Taming Poison Dragons (65 page)

‘Quick,’ beckoned the official.

He opened a pair of bright red doors to reveal a well-lit chamber decorated with hunting scenes. A dozen men wearing fine silks muttered in small groups. Women could be heard weeping in a side chamber, their grief brittle and artificial. In his plain clothes, Dr Shih made an awkward addition to such company. Chung was visibly shaking.

‘Can these gentlemen really need your services, sir?’ he whispered, in wonder.

Then the youth flushed, aware of the question’s insolence. Dr Shih smiled and shook his head.

‘His Excellency has packed the room with doctors so that if the boy dies one may say everything was done,’ he whispered. ‘There is the great Dr Du Mau himself. And over there his shadow, Dr Fung. Let us make the best of it and consider ourselves honoured.’

Dr Du Mau, a small gentleman in violet silks, noticed the newcomers and frowned. He inclined his head stiffly.

Shih bowed quite low but evidently not low enough for Dr Du Mau, who exclaimed irritably: ‘What? Is one of the servants sick as well?’

Several of his colleagues chuckled. It was well-known Dr Du Mau opposed allowing unqualified physicians into the guild as full members. Shih’s polite smile stiffened. An official clapped his hands and the room fell silent.

‘Gentlemen,’ he said. ‘You have all examined the patient, as well as the astrologer’s report. His Excellency wishes to confer with you. Please accompany me.’

‘Wait in the courtyard,’ Dr Shih instructed his apprentice.

He thought it prudent to take a place at the very rear of the solemn group. This was a moment of high significance for the guild. Wang Ting-bo was the Pacification Commissioner for hundreds of
li
around, appointed to his noble position by the Son of Heaven himself. Moreover, if his son and heir died early, many calculations and plans for the future would be affected. So Dr Shih hardly blamed the good doctors for ignoring his existence – lowliness was infectious as foul air.

The Hall of Obedient Rectitude had once been a throne room for the Kings of Chu. Dozens of fat candles illuminated the audience chamber; shadows floated across painted ceilings and walls. The assembly of doctors fell to their knees before two elegant wooden chairs. One contained the Pacification Commissioner wearing his most auspicious uniform, as though death was an ambassador he must over-awe. In the other sat his wife, a plain woman past what little beauty she had once possessed.

The lady immediately gained Dr Shih’s sympathy, for her thick white make-up was stained with tears. She had a double reason for grief: if the boy died her status as First Wife would perish with him. Any concubine who gave the Pacification Commissioner a male heir might supplant her – and Dr Shih had heard rumours he preferred one of his concubines to his official wife.

Wang Ting-bo inspected the physicians. He seemed unsure what to say and blinked foolishly. Then he cleared his throat.

‘Lift your heads. I do not care to talk to your hats.’

The doctors exchanged glances.

‘You have all seen the boy. What is to be done? And who among you is to do it? Dr Du Mau, you are the most senior man present. Explain yourself!’

Shih became uncomfortably aware that the Pacification Commissioner’s wife was staring at him. Certainly he was out of place, though he could hardly be censured for it.

Then he wondered if she was behind his absurd summons.

‘Your Excellency,’ said Dr Du Mau. ‘We are of one mind on the matter.’

His colleagues nodded regretfully. There was great authority in Dr Du Mau’s tone.

‘Your heir is beyond the help of earthly medicine. His essential breaths are putrid.
Yin
and
yang
fiercely oppose each other. His blood is a whirlpool of contagion. This is a sad report to make, Your Excellency, but only Heaven’s intervention may save him now. I have prepared a list of suitable magicians and holy men well-skilled in such cases.’

Wang Ting-bo sank back in his chair.

‘Beyond help,’ he muttered. ‘Dr Fung, surely you do not agree with Du Mau? And you, Dr Ku-ai? Surely something more may be attempted?’

However, these gentlemen sighed regretfully.

‘Very well,’ said Wang Ting-bo, tears glistening in his eyes.

Dr Shih rubbed his chin. The guild’s certainty that all was lost surprised him. But, of course, every physician encountered intractable cases. Then the Pacification Commissioner’s wife caught his eye. Her gaze was cold and fierce.

‘You at the back!’ she cried, shrilly. ‘You in blue robes!

What do you say? You are Dr Yun Shih, are you not?’

