Taming Poison Dragons (15 page)

So armed, I followed the servant out.

At the gate my escort awaited, flaming torches in their hands. Night lay across the city. A few stars formed unblinking patterns and mist swirled around our feet.

Cousins Hong and Yi-Yi were my only companions for the journey ahead. I could smell from their breath they had found a cure for the damp, chilly air.

‘Have you breakfasted?’ asked Hong.

‘No.’

‘Here.’

He thrust me a huge bag of steamed buns stuffed with egg, pork and shrimp.

‘Eat on the way. See! The sun!’

And indeed the first pink fires of dawn were touching the horizon.

I became aware of movement above our heads.

Glancing up, I saw the blinds of Cousin Zhi’s chamber slowly rise. Two dark silhouettes filled the window, watching silently. One thin, the other squat as a toad. I felt suddenly feeble. Was she cursing me, using spells learnt from her sorcerer friend? I had no doubt of it. Yet my sole wish was to be loved. A sharp, contemptuous snort broke the silence in the courtyard. Then the blind fell with a rattle. The house was once again blank, its eye-lids closed.

‘Let us go,’ I said.

So, like resolute ghosts, we tramped toward the government enclosure at the foot of Phoenix Hill. Yi-Yi insisted on carrying my satchel of writing equipment.

Each time a party of watchmen stopped us, Cousin Hong bellowed: ‘Candidate for His Imperial Majesty’s examination! Let us through!’

He, at least, seemed to be enjoying himself.

We did not go alone. Lights bobbed along the Imperial Way. Carriages rumbled on the stone flags, surrounded by friends and relatives, everyone quiet as befitted the dignity of the moment. Pomp and glorious ancestry could not aid the highest of the candidates now. The test awaiting us was a harsh garden where only the strongest seeds flourish, whether weed or precious orchid.

Still we sought to plant ourselves, to weave the stems of our lives around the Son of Heaven. Ambition ever seeks the sun.

At last we formed a dense crowd outside the Examination Enclosure. It was still night, dawn swelling fast. The candidates left their entourages and gathered round the gates, where soldiers stood guard, halberds in hand, immobile as statues. The Chief Examiner emerged in his golden robes. All murmuring stilled. A thousand souls waited, clutching bags and satchels. All had been schooled in the ritual to come. Slowly, laboriously, the Chief Examiner pushed the iron gates open to their widest extent. My blood responded to this symbol. At once my fears faded into quiet determination.

I searched through the mass of expectant, nervous young men for P’ei Ti. No sign of him, though I recognised many from the Academy. I offered a silent plea to the gods we both favoured, wishing my friend good fortune, whatever befell me.

‘Candidates!’ announced the Chief Examiner. ‘You shall enter one by one.’

Guardsmen flanked him, for it is well-known disorder may follow wherever a crowd gathers.

As we trooped past the Chief Examiner, he picked a token bearing a number from the sacred bowl, and placed it in our hands. Then scores of eunuchs led us into a large village consisting entirely of sheds, long rows of brick and tile sheds, four feet square, each numbered and set a uniform distance apart. My own number was seven hundred and thirty-nine.

Officials noted down my name and number, while more eunuchs examined my satchel and clothes for model answers. It amused me to think of P’ei Ti being searched in this way. He always hated to be touched.

I entered the shed and looked around. It contained a large water jar, a desk and stool, a lidded chamber-pot, and a high pile of paper.

I sat down and tried to meditate. The satchel across my knees felt strangely light. At last I heard the examiners outside the closed door, gluing a paper seal across the entrance. I was locked in that shed as if by chains. Then a roll of paper was stuffed under the door, containing the questions on which my future depended. Sighing, I opened my satchel to prepare my writing materials.

That moment of disbelief! It scorches me still. Fear is a deep wound. And some fears never quite heal. My own on that dawn moment was utmost despair. For however hard I looked, the cakes of ink and bundle of brushes I had so carefully prepared, were gone.

Finally I understood. What a fool I was! They had been removed by the servant sent to wake me, while I emptied my bowels at his suggestion. Honoured Aunty’s revenge was complete. The door to my shed had been sealed. If I stepped out, I would be disqualified. Yet how could I attempt the examination without means to write?

