The walls of the gateway were smooth adobe, long used for pasting handwritten bulletins from local magistrates, officials and scholars. They had been recently scraped clean of the leprous tatters of old news, and now there were just three sheets papered there. Before it an old Muslim sat on a three-legged stool behind a stall selling spices. He had a narrow hawk-face, held a brass pipe between his front teeth, and puffed gently on the thick bung of rolled tobacco. One booted foot was drawn up onto his knee. His parrot looked out from its black wooden cage.
“News!” the parrot said. “News!”
Shulien paused to read the one titled Capital News. She scanned quickly through the lists of scandal and rumor—the Emperor’s concubines appeared to have slept with half the Empire—but it was at the bottom, almost lost amongst the minor news, that she read that Duke Te had died.
“News!” the parrot squawked. “No news!”
Duke Te was one of the last emperor’s sons, by a minor wife, but he was old and old men died. There was little scandal. Hundreds had read of the duke’s death. A few score even knew who he was. But the news of his death meant nothing to the townsfolk of far Wenxia. Most folk had no idea that he was Master of the Iron Way, the world of wushu fighters who traveled and drank and battled injustice wherever they found it. They just knew him as a member of the Imperial Family.
The news hit Shulien hard, though. She gasped for breath, even though she rarely thought of the old friend, or even of the treasure that he had hidden. But now it all came back like a torrent of dirty flood water that overtops the dike, despite the efforts of the farmers.
Once the first defense breaks there is no stopping it. She had to leave. She had to go to Beijing. She felt a stab of panic. The Green Destiny: who was protecting it now?