Free Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay Page A

hand, gesturing for the gates to be opened for him. At first Ning was astonished at the arrogance of that, and then he saw the horse the man was riding.
    He watched them come on, horse and rider taking clearer form, like spirits entering the real world through fog. That was a strange thought. Ning spat again, between his fingers this time for protection.
    He wanted the horse the moment he saw it. Every man in Iron Gate would want that horse. By the bones of his honoured ancestors, Wujen Ning thought, every man in the empire would.

    “Why you so sure that one didn’t bring her to you?” Bytsan had asked.
    “He did bring her. Or she brought him.”
    “Stop being clever, Kitan. You know what I mean.”
    Some irritation, understandable. They’d been on their eighth or ninth cup of wine, at least—it had been considered ill-bred among the students in Xinan to keep count.
    Night outside by then, but moonlit, so silver in the cabin.
    Tai had also lit candles, thinking light would help the other man. The ghosts were out there, as always. You could hear their voices, as always. Tai was used to it, but felt unsettled to realize this was his last night. He wondered if they might know it, somehow.
    Bytsan wouldn’t be—couldn’t be—accustomed to any of this.
    The voices of the dead offered anger and sorrow, sometimes dark, hard pain, as if trapped forever in the moment of their dying. The sounds swirled from outside the cabin windows, gliding along the rooftop. Some came from farther off, towards the lake or the trees.
    Tai tried to remember the dry-mouthed terror he’d lived with on his first nights two years ago. It was hard to reclaim those feelings after so long, but he remembered sweating and shivering, clutching a sword hilt in bed.
    If cups of warmed rice wine were going to help the Taguran deal with a hundred thousand ghosts, less the ones buried by Shen Tai in two years … that was the way it was. That was all right.
    They’d buried Yan and the assassin in the pit Tai had begun that afternoon. It wasn’t nearly deep enough yet for the bones he’d planned, which made it good for two Kitan just slain, one by sword, one by arrows, sent over to the night.
    They’d wrapped them in winter sheepskin he wasn’t using (and would never use again) and carried them down the row of mounds in the last of the day’s light.
    Tai had jumped into the pit and the Taguran had handed down Yan’s body and he’d laid his friend in the ground and climbed out of the grave.
    Then they’d dropped the assassin in beside Yan and shovelled the earth from next to the open pit back in and pounded it hard on top and all around with the flat sides of the shovels, against the animals that might come, and Tai had spoken a prayer from the teachings of the Path, and poured a libation over the grave, while the Taguran stood by, facing south towards his gods.
    It had been nearly dark by then and they’d made their way hastily back to the cabin as the evening star, the one the Kitan people called Great White, appeared in the west, following the sun down. Poets’ star at evening, soldiers’ in the morning.
    There hadn’t been anything in the way of fresh food. On a normal day, Tai would have caught a fish, gathered eggs, shot a bird and plucked it for cooking at day’s end, but there had been no time for that today.
    They’d boiled dried, salted pork and eaten it with kale and hazelnuts in bowls of rice. The Tagurans had brought early peaches, which were good. And they’d had the new rice wine. They drank as they ate, and continued when the meal was done.
    The ghosts had begun with the starlight.
    “You know what I mean,” Bytsan repeated, a little too loudly. “Why’re you so sure of him? Chou Yan? You trust everyone who names himself a friend?”
    Tai shook his head. “Isn’t in my nature to be trusting. But Yan was too proud of himself when he saw me, and too astonished when she drew her swords.”
    “A Kitan can’t