Marco raised his glass. "Welcome to the Karachuk Nationalities Palace, Comrade Shan," he said, referring to the gaping halls built in provincial capitals for the glory of the country's multiple cultures. Low snickers rose from the tables.

"You- you are a visitor as well, I see," Shan said awkwardly, still confused by the man's Western appearance.

Several of the men laughed again.

"By the spirit of the Great Helmsman, you offend me!" Marco boomed. "I am the best damned socialist in the land! If anyone ever gave me a passport, which they won't, it would be red. With a big yellow star and four small ones," he said, referring to the emblem of the Chinese state. "I am as stalwart a citizen as can be found in Xinjiang."

"That's not saying much," Shan offered. It was a dangerous game they were playing, especially because he did not understand the connection between Marco and Jakli, and how much her protection accounted for.

Marco's grin returned. "A silk robe with a sense of humor." He leaned toward the man behind the bar. "Must be true what they say, Osman," he said in a sober tone, his eyes twinkling. "The worker's paradise just keeps getting better and better." He shifted on his seat, causing his heavy wool tunic to fall open. Two objects became plainly visible to Shan. One was a heavy silver chain, attached to a large pocket watch. The other was the biggest pistol Shan had ever seen, a revolver that looked like it had been made in the nineteenth century.

"I didn't hear the rest of your name," Shan said to Marco.

The big man looked hard at Shan. He was clearly not accustomed to being pushed. "I am called many things. But I was baptized, Comrade," he said in a taunting tone. He seemed to enjoy the look of confusion that flashed across Shan's countenance.

"Yes, baptized. By an old priest who once gave communion to the Czar. My mother chose the name, for the many strange lands she expected me to see. Marco Polo Alexei Myagov. A member of one of our country's honored minorities. The most loyal white Chinese in the land."

An Eluosi. Shan had almost forgotten they existed. Most of the Russians who had fled the Bolsheviks eastward across the Pamir or Tian ranges eight decades earlier had moved on to Shanghai, then eventually emigrated to Europe or America. Some twenty or thirty thousand, however, had stayed in Turkistan, even when another generation of communists had annexed it as Xinjiang. He had heard once that visiting certain villages in the far north of Xinjiang was like paying a visit to Czarist Russia. A few thousand of the Eluosi were still scattered among the population of Xinjiang and had even been granted special privileges for hunting and fishing on the lands originally purchased by their forebears from local warlords. Otherwise, they were a people lost to the world.

"It's many a year, I wager, since anyone has visited Karachuk from Chambaluc," Marco observed, using a name for Beijing Shan had not heard since he was a boy, the name given to the city during the Yuan dynasty, when the khans, linked by blood to the Turkic peoples of Xinjiang, controlled all of China. It was, Shan realized, the name many of the original inhabitants of Karachuk would have used. Marco's voice was warmer but his eyes remained suspicious. "What did you do there, before you earned your tattoo?"

"I was with the Ministry of Economy," Shan said self-consciously. "An inspector."

"But you inspected the wrong people."

"Apparently."

Marco's laugh was too large for the room. It rattled the stacked glasses. He poured himself another vodka and gestured toward Shan's still untouched glass.

"Well, Comrade Inspector, here we're all just faceless members of the glorious proletariat. Gan bei," he toasted, and drained his glass.

Shan stared at his glass, then lifted it under his nose. It was the closest he would knowingly get to tasting the hard liquor. It was not because it would violate the vows of the monks, which he had not taken, but because somehow it felt as though it would violate his teachers who still sat behind prison wire in Lhadrung.

Marco surveyed the room as he drank. Suddenly his glass stopped halfway to his mouth and he spat a curse, then sprang to the chess table in two long strides. He let out a second sound that was not a word, but a roar. "She's gone!" he barked.

Osman trotted to the table. "Impossible. Your empress was there last night. I was sitting here, thinking about my next move."

Marco's head swayed like that of an angry bull as he surveyed the room. "Osman and I have played this game for six months," the Eluosi declared loudly, to no one in particular. "In the winter, I sometimes bring food and fuel and stay for a week, at this table."

Shan stepped to his side. The game pieces were of ancient bronze. One army was red, one green, identified by small rubies and emeralds inlaid on the head of each figure. The stones were heavily scratched. Shan did not have to be told that the figures had been dug out of the desert sand.

"My empress!" Marco bellowed again. Shan saw that the ruby-capped counterpart to the green queen on Osman's side of the board was missing.

Osman leaned toward Marco's ear and spoke quietly, nodding toward Hoof.

"Mother of Christ!" Marco exploded as Shan retreated toward Jakli. "Two thefts! You swine!" he shouted at the general population of the room. "Lau's body barely cold, and now this! I won't have it. I should kick every man jack one of you to whatever hell you believe in. We have honor here. Shepherds. Caravan men. Smugglers. We treat you like brothers and sons. Where in hell do you think you are? Urumqi? Yoktian?"

"That Xibo from Kashgar was here," Osman offered anxiously. "Just released from detention. Probably it was him. Nobody followed Hoof out. But the Xibo left five minutes before Hoof. Probably took the queen, then jumped Hoof for his pouch. Miles away by now."

"The thief is still here," Shan said, very quietly.

Marco did not seem to hear him. He moved to the bar and took a deep drink directly from his bottle, then turned to Shan as he wiped drops of vodka from his beard with his sleeve. "Again."

"I believe the man who did this is still here," Shan said in the same low, self-conscious voice.

Marco stared at him in brooding silence. "An inspector, you said. So just like that, the inspector knows who the criminal is." He looked out over the men in the room. "This isn't Beijing, you know. People are not simply guilty by decree here."

"It's just a matter of understanding the facts," Shan offered. "When the facts are properly understood, justice may find a way."

"Justice?" Marco asked incredulously, his thick brows rising. "Did you say justice?"

Shan looked at Jakli, hoping for help. But she was staring nervously at Marco.

"Here is a strange creature for you, Osman," Marco said, his voice as sharp as a razor. "A silk robe who worries about justice." He put his hand around the nearly empty bottle and turned to the tables. "Gentlemen of the court! We have an entertainment. The renowned detective Shan Tao Yun from the court of Chambaluc is about to show us astounding feats of reasoning and deduction! No doubt he is a descendant of the great Judge Dee, magistrate of the Tang dynasty," he barked out, referring to the legendary investigator whose exploits had been the subject of folktales for centuries.

Marco whispered to Osman, who retrieved a long club of black wood from the corner behind the bar, then stood by the corridor to the front door.