The Yellow Silk - Don Bassingthwaite [76]
Li glared right back at him. "The Hooded is Yu Mao," he spat.
Tycho's jaw dropped in disbelief. "What?" "The Hooded isYuMao."
Li blew out his breath and hung his head against his chest. When the anger that had gripped him in the room above ebbed a bit, he looked up again and forced the words out. "He's my brother, Tycho. When you and Jacerryl described the Hooded last night, I started to wonder. The Hooded came to Spandeliyon only a bit before Brin and just after the Sow vanished. He covered himself entirely and spoke only to an interpreter. He sold Yu Mao's swords to Jacerryl. When I saw him upstairs and from the way he froze when you mentioned the Sow, I knew-"
"Wait." Tycho shook his head as if trying to clear it and looked at Li again. "Even if you're right, even if the Hooded is Yu Mao, you just tried to kill him! I thought you only wanted to find him!"
"I do. I did." Li clenched his jaw and heat sprang into his face. "I lied to you, Tycho," he said through his teeth. "I didn't tell you the whole truth. When I saw Veseene, she guessed that, but I couldn't tell her either. I swear I didn't think it would go this far. I thought I would learn what I needed to know from Brin and that I would leave Spandeliyon to find Yu Mao somewhere else."
In the shadows, Tycho's eyes were narrow. "So," he said coldly, "what is the whole truth? Why did you just try to kill your brother?"
"Because Tieh Fa Pan didn't see Yu Mao taken hostage by the pirates of the Sow." Li swallowed. "He saw him join them. Yu Mao betrayed the expedition's ship to the pirates. Fa Pan thought that he even organized the expedition's journey to Sembia just so the pirates would have a chance to take the ship. When the pirates attacked, all the members of the expedition except Fa Pan were sent below deck for their safety. Yu Mao murdered them."
The confession burned in his gut. Tycho's eyes had gone wide and he looked like he had something to say, but Li didn't let him speak; he plunged on. "When Fa Pan went to warn them that the ship had been boarded, Yu Mao attacked him, too. He was the one who wounded Fa Pan. He pushed him overboard to drown. He didn't know that he wa$ spirit folk, though. From the water, Fa Pan watched Yu Mao celebrating with the pirates, laughing with Brin and embracing the pirates' sorceress-captain like a lover."
His voice failed him. Silence fell. After a time, Tycho asked softly, "Why?"
Li shook his head. "I don't know. Nobody knows. Fa Pan wrote that he asked Yu Mao the same thing and all Yu Mao said was 'You wouldn't understand.' Fa Pan suspected that he murdered the rest of the expedition-and tried to kill him, too-so that word of what he had done would never get back to Keelung." He closed his eyes for a moment. "If my father hadn't received Fa Pan's letter, the silk families of Keelung would just have assumed the expedition was lost and mourned them accordingly. They might have asked questions, but not many."
"But because Fa Pan lived long enough to send that letter," Tycho said, "they sent you."
"No." Li sighed. "My father sent me, Tycho. Rather than face the shame of explaining what his eldest son had done, he told Keelung the same lie I told you. Then he sent me west to find Yu Mao and, if he wasn't already dead, to kill him."
Tycho gasped. "Sweet chum, Li!"
"It had to be done, Tycho."
"You're talking about murdering your brother!"
"Better me than a stranger! Better me than no one at all." He twisted so Tycho could see his left arm. "That's why my father sent the Yellow Silk with me, Tycho. It's the honor of my family; it's the tradition that binds us together. I carry the greatest treasure of the Kuang with me. That's how important this is."
"Aren't there courts in Shou Lung? Doesn't your emperor dispense justice?"
"There are courts. There is justice. There's tradition, too. All three agree. What Yu Mao did must be