The Mandate of Heaven (54 page)

Men willing to die always defeat those fearful of death. So it proved.

For a long, terrible hour the battle advanced back and forth until, finally, the Mongols – already wearied by slipping in the mire – discovered their way back to the fortress had been blocked by thousands of slaves. To their front the Yueh Fei rebels took heart, driving deep into the packed Mongol ranks. Fallen men lay in piles across the mud. Scores tried to escape across the walkways or took last stands around towering wooden derricks. There they were hunted and pulled down. Neither side took prisoners.

Yet only a few
li
away, a little distance beyond the ramparts, marsh birds still dipped their long, curved beaks into a sediment composed of irrepressible life and death, millennia of rotted plants and diverse bodies. The birds gorged on fleas, insects and leeches, oblivious to the thousands of men tasting their last hour on this earth. Clouds drifted west to reveal a pale, blue spring sky.

By dusk the fighting was over. Hsiung set up his headquarters in a port official’s bureau at the head of the main pier. In this hall thatched with reeds he took stock. The Mongol fleet had finally withdrawn, having suffered a mauling. The rebels’ own losses had been severe: a third of the fleet either sunk or burned, including some valuable warships. Though the Yueh Fei rebels might claim victory on both land and water, the gaps in their ranks made it a sour one. Faithful Captain Jin was gone, even old P’ao, who could survive any calamity, had taken a chest wound.

Hsiung stepped outside and stared up at the fortress. Its battlements were lit by many lamps; despite the slaughter, hundreds of defenders remained within its brick-lined earth walls. Until they were dislodged he could not claim victory. And any siege when he had not only his troops but thirty thousand hungry salt workers to feed would not last long. Hsiung summoned an adjutant.

‘Take three ships and fly to Lingling!’ he commanded. ‘Tell Chancellor Liu Shui he is required at once. Tell him I need reinforcements and as much grain as he can gather.’

The officer bowed, pressing both fists together, and hurried off to find undamaged ships. At that moment Hsiung became aware of a delegation approaching, escorted by his picked bodyguard. Ever since the calamity in the Buddha’s caves he had detected the threat of assassination everywhere.

Hsiung sat regally on a stool taken from the thatched hall, legs spread wide, back straight, hands resting on thick upper thighs. Half a dozen men wearing paltry hemp clothes abased themselves before him, awaiting his command to speak. Hsiung’s glance flickered over their heads to the dark line of the fortress. He had no siege engines other than ladders; any spirited defence by Jebe Khoja’s surviving men – and they were sure to fight to the last arrow – would cost hundreds, perhaps thousands, of his best troops.

‘Well,’ he said, irritably, lowering his gaze to the supplicants before him. He fully expected requests for food he was unable to satisfy.

At this cue a grizzled face lifted. Hsiung found himself being frankly examined by an elderly man with bird-like brown eyes.

‘I am Wu Chen of the Clan Wu,’ announced the man. ‘Our ancestors came to the Salt Pans from Wu Village a hundred years ago. We offer pledges of loyalty.’

‘I accept them,’ said Hsiung, his attention already drifting back to the fortress and calculations about siege ladders.

Old Wu did not withdraw. ‘Noble Count!’ said the salt worker. ‘Your victory is incomplete. Therefore, so is our own. As long as the foreign demons hide in their den none of us are safe.’

‘So I fear,’ said Hsiung, leaning forward. ‘Do you have a suggestion?’

At this Wu glanced at his friends for support.

‘There are ways in,’ he said, quietly. ‘Ways that don’t involve storming the gate. And another thing, Noble Count: after days of rain there is often a thick fog the next morning.’

It took only a moment for the significance of this to sink in.

‘Fetch all the Captains,’ ordered Hsiung. ‘As for you, Wu, say exactly what’s on your mind and I’ll reward your clan all the more.’

That was encouragement enough for Wu to point at particular sections of the fortress and mutter words intended for the Noble Count’s ears alone.

