Chapter 910 — North

CHAPTER 910

North

The road climbed out of the Hanli plain, and the sky opened.

North of Hanli the land rose in long brown ridges, one behind the other, each a little higher and a little colder than the last. Hao Dafu’s train had come this far with him. At the top of the third ridge the salt road turned east toward the lake towns, and the north road went on alone.

Above it, far off, the Serene Jade mountains stood white against the northern sky.

The peaks were above the cloud line. The clouds lay across the plain like a grey floor, and the peaks rose clean out of them, so white they looked carved from the snow itself. Shi Feng counted seven peaks before the haze swallowed the rest.

“That’s the Serene Jade,” Hao Dafu said, shading his eyes beside him. “My grandfather walked to the foot of those mountains once, to sell salt to the sect’s kitchens. Took him thirty-four days on foot from here. He said the snow up there never melts, not even in summer.”

“Did they buy his salt?” Shi Feng asked.

“They bought all of it,” Hao Dafu said proudly. “And then they made him wait outside the gate for three days before they paid him. He said it was the politest robbery he ever saw.”

The drivers laughed. Lao Qi was already turning the lead mule east.

Shi Feng took a purse out of his sleeve and held it out.

Hao Dafu looked at it as if it were a snake.

“What’s that?” Hao Dafu asked.

“Eighteen silver for the pass, as we agreed on the first day,” Shi Feng said, and pressed the purse into Hao Dafu’s palm. “Six for the road from Hanli to the turn. And three more.”

“Three more for what?” Hao Dafu asked.

“For the fright,” Shi Feng said, and closed Hao Dafu’s fingers around it. “The man at Grey Goose came for me, not for your salt. Your drivers spent a night under the wagons because I was riding with you. Your mules nearly went off a cliff. That’s my debt, not yours.”

Hao Dafu’s face went red.

“You saved my whole train!” Hao Dafu said loudly. “Eleven wagons! And you want to pay me? Young man, what kind of business is that?”

“Clean business,” Shi Feng said. “If I leave it owing, I’ll have to come back this way to settle it. I don’t plan to come back this way.”

Hao Dafu stared at him. Then he pulled his hand back, weighed the purse, and shoved it into his coat with a grunt.

“Fine. Fine!” Hao Dafu said, and pointed at the drivers. “But next time you’re on the north road, you ride with Hao Dafu’s train, and you ride free. Don’t argue! That’s not a debt, that’s an invitation. Everyone heard it!”

“Everyone heard it!” the drivers shouted.

The young guard came last. He held out the folded Tianji issue, the corner soft and grey from being read so many times.

“You should have this,” the young guard said shyly. “It’s got your name in it. Twice now.”

“Keep it,” Shi Feng said, and pushed it back. “Read it to the next teahouse. Tell them it’s a misprint.”

“They won’t believe me,” the young guard said.

“Then read it louder,” Shi Feng said, and shouldered his bag.

The young guard grinned and tucked it away.

“Green mountains don’t change, and flowing water keeps on flowing,” Hao Dafu said gruffly, and slapped the mule’s rump. “We’ll meet again, young man. Walk carefully.”

The wagons rolled east. Lao Qi raised a hand from beside the lead mule, and Shi Feng raised his. He watched them go until the last one dropped behind the ridge and the creak of the wheels faded out.

Then it was just the wind.

At dusk he stopped on a cold ridge with the white peaks in front of him, and sat on a rock out of the wind. He took out his small private book and opened it on his knee.

He turned back past the tally from the Pavilion roof to the old page. It held two lines in his own hand.

After the seal: north.

Ticket 3041.

He wet the brush and wrote the tally underneath them, one line at a time.

6 Mark.

Thirteenth on the Tianxing.

Half the cash in Tianjing, in the princess’s vault, for Ji Yuanhe’s furnace. The other half carried. Herbs carried.

Ji Yuanhe: safe, counting pills.

One memorial, not mine. Hers to answer.

He looked at the last line for a while. Long Caili had told him not to turn around. She’d said it coldly, the way she said everything she meant. Going back would hand the censor the only proof he lacked, and put Ji Yuanhe in the middle of a court fight. Walking on was the only way to keep both of them out of it.

He would keep walking north. Hanli Town had settled that. Writing it down didn’t change it.

He thought of the sealed entry at the sixth desk, and the four lines in it. The asker’s name is sent north. His name had left Tianjing by the Pavilion’s own courier on the same morning he’d read the seal. It had a head start of many days, and somewhere ahead, a lady in white with a jade lotus had a head start too. She’d left no message for him at the inn.

That was a message as well.

The light went off the plain. The white peaks held it longest, turning gold, then red, then grey. A lamp came on far off on the nearest slope, very small. Someone in the Serene Jade’s outer lands was going about their evening. They didn’t know a frontier boy was sitting on a cold rock, watching their light.

Shi Feng dipped the brush again.

Under the tally he wrote two words.

Lotus Gate.

He blew on the ink until it was dry, closed the book and put it away. Then he stood, pulled his robe tight against the wind, and started down the north side of the ridge in the dark.

The name had gone ahead of him. He would just have to catch up.

[Mark: 6 | Note: the name went north first.]