The Mandate of Heaven (34 page)

Teng knew he had entered the theatre district from countless sodden posters glued over each other like faded fish scales. Every available wall was covered: the snow had been blowing horizontally for so many weeks that the posters’ coloured inks had run and blurred.

He gathered his cloak and hat, pressing onwards until he reached a broad street lined with a dozen rival establishments. At each door touts harangued the drifting crowd:
No admittance for late-comers! Only the best acting here! Cho sings today! Better than the rest! Cho here!

Teng ignored them and approached a large theatre hung with a hundred coloured banners. Though everyone else paid over a string of
cash
, Teng was waved through by the doormen to join the queue on a steep wooden ramp. He emerged halfway up tiers of seats occupied by young and old, male and female, people of all classes and professions seeking a temporary relief from Hou-ming, a time other than their own.

A stage protruded into more rows of chairs. At the side perched a dozen musicians on stools, as well as actresses and singing girls with sky blue skirts tight round their buttocks and black silk scarves accentuating the length of their foreheads. All fluttered butterfly fans, scanning the crowd for customers. Teng looked eagerly across vivid red mouths and faces painted white, his heart beating swiftly. But the one he sought was nowhere in evidence – that told him all he feared to know.

He sat down heavily on an end-of-aisle seat, jostling a flabby man protected by tin amulets sewn across his chest. Teng’s clumsiness stemmed from cheap rice wine; he fell into a doze as the performance began, half-listening to the clash of cymbals and falsetto singing of the hero.

The theatre was illuminated by flickering lamps and thin winter light seeping from a dome above. The audience’s breath steamed as Chen Song’s
The Ancestors’ Revenge In Han Palace
– a great favourite, even among Mongols who did not sense the play’s hidden message – acted out murder and retribution, the brutal violation of a younger sister’s chastity, then yet more retribution. Eventually every villain lay in a pile on the stage except the hero’s hapless sister who had failed to commit honourable suicide and had to be helped along by her brother.

Many ladies dabbed their eyes as she recited a long, pathetic speech urging him to execute her as painlessly as possible. Meanwhile, the one lady Teng sought did not join the other actresses clustered round the stage. He left during the final applause, ignoring enquiries about when his own new play would be completed.

Teng found himself outside. The snow’s purity and whiteness after the gloom of the theatre came as a relief. At twenty-seven he cut an eye-catching figure. Though still youthful he was no longer boyish, his sensitive dark eyes observing the world with a mournful, yet ironic intensity that could not fail to intrigue ladies of a certain taste.

An ache of loneliness almost sent him hurrying in search of the singing girl, Ying-ge, who he had hoped to find in the theatre. Was not her voice a lotus unfurled beside dancing autumn waters? And he might have obeyed the impulse and tasted the humiliation of being advised by her maid that she was ‘entertaining a gentleman’, had not a young lad in plain hemp clothes tugged his sleeve. Teng stepped back in surprise. The boy’s expression was earnest.

‘Honourable Teng,’ said the boy, ‘your father sent me. He commands you to return to Deng Mansions at once. He requires your assistance.’

Whatever a father requires, Teng had been taught to obey. Yet he hesitated, glancing up the side street where Ying-ge conducted her transactions. He was all too aware that, given his poverty and her need to live in an opulent style, she was obliged to fan her peony when a spring wind blew. He could hardly blame her.

It took nearly an hour to pick a way through snow-clogged streets to Deng Mansions. Its many roofs and pillars were crusted with wind-blown ice, none of which stopped Deng Nan-shi from opening his academy as usual. Thus one demonstrated a haughty attitude to adversity.

Teng hurried to the ancient audience chamber of the Dengs, long converted into a classroom. Over fifty – half the normal class – sat on the floor, listening as a slender young woman in blue and yellow taught a clapping song about Pan Gu. Teng’s heart sank further. Not only must he contend with Father in a grim, duty-driven mood, but also Her Perfect Sereneness, Yun Shu – and he had no doubt she was feeling very serene indeed. She gave no sign of noticing his arrival. Teng used the opportunity to sneak off to the library.