He trembled slightly that she knew his name. There was a rustling of silks as heads turned.

‘My Lady must forgive my stupidity,’ he replied. ‘I have not examined your son and so cannot comment.’

The plain woman leaned sideways in her chair to address her husband.

‘Should not this one examine him as well?’

There was a long silence in the room. Dr Du Mau coughed delicately.

‘My Lady, with the utmost respect, although this man is generous with his remedies for the poor, he can hardly be expected to affect a cure when so many distinguished colleagues have spoken. Besides, Dr Shih is used to common people and their maladies. Your son’s noble blood would be quite beyond him.’

Shih lowered his gaze to the floor. Once, long ago, he had been addressed with respect as a lord’s son. This barely-retained memory, tinged with loss, coloured his cheeks.

‘Do not blame Dr Shih for being here, it is I who summoned him,’ said the Pacification Commissioner’s wife.

‘Husband, my maid told me this doctor cured her little brother of the dry coughing sickness – and many, many others in Water Basin Ward. She says he has a great way with sick children. I beg you, let him examine our son.’

Dr Shih knew it was prudent to agree with Dr Du Mau, but the insult he had suffered kept him silent. He was also curious what would happen next. Wang Ting-bo shifted uncomfortably.

‘We will consult Dr Du Mau’s list of priests and magicians,’ he said in a peculiar, flat voice. ‘Only a fool opposes Heaven’s will.’

‘Husband, let Dr Shih see our son, at least!’

Dr Du Mau coughed delicately.

‘Any further disturbance would endanger the boy’s essential breaths,’ he warned. ‘I’m sure Dr Shih concurs.

Is that not so?’

Du Mau fixed his junior colleague with a haughty stare.

Perhaps Shih was tired of snubs, perhaps the heat made him irritable. Whatever the reason, he replied: ‘It never injured anyone to take their pulse.’

There were sharp intakes of breath from his colleagues.

At once he realised the gravity of his mistake. The slow closing of Dr Du Mau’s hooded eyelids hinted at a lifetime’s enmity.

‘There!’ cried the Pacification Commissioner’s wife.

‘What injury can it do?’

His Excellency Wang Ting-bo nodded. Tears were back in his eyes. He brushed them away angrily.

‘Very well. But if harm befalls my son because of this. . .let Dr Shih beware! In the meantime Dr Du Mau must consult such magicians as he sees fit.’

The great people rose and left the ancient throne room.

Shih realised hostile eyes were watching him. He blinked at the flickering candles. An official touched his arm.

‘I will take you to the boy.’

Shih walked through the assembled doctors and, one by one, they showed him their backs.

?

?

He was led to a splendid bedchamber where incense and heat fogged the air. A four-poster divan shrouded by silk curtains stood in the centre, from which a child’s plaintive coughing could be heard. In each corner of the room crouched a uniformed servant. Stray lanterns emitted a feeble light, their flames rigid in the breathless air. Tables laid with delicacies stood beside the boy’s bed: roast meat and honey cakes, fruit glazed with sugar. Enough for a large household. Despite its splendour – or because of it –the chamber was a forbidding place.

Shih felt a pang of disquiet for the little boy. When he treated the sick children of the poor goodwill usually surrounded the child’s bed in the form of parents and uncles, aunts and grandparents. This boy had been abandoned to the care of servants; his silk-curtained divan was an island drifting towards eternity. Shih turned to the nearest servant.

‘Your name, sir?’ he asked.

The man had a long scar across his cheek and answered suspiciously: ‘We heard you were coming. I am Third Tutor Hu.’

Clearly there was to be no
sir
for Dr Shih.

‘What is the boy’s pet name?’ he asked.

Tutor Hu seemed surprised by the question.

‘We call him Little Tortoise. His official title is . . .’

‘Never mind it for now. Raise all the curtains, especially the southern window. Open them wide.’

‘That is not what the last doctor commanded,’ replied the Third Tutor. ‘He told us the incense must form a dense cloud if it is to trap favourable influences.’

Shih smiled politely.

‘Then it seems I must do it myself.’

He parted the southern shutters. The direction had been chosen carefully. Already he sensed an excess of y
in
in the room, whereas a south wind could only encourage much-needed y
ang
.

As fresh night air cut through the sweet fog of incense, barely audible sighs of relief came from the servants.

