Dragonkeeper 2: Garden of the Purple Dragon (12 page)

“I missed our conversations, Ping,” Liu Che said. “I’m looking forward to renewing our friendship.”

“So am I,” Ping whispered.

“Do you remember when we first met? You called me an annoying boy.”

Ping blushed at the memory. This time when Liu Che looked at her, his eyes were full of warmth and affection. She hadn’t felt so happy for a long time. In fact, she thought she had probably never felt so happy.

“I am reinstating you to the position of Imperial Dragonkeeper,” the Emperor said.

Ping couldn’t speak for a moment.

“As a member of the imperial staff, you will eat in the Hall of Cool Fragrance with the ministers and myself.”

“Thank you, Liu Che,” she whispered.

“You will need a new gown as well.”

Ping looked down at her grubby gown.

“Tell me about your rat, Ping,” he said. “How has he changed since returning from the Isle of the Blest?”

Ping saw no point in keeping secrets from the Emperor any longer. She told him all about Hua’s new skills. The Emperor was very interested. She didn’t tell him that the rat visited her every night.

“I have sent six men off to Ocean to sail east until
they find the Isle of the Blest,” the Emperor told her enthusiastically. “I must have some of the water of life. If it can transform a rat in such a way, imagine how it will transform an Emperor!”

“Liu Che, there is something I must tell you,” she said. “While I was on Tai Shan, I was attacked by a necromancer. He killed my goat. He was looking for Danzi.”

The Emperor looked puzzled. “A necromancer?”

“He was the one who captured Danzi and was going to kill him and sell his body parts in the town of Wucheng. He got hold of the dragon stone, but I stole it back from him. He wants to get his revenge.”

The Emperor frowned. “Do you know anything about this, Dong Fang Suo?”

The Imperial Magician shook his head. “I have heard of people who can conjure up the dead and meddle with dark magic,” he replied.

The Emperor turned to Dong Fang Suo with a frown. “Why have you never told me of such men?”

“Your Imperial Majesty, I—”

“We must commence a search for this necromancer,” Liu Che interrupted. He glared at the Imperial Magician. “Call for the captain of the guard. Immediately!”

Ping was pleased the Emperor was taking her concerns so seriously.

Dong Fang Suo opened his mouth to make some objection, but was interrupted by a sudden shrill
cheeping from behind a chrysanthemum bush. Everyone turned to see where the noise was coming from, but it stopped abruptly. Kai appeared out of the bushes looking very pleased with himself. Ping’s heart sank. His cheeks were stuffed full, green feathers were poking out of his mouth.

“Kai!” Ping shouted, jumping up from the bench and rushing over to the dragon.

She thumped him on his back. Kai swallowed. It was too late. His long, red tongue licked his lips. He had eaten the auspicious green sparrow.

“You’re a bad dragon!” Ping scolded.

Kai belched loudly. He didn’t look at all sorry.

Ping glanced back at Liu Che. Surely it was a bad omen if the auspicious green sparrow was eaten. Neither Dong nor the Emperor seemed to think so. They were both laughing.

“He must be hungry,” the Emperor said. “We must give him more to eat.”

Ping watched Kai closely for the rest of the day. She remembered what had happened when he had eaten the water beetles. She was worried he was too young to start eating birds. But there didn’t seem to be any ill effects.

“I suppose it’s all right for you to eat birds,” Ping said, examining the little dragon’s droppings, which he was in the habit of leaving all over Ming Yang Lodge.

“Birdie good,” said Kai.

Ping knew that Liu Che’s grandfather had disliked dragons so much that he moved them to Huangling Palace so that he could forget they existed. His father had planned to sell the imperial dragons to a dragon hunter. She was pleased that Liu Che’s attitude to dragons was the exact opposite. He wanted to see Kai every day. In fact, he seemed determined to make up for his ancestors’ neglect. He appointed five members of his staff to tend to the baby dragon’s needs and gave them all special titles. The Dragon Attendant’s job
was to follow Kai around, wipe up puddles of urine, collect droppings and carry Kai on an embroidered satin cushion if he didn’t feel like walking. The Dragon Cook prepared six dragon meals a day. There was also the Grand Hunter of Birds whose job it was to catch swallows. The Sheep Constable took care of a small herd of sheep that provided milk for the dragon (Kai had decided he didn’t like goats’ milk anymore). The Grand Officer of Ducks looked after a flock of ducks whose eggs were solely for Kai.

