counting their losses in their heads. A singer took up a position in the corner and began to pluck at a lute, her voice thin and reedy but somehow pleasant in the smoky warmth of the room.

Zhao watched and waited. His wine sat untouched before him. His eyes moved constantly, scanning faces, noting exits, cataloging the guards who stood at the door and the men who might be guards in plain clothes.

At the hour of the dog, the door opened and a small man in the gray robes of a senior clerk entered, flanked by two guards who wore the Director's colors. The clerk was thin and nervous, his eyes darting around the room as if he expected an assassin behind every pillar. His guards were larger and calmer, men who had done this escort duty many times and had learned to be bored by it.

Sun. The clerk who handled the Director's private ledgers. The man who had drawn up the false confession. The man who knew everything.

Zhao watched him settle at a table near the center of the room, where the light was brightest and the guards had clear sightlines to every entrance. This was not a man who took chances. This was a man who knew he carried secrets that people would kill to obtain.

For an hour, Zhao did nothing but observe. He watched Sun drink three cups of wine in rapid succession. He watched the guards grow lax as the evening wore on, their attention drifting toward the singer and away from their charge. He watched Sun's shoulders begin to slump as the alcohol took effect, his movements becoming looser, his expression less guarded.

At the hour of the boar, Sun rose from his table and made his way toward the back of the wine house, where a narrow corridor led to the privies. His guards did not follow. They were too busy arguing about something, their voices raised in a dispute that seemed to involve a woman they both claimed to know.

Zhao rose from his table and followed the clerk into the shadows.

The corridor was dark and smelled of stale wine and urine. Sun was standing at the end of it, fumbling with the door to the privy, when Zhao came up behind him. The clerk turned, his eyes widening, his mouth opening to call for his guards.

Zhao pressed a silver coin into his hand.

"Your guards are distracted," Zhao said, his voice low and calm. "By the time they notice you are gone, our conversation will be over. I am not here to hurt you. I am here to offer you a way out."

Sun stared at the coin in his hand as if it were a serpent. "I do not know who you are. I do not know what you want. If the Director learns that I spoke to a stranger..."

"The Director will not learn anything unless you tell him." Zhao produced another coin, held it up so that it caught the dim light from the main room. "I know what you do for him, Sun. I know about the false confession. I know about the bribed witnesses. I know about the ledgers where you record every illicit transaction. You are up to your neck in the Director's corruption, and if the Director ever falls, you will fall with him."

Sun's face had gone pale. His hands were trembling. "Who are you?"

"I am the man you helped condemn. The merchant whose daughter was killed by the Director's son. The man who was flogged and banished on the strength of your forged documents."

"Zhao." The name came out as a whisper, barely audible. "You are supposed to be dead."

"Everyone keeps telling me that. And yet here I am." Zhao moved closer, close enough that Sun could smell the cold night air on his clothes, close enough that the clerk could see the scars that grief and suffering had carved into his face. "Here is what is going to happen. You are going to give me access to the Director's private ledgers. You are going to show me where he keeps the records of his forced purchases, his bribes, his monopolies. And in return, when the Director falls, I will make sure that your name is not on the list of those who go down with him."

Sun laughed, a high, nervous sound. "You cannot bring down the Director. No one can bring down the Director. He is too powerful. He has too many allies."

"He has enemies too. The Prefect resents his influence. The merchants hate his monopolies. The common people despise his son. All I need is the evidence to turn that resentment into action. You can give me that evidence."

"And if I refuse?"

Zhao stepped back. He put the second silver coin away. "Then I will find another way. But understand this, Sun. If I find another way, you will have no protection when the Director falls. You will be tried as his accomplice. You will be flogged, as I was flogged. You will be banished, as I was banished. Or perhaps worse. The Director's enemies are not known for their mercy."

Sun's eyes darted toward the corridor entrance, toward the sounds of his guards still arguing in the main room. For a long moment, he said nothing. Then his shoulders sagged, and the fight went out of him.

"The ledgers are kept in the market office," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "In a locked cabinet in the Director's private study. There are two keys. The Director keeps one. I keep the other."

"Give me the key."