Lanterns flickered and brightened all round the long room. Dr Shih approached the bed.

A tall boy for his age, no more than seven years, Little Tortoise was curled up on a horsehair mattress, coughing as though his lungs would drown themselves. Dr Shih immediately recognised symptoms of the dry coughing sickness, a common ailment, and one he had learned to counter in all its stages, for it was prevalent in Water Basin Ward where he lived. But it was not his way to rush to a diagnosis.

He sat on the bed and smoothed the lad’s forehead, sticky with sweat. The perspiration on his fingers smelt of excess metal and water.

‘Little Tortoise,’ he said. ‘Can you look at me? I’ve come to make you better.’

Large, anxious eyes regarded him for a moment, then stared into empty air. Shih sensed the boy often looked away from those who addressed him – whether from pride or shyness he could not say.

‘How old are you, Little Tortoise?’

The boy trembled and Shih noted the extent of the shivering.

‘How old you are?’

As the boy tried to speak, Shih bent forward, sniffing his breath. He caught the word ‘seven’.

‘What! You are the tallest boy of seven I ever met! We can make a big, tall boy like you better before you know it. Seven, eh? How remarkable.’

While he talked, Shih took his own pulse, accustoming himself to the balances of
yin
and
yang
. Then he rested a practised finger on the boy’s three pulses, not thinking, heeding instinct. He immediately judged the state of the disease to be chronic. Yet the volume and strength of the pulse were not entirely hopeless. He tested both left and right wrist, breathing in time to the fluttering beneath his finger, noting how the boy gasped to inhale and exhale. A clear picture of the patient’s lungs formed – a mess of rotten and putrid elements, the bargain between the two undecided. He sensed a gathering crisis. Though he always tried to be hopeful, Dr Shih’s misgivings were dark.

‘Bring a lamp closer,’ he commanded Third Tutor Hu in a soft, distracted voice.

Under the light, Dr Shih noted white pre-dominating in the boy’s complexion, clearly indicative of
yin
. Set against that was the boy’s age. Seven denoted summer and the force of
yang
. He began to sense a possible cure. It must involve heat. The relevant element must be fire. Little Tortoise’s lungs were drowning in their own humidity, which stood between
yin
and
yang
, just as sweet was the central flavour or
kung
the cardinal musical note. He must ease the lad towards
yang
, while retaining those elements of
yin
likely to strengthen him.

Dr Shih sniffed the wind. He had noted for several days that it blew from the west. This, too, must be counter-acted. He suspected noxious air lay at the heart of the matter.

Glancing round, he noticed an open doorway on the western side of the chamber and indicated to Tutor Hu it should be closed.

Then Shih thought deeply, gently massaging the boy’s chest to comfort him. Above all, he felt surprised.

Certainly there was a high possibility of death, a grave risk, but the case was not hopeless. Yet Dr Du Mau had stated no more could be attempted. Shih frowned at the only possible explanation – that because a cure was far from certain, Du Mau wished to avoid the Pacification Commissioner’s anger if the boy died. A fine strategy!

Should Little Tortoise recover on his own, Dr Du Mau would be commended for advocating the intervention of holy men. Should he die, his judgement would be sadly confirmed. He could not lose either way. The only loser was Little Tortoise.

His diagnosis complete, Dr Shih stood up and adjusted the silk sheets so they covered Little Tortoise up to the chest. The child blinked up at him and his shivering subsided a little. ‘The tallest boy of seven I ever met!’

exclaimed Shih, and he was rewarded with the flicker of a smile.

Turning round, Shih discovered the Pacification Commissioner’s wife watching from the shadows. She had approached silently and he wondered how long she had been there.

‘Well?’ she asked, her eyes red from crying.

Dr Shih knew he should say Dr Du Mau was right, that nothing more could be done. His whole future depended on such prudence. And he was about to say it, being no hero by nature, when his eye fell on the boy’s pale face. He had seen that same look of longing for reassurance many times, as one longs for comfort from a parent. The knowledge that someone in this cruel, fickle world will nourish you, keep you safe.

‘There is no certain remedy to his illness,’ he said. ‘The pulse has a red appearance and the cough is obstinate.

Without doubt, air has gathered in the boy’s heart, and he must not eat until it has been dispelled. The disease has come about through noxious air, we may be sure of that.’