Taming Poison Dragons (2 page)

The tea arrives and conversation must cease. They sip from steaming bowls where they stand. At last the maid gathers empty bowls on a black lacquer tray and we begin again. The pause has given me time to compose myself.

‘If General An-Shu has been victorious he will march on the capital,’ I say. ‘His best chance of success lies in speed.

With each week that passes, His Imperial Highness will gather more troops from the frontier and prepare a counter-attack. However, if General An-Shu is defeated in battle or threatened by superior forces, he may flee back towards the mountains. Even then it is not certain he would choose to retreat through our district. We must await events.’

‘What of the bandits higher up the valley?’ replies Li Sha. ‘A dozen deserters have joined them, demanding grain and wine from the shepherds, who have barely enough for themselves!’

‘We must be calm,’ I say. ‘We have dealt with brigands before.’

‘Lord Yun Cai will remember,’ says Wudi, tactfully.

‘That troops from Chunming chased off the last band of brigands. Yet all His Imperial Majesty’s forces are either dead or have gone over to General An-Shu.’

‘What are we to do?’ demands Li Sha.

I am beginning to dislike the fellow, but that is unreasonable. Has he laboured twelve hours a day, all his life, only to be ruined by jackals? I feel helpless. All I can think about is P’ei Ti.

‘I must consider,’ I say. ‘I will summon you when I have decided a course of action.’

The men mutter until my coldest stare reminds them of their place.

When they have gone I sit alone in the long, silent room. Rebellions are frequent in the Empire, yet this one is the closest to our remote district in over seventy years.

It is my duty to ensure the villagers come to no harm: I am their Father, and must preserve even the most humble.

My own father’s chair creaks as I stir. He would have known what to do. Perhaps I should invite the neighbouring lords to a banquet and suggest we raise a militia.

But for over thirty years I have kept myself a stranger from my neighbours, who I find uncouth. For their part, they are mindful I live here in banishment, and avoid my bad odour.

Another fear gnaws. The last I heard, several years ago it is true, Youngest Son was rumoured to be serving in the army of General An-Shu. But of him I never think.

I sip cold tea and do nothing. Easier to feel weak and ashamed than stir. Finches quarrel in the eaves of the house. Shadows are gathering in the corners of the room.

Sunset brings rain. This is a wet region. At dawn and dusk, cloud rims glow between mountain peaks with an eerie light.

I listen to the rain as though to a great truth. It plays the earth like a festival of instruments. Drum tap on roof tiles, drip drip from twig and eave, click of tiny stick or hollow brass finger-cymbal. Day and night the river in the valley sings.

I step outside, look to the moon for comfort. How lonely she looks! Perhaps I detect my own sadness.

Far to the east, in the capital, Linan, the moon looked different when I was young. Cleaner, brighter, as I wandered the city thinking of Su Lin and her jade beauty, of the glorious man I would become. Surely I misremember.

The moon looks the same everywhere, then and now.

I sigh, a little ashamed of my drunkenness when P’ei Ti might arrive at any time, possibly pursued by enemies. Yet only a little ashamed. Why should an old man be drier than racing clouds?

We have a visitor to Wei Village, and it is not P’ei Ti.

He appears at our gate around noon and sits beneath the old maple, glaring at the rain, protected by a leaky umbrella. As usual I have my chair carried out. A crowd of peasants and children gawp from a distance. Truly he is worth a stare.

Thousand-
li
-drunk is around my age but there similarities end. His face is round as a roaring lion’s, tufted with huge black eyebrows and a general’s bushy beard, filthy and be-draggled. The reek of wine seeps from all pores.

He seems stupefied all day long, until you catch a red, sly gleam in his drunkard’s eyes. No one knows his real name because he has never uttered it.

He has come early this year. Usually he passes – or rolls – through Wei Valley in the fifth month, carrying a bamboo basket with a rattling lid. He first appeared at Three-Step-House around the time I returned here from the capital, decades ago, shortly after my hasty marriage and Father’s death.