As he feared, Deng Nan-shi lay on his divan, covered in blankets smelling of mould. Instead of issuing reproaches to his wayward son, the old scholar lay in a deep sleep. For a long moment Teng stared down at his father’s gaunt, parchment-yellow face. Kneeling, he straightened the blankets then gently inserted a pillow beneath the scholar’s balding head.

He remembered days when that hair had grown thick and long, when he and Hsiung would help Deng Nan-shi take his Tenth Day Bath, as prescribed by the Song Regulations for Scholar Officials of All Grades. They would empty pitcher after pitcher of cold water over his head. Even then, drenched as an otter, his forehead a waterfall, Deng Nan-shi would maintain a dignified expression. After all, a scholar’s bath was a rite and all rites must be conducted in the proper spirit …

Teng brushed the few remaining greasy locks from his father’s hot, perspiring forehead. A familiar enemy was advancing across the provinces of Father’s body, a foe the doctor had declared beyond the reach of any medicine other than magic.

Brushing tears from his eyes, Teng strode to the classroom and bowed to the young nun wearing an Abbess’s silver headpiece on her ‘whirlwind clouds’ hair. She seemed relieved by his arrival.

‘Your Honoured Father?’ she enquired, though a hundred little ears were straining to overhear.

‘Asleep,’ muttered Teng, wondering if the scent of wine lingered on his breath. Her own smelt clean, like willow.

‘He sent for you yesterday as well, but no one could find you.’

That would have been hard, seeing Teng was exploring a manual entitled
A Hundred Ways To Make The Plum Tree Bloom
with Ying-ge, both of them fuelled by wine and delicacies costing the entire earnings from his last play – not that it had amounted to much. Only when those resources were nearly exhausted had he emerged to clear her from his mind with a final drinking bout.

‘I was studying in the city,’ he said.

The Abbess raised an eyebrow. ‘Your field of study is well known,’ she said, primly. ‘To the great regret of many.’

‘If one possesses a field, one should not neglect to plough,’ he said.

‘Unless that neglect is the way one avoids one’s obligations.’

They became aware of the listening children.

‘Well, Abbess Yun Shu,’ he said, ‘I am here now and shall finish my father’s work for the day like an obliging son.’

She bowed stiffly. ‘I’m glad your duty extends so far.’

He was about to quip it extended farther than she could imagine but thought better of it.

‘I shall tend to your father and send for food and medicine from Cloud Abode Monastery,’ she said.

This offer was so great a relief to Teng, who lacked the
cash
for either, that tears touched his eyes. ‘Then I thank you deeply,’ he said, ‘and sincerely, for it is a kindness I shall not forget.’

She was already on her way, shushing the unsettled children with a finger across her plump lips.

Perhaps that was why Teng gave his best to conducting a history lesson on the dreadful fate of Emperor Ming Huang and his betrayal by a beloved concubine, Yang Kuei-fei. Inspired by the theatre he had just left, Teng took on the various roles of those involved: the rebel An Lu-shan and besotted Emperor, finally the mincing, self-serving vanity of Yang Kuei-fei herself. Rows of guileless faces stared in wonder and alarm as he described the Emperor’s agony when his own soldiers forced him to order the execution of his dear love. Though she had destroyed a once exemplary reign, still he could see no fault in her.

‘The Emperor’s tears fell like melting drops of ice,’ declared Teng, finally. ‘And let that be a lesson to all those who place pleasure before duty.’

The children chattered as they packed away their sand writing trays and Teng realised he had enjoyed the role of teacher more than he cared to admit. A slender figure watched from a doorway behind him.

‘Ah, Lady Serenity,’ he said, ruffled by her cool gaze. ‘How is Father?’

