‘Will you loan me a horse?’
‘I’ll do better than that,’ said Waylander. ‘I’ll take you myself.’
If one fact of life was incontrovertible for Yu Yu Liang it was that one golden ounce of good luck was invariably followed by several pounds of bad. Usually, in his experience, falling upon him from a great height. Or, as his mother would say, ‘When the emperor’s parade passes by, the horse-turd collectors are not far behind.’
The blonde-haired Norda had left his bed only moments before, and Yu Yu was happier than he had been in months. This was despite the initial criticism offered by the woman. ‘You are not in a race,’ she had whispered to him, as he clung to her.
He had paused, his heart pounding wildly. ‘A race?’ he managed to say, between great gulps of air.
‘Be slow. We have plenty of time.’
If Nashda, the crippled god of all labourers, had appeared in his room offering him immortality at that moment it could not have been sweeter. First, there was this beautiful woman lying beneath him, her golden legs around his hips. Second, there was not a queue of impatient ditch-diggers outside the door shouting for him to hurry. Third, as far as he knew, this glorious creature desired no money from him. Which was fortuitous since he had no money. And now to be told he had plenty of time . . . Could Heaven be any sweeter?
He took her advice. There were many new joys to discover, and some obstacles to overcome. Kissing a woman who still had all her teeth was surprisingly pleasant. Almost as pleasant as the fact that there was no sandglass on the table beside the bed, swiftly trickling his time away.
If life could get better than this, Yu Yu Liang did not know how.
The first indications that there was a price to be paid for such pleasure came just after she left, when he pulled on his harsh, woollen shirt. His upper back tingled with pain from the scratches to his skin. She had also bitten his ear, which had been most pleasurable at the time, but now throbbed a little.
Even so Yu Yu was whistling a merry tune as he stepped from the room – to find himself facing three of the Grey Man’s guards.
The first, a stocky man with tightly curled golden hair, was staring at him malevolently. ‘You have made a bad mistake, you slant-eyed pig,’ he said. ‘You think you can come here and force yourself on our women?’
In Yu Yu’s village there had been a Source temple, and many of the children had attended school there. They had no wish to learn the tongue of the round-eye, but the priests had supplied two meals a day, and for this it was worth putting in a little study. Yu Yu had been a quick learner, but lack of practice since then meant he needed a little time to translate complicated sentences. Apparently he had committed some kind of error and was being accused of stealing a woman’s one-eyed pig. He looked into the man’s face and saw the hatred there, then flicked his gaze to the man on either side. Both were staring at him through narrowed eyes. ‘Well, now you are going to learn a little lesson,’ continued the first man. ‘We’re going to teach you to stick with your own kind. Understand, yellow man?’
Despite having no knowledge of the pig theft, Yu Yu understood only too well the lesson they were about to deliver.
‘I said, do you understand?’
The man’s hatred turned briefly to shock, and then to blank emptiness as Yu Yu’s left fist cannoned into his nose. He was already unconscious as the right cross followed. The guard hit the floor, blood seeping from his nostrils. A second guard lunged forward. Yu Yu butted him full in the face then brought his knee up into the man’s groin.
The guard gave a strangled cry of pain and sagged against the Chiatze. Yu Yu pushed him away and downed him with a left hook to the jaw.
‘You give lessons too?’ Yu Yu asked the last guard.