The Yellow Silk - Don Bassingthwaite [77]
Tycho pressed his lips together. "Punished in secret?" Li looked away.
"If I do what I have to do," he said quietly, "I will return to Keelung and I will tell my father the truth. To everyone else, I will tell a lie. When I die, I will stand before the Lords of Karma and pray to Fa Kuan, the Immortal of justice, and Chih Shih, the Immortal of lore and tradition, to intercede on my behalf because what I did was necessary."
This time Tycho didn't answer. Silence stretched out thin.
Finally, Tycho asked, "Are you certain the Hooded is really Yu Mao?" Li nodded.
"Did he recognize your saber the way you recognized his butterfly swords?"
"It's called a dao, Tycho, not a saber," said Li. "Sabers are what the Tuigan barbarians use. And no, he couldn't have. He's never seen that particular dao before."
"Did he recognize you?"
Li hesitated. Had Yu Mao recognized him? With the hood obscuring his face, it was hard to tell anything. The moment had been so chaotic that any subtle signs would have been lost. Yu Mao certainly hadn't called out to him during their fight or after.
But I'm not some dao, new forged and plucked at random from a rack, Li thought. I'm his brother. "How could he not have recognized me?" he demanded.
"What if he's not Yu Mao?"
"But all of the signs… "
"I know," Tycho said quickly. "I know." He sighed and tilted his head back. "But if the Hooded is Yu Mao and he was friends once with Brin, they aren't friends anymore. Brin and the Hooded despise each other."
"Maybe they've had a falling out. If Brin knows the Hooded is Yu Mao, that would explain why he's after me-his rival's brother in his hands," Li said and added in Shou, "Honest folk aren't a bandit's only prey."
"There's no honor among thieves," Tycho replied in Common. "Li, do me a favor? Before you kill the Hooded, make sure you know who he is?"
"Kill the Hooded?" grunted a voice from outside their cell. Li twisted around sharply. The tall guard who had met Tycho in the leatherworker's shop-Cado, the Hooded's interpreter had called him-was standing on the other side of the bars. Two other guards were with him. All three had nasty looks on their face. "You go fishing with an unbaited hook, don't you?" asked Cado.
Li shot a glance at Tycho. The bard swallowed and managed a crooked grin. "Bind me," he said, "I don't even use a hook!" He squirmed up to his knees as the tall guard unlocked the cell and swung the barred door open. "Come to let us go?"
Cado answered by pulling out two smallish canvas bags. Tycho's eyes went wide. "Listen, I think there's been a misunderstanding-"
"You thought you could take the Hooded." The tall guard jerked a thumb toward Tycho then toward Li. The men with him moved forward, one grabbing Tycho and holding him still, the other pulling Li to his knees as well. Li tried to pull away, but the guard held him tight.
"Tycho!" Li said in Shou. "What's going on?"
"The Hooded isn't just called that because he wears a hood," gulped Tycho in the same language. "They call him that because his victims are usually wearing them when they're-"
Cado swatted him. "Quiet, you." He pulled a bag over his head and tugged it tight with a drawstring. Tycho gasped and struggled, but the guard just turned to Li.
"Wait!" Li said desperately. "The Hooded doesn't want us dead!"
"He does," said Cado. "He doesn't like being attacked. Wants you made an example of." He yanked the bag over Li's head.
The fabric was rank and stifling. Through it, Li could see the spot of light that was the torch, but everything else was just a series of vague, dark shapes. "Then take a message to the Hooded!" he told the tall guard.
"Hooded doesn't want to hear messages."
"He'll want to hear this one," Li insisted. "Just two words. Yu Mao. He'll know what it means."
"There's a silver raven in it for you," Tycho added. "In my coat pocket. Come on-two words?"
The tall guard paused and grunted. "All right." Li heard Tycho hiss-Cado probably wasn't any too gentle in obtaining his payment. "Watch them close," he told the other two guards. Footsteps