‘We ordered a doctor to visit and he diagnosed an excess of
yin
forming spores in the stomach. Also that it would be fatal if those spores spread. Food and medicine have been provided, as well as new blankets. I will address prayers to Chenghuang, the City God, reminding Him of the great services tended to Hou-ming over the centuries by the Deng Clan. But I fear the Honourable Deng Nan-shi is far from well.’

Teng nodded miserably. This was nothing new, making his absence from home all the more despicable.

‘Yun Shu,’ he said, after a pause. ‘I will escort you back to Cloud Abode Monastery. There is no other way I can demonstrate my deep gratitude.’

At first they climbed the Hundred Stairs in silence. Teng sensed her mood was weighed down by other burdens than Deng Nan-shi’s illness.

‘It was good of you to take Father’s class,’ he said.

‘I like the children.’ Yun Shu wrapped her shawl tight against the cold. ‘You forget that a Nun of Serene Perfection can never have children of her own.’

‘No doubt there are compensations?’

‘You refer to embroidered robes and influence. Oh yes, and the fact people beseech my blessing when I pass? True, there are compensations. Yet I have little choice in the matter.’

They climbed through frozen woods where bamboo cracked, laden with ice. Packed snow made each stone stair perilous.

‘You have the choice to change your position,’ he pointed out.

She paused, met his gaze. ‘That is not a choice I choose to make!’

Her face softened and he saw that she understood his question was well intentioned. That he merely advised her as an older brother might.

‘Teng, you know better than anyone how my family disowned me,’ she said. ‘How could I, a woman, maintain myself? How eat? Find shelter? Who would protect me?’

Her earnestness made Teng uncomfortable. He was used to females like Ying-ge, pouting and petting without any need for difficult questions. He laughed uncertainly. ‘Are there no mirrors in Cloud Abode Monastery? You are hardly unattractive. A husband could be found.’

Even as he spoke, Teng regretted so pointless and crass a remark. No respectable family wanted an outcast for a daughter-in-law. The only dowry she could offer was love: a treasure of small value to a marriage-broker.

Yun Shu did not reply. She carried on up the icy steps.

‘To be a concubine is not dishonourable,’ he mused, ‘Lady Lu Si was my Grandfather’s concubine and she …’

‘Teng!’ Again Yun Shu halted. ‘Your concern is well meant but this subject is unwelcome.’

Her reversion to the role of Lady Serenity was deserved. He bowed, clasping one hand over the other and moving it up and down to indicate sincere respect. ‘Forgive me if I am too frank, too quick to talk. Remember, I have never learned to sit cross-legged in silence for months and years at a time!’

Yun Shu could not help smiling. Their feet tramped regularly on the packed snow. Plumes of breath rose as they panted from the climb.

‘You think like a man, that is all,’ she said, ‘with a man’s freedom of choice. I am a woman. The fact that destiny appointed me Abbess of Cloud Abode Monastery was a miracle. My choices must always depend upon the choices of others.’

With a crack, her shoe slipped on an uneven clod of ice. Crying out, she fell backward, arms flailing. Teng was beside her. He grabbed her wrist as she toppled. Pulling her close, they wobbled together on the icy step for a precarious moment. The steep stairs yawned like a hungry throat behind them. Slowly, deliberately, he knelt, firmly lowering them both until they gained a steady purchase on the ice. Breaths steaming, they regained balance. She shot him a grateful look. Her cheeks were flushed.

‘Thank you, Elder Brother,’ she murmured.

‘My pleasure, Little Sister!’

Laughing uncertainly, they struggled to their feet, brushing powdery snow off thick winter clothes. Then they realised Yun Shu’s fall had a witness. Bo-Bai waited by the brassbound doors of Cloud Abode Monastery. Instantly laughter ceased. Yun Shu assumed an expression of stern piety appropriate to a senior Nun of Serene Perfection.

‘Ah, Bo-Bai,’ exclaimed Teng, upon reaching the top, ‘how do the holy ladies treat you, my friend?’

A cold, formal bow was his reply. After a stiff and faultlessly decorous farewell on both sides, the gates closed behind Yun Shu with a clang.