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He tossed gold to the boatmen, led his horse onto the! dock, and mounted. The
others followed.
They climbedj a hill and paused to look back at the river. Then] Bryennius
swore, long and foully.
"Do you see?" Alexandra whispered, pointing. I
"There, in the shallows ..."
All but one chariot had been caught in the mire at the left-brace river
bottom. Only three horses drew it now, and they! struggled up onto the
riverbank, onto dry land. It was followed, Bryennius saw, by other horses,
their snapped
:
reins dangling from metal harnesses. One terracotta horse limped on three
feet; the fourth must have been snapped off by a rock or snag.
And the horses were followed by what looked like a veritable legion of the
thrice-damned warriors, water and mud pouring off their armor.
All were battered, and many cracked, even broken in places. He knew what must
have happened. Since there was no bridge across this mammoth river, and since
no boat could take them, the statues had formed their own bridge, file after
file of warriors marching over their fellows' heads, leaving behind without
pity those who cracked apart, or sank too deeply, into the mud at the river
bottom.
A trick of the sunlight caught one "warrior's"
eyes, and they appeared to glare at Bryennius with ancient, implacable hatred.
But why should they have pity? Bryennius thought, in rage and despair.
They were not alive, they hated any living thing, and they would harry him and
his to death, and beyond.
The only alternative was simply to lie down and be trampled-and that was no
alternative at all. Very well. He would go on as long as he could ... as long
as he must for the sake of the cousin who would never give up, the princess he
loved, and the men who had become his to lead.
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Biting his lip against shameful tears, Bryennius led the retreat west.
Dunhuang's peace wreathed about
Alexandra, palpable as the frost in the morning air.
The light turned the dust in the air to gold that shimmered like the mosaics
in a chapel; the sere ground
cover, now an orange hue that faded as autumn yielded to winter, crackled
beneath her boots. After weeks in the saddle, with only brief pauses for
relief or rest, she practically had to learn how to walk all over again. Now
her feet seemed to register every scrubby brush, stub, or rise in the ground
as she headed slowly for the caves.
Eased by sweet oil, her saddle galls only ached when she moved suddenly. But
they were nothing to the pain that blurred the golds and ochres of Dunhuang
into an inchoate splendor that he would have found beautiful.
He had loved the frontier, and would not be seeing it, or anything else from
now on.
Alexandra's hand closed hard on the lapis sculpture that had once rested on
Prince Li Shou's table by his inkstone. The pressure should have hurt. She
wanted it to hurt, but her hands were too heavily callused. Bryennius had
given the stone to her that morning.
"You should have had this earlier," her cousin had told her after he had
unearthed it from his saddlebags. "But . .
."
In the flight from Ch'ang-an toward Dunhuang, nothing had mattered but putting
as much distance as possible between themselves and the First Emperor's
avenging army. No human force had pursued them or tried to stop them; it was
as Father Basil had predicted.
They were judged accursed, unclean. Somehow the word had spread, and all along
their route, people's concerns had been to provide them with what they needed
and get them gone as quickly as possible. On the other hand, there was that
one village they'd found deserted comexcept for the people staked out along
the road. Outsiders, all of them: foreigners, heretics, the mad, the simple,
and the misfits. They had lost precious hours freeing and consoling them while
Ch'in Shih
Huangdi's army advanced. Father Basil still prayed for the souls of the
villagers who had planned the murders. Bryennius still waked shouting in rage
at the idea.
Here in Dunhuang the monks had accepted them, promised them rest and care
while they prepared for the desert crossing. Bryennius didn't trust it. When
they traded for camels in the markets, Bryennius steadfastly refused to
contact his adopted Muslim family or to join any other caravan. "I know that a
larger caravan is safer against bandits. But it's also slower. Why doom anyone
else?" he had asked just that morning.
"Is that what you think? That we're all going to die?" Alexandra challenged
him. He had denied it, but his words sounded hollow.
She turned the precious little carving over and over in her worn hands.
"Li Shou gave it to me before ... he died. He
asked
Susan
Shwam me to give it to you and say that he regretted frightenin bar you. That
you might have had something very swe together. For as long as it lasted."
Despite Alexandra's weathering, the flush that sprea less-than just from her
throat to her face burned, and she looke down.
"I knew he wanted me." The words came out hoar ly, and she remembered her
shock and embarrassment that day in the garden when she had become aware of
the prince's desire. More shameful yet, she had waked to hei) own body's
needs.
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"You couldn't trust him," Bryennius said. "I
didn't trust him either. Now I wish I had."
The prince had traveled with them, fought with them j sheltered them, and, at
the last, died because of themj and thousands like them. Alexandra had
muttered some-1 thing she hoped Bryennius would interpret as thanksj and
walked quickly away.
"Don't go far!" Bryennius had called after her.
"Asl soon as the camels are loaded, we take the pass south bar west for
Miran."
From Lanzhou to Jiayaguan, from Jiayaguan to Dunhuang, and now, south along
the rim of the
Taklai Makan with rarely a stop ... the statues would not! spare them time,
and time was what she needed. The! caves of Dunhuang were holy; she didn't
think that thef statues could penetrate the aura radiating from them.
As she reached the ladders and scaffolds that led to the caves, she blinked
back her tears. A short climb, and into this cave with the wall paintings of
Bodhisattvas painted the blue of compassionate manifestations, past the long,
long red and gold hall with the recumbent Buddha, and-yes, here it was, the
cave that Li Shou had commissioned in honor of his return to the Empire that
had killed him. The paint still smelled fresh.
If she slitted her eyes to avoid the alien shapes and patterns that scrolled
over walls and smooth-carved ceiling, she would see only the
Kuan-yin, lady and comforter, painted on the far wall. Despite its elegantly
elongated eyelids, she could pretend it was an icon of Mary, Bearer of God.
Placing the lapis lazuli before the painting, she knelt and tried to compose
herself for meditation. But Li
Shou's face kept intervening. She had at first been unaware of how he felt.
Once she realized, she had had no idea of how to cope with his desires.
He had known that. She supposed that, in a way, he had loved them all-and had
died for it. Passionately she thanked God that Bryennius had intervened in
what otherwise was suicide. Foolish, that thought;
Li Shou's faith didn't damn the suicide, but sent him back onto the Path to
try again. Even the
Bodhisattvas, beings so perfected that they could
escape the world, chose to remain in it to guide others. Li Shou was far from
the Buddhist notion of sainthood, but he had loved the world of art and
adventure he'd created for as long as he could.
He would be happy to return, she thought, and she wished him a speedy, happy
rebirth.
If only he might have seen how beautiful the priest artists had made the cave!
He had told
Bryennius that Ch'in was his mother, and he could not leave her again. Like [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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