At dawn, dense fog rolled in from the lake, beading with glistening droplets every plant stem and hard surface. Hsiung ordered extra water to be boiled in the gigantic salt cauldrons to swell the cloaks of vapour wrapped around his men. They moved silently, guided by members of the Wu clan and other Yueh Fei rebels, each leading a column fifty strong. Cocks could be heard crowing within the fortress. No one on the walls noticed the group carrying large clay gourds wrapped in cloth from which cords trailed. Gingerly, each man piled his heavy container against a thick, iron-studded door cut into a hidden corner of the fortress ramparts; an entrance long disused, if the moss growing over it and mildew stains on the metal gave any clue.

When the mound of gourds resting against the door was as large as one might find in a melon market at harvest-time, an officer crept forward with a glowing fire-pot. Still no one stirred on the walls. With a flash the fuse lit. The officer scurried back, seeking any hole that might provide cover. Moments later the burning powder ignited with a huge roar like a thousand bellowing dragons. Before its echoes died away another explosion boomed round the Salt Pans from the far side of the fortress.

‘Yueh Fei!’ called an exultant voice in the mist. ‘Yueh Fei! Yueh Fei!’ replied thousands more. The hidden columns waiting in line rushed forward to the two breaches in the walls.

Naturally, the defence in the mist-shrouded alleys and streets of the fortress was resolute. It could hardly be otherwise. The Mongols were accustomed to victory plucked from disaster through the sheer force and courage of their arms. Outside the Salt Minister’s residence, hundreds took a stand, determined to protect their tribal khan, Jebe Khoja. All were cut down, their corpses despoiled and beheaded. Elsewhere, the rebels discovered cowering men: ill-paid Chinese mercenaries, quite willing to surrender without a single parry or blow.

By mid-morning, when the fog had begun to clear, Hsiung strode through the front gate of the fortress, surrounded by his bodyguard. As a boy-slave in the Salt Pans he had never entered this citadel. Now he looked around eagerly, not at the buildings – all ordinary enough – but for particular captives. In his determination to find them he almost fell victim to a Mongol archer hiding on a roof. But the arrow bounced off a lucky jade disk he had been given by Ying-ge as a love token and the assassin was hunted down with crossbow bolts.

Seated upon a throne dragged from the Salt Minister’s residence into the parade ground, Hsiung surveyed the prisoners. The Mongol and Uighur warriors were easily dealt with. Once stripped of armour, boots and weapons, they were branded with their own slave irons on forehead and cheek, then driven off to toil in the Salt Pans, for Hsiung was determined the precious salt must keep flowing. Lesser officials and Chinese guards who refused to swear allegiance to the Noble Count went the same way. The group that remained was smaller and more select. Hsiung’s pleasure as he surveyed them was almost like a flutter of fear.

For the second time, Prince Jebe Khoja was his prisoner. The Mongol noble had tried to die fighting but suffered an unlucky halberd blow to his legs that swept him to the floor. There he was disarmed and trussed like a peacock. Now, held upright by two nephews, he refused to bow to the rebel Count. Hsiung expected nothing less: had Jebe Khoja abased himself, he would have been revolted.

‘Your Highness,’ he said, using an interpreter though he knew the Mongol prince spoke Chinese, ‘you had a good plan. Unfortunately for you the Mandate of Heaven is against you. That is your bad luck.’

Jebe Khoja laughed harshly, replying in Chinese with a thick accent.

‘All luck runs out, Noble Count, even yours. As I have learned.’

It was Hsiung’s turn to laugh, though less confidently.

‘Having enjoyed so little luck in my youth,’ he said, ‘I’ve plenty left in store.’ His Captains applauded their master’s wit. ‘Prince, you shall be given a ship so you can return to Hou-ming with a message for Prince Arslan,’ said Hsiung. ‘As for your officials and household, they may also accompany you.’

Jebe Khoja nodded in surprise at these generous terms. He had fully expected his head’s removal. ‘I am, regrettably, once more placed in your debt,’ he said, with bitter dignity.

‘I want nothing in return,’ said Hsiung.

Yet he could not explain the real motive for his clemency: that he longed for Liu Shui’s nod of approval as one might a father’s affection; that he wished to set a little mercy against all the killing he had inspired when the Infernal Judges assessed the length of his torment.