The Emperor was so delighted with his new dragon that he decided to name the garden surrounding Ming Yang Lodge after him.

“From now on it will be known as the Garden of the Purple Dragon,” he announced as they ate their meal one evening.

The Imperial Magician and the members of the Longevity Council applauded in approval. The government ministers didn’t look quite so pleased.

Liu Che ordered all iron utensils and weapons to be replaced with bronze and had the iron sent away. When Ping told him of the other things that were harmful to dragons, the Emperor ordered the gardeners to chop down the two chinaberry trees in the garden. He also instructed servants to conduct a search for clothing and tapestries made of five-coloured thread and remove them from the lodge.

Kai now had three separate chambers—one for
sleeping, one for eating and another one that didn’t seem to have any particular purpose. They were now called the Dragon Quarters. Ping had a separate room, but it was very small compared to Kai’s.

Kai was allowed to go anywhere he liked in the gardens and he trampled bushes, ate flowers and stirred up mud in the ponds. He followed the young Emperor wherever he went. He tried to climb onto his lap when he was sitting on the imperial throne receiving his ministers and making important decisions. When he wasn’t with the Emperor, Kai was jumping out from behind trees to frighten the servants, leaving muddy footprints all over the halls and causing chaos in the kitchens.

For the first time in her life, Ping could relax. All she was required to do was translate dragon speech. Though she saw little of him during the day, Kai always came to sleep with her at night. Even though he had a large sleeping chamber of his own he always chose to curl up alongside Ping on her straw mattress. His vocabulary increased as he tried to tell Ping about his adventures each evening. His scales turned a lustrous purple, the colour of lilac blossoms.

Ping had stopped trying to think of a plan to escape. Kai was so happy and healthy, she decided that getting arrested was one of the best things that had happened to her.
Who knows why disasters turn out to bring good fortune?
Danzi had said to her more than once. Surely he would
have approved of Kai living in this sort of captivity?

The servants put up with Kai’s bad behaviour without complaint—even when he bit them. But though Hua was clean in his habits and didn’t bite anyone, the few times they caught sight of the rat there was always a fuss and people talked of traps and cages.

“You must stay out of sight, Hua,” Ping said, when they were alone in the evening.

She stroked the rat’s warm fur. It was a mystery to her why people didn’t like him. She brought him leftovers from her meals (she could never eat all the food that was served to her) and the rat got into the habit of sleeping during the day and going out at night.

Ping had been for a long walk right to the western edge of the garden where it ended on the banks of the Yellow River. She had spent most of the afternoon watching boats and water birds on the river. Then she walked back up to Ming Yang Lodge, wondering what would be for dinner that evening. Her thoughts were interrupted outside Late Spring Villa.

“Excuse me, madam.”

The Dragon Attendant was standing in front of Ping, trying to decide if he should bow to her or not. The man’s name was Xiao Zheng, but Kai had taken to calling him Saggypants. This was because his trousers were too big for him and he was always hitching them
up. His eyes were shiny with tears.

“I can’t find the imperial dragon,” he said, wringing his hands.

“Were you trying to clean his ears again?”

The Dragon Attendant nodded miserably. He was a tall man about four-times-ten years old. He had a droopy face that looked sad most of the time. He also looked a little lopsided. This was because one of his feet was bare.

“He took my shoe.”

Ping bit her lip to stop smiling.

“I’ll help you find him,” she said.

The Dragon Attendant had already searched the places where Kai usually hid (in the pools, in the cellar where vegetables were stored, behind the piles of animal manure used to fertilise the gardens) but couldn’t find him anywhere.

“I bet I know where he is,” Ping said.

Ping strode into the Chamber of Spreading Clouds. “I know you’re in here somewhere,” she said.

