The Middle Kingdom Read Free

keep the
northern barbarians from the Middle Kingdom. We have not learned from
history. We have preferred to ignore its counsel. But now history is
catching up with us. The years ahead will show how wise a course we
set. Or blame us for our folly.
    He liked the
shape of his thoughts and set them down. Then, when he was finished,
he got up and went back down the steps to the viewing circle.
Darkness was slowly encroaching on City Europe, drawing a stark,
dividing line— -a terminator—across its hollowed
geometric shape, north to south.
    No, he thought.
We haven't learned. We have been unwise. And now our own Long March
is fast approaching. The bright days of ease—of unopposed
rule—lie in our past. Ahead lies only darkness.
    The old man
sighed again, then straightened, feeling the imaginary cold in his
bones. Chung Kuo. Would it survive the coming times? Would a son of
his look down, as he looked now, and see a world at peace? Or was
Change to come again, like a serpent, blighting all?
    Li Shai Tung
turned, then stopped, listening. It came again. An urgent pounding on
the outer doors. He made his way through and stood before them.
    "Who is
it?"
    " Chieh
Hsia! Forgive me. It is I, Chung Hu-Yan."
    Coming so hard
upon his thoughts, the tone of panic in his Chancellor's voice
alarmed him. He threw the doors open.
    Chung Hu-Yan
stood there, his head bowed low, his mauve sleeping gown pulled
tightly about his tall, thin frame. His hair was unbraided and
uncombed. It was clear he had come straight from his bed, not
stopping to prepare himself.
    "What is
it, Chung?"
    Chung fell to
his knees. "It is Lin Yua, Chieh Hsia. It seems she has
begun. ..."
    "Begun?"
Instinct made him control his voice, his face, his breathing, but,
inside, his heart hammered and his stomach dropped away. Lin Yua, his
first wife, was only six months into her pregnancy. How could she
have begun? He took a sharp breath, willing himself to be calm.
    "Quick,
Chung. Take me to her at once."
    The doctors
looked up from the bedside as he entered, then bowed low and backed
hastily away. But a glance at the fear in their eyes told him at once
more than he wanted to know.'
    He looked beyond
them, to her bed. "Lin Yua!"
    He ran across
the room to her, then stopped, his fear transformed into an icy
certainty.
    "Gods . .
." he said softly, his voice breaking. "Kuan Yin preserve
us!"
    She lay there,
her face pale as the harvest moon, her eyes closed, a blue tinge to
her lips and cheeks. The sheets were rucked up beneath her naked
legs, as if from some titanic struggle, their whiteness stained
almost black with her blood. Her arms lay limply at her sides.
    He threw himself
down beside her, cradling her to him, sobbing uncontrollably, all
thought of sovereign dignity gone from him. She was still warm.
Horribly, deceptively warm. He turned her face and kissed it, time
and again, as if kissing would bring the life back to it, then began
to talk to her, his voice pleading with her.
    "Lin Yua..
. Lin Yua.... My little peach. My darling little one. Where are you,
Lin Yua? The gods help us, where are you?"
    He willed her
eyes to open. To smile and say that this was all a game—a test
to see how much he loved her. But it was no game. Her eyes stayed
closed, their lids impenetrably white; her mouth devoid of breath.
And then, at last, he knew.
    Gently he laid
her head against the pillow, then, with his fingers, combed her hair
back lovingly from her brow. Shivering, he sat back from her, looking
up at his Chancellor, his voice hollow with disbelief.
    "She's
dead, Hu-Yan. My little peach is dead."
    "Chieh
Hsia .. . ." The Chancellor's voice quivered with emotion.
For once he did not know what to do, what to say. She had been such a
strong woman. So filled with life. For her to die ... No. It was an
impossibility. He stared back at the T'ang, his own eyes filled with
tears, and mutely shook his head.
    There was
movement behind him. Chung turned and looked. It was a nurse..