Thousand-
li
-drunk’s arrival provokes an uneasy holiday in the village. Within minutes a hundred people are following, whispering and pointing when they think he can’t see. The village children are delighted and terrified by our visitor. They call him Thousand-
li
-drunk because it is said he has traversed the entire world seven times like an Immortal. Others claim he was once a high official in the capital and learned every secret. That is why he has taken to the roads, through pure disgust. Others say he should be whipped out of the village as a worthless beggar. Daughter-in-law is among them, though I point out all men possess a little good.

Thousand-
li
-drunk has many peculiarities and secrets.

He refuses to eat any kind of grain. Instead his bamboo basket holds centipedes, spiders, and field crickets. These he impales on a cedar thorn, stripping away wings, legs, feelers, and stings, with every sign of relish. Finally he dunks them in cups of wine and swallows them whole, crunching and muttering. I once enquired about his diet and he replied that he prefers spiders because they make him feel like a high official. Crickets taste like peasants, except insects are fatter.

This year he seems out of sorts. After babbling that mountains are bones and eternity their flesh, he turns to me with a grave frown.

‘I left Chunming as quick as I could. Hah! Soldiers on every street corner. Angry lice and stinging wasps. Hah! Is it not true that a certain Second Chancellor is on his way to visit you? So great a man for such a humble ant-hill!’

I am astounded, then realise he must have passed P’ei Ti’s litter and escort on the road to Chunming. The man rocks on his heels, but refuses to answer my eager questions concerning P’ei Ti’s safety.

‘A fine lady remembers Yun Cai the poet,’ he says, slyly.

‘But Lord Yun Cai is so tall and handsome a gentleman!

How could any lady forget him?’

*

Then he breaks into a song popular thirty years ago, one of my own. The way he sings is indescribable, beating out the time on his basket, more raving than music.

Avoid the reach of sharp swords,
Stay clear of tempting glances,

A sword stroke will cripple your arm,
A weak wheel breaks after ten yards,
One night of joy will scar your soul.

I become agitated and demand what he means. I have a strange thought he has been spying on me. Thousand-
li
-drunk roars with laughter, drains his cup, and swaggers away, as though he has merely passed wind at my gate.

Next year I might not be so welcoming. Having considered the matter, I believe he must have recalled my song from his youth, and poured it out. Words are how he retches. As for his reference to a lady, who is to say he was not referring to the moon? I must maintain composure.

I have convinced myself P’ei Ti will arrive today or not at all. Perhaps he caught wind of the rebellion in good time and fled back to the capital. Part of me longs to shelter him, whatever the danger. We might hide in some obscure monastery like hermits, drinking and talking of the old days until the storm passes.

I decide to walk to the lowest pasture of our winding valley. There the Western Highway passes, and I would be sure to meet him.

Daughter-in-law labours to persuade me I must travel in the family litter. I reply that an old man has earned his eccentricities. Besides, my legs, though unattractive and knobbly, are stronger than a frog’s. Her concern has little to do with my health. She would consider it a great dishonour if I met our noble guest on foot, like a peasant.

How little she understands men of our kind. It is true P’ei Ti always cared for display more than I, though that is another matter.

I finally agree to be escorted by my grandsons. We proceed through the village and people leave their houses to make obeisance. There are a hundred families and as many wooden houses in Wei Village, a few roofed with red tiles, most thatched with reeds. The lanes and streets are muddy at this time of year; they smell of dung, damp straw and chicken-droppings.

I instruct my grandsons to offer a present of rice to a widow. She lines up her children with their foreheads pressed to the wet ground, though I urge her to rise. Wudi rushes out of his courtyard as I pass and begs to accompany me. A refusal would humiliate him. He suggests I take a cup of wine so that his wife has time to prepare a basket of food.

‘You are kind,’ I say. ‘But I am impatient to meet my friend. Why not send your sons after us when the basket is prepared?’

So my quiet walk turns into a procession. There’s no help for it. One cannot clap with one hand. I lead, and my followers come a few yards behind, talking softly among themselves.

We pass hillsides lined with spruce and maple, dense thickets of fern. This early in the year, spring is more a promise than delight. Two troops of monkeys squabble for possession of a plum grove and we laugh at their antics. When I look back, the village is framed by mountains and peaks capped with white cloud. I gaze for a while, leaning on my stick.

