The Mandate of Heaven (68 page)

‘Captain!’ he ordered. ‘Attack that yellow ship!’

For a moment the captain hesitated. Though Hsiung’s battleship was a formidable vessel, it would be outnumbered as soon as they left the safety of the rebel lines.

‘Do it now!’ roared Hsiung.

‘Damn them! Why not!’ roared back the Captain. ‘Order the attack, drummer! Attack!’

Hsiung’s ship surged from the rebel ranks, paddlewheels cranking furiously, stirring a wake of foam. Other rebel destroyers followed. The manoeuvre evidently surprised Won-du, who had been sailing parallel to the Yueh Fei fleet as a way of impressing his new masters, firing every kind of missile he possessed but avoiding close contact. Now, though he tried to head for open water, there was no time. Hsiung’s vessel was alongside him and a boarding party massing. A long wooden arm with a huge iron spike crashed down like a hammer, puncturing Won-du’s deck and binding him tight to Hsiung’s vessel. Hundreds of arrows and crossbow bolts poured into Won-du’s ship from close range, as well as dozens of fire-lances.

‘Yueh Fei!’ roared the Noble Count, sword in hand. ‘Maitreya!’ With that, he charged over a plank bridge lowered between the vessels and landed in a mass of struggling men. His one aim was to find Won-du. Ying-ge’s subtle taunts concerning her cousin’s superior swordsmanship set him aflame. No one must intervene … he swept aside a sailor with a fierce blow, then another … it would be like his triumph over Hornets’ Nest long ago, only incalculably sweeter.

Yet when Hsiung reached the bridge of the destroyer where Won-du might be expected to skulk, he found a pile of corpses. Suddenly flags cracked. The wind was picking up force as air currents flowed inland. Hsiung poked angrily among the bodies. Had someone got Won-du first? He glanced over the side and saw a swift rowing boat propelled by four oarsmen speeding away towards the government fleet. In the prow, waving courteously, sat Admiral Won-du, evidently contemplating a long and prosperous future. Hsiung’s throat and chest tightened: he kicked the nearest corpse.

‘Damn his soul!’ he roared.

But men other than Admiral Won-du were damned that late afternoon. For as Hsiung looked to the south his eyes widened.

‘Back!’ he bellowed. ‘Back! We must return to the fleet.’

He could see government squadrons widening the distance between themselves and the Yueh Fei rebels as over twenty fireships were heading swiftly towards the dense concentration of the Red Turban fleet, manned by shadowy figures barely visible through the heat haze: expendable crews whose families were guaranteed a whole year’s rice if they perished – as was most probable.

‘Order our ships to disperse!’ he cried to his signallers. Flags fluttered, drums beat, but there was chaos on his battleship as they struggled to lift the spiked wooden boarding arm. Men rushed back and forth. ‘Order them to send out small boats to pole away the fireships!’ commanded Hsiung.

Methods approved by the ancient commentators and certainly effective if the rebel fleet had been capable of concerted action. Yet only those ships facing south had the slightest idea of the approaching threat. Hsiung watched helplessly as the first fireship rushed into a huge floating castle designed to attack the ramparts of Hou-ming. At once the suicide crews leapt into the water and began to swim away, clutching inflated leather bladders. A huge explosion followed as the fireship became an inferno of naphtha, straw and oil. Sure enough the rebel ship caught fire. Screams and cries of alarm filled the air, along with scents of burning oil and wood. Clouds of smoke billowed up, blinding the Red Turban vessels on either side. Elsewhere other ships were ablaze.

‘The fleet must scatter
now
!’ ordered Hsiung, aware no one was listening. ‘Order the flags!’

To no avail. A better trained navy might have avoided the hell that followed. Flames danced and skipped from ship to ship, many chained together in obedience to Hsiung’s orders to form floating defences. Burning men leaped into the water for relief. Thunderclap bombs exploded like roaring giants. A swirling haze of heat and smoke engulfed the rebel fleet.

