The Mandate of Heaven (17 page)

Still the rain fell, its smell earthy yet pure … In the Salt Pans he had learned the many aromas and textures of mud: sticky, grainy, liquid. As the dark lights danced across his mind he became a youth again, pressing his forehead into soft mud at Overseer Pi-tou’s orders. A splendid palanquin surrounded by guards was bobbing past: Salt Minister Gui conducting an inspection. Involuntarily, Hsiung had looked up, searching for his old friend Sergeant P’ao in the entourage. He had not been there. Once His Excellency was past, Overseer Pi-tou set about him with a thick club for staring brazenly at superiors. As he was beaten the dark lights had appeared for the first time …

* * *

Hsiung felt a compulsion to rise, to display himself to any enemies. His muscles tensed, taut as bows. He mastered the impulse, aware he would betray his men’s presence when the enemy arrived. His hands shook slightly. For they were no longer gripping the hilt of his sword. They had hold of Overseer Pi-tou’s neck. A gag had been stuffed into the man’s mouth to prevent him screaming. Hsiung had him by the hair, lowering his pock-marked face towards the boiling water of a brine pan, slowly, slowly. Closer, closer. The Overseer’s terror left Hsiung shivering. Closer, closer, then up again, until, quite suddenly, he dipped his nose into the boiling brine. Just his nose! Enough for him to feel the pain and buck comically. Tiring of the game, Hsiung pushed his tormentor’s face deep into the boiling water and the dark lights danced for joy …

‘Hsiung! Captain! Can you not see them? They are here!’

Sergeant P’ao was whispering in his ear. He cleared the image of the Overseer from his mind but felt sick with confusion. Was that a memory or dream? Had he really boiled Pi-tou’s face as one blanches strips of fish?

‘Hsiung, what is wrong?’

Sergeant P’ao had hold of his arm, a look of fear and concern on his face. Hsiung shook him off. He was breathing heavily. The dark lights were still dancing. He focussed on the road below. The enemy column was nearly upon them, toiling through mud and rain. He did not notice or care their numbers were three times those initially reported to Hornets’ Nest. That they were trained, well-equipped soldiers set against hungry, desperate rebels. All he remembered were his orders to halt the enemy and drive them back down the ravine.

Hsiung rose to his full height, held his sword aloft and bellowed: ‘Red Turbans! Yueh Fei!’

At first a trickle of arrows flashed down from the ravine’s slopes. Then a steady stream. Yet Hsiung could contain himself no longer. Leaping down the slope, he rushed at the cowering guardsmen before they could form ranks, desperate to release his burden of rage. He did not hear Sergeant P’ao hollering:
Captain Hsiung! Follow Captain Hsiung!
His sword swung back. Descended. A man went down. Now he was ankle deep in mud. One by one, Hsiung swept clambering, slipping, screeching men aside, forcing a way into the enemy ranks.

The executions started soon after the prisoners had been marched back to camp. There were only fifty captives, the rest of the government troops having fled or perished near Port Yulan, their stripped, beheaded corpses left in the mud.

It was still raining when Hsiung emerged from Hornets’ Nest’s subterranean house. Slanting lines of monsoon cast a shimmering veil across the cave entrance. In the valley below Yueh Fei rebels were celebrating their first noteworthy victory in years. Rumours of the battle would spread all round Six-hundred-
li
Lake and far beyond: right to the Great Khan’s court in the distant capital. With it, he hoped, the name of brave Captain Hsiung. Perhaps his lost father would hear; and learn how to find his son.

For now he was a hero. The men had chanted his name as they marched away from the battlefield. Even Hornets’ Nest had embraced him. No one doubted the rebel leader’s foremost captain now!

Despite so much triumph, his soul and stomach sickened. Had it been necessary to torture the prisoners before throwing them into the dark fissure in the centre of the village? Or even to execute them? He did not care to think what his old master, Deng Nan-shi, would have called such executions. Murder, most likely.

The majority were conscripts from Lingling with families in the limestone country. Surely it made sense to spare the officials, or at least offer them an amnesty to serve the rebel cause. How could the Red Turbans govern without officials to administer justice and tax the peasants fairly? Without scholars they would be little better than bandits.

Hsiung rubbed weary eyes, staring out across the rain-filled valley. When he had asked Hornets’ Nest how they would spend their new wealth, whether to raise a new army or help the hungry peasants, his chief had winked. ‘It’ll do very well in my chests,’ he said. ‘Soon I’ll have enough to buy a pardon from the Great Khan!’

Of course it was a joke. Certainly his chief had laughed. But there was no mirth in his eyes and, quite suddenly, Hsiung understood. Hornets’ Nest
was
a mere brigand, whatever he had been when younger. He had no intention of challenging the government forces in Hou-ming, of driving the Mongols from their province.

His mind had reeled – and not just from the wine he had drunk. Complaining of a heavy head, he left his chief gloating while the officers toasted him until they were insensible.

Now, in the twilit cave, images of that day’s killing and other fights as desperate and ruthless throbbed in Hsiung’s temples. He retched up a stomach load of rice wine. A familiar hopelessness, one he could only appease with action, made him yearn to be anywhere but this narrow valley. It would not be long before Jebe Khoja sought a suitable revenge for today’s work.