"I cannot. If the key goes missing, the Director will know immediately. He will know I was the one who lost it. He will have me killed."

"Then make a copy. You are a clerk. You know people who can copy keys. Bring me the copy, and I will return it to you before the Director notices it is gone."

Sun was trembling. His face was slick with sweat despite the cold. "Even if you see the ledgers, what can you do? The Director has the magistrate in his pocket. He has half the officials in Luoyang taking his bribes. You are one man. One man with no power, no allies, no standing."

"I have the truth," Zhao said. "And the truth, in the right hands, is sharper than any sword. Make the copy, Sun. Bring it to me at the Street of the Lantern Makers, three nights from now. If you do this, you will have a chance to save yourself. If you do not..." He let the sentence hang unfinished.

He turned and walked back down the corridor before Sun could respond. He passed the guards, who were still arguing, and he slipped out the back door into the cold night air. The moon was high now, casting silver light over the rooftops, and the streets were empty.

Zhao walked quickly, his mind racing. The clerk was frightened, and frightened men could be unpredictable. He might cooperate. He might go straight to the Director and confess everything. He might do nothing at all, paralyzed by fear into inaction. There was no way to know. There was only the waiting.

Three nights. Three nights to see if Sun would deliver. Three nights to prepare for whatever came next.

He was halfway back to the lantern makers' quarter when he heard the footsteps behind him. They were soft, almost silent, but Zhao had spent too many nights walking the dark streets of Luoyang to miss them. He did not turn around. He did not change his pace. He simply listened, counting the steps, measuring the distance.

One set of footsteps. One person. Not a guard, then. Guards moved in pairs.

He turned a corner, ducked into an alcove, and waited. The footsteps approached. A figure passed the alcove, small and cloaked, moving with the careful tread of someone who did not want to be heard. Zhao reached out, caught the figure by the arm, and pulled them into the shadows.

It was a woman.

She did not scream. She did not struggle. She simply looked up at him with eyes that reflected the moonlight like pools of dark water, and she said, "You are a difficult man to follow, Zhao of the southern market."

"Who are you?" Zhao demanded. "Why have you been following me?"

"My name is Lian. I am the one who left the messages. Both of them. I have been watching you for weeks, ever since you arrived at the lantern maker's shop."

"You told me to leave Luoyang. Now you are helping me find the clerk. Which is it? Do you want me gone or do you want me to succeed?"

The woman smiled, a thin expression that did not reach her eyes. "I want what you want. The destruction of the Director and everything he holds dear. The first message was a test. I wanted to see if you could be frightened away. If you had left, you would have been useless to me. But you stayed. You have courage. Or perhaps you simply have nothing left to lose."

"You still have not told me who you are."

"I am someone who has her own reasons for wanting the Director destroyed. Reasons that go back further than yours, and run deeper than you can imagine. For now, that is all you need to know." She pulled her arm free of his grip with a surprisingly strong twist. "The clerk will bring you the key. I have made sure of it. When you have the ledgers, bring them to the Temple of the Earth God in the southern district. I will be waiting."

She stepped back into the moonlight, and for a moment, Zhao saw her face clearly. She was older than he had first thought, perhaps thirty, with lines around her eyes that spoke of long suffering and a set to her jaw that spoke of iron determination. There was something familiar about her, something he could not quite place, a ghost of a resemblance that nagged at the edges of his mind.

"Wait," he said. "Why should I trust you?"

"You should not trust anyone," Lian said. "That is the first thing you should have learned in this city. But I am the best chance you have. Without me, you are one man fumbling in the dark. With me, you have a chance to actually succeed."

Then she was gone, vanishing into the shadows as if she had never been there at all. Zhao stood in the alcove for a long moment, the cold seeping through his robes, and he tried to piece together what had just happened.

A woman named Lian. A woman who wanted the Director destroyed. A woman who had been watching him for weeks. A woman with familiar features that he could not quite place.

He walked the rest of the way to the lantern makers' quarter with his mind churning, and when he finally fell asleep, his dreams were troubled by faceless women and locked cabinets and keys that turned in locks that opened onto nothing but darkness.