Part 14 (1/2)

Troth searched her memory of the guests, recalling a tall, upright man with a shrewd gaze rather like Jena's. ”General Ames is your father?”

”Yes. I lived in India for the first twenty-five years of my life. My mother was a high-caste Hindu.”

Troth caught her breath, understanding. ”Which is why Meriel wanted you to speak with me.” She studied the other woman's face. ”Your mixed blood is not so obvious as mine.”

Jena smiled. ”If you saw me wearing a sari and standing beside my husband, who is a full-blooded Indian, I wouldn't look English at all. But you're right, dressed as an Englishwoman, I merely look dark. Your Chinese heritage is more visible.”

Troth leaned forward eagerly. ”What is it like for an Asiatic to live among these Britons?”

”My father's position protected me from prejudice.” Jena's mouth twisted. ”The only time I've really suffered was in my first marriage to a man who was horrified when he learned of my 'tainted' blood. It led to... great unpleasantness. I was in the process of seeking a legal separation when he died.”

There was a story to that, Troth guessed, though probably not one Jena would discuss lightly. ”Your second husband is the tall Indian gentleman here tonight?”

”Yes. Curry is an Anglicized version of his family name.” Jena chuckled. ”Since he has chosen to spend the rest of his life in England, Kamal has adopted some of the local customs and clothing, but his beard and turban remind me that I'm not all English. Nor do I want to be.”

”Have you never thought that it would be easier to be one or the other?”

”Easier, perhaps, but then I would not be myself.” Jena regarded Troth with large, dark eyes. ”Ease is not the purpose of life. I gather that your time in Canton was often difficult, but don't renounce your Chinese side. To be only English would be to impoverish yourself.”

That was easy for Jena to say, with her features that could pa.s.s for European and a life lived under the protection of a high-ranking father. Though the first husband sounded unfortunate, the second was a striking man, with intelligence and authority in his face, and clearly the couple was accepted by local society despite their foreign blood. Jena couldn't know what it was like to live as an outcast, unable even to claim her own gender. ”With my face, I couldn't renounce my breeding even if I wished to.”

Jena studied her expression, but didn't take the subject any further. ”Though the country folk here are rather conservative, as peasants are everywhere, there is a basic tolerance. You have married into a family that will protect you as my father protected me. When your mourning ends, you can have a rich and fulfilling life in England.”

”I hope so,” Troth said bleakly. ”There is nothing left for me in China.”

Chapter 22.

Hoshan, China Spring 1832 The trail cut sharply around a stony ridge, and there was Hoshan. Kyle halted, stunned by the beauty of the temple that lay below. His original print had shown water, but he hadn't realized that the temple was built on an island in the middle of a lake. With the sky reflected in the water, Hoshan appeared to be floating in heaven.

From the other side of the donkey, Troth murmured in the special, almost inaudible speech they'd developed, ”It is truly lovely, isn't it? The blue tiles on the roofs are reserved for religious buildings.”

Blue tiles for heaven. Kyle studied the temple and scattered outbuildings hungrily, scarcely able to believe that within the next two hours he'd finally enter Hoshan. Feeling an odd mixture of excitement and apprehension, he resumed walking along the narrow track that clung to the face of the mountain, descending to the lake in steep swoops. A scattering of other pilgrims could be seen above and below them.

He reminded himself to shuffle and hang his head like a feeble old man. It was difficult when he felt more like a youth who had just discovered the delicious pleasures of the flesh. The wonder of it made him want to burst into song or race down the mountain from pure exuberance.

Troth deserved the credit for his invigoration, of course, because she truly was discovering the pleasures of the flesh. Pa.s.sionate and eager, she was irresistible. After they'd cleaned up traces of their stay and left the cave shrine, they traveled from the hills down into more populated farmland. At dusk they'd stopped in a village inn similar to the one where they'd spent their first night.

Kyle's blood had been simmering all day, and no sooner were they secure in their room than he'd caught his companion in a hungry embrace. They'd ended up coupling against the rough mud-brick wall, Troth as frantic as he.

After recovering some strength with the evening rice, he'd experimented with Taoist practices, and found that it was indeed possible to withhold his seed and prolong their pleasure. Over the next nights-and one wild, indiscreet interval by a shaded stream-Troth had entered into his sometimes clumsy experiments with laughter and enthusiasm. He hadn't known it was possible to have a relations.h.i.+p with a woman that was, for lack of a better term, a pa.s.sionate friends.h.i.+p.

With Troth, there were no tears or demands or manipulations, no implication that because they were bedmates, she owned him. She was all honesty, generous and incredibly open about her physical nature. Given the intoxicated way they'd been feasting on each other, it was amazing they'd managed to reach Hoshan. But they had. Three weeks of travel, going rather slower than they'd planned because there seemed no reason to hurry, had brought them to the temple that had haunted him for half a lifetime.

As they picked their way down the trail, he was almost sorry they'd reached their goal. Until now the journey had been fueled by antic.i.p.ation. The return would be anticlimactic, with every step taking him closer to the end of his travels-and of his intimacy with Troth.

A rattle of pebbles sounded below them on the path, heralding the progress of a returning pilgrim. Soon a sedan chair appeared, carried by two bearers along the narrow track. Kyle, Troth, and Sheng squeezed against the wall in a wide section of the trail as the chair was carried by, curtained so that the occupant was invisible. The sinewy bearers trotted along swiftly, unconcerned by the sheer drop.

After the other party vanished from view, Kyle murmured, ”Were they moving so fast from confidence, or the belief that if they fall off the cliff and die, they'll be rapidly reborn in a better state?”

