The Mandate of Heaven (23 page)

‘We are the first!’ he whispered, eagerly. ‘Imagine it!’

‘We better be,’ replied the tomb-finder. ‘If we’re not, Hornets’ Nest will have no use for us.’

Soon the floor levelled and they reached a high, semi-circular arch. Shensi paused, sniffed. Whatever he detected gave satisfaction for Teng caught a glint in his eye.

‘Come!’ he ordered.

They advanced into a small, hand-chiselled cavern. Side tunnels stretched on either side. Now Shensi was chuckling. ‘See!’ he said. ‘We
are
the first!’

Waving the lamp revealed a passage to one side lined with jars, cooking utensils, storage gourds.

‘All so His Mightiness should not starve in the Beyond,’ said Shensi. ‘Pah! And, look, he wanted to ride in style, too.’

The other passage contained more: the low shapes of carriages and wheels on the sand-strewn floor, all rotted away except for metal fittings and stray pieces of wood. Teng noticed pale sticks beside the chariots and went over to investigate. The grey, decayed bones of horses lay in piles. His breath hissed. ‘Shensi! Look!’

The tomb-finder came over. Beside every pile of horse bones lay the remains of a smaller skeleton, its flesh and garments reduced to dust. Sightless eyes stared up at Teng. He remembered the ruined watchtower on Monkey Hat Hill and proud, brave Hsiung. The thought, as always, touched him with guilt.

‘His Majesty required drivers for his chariots,’ he said, dully. ‘Do you think they died willingly?’

Shensi shrugged.

‘Bones are everywhere,’ he said. ‘This way.’

Holding his lamp high, Shensi proceeded through the small cavern to another high entrance. Darkness blocked their way.

‘Should we go back and tell them it has not been robbed?’ whispered Teng.

Shensi held the lamp close to the scholar’s face so he could examine him.

‘Scared?’

‘Of course! Aren’t you?’

The older man considered this, then said: ‘Follow me closely.’

Raising his lamp, Shensi walked boldly into the dark, disturbing jars and vessels laid out for some ghostly feast. After kicking over the first pot, he was more careful. The sound echoed. They were in a huge chamber dug from the rock. Its roof rose many men high and Teng noticed a small, black circle in the centre – evidently the shaft he had been lowered down days earlier.

A perfunctory examination revealed the chamber’s purpose.

‘A banqueting hall,’ he whispered. ‘Look! There is the stone chair where His Majesty sat, all his scholars and princes round him, to enjoy the feast. I wonder who he was. Perhaps the ancient records mention his deeds.’

Shensi was poking round the floor.

‘Some good stuff here, lots of bronzes,’ he said. ‘More bones, too. Probably servants. We’re nearly there.’

Crossing the banqueting hall seemed a long journey to Teng. It ended in a low, rectangular stone doorway.

‘The tomb will be beyond that,’ said Shensi.

‘Let us call Chao and Hua,’ said Teng. ‘A solid stone door requires many men to thrust it open.’

‘Maybe not,’ said Shensi. ‘The earth sometimes moves. Even mountains breathe in and out. Hold this.’

While Teng trained the lamp, Shensi shoved steadily at the door with his shoulder. At first there was just his grunting, panting breath, then a grating sound.

‘Stand back!’ warned Shensi, nimbly following his own advice.

With a crack and creak the stone panels fell inwards. The crash as they hit the ground echoed round the cavern. Both lamps flickered and almost expired. Clouds of clammy dust rolled into the banqueting hall.

‘If that doesn’t bring them down here, nothing will,’ muttered Shensi, glancing back the way they had come. ‘We’ll have to be quick.’

But no sound of rushing feet or bobbing lights disturbed them. Gradually the dust cleared. Seemingly unaware of his companion, Shensi stepped into a small chamber lined with slabs. At the end stood a carved, open stone coffin.

Faced with the ruler of this lifeless kingdom, even Shensi grew nervous. He turned to Teng.

‘Go and have a look at him,’ he murmured, ‘there might be some writing.’

Teng’s heartbeat seemed to fill the chamber. Again he thought of
yin
’s womb. Was this coffin the egg he had imagined?

‘Go on!’ urged Shensi.

Step by step, Teng obeyed. When he came to the tall coffin on carved dragon legs he paused, trembling. The lamp shook in his hands, making the light dance.

Unexpectedly another memory of the watchtower came and he muttered slowly, like an incantation:

Autumn wind rises,

Plump clouds burn …

The words lent him courage. He repeated them more loudly and stepped up to the coffin. What he found surprised him. Nothing! No body, not even decayed bones had survived. Instead, hundreds of carved jade pieces in the shape of a body, the remains of a suit guaranteed to preserve His Majesty forever. Yet not a shred or hair remained.

Teng stepped back and turned to Shensi. When he spoke his voice was calm, even sad. ‘I shall endeavour to find characters that at least tell us his name,’ he said. ‘Perhaps he was a kindly ruler, for all the sacrifices of the charioteers and drivers.’

But Shensi had found a storeroom at the side, and was chuckling: ‘A tenth of this would set us up as princes for life!’

When Teng peered over his shoulder he, too, gasped. The little room was stacked with dusty treasure: gold and bronze leopards with red jewels for eyes; lamps moulded in the likeness of yielding slave girls; everywhere bronze vessels inlaid with gold and silver. In one corner, a large pile of bamboo strips bearing columns of characters; and old tortoise shells and ox bones covered with writing. Instinctively, Teng reached down and picked up a tortoise shell, tucking it into his girdle. A familiar voice echoed behind them.

‘Hey! Don’t touch anything if you know what’s good for you!’

It was Hua, accompanied by soldiers and secretaries, peering round fearfully.

