The Art of War Read Online Free PDF Page A

darkness. What is happening, brother? Why do you wander the corridors at this early hour?’
    He saw how Ta-hung looked to his friend, at a loss, his face a web of conflicting emotions, and smiled inwardly, enjoying his brother’s impotence.
    ‘I’m afraid there is bad news, Wang Sau-leyan,’ Hung Mien-lo answered him, bowing low, his face grave. ‘Your father is dead.’
    ‘Dead? But how?’
    He saw how Hung Mien-lo glanced at his brother and knew at once that Ta-hung had not been told everything.
    ‘It would be best if you came yourself, Excellency. I will explain everything then. But excuse us, please. We must pay our respects to the late T’ang.’
    He noted how pointedly Hung Mien-lo had emphasized the last two words; how his voice, while still superficially polite, was a register of how he thought things had changed. Wang Sau-leyan smiled tightly at Hung, then bowed to his elder brother.
    ‘I will get dressed at once.’
    He watched them go; then, satisfied, slid the door open again and went back into his rooms.
    A voice from the bed, young, distinctly feminine, called softly to him. ‘What was it, my love?’
    He went across to her and, slipping off his robe, joined her, naked beneath the sheets.
    ‘It was nothing,’ he said, smiling down at his father’s third wife. ‘Nothing at all.’
    Wang Ta-hung stood in the doorway of his father’s room staring in, fear constricting his throat. He turned and looked at Hung Mien-lo beseechingly. ‘I can’t…’
    ‘You are T’ang,’ Hung answered him firmly. ‘You can.’
    The young man swallowed, then turned back, his fists clenched at his sides. ‘I am T’ang,’ he repeated. ‘T’ang of City Africa.’
    Hung Mien-lo stood there a moment, watching him take the first few hesitant steps into the room, knowing how important the next few minutes were. Ta-hung had accustomed himself to the fact of his father’s death. Now he must discover how the old man died. Must learn, firsthand, the fate of kings.
    And if it drove him mad?
    Hung Mien-lo smiled to himself, then stepped inside the room. Kings had been mad before. What was a king, after all, but a symbol – the visible sign of a system of government? As long as the City was ruled, what did it matter who gave the orders?
    He stopped beside the old man’s chair, watching the youth approach the bed. Surely he’s seen? he thought. Yet Ta-hung was too still, too composed. Then the young T’ang turned, looking back at him.
    ‘I knew,’ he said softly. ‘As soon as you told me, I knew he had been murdered.’
    Hung Mien-lo let his breath out. ‘You knew ?’ He looked down. There, beneath him on the cushion, lay the T’ang’s hairbrush. He leaned forward and picked it up, studying it a moment, appreciating the slender elegance of its ivory handle, the delicacy of its design. He was about to set it down when he noticed several strands of the old T’ang’s hair trapped amongst the darkness of the bristles; long, white strands, almost translucent in their whiteness, like the finest threads of ice. He frowned then looked back at Wang Ta-hung. ‘How do you feel, Chieh Hsia ? Are you well enough to see others, or shall I delay?’
    Wang Ta-hung looked about him, then turned and stared down at his father. He was still, unnaturally calm.
    Perhaps this is it , thought Hung. Perhaps something has broken in him and this calmness is the first sign of it. But for once there seemed no trace of madness in Ta-hung, only a strange sense of dignity and distance, surprising because it was so unexpected.
    ‘Let the others come,’ he said, his voice clear of any shade of fear, his eyes drinking in the sight of his murdered father. ‘There’s no sense in delay.’
    Hung Mien-lo hesitated, suddenly uncertain, then turned and went to the door, telling the guard to bring Fischer and Sun Li Hua. Then he went back inside.
    Wang Ta-hung was standing at the bedside. He had picked something up and was sniffing at it. Hung