Hsiung’s eye fell upon a tall, familiar figure kneeling with Jebe Khoja’s other high officials. His merciful mood vanished. He had recognised Salt Minister Gui, the very same man who had enslaved him when just a boy and burned Deng Mansions. For a long moment he considered rescinding his offer to allow Jebe Khoja’s officials to sail with him, a dilemma settled, in the end, by vanity. He could not risk his honour by breaking a pledge so soon after it had been uttered.

‘Halt!’ he commanded, pointing at the Salt Minister as he followed Jebe Khoja out of the parade ground. All eyes turned, glancing between the tall, spindly official clutching his abacus and the thick-limbed soldier on his throne.

‘Consider yourself lucky!’ said Hsiung. ‘Had I seen you earlier, you would not be leaving with dignity like your master. Remember his words, Gui! All luck runs out. If we meet again it will be the very end of yours.’

Hsiung glowered as the prisoners were led away towards the piers. There was still one enemy he longed to meet. So badly that he had issued a large reward for his capture. While he brooded on his borrowed throne a deep emptiness in his soul echoed with painful cries: his own when he was a boy and ten thousand since, memories of the indignities he had suffered, some so shameful he dared not acknowledge them even to himself.

He was stirred by the arrival in the parade ground of a large, jabbering group of salt workers. Most wore clothes looted from fallen enemies – boots, tunics, cloaks and weapons. In their midst was a single prisoner, his head shaven and face pockmarked. Hsiung stiffened, fists clenching as they rested on his legs. Yet he found it hard to look at the prisoner and flushed with distress, so that his captains, noticing his every gesture and mood like anxious lovers, exchanged looks.

Chief Overseer Pi-tou was thrown onto a patch of bare earth before Hsiung’s throne. For a moment he grovelled, then fixed a sharp glance on the Noble Count of Lingling. Did he see only a feeble, lowly boy? Hsiung believed so, and quailed until the old anger asserted itself and his hand crept towards his sword. How simple it would be to sweep that hated head from its neck!

‘Noble Count!’ exclaimed Foreman Wu Mao of the Wu clan. ‘We have captured this man as you decreed.’

Still Hsiung did not speak. The dark lights had issued forth from the black corners where they hid in his spirit, seeding a hundred fantasies of squashing the bald, pocked-marked head until the skull cracked and oozed pulp like a marrow; of boiling that gourd alive; severing nose and ears and eyelids with special implements, organ by organ. Those foul dreams – or desires – made him shiver and remember the frieze of the sinner he had desecrated in the Buddha’s caves. Then an inner voice whispered to his soul, quieter than the first, urging moderation and calm; the ambiguous satisfaction of justice. It was this voice that lent him the courage to stare down at his old tormentor.

‘What am I to do with you?’ he asked.

Overseer Pi-tou remained silent. Hsiung turned to the assembled Wu clan and other rebel leaders. He sensed he should offer them something – or someone.

‘How is justice best served?’ he asked. ‘Does this man deserve mercy?’

These words, so hard to utter because he longed for his own fists and feet to deliver their verdict, never ceasing until his enemy shrieked and begged and implored, soiling his clothes with shameful essences, fawning with big eyes like a whipped bitch – these words, unimaginable when Overseer Pi-tou had entered the square, suddenly felt strong and good, pure as slanting sunlight.

Foreman Wu Mao bowed. ‘He deserves no mercy,’ he said, flatly.

Hsiung nodded. Still he hesitated before surrendering his prize.

‘I shall give him,’ he said, slowly, ‘to whatever punishment you and your companions see fit, even if that means his release.’ He stared up at a sky littered with puffy clouds. So he did not see his old abuser dragged away, or hear his curses. When he glanced down again a sallow, scowling fellow knelt before him, a man he recognised as an agent of Liu Shui.

‘Noble Count,’ said the man, ‘that last prisoner confessed to sending someone dear to us all on a march to his death. I mean, the Honourable Deng Teng.’

Hsiung leaned forward. ‘The Chancellor told me of your mission. You are Shensi, are you not? Find Teng! Take fifty swift men as guards.’ He turned to General P’ao. ‘Ensure this man is given every assistance!’