At Hua’s command they were marched out of the tomb, their guards only too glad of a duty leading to daylight. Outside Teng averted his eyes from the sun. For a long moment he stood squinting, until a brutal shove forced him to stumble forward.

They were prodded past Hornets’ Nest on his throne. The rebel chief seemed unaware of them, as though they were invisible. He gazed eagerly at the dark rectangle of the entrance, awaiting news. Only then did Teng realise the extent of their danger.

A short journey led them to a wide crack in the limestone side of the ravine. It went back quite a way, forming a natural prison of sheer walls guarded by soldiers. They were not the only captives. Two Yulai hunters with blue tattooed faces crouched on the floor. Teng recognised the eldest as the man who had remonstrated with Chao in the tavern at Ou-Fang Village – and been beaten for his boldness.

Both pairs of prisoners ignored each other and fell to muttering.

‘This is bad,’ Teng advised Shensi. ‘Very bad.’

The tomb-finder did not seem to be listening. ‘No one makes a fool of Shensi!’ he said. Given the circumstances, Teng was inclined to disagree.

Later, Hua and Chao appeared at the entrance.

‘Shame we caught you and Shensi trying to steal Hornets’ Nest’s treasure!’ said Hua.

‘Big shame for you,’ agreed Chao.

‘Our chief won’t let you off easily,’ said Hua.

‘We won’t let you off at all.’

They both laughed and withdrew, leaving their ex-comrades to fume.

All that hot day they sat in the shady, narrow crack in the limestone. Shensi found fresh rainwater in a hollowed rock, otherwise they were given no sustenance. The Yulai huntsmen, accustomed to not stirring for many hours, restricted their movements to noticing everything and communicating by shared looks.

Something hard poked into Teng’s ribs and he extracted the tortoise shell from his girdle. Of course he had seen such things before. His father, wise Deng Nan-shi, possessed several. He had even taught his son how to decipher them.

A lattice of delicate lines and cracks spread from a burn-mark in the centre of the shell, seared by a red-hot poker. Columns of characters were carved and stained on the surface. Sighing, he stared at each character in turn.

All day Teng studied the writing, recognising at least half the words. As one would expect, there was a question:
Will the clan of Xue
…
prosper
…
regain the Emperor’s favour
? And an answer, interpreted by priests from the patterns of the cracks:
When tears
…
salt
…
heavy
… did that say
break back
? He couldn’t be sure …
Xue clan
…
regain
… he couldn’t read the rest. What exactly they would regain was a mystery. Teng frowned, for Xue also meant scholar as well as a clan name, and he could not help thinking of the blighted Dengs.

He fell into an exhausted sleep, propped against a boulder. At once he was back in the dark tomb of echoes: an eternal feast filled the central chamber with scents and voices. Wine, starchy rice, roasted animals of every description, fishes steamed in their scaly armour, every platter laden for the guests, while favoured concubines served His Majesty who sat beneath a yellow and black striped canopy. Then acrobats were wheeling across the banqueting hall; gongs and pi-pa playing. For all the wild revelry, Teng could not help being afraid. Something was wrong with the smiling, nodding prince in his suit of jade plates …

Teng stirred fearfully in his sleep, clutching the tortoise shell close to his chest; Shensi and the Yulai hunters glanced over curiously.

Could it really be Deng Nan-shi in the jade suit? Did Father wish to live forever? Teng realised in horror that all those feasting had been sacrificed at Grandfather’s command, to preserve his dignity as Prefect forever …

‘No,’ he muttered in his sleep. ‘Our family will redeem itself!’

Now the empty jade suit strode through the tomb world. Chariot drivers cowered by their dead horses while guards without faces cut them down. The concubines wailed in terror, forced by eunuchs to swallow cups of acrid poison. And Father was back on his throne, watching all that passed with a disdainful expression. Priests applied burning pokers to ox shins and tortoise shells while others wrote on bamboo strips. Teng could read their messages with ease: rumours of forgotten princes, kingdoms destroyed, oh, he must not linger in this dreadful tomb! To stay here was death! Acrobats somersaulted past. He must awake, awake …

‘Wake up!’ Shensi was whispering to him. ‘Wake up!’

Teng opened his eyes to semi-darkness. It was dusk in the limestone country. He must have slept for many hours.

‘What has happened?’ he asked, between one dream world and the next.

‘Quiet,’ urged Shensi. ‘A messenger arrived here a few hours ago. Ever since they’ve been running round like angry wasps.’

‘But why?’

Teng crept nearer to the guarded entrance of their makeshift prison and saw dozens of soldiers with baskets hurrying to and from the tomb. Others were piling treasures on the ground, where secretaries inventoried the objects before assigning them to numbered chests. Whatever the reason for haste, it seemed Hornets’ Nest was determined not to lose a single bronze bowl or jade disc. Inexperienced as he was in valuing antiques – the Deng clan’s collection had been dispersed decades ago – Teng could not estimate their worth in
cash
.

‘Shensi, do you think this tomb will make Hornets’ Nest rich?’

The older man nodded. ‘Rich enough to re-equip his army many times over.’

Such a notion had not occurred to Teng. ‘Do you think that is his intention?’

Shensi shrugged.

Dusk became night and still the soldiers harvested anything valuable. Teng wondered if their greed would include the ox bones and tortoise shells, the books of bamboo strips covered with ancient characters. These aroused his curiosity more than any of the lacquered, splendid objects he had glimpsed. For the bamboo strips were tongues, voices two millenia old. What secrets and wisdom they might utter! The ancient kings had possessed knowledge lost to later, debased generations, formulae for elixirs of Immortality, maps to the Magical Isle of Penglai, spells guaranteeing health and prosperity for a dozen generations.