The Commander
The harbinger of disaster is Mo Jiang, who bursts without ceremony into my tent as I’m eating breakfast, whiter than fish-belly and stuttering in fear.
“He’s g-gone. He’s gone. Commander, the Prince has gone.”
I don’t waste any words. I run to the wagon, bound up the steps and look round the empty sleeping compartment. All’s neat and tidy, the quilt folded, the porcelain tea-set sitting elegantly on the chest by the bed. There’s something on the quilt: a packet of sweets and a piece of paper.
I read: I’m sorry. Thank you. The sweets are for Mo Jiang.
Behind me, Liang Zhou and Shao Ru burst in. I hand the note to Liang Zhou and say tersely, “Shao Ru, get the dogs and search the camp. If he’s not here, find his trail.”
The dogs will need the scent. Shao Ru grabs a few items of clothing out of the nearest wooden chest and leaves without a word. Liang Zhou and I stare at one another, all the appalling possibilities running through our minds. Bandits, slave-traders, wolves, snakes, poisonous insects. He could fall down a hole or drown in a pond and we’d never find his body.
“Search his things.” I say. We rummage swiftly through the chests and unearth a packet of closely-written pieces of paper. It’s a compilation, military in its precision, of all the information he’s managed to glean from us over the past days. The brat’s been picking our brains, idiots that we are.
Footsteps thud outside and Shao Ru comes back in. “We’ve got the dogs out,” he says. I pass the pieces of paper over to him and he scans them quickly, his eyebrows rising.
“Well, you’ve got to hand it to him,” he says. “The little bundle has talent. And I reckon if I was in his position, I’d do exactly the same thing.”
The report comes swiftly: the Prince is no longer in camp. The dogs have tracked him as far as the picket-lines and across the flat terrain beyond, but in the woods, they’ve lost him.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “There’s only one place he can go. He’s heading for town.”
I go outside and yell for my horse. A crowd’s already gathered, Shao Ru says, “Are you going alone?”
“Yes and the quicker the better, so don’t argue. Get me the grey dog.”
By the time I’ve run over to my tent and mustered my equipment, my horse is waiting outside and the grey dog’s tethered nearby. Sword and water-bottle are slung on the saddle-bow, cloak and blanket tied behind the saddle, my bow and arrows on my back. I swing up and say, “I’ll find him”. They hand me up the rope and the dog at the other end of it rises on its long legs. Liang Zhou hands me a piece of clothing. It’s one of the Prince’s garments.
Once out of camp, my mind clears and focuses. I follow the cart tracks out to the road, the dog trotting behind me. Dismounting, I bring the garment over to the grey dog and he sniffs at it. Then I take the rope off and he quests all over the road, nose to the ground. This is a dog who knows his business. He stops, runs a few steps, then stops again and looks back at me over his shoulder with a growl. He’s found the scent. I swing back into the saddle and shout “Go.”
