The White Mirror by Elsa Hart Page B

thought for a moment. “I do not see why anyone would.”
    A voice hailed them, and they turned to see Andruk coming toward them through the snow. He reached them and stopped, slightly out of breath. “Have you seen Paolo Campo?” he asked.
    â€œI met him on the stairs from the temple,” Li Du said. “I believe he was heading for the kitchen hearth, but I did not see him there. He is not in his room?”
    â€œI have just come from his room.”
    â€œPerhaps,” said Hamza, “he is endeavoring to convert the Khampa.”
    Andruk looked doubtful. “He is a timid man, always fearful of bandits. I doubt he would approach the caravan alone. But if you are going there, I will come with you.”
    As they approached the hut, the sides of which bulged at the seams where blankets were piled within, they heard laughter. They went inside. Sera-tsering was sitting on a log that had been made into a semblance of a throne. She commanded the attention of the muleteers.
    â€œAnd no one,” she was saying, “knew that the land had been ruled for fourteen years by a man who was dead.” This conclusion was greeted with murmurs of appreciation and interest.
    Hamza came to a sudden halt. “First she interrupts me,” he whispered, half to himself and half to Li Du, “and now she steals my occupation?”
    Andruk glanced around the single room. Campo was not there. With a bow to Kalden and a nod to Li Du and Hamza, he turned and ducked back out into the snow.
    Sera looked up. “Will you join us?”
    Hamza crossed his arms over his chest. “So we are passing the afternoon with tales,” he declared.
    Sera tucked her hand into her long woolen sleeves. “That is what travelers do when the weather traps them together,” she said. “Or perhaps someone has a set of dice to play the Game of Tigers, or pebbles for the Game of Many Eyes?” She looked around the circle expectantly.
    Hamza’s face was determined. “If one tells a story, another must follow. Let us see if I can amuse you, as you appear to have amused my companions.” He circled the fire behind her to an available place, and sat down.
    â€œThis little scholar librarian,” said Hamza, pointing to where Li Du stood, “whose coat is patched and who walks so quietly through the mountains beside his gentle mule, is, beneath his humble exterior, a truth-seeker and master of deduction. You look incredulous? I could tell you of our adventure in the market city under the mountain, where we met Death on the day the sun was stolen from the sky. Were it not for my assistance, we might never have solved that puzzle. It was I who told him the tale of a great detective, and so inspired him to action. I speak of Judge Dee, that tireless magistrate, who sometimes traveled to Bassorah to visit a distant cousin.”
    Li Du watched Hamza’s posture change. It became straighter, more commanding, while at the same time he leaned forward just slightly, as if he were confiding in a friend. “In Bassorah there was a market that was also the center of revelry in the city.”
    Li Du pictured the slope of white snow outside that led down to the trees, but he did not move. Half lost in his own thoughts, he remained standing by the door. Hamza began.
    â€œAs the sun set and the torches and lanterns were lit, light shone through silk and tassels. Acrobats and dancers and puppeteers performed their art. Vendors sold perfume bottles crusted with filigree and jewels, and books with paintings of ships visible only when their pages were pressed together, and scarves that changed color to complement the thoughts of their wearers, and fruits and breads and savories that could turn ill humor to pleasure. Every evening the market was more beautiful and more alive than the evening before, and every morning it was gray and brown and befouled, piled with chewed bones and inhabited by yellow-eyed