Heart of Iron - Ekaterina Sedia [121]
“No, Feng is pretty smart,” Eugenia whispered back. “It is one of Hong’s newly appointed governors.”
“Which province, do you know?”
“Gansu,” she whispered back, and this simple word made me see a black sun and white sky.
Chiang Tse had changed little—his queue was of course gone, but he had kept his gentle and dignified demeanor, and his dark eyes remained downcast even as he approached us. I agonized at first over whether he would recognize me; but surely Lee Bo must have told him.
He bowed to Aunt Eugenia. “It is a pleasure and an honor to travel with you,” he said softly, and the sound of his voice tugged at my heart gently, like one of the large red-and-white carps that lived in the ponds in the imperial palace nibbling on my fingers. “It is my humble hope that as persons gifted with the trust of our rulers we can discuss the common interests of our countries, and come to a mutually beneficial set of agreements.”
Eugenia seemed pleased. “We will indeed do so,” she assured him. “Shall we?”
Chiang Tse smiled and nodded, and offered her his arm in a European fashion. His clothes, however, were that of an official, and his robes bore a patch with two embroidered cranes on them. Lee Bo explained its meaning, and even though I was hazy on the details, I gathered cranes were indicative of high rank.
Eugenia took his arm and they walked to the airship side-by-side with me following them and ten or so men of Chiang Tse’s retinue bringing up the rear. I turned and saw Kuan Yu over my shoulder; I smiled and he grinned back. So much for a humble fur trader, and I was glad to have him travel with us again.
We settled on the benches that were refreshingly padded and rounded. They felt more like cradles than the hard wooden benches of the train or other airship. This trip was promising to be altogether more comfortable, and I sighed and stretched.
Chiang Tse and Eugenia spoke softly. I sat behind them, and could only make out the animated bobbing of Chiang Tse’s head, agreeing with something Eugenia proposed.
Finally he turned around to face me. There was no recognition in his dark eyes, and I smiled.
He offered me his hand. “Chiang Tse,” he said. “I am the Governor-General of Gansu.”
I shook his hand. “Poruchik Menshov,” I said.
He smiled then. “My friend Lee Bo told me you were the one who brought the evidence of the treacheries planned by the English.”
I couldn’t contain myself any longer. “But I see he failed to remind you of our previous acquaintance.”
Chiang Tse smiled politely, and his eyes showed no recognition, which to me seemed the very height of hilarity. He squinted at me as I kept laughing, too overcome to say anything. Finally, I managed to pull my fake mustache off my lip, and his eyes lit with recognition—he forgot his dignified bearing and official position as he vaulted over the back of his bench to sit next to me and grasp my hands with a gesture so sincere that my reverse corset felt like a slab of rock, pressing on my chest and not letting me breathe.
“Sasha,” he said.
I do not know what his retinue thought after that—but I am sure they had been selected in part for an ability to not talk about things they witnessed. Whatever the case, I did not care whether anyone was watching as I embraced Chiang Tse with an ardor that was perhaps a mite excessive for mere camaraderie. He gasped and held me too, and his quick breaths told me that he was as overcome as I. A moment later a hot wet drop on my neck told me he was crying.
If Eugenia noticed anything, she was of course too well brought up and too mindful of my happiness to turn around, and instead busied herself with her knitting. She rarely knitted, and I suspected the shapeless, dingy brown thing she worked on was the same one she had started when I was a child.
“I thought I would never see you again,” Chiang Tse whispered and let go. His face was slightly reddened and more emotional than I had ever seen. “I worked so hard on letting go of the very thought of you, and yet I begged