I must confess that for long minutes I slumped with head in hands. Years of study and striving, cancelled in a moment! My heart beat unbearably. When it slowed I stared at the sky through the narrow window of the shed.

How could I explain this to Uncle? He would assume that in my nervousness, or arrogance, I had forgotten the most necessary things. No one would believe my accusation against the servant, and what use was it anyway? Three long years must pass before the next examination. I would be despised as a wastrel, an utter fool.

Perhaps I should pack my bags and attempt the long journey back to Three-Step-House, except the thought of confessing my foolishness to Mother and Father was unbearable. Or I might ask Uncle if I could work for him until the next examination, studying as best I could in the evenings, all my dearly-won knowledge irrelevant to the selling of wine. Perhaps I should just weep forlornly, and starve myself to death, or shave my head and apply for a licence to become a monk. All these possibilities crossed my mind.

Nervously I picked at the pouch hanging from my belt.

In the midst of fear came recollection. With trembling fingers I pulled out Su Lin’s lucky pouch. It was a plain silk bag, embroidered by her own hands with the character for a successful candidate in the Imperial examination, a character I had taught her one warm, spring night while the city revelled around us. Inside was a cheap amulet, and more importantly, a stubby writing brush tipped with horse hair, and an ink cake, the best an apprentice singing girl had been able to afford. I laughed hysterically. The candidates in neighbouring sheds must have thought me crazy.

I can remember the exact feel and weight of that ink cake even now. So precious was it to me. It was small, but with care, sufficient. Not enough to write notes, but enough for hope.

My habit of visualising poems served me well on that cold, autumn morning. Closing my eyes I imagined answers to the questions as they would appear on the paper. Words and phrases to mark out my argument, flowing ribbons of characters. I had no leisure to contemplate the irony of my unexpected good fortune. Only later did I understand. What pains us most, and surely Su Lin had injured me deeply, may prove our greatest blessing.

This idea ran through my answers that day, unconsciously, yet with the utmost relevance, for the Empire had suffered disastrous defeats at the hands of the Kin barbarians, and government policy struggled with the question of how to reverse our misfortunes. Indeed, every question gave scope for such a slant. I later heard His Imperial Highness had ordered it to be so. Even the Son of Heaven knew anxiety, and many an Emperor has lost his throne to uncouth horsemen from the steppes, with their singing, pitiless bows.

I wrote, crumbling and mixing my ink cake as a starving peasant ekes out his winter store to ensure the family do not starve before spring. I finished as darkness fell and slumped on my stool, awaiting the examiners. Then came a tearing noise. The paper seal had been broken. I stumbled out, took a lungful of fresh air, and vomited against the brick wall of the shed.

Weeks passed. The Bureau of Copying re-wrote every candidate’s answer so that no one might recognise the handwriting. The examiners sequestered themselves in a pavilion guarded by crossbowmen, grading and re-grading the papers. My anxiety at that time can scarcely be imagined. I met with P’ei Ti each day to walk the city, seeking any distraction from the verdict awaiting us.

*

Then came a dawn, a long ago dawn. Once more I joined a crowd of excited young men outside the Chief Examiner’s residence, for now the grain had been win-nowed, husks blown away. His Majesty’s scholars had all been granted vermilion silk robes and garlands. A worthy breakfast had been laid out on long trestle tables. Honey-coated lamb and chicken sizzling on braziers tended by eunuchs, cakes of a dozen kinds, rice-balls flavoured with shrimp, and fifty other dishes, all moistened by cups of wine. The sky a vast, inky blue, streaked by the emerging sun and a crescent of pale moon. P’ei Ti by my side, giddy as a bridegroom, laughing and clapping his hands at the slightest reason.

Then the Chief Examiner’s gong sounded. Two hundred plumed guardsmen marched into the square, forming parallel lines. Musicians sounded drums and flutes. The cry went up: ‘May His Imperial Majesty live a thousand years!’, and we took our place between the lines of soldiers. At our head, the Chief Examiner and his staff. In our hearts, a pride never to be repeated in a single lifetime, for one can pass the Examination just once.

So we processed through the city, down the Imperial Way, crowds cheering on left and right, flowers paid for by the authorities thrown at us in handfuls. Oh, who did not envy His Majesty’s scholars then! It is no lie when people say: ‘The night of one’s wedding and the day one’s name appears on the Golden List!’