When he looked up, a large round figure was emerging from the steep path leading up to the cave, half-hidden by a huge, pink umbrella. Hsiung wiped his mouth and frowned. This stranger was not so strange. He recollected the fat man who called on Deng Nan-shi ten years earlier. And the visitor recognised him, too, for he nodded solemnly: ‘Brave Captain Hsiung!’ he said, bowing with a Buddha-like smile. ‘I hoped to find you here.’

Yun Shu adjusted her coiled hair, deftly inserting an extra pin. As she did so, she called to the children assembled on the wide porch of Sitting-and-Whistling Pavilion: ‘Shicheng! Tan! Pingxin! Do not dance so close to the edge, you’ll …’

Too late. Three little boys flapping their arms like cranes in time to a drum splashed into Mirror Lake with a delighted scream. All was confusion. Fortunately, several mothers from Ou-Fang Village accompanied their offspring so the young Nun of Serene Perfection was not without help. Rough hands dragged out the wriggling, protesting boys and rougher tongues admonished them.

Yun Shu had decided to establish a school in the porch of Sitting-and-Whistling Pavilion. Partly to attract people back to the shrine and encourage offerings. Most of all to bring a little laughter to the lonely valley, thereby pleasing Lord Lao as he gazed through his clay image at the passing seasons. Besides, she liked the children and their innocent noise. They unfurled small buds of happiness she kept closed to the world.

Persuading the villagers to spare their children from work for a few hours each day had been surprisingly easy, especially with Mother Muxing’s grudging assistance. Half the district feared Mother Muxing. At first four, then, as word circulated, six, ten, twenty-four pupils emerged each morning from the bamboo groves, filling the valley with games and chatter.

For all their poverty, or because of it, the people of the limestone hills viewed any scholarship with awe; and their expectations were Yun Shu’s chief anxiety. She had no money for paper and ink, let alone books. Her lessons consisted of chanting Daoist prayers and ancient songs. Ritual dancing was also a favourite. She taught them to memorise and recite lists of Emperors and dynasties, Immortals and heroes. But, of course, the most popular lesson was writing. This she contrived by spreading fine sand across a board and teaching each child the characters of their clan name. So precious did this skill seem to families who could barely afford clothes they sent grateful baskets of flowers, vegetables, wine and fruit.

When the children had gone, Yun Shu succumbed to melancholy. Hugging her knees, she gazed at the shimmering reflection of hills and trees in Mirror Lake. Loneliness seemed failure when one was supposed to be cultivating supreme detachment. The children’s voices and games reminded her she would never become a mother herself: not if she was to complete the Great Work necessary for transformation into Pure Spirit.

That afternoon Yun Shu busied herself in the shrine until the sound of whistling made her pause. Perhaps one of the children had returned. She went out to find a young man in shabby silks perched on a rock, trilling a popular song. He had wet lips and sharp, appraising eyes that looked her up and down.

‘I’m sure you don’t mind my tune,’ he said. ‘This is Sitting-and-Whistling Pavilion after all! And look, I’m doing both. Ha! Ha!’

Yun Shu waited. The Pavilion was a public shrine and he had every right to pay his respects to Lord Lao. Yet something about his manner displeased her; she grew nervous.

‘Perhaps you wish to offer a sacrifice?’ Her question sounded shrill.

‘Who to, Aunty?’ he asked.

Although Nuns of the Dao were often addressed as ‘Aunty’, along with matchmakers and widows, he savoured the title as he examined her. Yun Shu’s cheeks coloured.

‘A sacrifice to Lord Lao,’ she said, ‘and the other Immortals who dwell here.’

‘Ah! Does that include Chuang-Mu?’ he asked, referring to the Goddess of the bedroom and sexual delight.

‘No.’

‘Then come to think of it, I don’t,’ he said. ‘I do have a few words of advice though.’

She edged back towards the shrine. ‘Indeed?’

‘Just a few, Aunty. If I were you I’d stop all those brats coming here every day. All they need to learn is how to dig and chop wood for their betters. It’s not nice to have little eyes looking round where they’re not wanted.’

‘Nice for whom?’ she asked.

The young man laughed and stretched. He seemed to be enjoying himself.

‘People who aren’t nice either.’

Yun Shu had noticed groups of men moving quietly through the woods and assumed they were gathering bamboo. Now she wondered.

‘What’s your name, sir?’ she asked.

‘Hua. What’s yours?’

‘Aunty will do fine,’ she said, firmly. ‘And if I choose
not
to close my school?’

His gallant smile stiffened.

‘You might find there are others less polite than me. Others who prefer Nuns on their backs.’

Shocked by his coarseness, Yun Shu took another step towards the shrine. She thought of her predecessor. Had the poor girl ended up on her back before vanishing? Yun Shu dared not ask.

The young man rose languidly. She followed his upward glance to two watchers high above them on the craggy, limestone peak looming over Mirror Lake. Two dark silhouettes against the azure sky. Hua wagged a finger at her.

‘If you’re a lucky lady,’ called the man over his shoulder, as he hopped across the bridge of stepping stones, ‘I might even decide to know you better.’

Yun Shu shielded her eyes and gazed up at the silhouettes. Only one remained. Though she could not begin to say why, it seemed familiar.