Nils nodded, grinning.
A wizard, Chen repeated to himself. One who can see
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in the dark. His plan took new reality for him, and with sudden energy he began describing it.
Chen sent Wu home at an hour when he’d be seen alone on the road headed south.
Chen himself was a widower and alone, who sometimes took his supper in the tavern. This night he would eat there and spend the evening drinking with old friends, to deflect possible suspicion. Drinking more than usual, and pretending to be more affected by it than he actually was. Happily Dr. Liang came in. They were friends, and Chen drank with him. Doctor Liang, who with his wife and youngest daughter was also the village candle-maker and seller, was considered a conservative and proper man whose primary eccentricity was his friendship and occasional drinking with the smith. As such he provided a particularly suitable alibi.
Chen remained sober enough to worry. Not for himself; it seemed to him he’d taken care of that. But he didn’t want the barbarian to get killed; that, it seemed to him, would add to his own karma. Of course, any karma earned should the bailiff be killed, or any of his guards, he would happily accept, because someone needed to do something about Lo Pu-Pang.
It was a slow evening in the tavern, and after awhile, Chen and Liang were almost the only customers there. Finally the tavern keeper announced that no more drinks would be served. Liang asked Chen to come home with him and spend the night. Actually the doctor wanted the muscular smith’s protection between the tavern and his own door; otherwise some ruffian might ambush and rob him. And his wife wouldn’t scold him if the smith was there.
Chen readily agreed. Apparently the deed had not yet been done; he’d heard no uproar from the bailiffs compound, or report of one. And agreeing with Liang’s request would extend his alibi through the whole night. Meanwhile he was a little edgy that something had gone wrong, and that the plan would come to naught.
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It was so dark out that Liang went back into the tavern and borrowed an oil lamp from the tavern keeper, to help him find the key holes in his gate and door.
Jik and the giant barbarian had napped off and on through the day, waiting till well after dark, as Chen had directed. Hopefully they’d meet no one on the road. Nils had left shirt and boots behind, as well as bow and quiver, wearing only breeches and harness, carrying only sword and knife, and the coiled rope with its grapple. He’d be climbing, and unnecessary gear would be nuisances.
It was more than night-dark; it was like being in a sack of charcoal. The moon had not risen yet, and a thick overcast cut off even the starlight. Jik’s problem in leading Nils to the village was to keep from blundering into the ditch. Or so he thought. He didn’t realize that Nils saw as well in the dark as by day. Thus it took them considerably longer to reach Lü-Gu than Jik had expected, Nils keeping cheerfully to the Chinese youth’s pace.
Jik intended to avoid village lanes, where they might encounter villagers. Instead lie followed the mud-and-straw brick walls of householders’ back vegetable gar-densj walls which formed a mostly continuous outer skirt around the village. Indeed, most village yards were surrounded by such walls, commonly higher than a man. As Jik groped his way along, dogs barked, but in Lii-Gu, dogs barked off and on every night.
The youth was not intimately familiar with the village. They should have stayed outside the skirt of garden walls, circling till they came to the much higher, stronger wall of the bailiffs compound. When they encountered a ditch filled with irrigation water, he became confused. Thus they slipped through a gap between two garden walls and he felt his way through an orchard to a village lane.
Jik was truly worried now. He had little idea where they were, and this was taking longer than intended.
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He looked about helplessly. Then around a corner, a light appeared. Two men turned into the lane, one of them carrying a lamp, and Jik saw both an opportunity and a danger. “Stay here!” he hissed. “Don’t let them see you.” Remembering that his companion spoke no Chinese, he pushed him into a niche they’d just passed, a corner where two neighboring walls failed to align. A tree grew there; it would help conceal the man. Then swallowing his fear, the youth hurried to meet the two men with the lamp.