Instead of a hiding dragon, she found the Emperor and his Imperial Magician in the chamber. They were both poring over bamboo books. A silk hanging at the other end of the room settled back against the wall as if someone had just hurried past it. There was a brief silence. Dong Fang Suo was retying the ends of a book that had come undone. The Emperor looked annoyed
by her interruption, but it was Dong Fang Suo who broke the silence.

“How dare you burst unannounced into the Emperor’s presence!” he said.

He rolled up the book he was looking at and tucked something under his gown. Ping had never heard the Imperial Magician speak so angrily. She knelt down and bowed to the Emperor, glad to be able to hide her flushed face.

“Excuse me, Your Imperial Majesty,” she said. “I didn’t know you were here. I was looking for Kai. He sometimes hides in here.”

“His Imperial Majesty does not want to be disturbed,” Dong Fang Suo continued.

His outburst had made him break out into a sweat. He mopped his brow with his sleeve.

“It’s all right, Dong,” Liu Che said. “Ping wasn’t to know I would be here.”

He rolled up the book he was reading and put it back in a chest that was overflowing with books. “Kai isn’t here. I haven’t seen him today.”

Ping didn’t ask about the books, but the Emperor explained their presence anyway.

“These bamboo books have arrived from the capital Chang’an,” the Emperor said. “They are all the books in the imperial library concerning dragons. I sent messengers to fetch them.”

“They must have arrived very quickly,” Ping said,
remembering how long it had taken her and Danzi to journey from Chang’an even though they had travelled much of the way on the rushing Yellow River. It was only a week since Kai’s sudden appearance at Ming Yang Lodge.

“Messengers ran day and night and were there in less than four days. A swift boat carried the books from Chang’an.”

She looked at a book that lay open on the floor. It was made of thin strips of bamboo bound together side by side. Each strip had a column of characters written on it. To her, the characters were meaningless jumbles.

Ping sighed. “I wish I could read them.”

The Emperor took the book and ran his finger down a column of characters.

“It says that Emperors have kept dragons for thousands of years,” he said, following the characters with his finger. “They bring luck.”

“Danzi told me that if the imperial dragons are happy, it is a good omen for the Emperor,” Ping told him. “If they are miserable, it is a sign that he isn’t managing the Empire well.”

At that moment Kai came running into the room. He had something in his mouth.

“What have you got there, Kai?”

“Nothing,” he said.

The little dragon stuck his head under a low table in an attempt to hide.

“I can still see you,” Ping said.

She pulled the dragon out from under the table by his tail.

Ping tried to take whatever it was from his mouth. He wouldn’t let go. She pulled until it ripped in two. She held up her half. It was a piece of chewed leather, slimy with dragon saliva. It took her a while to work out what it was—or rather what it had been.

“Kai!” Ping exclaimed. “You shouldn’t be chewing Saggypants’s shoe. That’s very naughty!”

The Emperor laughed. “Who is Saggypants?”

“That’s what Kai calls the Dragon Attendant,” Ping replied.

Kai found his silk ball in a corner of the chamber. He put it into the Emperor’s lap.

“Lu-lu play,” he said.

“What does he want, Ping?”

“He wants you to play ball with him, Your Imperial Majesty.”

The Emperor picked up the ball and examined it as if he had never seen such a thing before. He put it down at the dragon’s feet. Kai’s spines drooped. Liu Che looked uncomfortable. Ping got the feeling he’d never had much chance to play with a ball.

Ping threw the ball for Kai who chased it across the room, skidding around on the polished wooden floor.

The Emperor smiled. “I think we can safely say that the imperial dragon is happy,” he said, getting to
his feet. “Appoint scholars to read these books most carefully, Dong. I want to find out everything I can about dragons. Of all the creatures in the Empire, they live the longest. We must discover what it is that gives them such longevity.”

“If I could learn to read, I could save you the trouble of appointing people to do the job,” Ping said.

“Unfortunately, at the moment there is no one with the time to give reading lessons,” Liu Che said.

“I can teach Ping to read,” said a quiet voice from the doorway.

It was Princess Yangxin. She had just entered. It was the first time Ping had heard her speak.

Ping thought she saw a flicker of annoyance pass over the Emperor’s face.

“That won’t be necessary,” Liu Che said. “I’m sure someone can be found for these duties.”