Everything Under the Heavens (Silk and Song) Read Online Free PDF Page A

skimpy orange robe and bare feet whose only possession was a wooden bowl used for both eating and begging. She wondered if the other Johanna had had to shave her head, like the monks did, and if so, what kept her crown on afterward.
    They rode in silence after that. From time to time during that first long day, as the road passed swiftly beneath, she would seek out the familiar, reassuring figures of her mother and her father.
    To have lost one was unthinkable. To lose both? Unendurable.
    “You will stay with us,” she said to the horizon of undulating sand, to the bleached blue of the sky overhead, to the rump of Deshi’s camel. She was staking a claim.
    Jaufre, drained from his ordeal and hypnotized by the rhythm of the camel’s swaying gait, had fallen asleep with his head on her shoulder, drooling a little from the corner of his mouth.
    “You will stay with us,” she said again, more softly this time, but with even more conviction.
    He snored, too.

Four
    THERE WERE NO STORIES or singing around the fire that night or any other between there and Kashgar. They reached the city in three days instead of five, pushing their mounts hard, making dry camps with everyone taking turns on watch during the night, arms to hand, even Johanna and her small bow, no one getting much sleep. Johanna saw the relief on her father’s face when the high walls of the city came into view.
    They halted in the yard of the large caravansary that sat just outside the city walls. Dusty camels knelt, bawling out their hunger and ostlers moved in a continual dance to remain just out of reach of their snapping yellow teeth.
    A young woman approached, neat in clean robes correctly tied, and bowed. “It is good to see you safely arrived, Master Wu.” She bowed to Shu Ming. “Sister.”
    “It is good to have arrived safely, Shasha,” Wu Li said with a certain grimness. “Your own journey?”
    “Without incident, master. Niu Gang and I made excellent time.” Her tone and expression were bland but her eyes were sharp as they scanned the rest of the party, noting the addition of Jaufre perched behind Johanna with interest but no surprise. “I have secured rooms for our party and hired staff for our stay. Niu Gang is arranging feed for the camels with the stable master. Six merchants, including the venerable Wen Yan, have requested first looks at our goods, and the magistrate requests an appointment at your earliest convenience.”
    Wu’s expression eased and he gave her a formal bow. “As always, Shu Shao, you reward my trust tenfold.”
    She bent her head without embarrassment and without arrogance, accepting the compliment as no more or less her due. Jaufre, looking on, thought that she wore the assurance of a woman many years her senior. Johanna, too, seemed to him much older than her six.
    But then Jaufre, though he did not realize it then, felt like an old man himself. A life lived on the Road encouraged the early acquisition of skills of all kinds. You either survived it or you did not. If you did, you matured fast.
    Wu Li busied himself with supervising the unloading of the bolts of silk and bales of tea and crates of porcelain. Shu Shao led Shu Ming and Johanna to their rooms. They were on the second floor, in a corner. Shu Ming opened the shutters of two windows that looked out over a garden with a blue-tiled fountain tinkling in the middle of it.
    “Very nice,” Shu Ming said. “How much are we paying?”
    “No more than we can afford.”
    The two women smiled at each other.
    Their hair was drawn severely back into identical thick braids, but there any similarity ended. Shu Ming was taller, her hair a tawny mass with gold glints, her eyes a golden brown. Shu Shao’s hair was smooth and black, her face a round-cheeked oval of olive skin, with tilted eyes as dark as her hair. Shu Ming moved with unconscious grace, her eyelashes casting long shadows on her cheeks. Shu Shao moved with economy and purpose, and her gaze was direct,