'Marvels,' Bold said.

'Marvels happen every day,' I li replied. It was, as far as she was concerned, a universe peopled by spirits, genies, demons, ghosts as many kinds of beings as tastes. She had never had the bardo explained to her, and so she didn't understand the six levels of reality that organized cosmic existence; and Bold did not feel that he was in a position to teach her. So it remained at the level of ghosts and demons. Malignant ones could be held off by various practices that annoyed them; firecrackers, drums and gongs, these things chased them away. It was also possible to strike them with a stick, or burn artemisia, a Sechuan custom that I Li practised. She also bought magic writing on miniature papers or cylinders of silver, and put up white jade square tiles in every doorway; dark demons disliked the light of these. And the restaurant and its household prospered, so she felt she had done the right things.

Following her out several times a week, Bold learned a lot about Hangzhou. He learned the best rhinoceros skins were found at Chien's,

As you went down from the service canal to little Chinghu Lake; the finest turbans were at Kang Number Eight's, in the Street of the Worn Cash Coin, or at Yang Number Three's, going down the canal after the Three Bridges. The largest display of books was at the bookstalls under the big trees near the summer house of the Orange Tree Garden. Wicker cages for birds and crickets could be found in Ironwire Lane, ivory combs at Fei's, painted fans at the Coal Bridge. I Ii liked to know of these places, even though she only bought what they sold as gifts for her friends or her mother in law. A very curious person indeed. Bold could hardly keep up with her. One day in the street, rattling off some story or other, she stopped and looked up at him, surprised, and said, 'I want to know everything!'

But all the while, Kyu had been watching without watching. And one night, during the tidal bore of the eighth moon, when the Chientang River roared with high waves and there were many visitors in the city, in the hour before the woodblocks and the weathermen's cries, Bold was awakened by a gentle tug on the ear, then the firm pressure of a hand over his mouth.

It was Kyu. He held a key to their room in his hand. 'I stole the key.' Bold pulled Kyu's hand away from his mouth. 'What are you doing?' he whispered.

'Come on,' Kyu said in Arabic, in the phrase used for a balking camel. 'We're escaping.'

'What? What do you mean?'

'We're escaping, I said.'

'But where will we go?'

'Away from this city. North to Nanjing.'

'But we have it good here!'

'Come on, none of that. We're finished here. I've already killed Shen.' 'You what!'

'Shhhh. We need to set the fires and get out of here before the wake up.'

Stunned, Bold scrambled to his feet, whispering 'Why, why, why, why? We had a good thing here, you should have asked me first if I wanted any part of this!'

'I want to escape,' Kyu said, land I need you to do it. I need a master to get around.'

'Get around where?'

But now Bold was following Kyu through the silent household, stepping blindly with complete assurance, so well had he come to know this building, the first one he had ever lived in. He liked it. Kyu led him into the kitchen, took a branch sticking out of the smouldering stove fire; he must have put it in before rousing Bold, for the pitchy knot at the end was now blazing. 'We're going north to the capital,' Kyu said over his shoulder as he led Bold outdoors. 'I'm going to kill the Emperor.'

'What!'

'More about that later,' Kyu said, and applied the flaming torch to a bundle of rush and kindling and balls of wax he had put against the walls, in a corner. When it had caught fire he ran outside, and Bold followed him appalled. Kyu lit another bundle of kindling against the house next door, and placed the brand against a third house, and all the while Bold stayed right behind him, too shocked to think properly. He would have stopped the boy if it weren't for the fact that Shen was already murdered. Kyu and Bold's lives were forfeit; setting the district on fire was probably their only chance, as it might burn the body so that the killing would not show. It also might be assumed that some slaves had been burned up entire, locked in their room as they were. 'Hopefully they'll all burn,' Kyu said, echoing this thought.

We are as shocked as you are by this development, and don't know what happened next, but no doubt the next chapter will tell us.

In Nanjing they beg the aid of the Three jewel Eunuch.

They ran north up the dark alleys paralleling the service canal. Behind them the alarm was being raised already, people screaming, fire bells ringing, a fresh dawn wind blowing in off West Lake.

'Did you take some cash?' Bold thought to ask.

'Many strings,' Kyu said. He had a full bag under his arm.

They would need to get as far away as they could, as quickly as possible. With a black like Kyu it would be hard to be inconspicuous. Necessarily he would have to remain a young black eunuch slave, Bold therefore his master. Bold would have to do all the talking; this was why Kyu had brought him along. This was why he had not murdered Bold along with the rest of the household.

'What about I Ii Did you kill her too?'

'No. Her bedroom has a window. She'll do fine.'

Bold wasn't so sure; widows had a hard time of it; she'd end up like Wei Big Knife, on the street cooking meals on a brazier for passers by. Although for her that might be opportunity enough.

Wherever there were a lot of slaves, there were usually quite a few blacks. The canal boats were often moved along through the countryside by slaves, turning capstans or pulling their ropes directly, like mules or camels. Possibly the two of them could take on such a role and hide in it; he could pretend to be a slave himself but no, they needed a master to account for them. If they could slip onto the end of a rope line… He couldn't believe he was thinking about joining a canal boat ropeline, when he had been waiting tables in a restaurant! It made him so angry at Kyu that he hissed.

And now Kyu needed him. Bold could abandon the boy and he would stand a much better chance of slipping into obscurity, among the many traders and Buddhist monks and beggars on the roads of China; even their famous bureaucracy of local yamens and district officials could not keep track of all the poor people slipping around in the hills and the back country. While with a black boy he stood out like a festival clown with his monkey.

But he was not going to abandon Kyu, not really, so he just hissed. On they ran through the outer city, Kyu pulling Bold by the hand from time to time and urging him in Arabic to hurry. 'You know this is what you really wanted, you're a great Mongol warrior, you told me, a barbarian of the steppes, feared by all the peoples, you were only just pretending not to mind being someone's kitchen slave, you're good at not thinking about things, about not seeing things, but it's all an act, of course you always knew, you just pretend not to know, you wanted to escape all the while.' Bold was amazed to think anyone could have misunderstood him that completely.

The suburbs of Hangzhou were much greener than the old central quarter, every household compound marked by trees, even small mulberry orchards. Behind them the fire alarm bells were waking the whole city, the day starting in a panic. From a slight rise they could look back between walls and see the lakefront aglow; the entire district appeared to have caught fire as quickly as Kyu's little balls of wax and kindling, fanned by a good stiff west wind. Bold wondered if Kyu had waited for a windy night to make his break. The thought chilled him. He had known the boy was clever, but this ruthlessness he had never suspected, despite the preta look he sometimes had, which reminded Bold of Temur's look – some intensity of focus, some totemic aspect, his raptor nafs looking out no doubt. Each person was in some crucial sense his or her nafs, and Bold had already concluded Kyu's was a falcon, hooded and tied. Temur's had been an eagle on high, stooping to tear at the world.