Wudi’s sons run up with laden baskets, panting like horses. A wry smile takes shape in my soul. I wouldn’t be ashamed to meet P’ei Ti now, with grandsons and loyal servants around me. He might see I have not entirely frittered my early promise. Still I fear he might find me ridiculous, attended by bumpkins.

Disagreeable thoughts.

We reach the lowest pasture, the border of my land.

Here, beside the High Road, the river forms a small lake called Mallow Flower Marsh. Wudi and his sons gather sticks for a fire to boil water and heat wine, using my excursion as a holiday. Grandsons play wrestling games and for a while I am forgotten.

I follow the lake’s rim through a path lined with reeds.

The earth smells of rotting things. Ripples flow toward the shore, stirring lily pads where insects flit. Turning a corner, I halt. And stare.

Deserters. Such they plainly are. Three dog-thin men crouching in a hollow by the lake, leather armour caked with mud, uniforms like tattered flags.

For a surprised moment we consider each other. My heart races. Desperate men, their hides not worth a grain of millet if caught. Hands reach for swords. Their hollow eyes strip me bare – the purse on my girdle, silk gown and boots – I might feed them for a month.

The reeds murmur and sigh in the wind. One of the deserters steps toward me, looking round nervously.

Another follows. Then the third.

‘Hey!’ he calls. ‘Old man!’

I back away.

‘Don’t make trouble, if you know what’s good for you!’

A small stream surrounded by black, peaty earth lies between us. It might delay them for a moment, no more.

‘I am not alone,’ I call out. ‘My friends are near.’

At this they pause, listen. I take two steps back. The leader curses, then rushes forward, his feet sinking in the bog. I wheel and stumble up the path. Hopeless flight! They are a third my age. I gain ten paces before they appear on the path behind me. Now they have sure footing and reach out their hands as they run. They do not even bother to draw their weapons. And that is what saves me.

For round a bend in the path I collide with Wudi and his sons. They clutch me as I slip in the mire, crying out fearfully. We fall silent. The deserters have stopped in confusion, a few paces away. They are outnumbered, and by burly, well-fed men. For a long moment both sides weigh their chances. It is fortunate Wudi’s sons brought their staves; and the path is narrow, a bad place for swords.

The leader drags back one of his companions and runs for it. The other joins their flight. For a while we see reed heads waving, hear frantic crashing. They are gone. The lakeside resumes its calm.

All afternoon I wait anxiously for P’ei Ti, but the Western Highway remains empty. Not a single traveller passes, which is unusual even in the coldest weeks of winter. We see nothing more of the deserters. The way from Chunming is blocked. No one may reach through.

It is as though P’ei Ti has been swallowed whole. I withdraw to my room and read sheaves of poems we composed together during a hundred drinking parties, jousting with brush and ink. In this, at least, I was always victor. His faded calligraphy summons the man himself, the older brother I never had.

I read the letter announcing his visit to Wei until I know it by heart. There is no indication of his chosen route, except that he meant to travel through Chunming. That is bad enough. Worse are rumours of more fighting, a reverse for General An-Shu, who has retreated to Chunming so he may gather his forces.

I try to recall what I know of this General An-Shu. By repute, he is not a man for tepid measures. In Hunan Province he earned the title ‘Butcher’ An-Shu. Certainly, burying a thousand rebels alive might be viewed as an excessive punishment. And now, for all his previous zeal in the Emperor’s cause, he has turned traitor. His soldiers are said to be the most disciplined in the army; such discipline stems from harsh inducements.

Where P’ei Ti might hide in such disorder, I dare not think. One thing is certain: the Son of Heaven’s Second Chancellor would make a plump prize for General An-Shu, for he is familiar with His Majesty’s most intimate affairs – and weaknesses. A shrewd rebel might make much of such knowledge.

Eldest Son comes to my room. He looks graver than usual, an achievement for him.

‘Father, I have just returned from the village,’ he says.

‘Horsemen rode through this afternoon on the way to Hsia Pass. They looked like messengers.’

‘Did they stop?’

‘No, they rode in haste.’

‘That is a pity. Did they wear the colours of General An-Shu?’