Ice and Fire Read Free Page B

shore. Ben shipped oars and turned to look. There, stretching from the foreshore to the Wall, was a solid line of soldiers. Slowly, methodically, they moved between the trees and over the rough-grassed, uneven ground, making sure nothing slipped between them. It was their third sweep of the Domain and their last. What was not caught this time would be gassed.
    Peng Yu-wei cleared his throat, his head held slightly forward in a gesture of respect to his two charges.
    ‘What is it, Teacher Peng?’ Ben asked coldly, turning to face him. Lessons had ended an hour back. This now was their time and Peng, though chaperone for this excursion, had no authority over the master and mistress outside his classroom.
    ‘Forgive me, young master, I wish only to make an observation.’
    Meg turned, careful not to make the boat tilt and sway, and looked up at Peng Yu-wei, then back at Ben. She knew how much Ben resented the imposition of a teacher. He liked to make his own discoveries and follow his own direction, but their father had insisted upon a more rigorous approach. What Ben did in his own time was up to him, but in the morning classes he was to do as Peng Yu-wei instructed; learn what Peng Yu-wei asked him to learn. With some reluctance Ben had agreed, but only on the understanding that outside the classroom the teacher was not to speak without his express permission.
    ‘You understand what Teacher Peng really is?’ he had said to Meg when they were alone one time. ‘He’s their means of keeping tabs on me. Of controlling what I know and what I learn. He’s bit and bridle, ball and chain, a rope to tether me like any other animal.’
    His bitterness had surprised her. ‘Surely not,’ she had answered. ‘Father wouldn’t want that, would he?’
    Ben had not answered, only looked away, the bitterness in his face unchanged.
    Now some of that bitterness was back as he looked at Teacher Peng. ‘Make your observation then. But be brief.’
    Peng Yu-wei bowed, then turned his head, looking across at the soldiers who were now level with them. One frail, thin hand went up to pull at his wispy grey goatee, the other moved slightly on the staff, inclining it towards the distant line of men. ‘This whole business seems most cumbersome, would you not agree, Master Ben?’
    Ben’s eyes never left the teacher’s face. ‘Not cumbersome. Inefficient’s a better word.’
    Teacher Peng looked back at him and bowed slightly, corrected. ‘Which is why I felt it could be made much easier.’
    Meg saw the impatience in Ben’s face and looked down. No good would come of this.
    ‘You had best tell me how , Teacher Peng.’ The note of sarcasm in Ben’s voice was bordering on outright rudeness now. Even so, Peng Yu-wei seemed not to notice. He merely bowed and continued.
    ‘It occurs to me that, before returning the animals to the land again, a trace could be put inside each animal. Then, if this happened again, it would be a simple thing to account for each animal. Theft and disease would both be far easier to control.’
    Peng Yu-wei looked up at his twelve-year-old charge expectantly, but Ben was silent.
    ‘Well, master?’ he asked after a moment. ‘What do you think of my idea?’
    Ben looked away. He lifted the oars and began to pull at them again, digging heavily into the water to his right, bringing the boat back onto a straight course. He looked back at the teacher.
    ‘It’s a hideous idea, Peng Yu-wei. An unimaginative, small-minded idea. Just another way of keeping tabs on things. I can see it now. You would make a great electronic wall chart of the Domain, eh? And have each animal as a blip on it.’
    The stretched olive skin of Peng Yu-wei’s face was relaxed, his dark eyes, with their marked epicanthic fold, impassive. ‘That would be a refinement, I agree, but…’
    Ben let the oars fall and leaned forward in the boat. Peng Yu-wei reflexively moved back. Meg watched, horrified, as Ben scrabbled past her, the boat