‘We’re free now!’ said the Captain, tugging Hsiung’s arm as he stared at the growing inferno. Although they were over two
li
away he could feel the heat of the fires on the wind. ‘We’ve got free of Admiral Won-du’s ship,’ repeated the Captain. ‘There is still a chance to escape, Your Highness!’

Hsiung realised they had drifted apart from Won-du’s stricken boat. He reached for his sword then let his arm fall.

‘Noble Count! Let us try to escape in the smoke!’

Hsiung glared at the Captain. Would that not be an admission of defeat? He was never defeated, too lucky, too favoured by Heaven. For a long while he watched the horrors of burning men and listened to their death cries, their beseeching screams drowned out by roaring flames, powerless to offer assistance. Reluctantly, he turned to the Captain and nodded. Too late. Hsiung had hesitated too long. Even as they rushed towards a gap in the enemy squadrons it closed and they were forced to flee back towards Hou-ming through the smoke clouds and shrieks.

A dozen enemy vessels pursued him, hurling iron-cased bombs from catapults. Hsiung’s ship was driven onto the gravel beach of a small island near Hou-ming itself. The battleship began to blaze. Half the crew, including the captain, had already perished, but Hsiung led the other half ashore and ordered those who wished to surrender to get out of his way. Anyone else was welcome to die by his side.

The small island was Eye Rock, the same holy place Yun Shu and Worthy Master Jian had sacrificed to Goddess Tien-hou, Protectress of Waterfarers. It was a misshapen lump of granite when not festooned with banners and candles during the Goddess’s winter festival. Hsiung sheathed his sword and snatched up a halberd with a long, wickedly curved blade, a bone-strengthened bamboo bow and a quiver of arrows. He crunched across the gravel beach, remorseless as a toppling boulder in his lamellar armour. The ship burned behind him. A dozen faithful men of his bodyguard armed themselves in imitation of the Noble Count, while he climbed stone steps cut into the rock to a flat altar stone.

Deng Nan-shi had once told him human beings were sacrificed long ago on this altar to prevent storms on the lake. Perhaps his death would do the fishermen good.

Several
li
to the north lay Hou-ming harbour, its ramparts secure. Just as familiar rose the cliffs of Monkey Hat Hill. He noticed lights where Deng Mansions had once stood, in gardens he had explored until they mapped his boyish soul. A dozen of the victorious fleet’s ships were circling Eye Rock, each carrying enough marines to overwhelm his feeble retinue. The only question, he thought, was how many he dragged to Hell with him.

He glanced at the soldiers of his bodyguard, gathering to form a shield round the Noble Count of Lingling, bows and fire-lances ready, as well as bags of porcelain-cased naphtha grenades, as if courage, somehow, might yet bring victory.

‘Listen,’ said Hsiung, ‘and closely. You do not have to die with me. Join those on the beach below who wish to surrender. I will not think less of you. Life is a precious thing.’

As he said it, Hsiung recollected the joy and comfort he had felt when entwined in Ying-ge’s warm limbs, the scent of her soft skin and reflection of her eyes in candlelight. How like a dream those joys seemed. For all he knew she had betrayed him like her cowardly cousin, Won-du. Yet it did not seem important, a child’s quarrel or a squabble of sparrows in the eaves. All that mattered now was leaving without shame and disgrace. Perhaps his bodyguard shared the same fear for none threw down their weapons.

Darkness was gathering over the Middle Kingdom. The burning battleship cast an eerie light.

‘They are coming, Your Highness!’ cried one of the soldiers.

So they were. At least fifty heavily-armoured men in small boats. Hsiung responded by seizing his bow and loosing an arrow. Then forty-nine were coming.