Troth smiled. ”They probably specialize in carrying invalids and pilgrims to the temple and have been along this track hundreds of times.”

”Better them than me.” Kyle cast an uneasy glance at the abyss to the left. ”The builders of Hoshan certainly didn't want their temple to be too accessible.”

”If it were easy to reach, it would be less special.”

Other travelers were approaching, so they fell silent. The trail ended at the lake, where a handful of merchants catered to the needs of pilgrims. After bedding Sheng down at the livery, Troth bought richly perfumed flowers and a straw basket of fruit for offerings, placing the flowers in Kyle's arms. Then she took his elbow and escorted him to the landing, where a boat waited to take them and several others to the island.

Kyle's nerves wound tighter and tighter as the boat skimmed over the water like a swallow, propelled by the strong arms of a gray-robed young man. What if he'd come all this distance and found nothing except beauty? He'd visited shrines in many lands, seeking some elusive understanding that he couldn't even name. Occasionally he'd felt that he was close to reaching what he sought. But never close enough.

When they reached the island, Troth helped Kyle from the boat with the deference due his aged and injured state, then guided him up the broad steps that led to the temple entrance. Heart pounding, he stared through the thin gauze at the details of the structure that had captured his imagination, enchanted as much by the gilded mythical beasts that marched down the curving ridgepoles as by the perfect, harmonious proportions.

Most of all, he felt the sheer power of the place. This was like the cave shrine to Kuan Yin, only multiplied a hundredfold. Hoshan radiated a sacred energy that both humbled and enlightened. He could feel it in every fiber of his being.

The sound of chanting monks wafted out the high, arched entrance, the voices eerily beautiful. Troth's grip on his elbow tightened. One would have to be made of stone not to be affected by Hoshan.

They stepped from suns.h.i.+ne into mystery. The vast shrine was domed with a richly coffered ceiling of blue and gold and lit by ma.s.ses of candles. Sandalwood incense perfumed the air, so spicy Kyle could taste it on his tongue.

Shrines to other deities circled the sanctuary, but it was the towering statue of the Buddha, gilded and serene, that riveted his attention. Here was the heart of the temple's energy, the innate power of the image enhanced by twenty centuries of prayers.

Most of the many monks were seated in the lotus position as they chanted their devotions with an intensity that resonated in the mind, but a few were a.s.signed to help visitors. When one approached, Troth bowed and spoke softly to him, giving him an offering of silver coins. He accepted with a nod and gave her half a dozen tall, smoldering incense sticks.

Her grip firm, Troth guided Kyle forward so they could place their flowers and fruit in front of the altar. Troth had explained on their journey that it wasn't the image that was being wors.h.i.+ped, but the spiritual awareness it represented. Nonetheless, in the flickering light the Buddha's face seemed almost alive, his gaze so profound it was easy to understand why some wors.h.i.+pers thought the statue itself was divine.

After backing them up several steps, Troth handed him three of the incense sticks. The night before she'd explained the proper ritual. First he should kneel to pray or meditate. When he finished his devotions, he must place the joss sticks into the incense pot, then kowtow before rising.

He obeyed, moving with the slowness of an old man as he knelt on the cool marble floor. Finally he had reached the heart of this journey. Behind his gauze blindfold, he closed his eyes and let the spirit of the place fill him. Power. Goodness. Mysteries beyond the ken of mortal men.

Why had a sinner like him made this pilgrimage? Not to mock, G.o.d knew, but in search of wisdom and grace.

He deserved neither. His past ran through his mind, the memories an iron knot as he recalled every instance of selfishness and anger. He and his brother had been alienated for a decade, and the fault had lain almost entirely with his own pigheaded arrogance. He'd known how much he meant to his father, both as a son and as an heir, yet he'd deliberately withheld the warmth the old earl had secretly craved.

And Constancia... She had been his s.h.i.+eld and his salvation, yet he'd been unable to tell her what she meant to him until literally the hour of her death.

Despair swept through him in drowning waves. He'd been born blessed, and proved himself wholly unworthy of his good fortune. He was shallow, useless, a failure at everything that really mattered. Dear G.o.d, why had he ever been born?

As tears stained his bandaged face, hesitant fingers touched his left hand. Troth. He clutched at her, desperate for an anchor in a tempest of self-recriminations. Troth.

She squeezed his hand, and in her grip he felt the pulse of her chi. Pure and bright, it glowed with a compa.s.sion that warmed the depths of his darkness. That first touch of light grew like the dawn sun rising into a globe of purifying fire, burning away his pain and doubts, pettiness and regrets. He felt scalded, melted, transformed.

Yes, he'd been imperfect, sometimes dense and other times foolish, but never had he been evil. He'd never used his power to be cruel, and even at his angriest, he'd done his duty and tried to live with honor. Now, perhaps, he could learn how to do his duty with joy. He felt a vast and powerful compa.s.sion for all the world's suffering creatures, and knew it for a shadow of the limitless compa.s.sion the Divine felt for humankind-so much compa.s.sion that there was enough even for him. Exaltation welled up within him.

Was this clarity of soul what Christians called grace? How strange to travel halfway around the world to find what priests of his own religion had tried to explain in sermons he'd scarcely listened to.

In my end, I find my beginning. For him, the beginning was the discovery of soul-deep peace. The restlessness that had driven him since he was a child dissolved as if it had never existed. Inner peace was not something found only at the ends of the earth, but a quality that could be-must be- found within his own heart.