That afternoon P’ei Ti and I attended a pleasure party in the garden of Lord Xiao’s mansion on Phoenix Hill. Both of us had written a sheaf of poems in his honour, as was customary, and for once P’ei Ti had written his own –although I made a few suggestions he readily incorpo-rated. We were relying on Lord Xiao’s goodwill for our first appointment. Naturally, after my long years of toil, I hoped for an easy berth. P’ei Ti, however, desired a posting in the Censorship, where the scent of power is most heady.

We arrived early and soon felt like drab pigeons among peacocks. We stood at the edge of the crowd, nibbling delicacies and sipping wine. Every so often some grand official deigned to notice us, making our acquaintance in case we might prove useful later in our careers. At last Lord Xiao himself appeared and we offered heartfelt gratitude for his acknowledgement of our worthless existence.

‘Ah, Yun Cai and P’ei Ti! The two inseparables!’

His entourage tittered appreciatively. I took note that Lord Xiao liked to be considered a wit. Here was a way to win his favour, if one was that way inclined.

‘It seems my faith in you was not misplaced.

Congratulations! This is the finest hour in a young man’s life.’

P’ei Ti bowed ever more deeply.

‘Your example inspired me, Lord Xiao. So my success is actually your own.’

I was certain P’ei Ti had prepared that one in advance.

In my perverse way, aided by too much wine, I found myself talking, too.

‘Lord Xiao is generous,’ I said. ‘If we are to prove worthy of his faith, then I hope we bring relief to those most sorely pinched.’

I was alluding to the famine in the countryside. There had been a disastrous harvest that year.

I fell silent, having said too much for one in my low position. I became aware Lord Xiao and his entourage were watching me curiously.

‘A little earnestness is no bad thing in the young,’ he replied. ‘And you are not at fault, Yun Cai, to concern yourself with the hungry. Our task is to serve the Son of Heaven so he might bring happiness to the worthy. High and low, all fall within his care.’

I was deeply moved by his words. It must have shown on my face. Again I spoke when I should have been silent.

‘Thank you, Lord. Already my education has begun.’

He laughed.

‘Watch this one,’ he told his friends. ‘He wishes to make every peasant fat as a goose. A promising way to begin one’s service! For a fat peasant has no thought of rebellion. Enjoy yourself today, Yun Cai. Your ideals will keep you working hard, at least.’

I bowed my head and when I looked up, he had moved on.

‘You should learn to talk less!’ hissed P’ei Ti, anxiously.

‘I tell you because I want what’s best for you.’

I did not care. There seemed no harm in mentioning what we all knew. P’ei Ti was greeted by a relative of his, and I wandered in Lord Xiao’s garden to clear my head. It was an exquisite place in the fading light of an autumn afternoon, suggestive of delicate moods. We had been granted a warm day, perhaps the last before winter began in earnest. I found a bench beside a waterfall and watched swallows gathering for their eternal journey. My own journey was commencing. Growing old, weary and disappointed was something that applied to other men. From Phoenix Hill the city spread out like a banquet.

When I returned to the party, my elevated mood was rudely dispelled.

Lord Xiao, like all successful men, hired troupes of singing girls to entertain his guests. Several were performing as I approached. I idly scanned their faces until one made me stare. My heart quickened. For accompanying herself on the lute was Su Lin.

Resentment rose like bile, then became its opposite, enfeebled by feelings I could not justify or understand. She wore a gown of black and blood-red silk, hair held by coral combs glittering with silver. Her figure had filled out in the four years since our last meeting. Slender and graceful, her slightest movement as she sang fascinated me. At once I felt foolish, as I had that first time I saw her, practising a mountain song on a humble doorstep.

In confusion I sought out P’ei Ti. He was listening respectfully to a gentleman wearing the uniform of a senior official in the Censor’s office.

As we left the party, I saw her circulating among the guests with the other singing girls, carrying trays of sweets and orchids. For a moment our eyes met. It was a long moment. Her tray wobbled slightly. I longed to approach her, relate in a rush how her gift of ink and brush had saved me from disgrace. I longed merely to hear her voice.

But with all the fragile dignity of injured pride, I turned away. Even then, as I ruefully congratulated myself for being as stern and resolute as Confucius himself, I wondered how I might see her again.