Half an hour later the last of the landing party fell to a blow from the Noble Count’s sword. Dozens lay wounded on the beach and stone steps. Dozens more would never stir again, including his bodyguard. It amazed him that the Mongols had not loosed a rain of arrows or even a few thunderclap bombs and settled the matter in moments. Evidently they wished to take him alive. All his own arrows were gone, his halberd broken. Gashes lay across his chest and outer thigh. He struggled to remain upright, waiting for the last assault. At first he considered suicide, after all, it was an honourable end. But the sight of the young men who had sacrificed themselves so he could die fighting stayed his hand.

It was night now. In the distance Hsiung could still see what remained of the rebel fleet burning. No, he did not wish to live longer than it took for those flames to die down.

More rowing boats of soldiers landed on the shingle beach. Wearily, Hsiung gripped the hilt of his long sword and took up position on top of the stone altar so his blows would have the advantage of height. Unexpectedly his mind filled with another fight, long ago. A barking, angry red dog worrying at his wounded thigh while he pounded its skull and slavering jaws. Hsiung’s heart filled with a peculiar intensity. He had become a
xia
, after all, Yun Shu’s brave
xia,
while Teng was his Noble Chancellor, a model of wisdom and integrity! Pine, bamboo and plum! So it seemed no defeat at all to wait on the altar stone and cut the first man down like a wild, red dog, though scores more followed.

9
^th
Day, 9
^th
Month, 1322

Twilight had long passed when Hsiung was dragged down from the altar on Eye Rock by a dozen grasping, frantic hands. Across the lake, up on the cliffs of Monkey Hat Hill, peace filled the overgrown lanes and houses. Or, at least, a quiet punctuated by owls and the cries of nocturnal creatures. Among them were the refugees from Cloud Abode Monastery, sheltering in the old gardens of Deng Mansions.

Yun Shu had tried to make the best of her people’s situation. At least the night was mild, warm enough to ignore if swaddled in a blanket. Nevertheless, she ordered the servants to build fires and prepare rice, though their stock could only last a week or so. After that? She dared not think so far.

Nearby, revealed by the flickering light of the cooking fires, stood the earth mound raised in imitation of Holy Mount Chang. All that remained of the Deng clan’s many-roomed mansion, apart from rectangles of ash already obscured by ferns and swift-growing bamboo. Yun Shu could not help remembering her triumph on the real Mount Chang. A half-forgotten dream.

Bo-Bai ordered the old scholar’s stretcher to be laid beside the stairs winding round the miniature mountain. As he looked up at the wooden pavilion, Deng Nan-shi began to sob. Harsh, wrenching grunts that tore at Yun Shu’s heart. She took the old man’s hand. He regained control and stuttered an apology for inconveniencing her.

‘You cannot know how this pavilion saved my life,’ he said, ‘and that of my dear wife. But really, we were saved by a brave infantry officer who sired a brave son. That is how it is with us Dengs. Heaven always sends someone to save us.’

He relapsed into one of the coughing fits that frequently convulsed his lungs until he whooped for desperate breath.

‘Carry me there,’ he whispered, when the cough became a rattle.

‘Honoured Sir,’ began Yun Shu, meaning to dissuade him. She glanced up to find a man beside her, wearing a traveller’s rough clothes and strong leather boots. At his side hung a sword. From his belt, a leather bag of writing equipment.

‘I shall do as my father requests,’ said Teng. ‘If you could arrange blankets for a comfortable bed I would be grateful. No more is needed.’

Deng Nan-shi’s chuckle of satisfaction at his son’s sudden appearance became another whooping fit. Teng knelt beside the old man, watching gravely.

‘Are you ready now, Honoured Father?’ he asked.

‘Yes … Good boy … Help me there.’

Despite the concern of all around him, the venerable scholar struggled upright, aided by Teng. Together they climbed the short way to the top of the model mountain. Bo-Bai lit the way with a flickering lamp, Yun Shu following with a large armful of blankets. Lady Lu Si came next with a bowl of warm rice and another of coarse wine. While Teng propped his father upright, pillowing his back with a bag of old clothes, Bo-Bai made up a bed of blankets.