Breaking Bamboo (37 page)

When he reached the ornamental gate leading into Black Tortoise Street, doubts set in. Perhaps no one would remember the little boy from distant Chunming Province or even Dr Ou-yang and his daughter. Guang sensed the fragility of one’s hold on places and thought ruefully of his sacrifices for the sake of Nancheng. But surely the people of the Twin Cities would never cease to hail him as Captain Xiao or feel an obligation towards him.

Black Tortoise Street was a bustling thoroughfare, lined with booths and small restaurants serving cordials. Banners hung outside many establishments, promising noble benefits.

Apothecaries were marked out by dried calabashes above their doors. It was to one of these that Guang made his way.

A man stood in the doorway, surveying the crowded street.

As the tall soldier advanced upon him, the shopkeeper blinked at him in surprise. Then he leaned forward to look more closely, agitation evident on his face.

‘Sir!’ called out Guang. ‘A word with you!’

The man’s eyes flicked anxiously towards a particular gateway. Otherwise he tried to ignore Guang, who frowned at such discourtesy.

‘Sir! I seek a. . .’

‘Is it really you?’ asked the shopkeeper in amazement.

‘As I say,’ said Guang. ‘I seek. . .’

‘Why are you here?’ broke in the man. ‘Leave before they see you!’

‘What?’

‘Go now!’ hissed the man, retreating into his shop.

The door closed. Guang was left speechless on the pavement.

He paced further up the street to the gateway that had drawn the shopkeeper’s glance. It was a doctor’s shop. The sign read:

‘House of Ou-yang Wen: Health From Cradle To Grave.’

Guang stepped into the courtyard and at once the brightness of the street was replaced by shadow. He smelt bitter medicines, confused with sweet, cloying floral scents. A young lad swept the small courtyard.

‘Is Dr Ou-yang here?’ asked Guang.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Then fetch him.’

Guang waited uncertainly. No doubt this Dr Ou-yang was a relative of Shih’s former master. He knew from Cao that the old doctor had died soon after their marriage. Suddenly he realised how little he knew of her family. It was a topic Cao and Shih answered with silence.

When Dr Ou-yang appeared in the doorway, fastening his silk girdle as though after a nap, the man froze. He was un -

usually ugly, squat as a toad, and this gave him a kind of distinction. Guang’s polite bow of greeting was cut rudely short.

‘You!’ accused the man.

At last Guang grasped what should have been obvious at once.

‘You do not understand,’ he began, eager to explain he was not Shih.

In doing so, he rested his hand on the pommel of his sword.

At once Dr Ou-yang recoiled fearfully and ducked back inside the house. The door slammed behind him, followed by a sound of bolts.

Guang debated his next move. Things were evidently happening in the house, for he could hear raised voices. Then the door was flung open and Guang saw six men carrying clubs and wooden staves. At their head, a sour-faced old man in a splendid red silk dressing gown decorated with staring fish. His eyes flicked contemptuously over Guang’s uniform.

‘Do not think
that
will protect you, Yun Shih!’ he cried. ‘Do not think your crimes are forgotten. Now I know why that official from the guild out west came asking after you! To the magistrate you will go! Thief and rapist!’

‘Sir, you are quite at fault. . .’ began Guang angrily, until an uncomfortable thought silenced him. He reeled inwardly. These men wished to arraign Shih for capital crimes. Perhaps his brother was guilty. The shopkeeper at the pharmacy evidently believed so. Then there were the strange circumstances, never properly explained, of Shih setting up his practice thousands of
li
from his former master. Guang began to back towards the gatehouse. Encouraged by his apparent loss of nerve, his opponents stepped forward.

‘We shall carry him to the magistrate ourselves!’ called out the old man.

‘Fetch the Watch, Father!’ urged the ugly Dr Ou-yang. ‘He has a weapon!’

In a moment they would rush him. Guang drew his sword. It glittered dully in the shadowy courtyard.

‘Come closer,’ he urged, quietly, stepping towards them.

They halted and looked into his eyes. Then they retreated a few steps, murmuring among themselves. Guang stepped backwards calmly into the street, gently closing the door behind him. For a long moment there was no pursuit. It gave him precious time to sprint down Black Tortoise Street, knocking over a wheelbarrow piled with melons on his way. Voices rose from Dr Ou-yang’s gateway: ‘Stop him! Fetch the Watch!’ Then Guang was running down alleyways, under lines of drying clothes between tenement blocks, past urchins and gossiping housewives who stared as he tore by. He dared not slow his pace. Despite his head start, Guang could hear sounds of pursuit.

He had grown wiry and nimble in the wars. Soon he out-paced his persecutors. At last he found his way blocked by a canal. There seemed to be no one behind him. He hailed a passing boatman, requesting passage to the wharf-side of the West Lake. Soon he was being paddled into a mass of other small boats where he disappeared.

Within moments two panting young men wearing the robes of medical apprentices arrived. They stood gasping for breath until the voice of a beggar who had been crouching in the shadows beneath an awning, called out: ‘You look for a tall man? I know where he went!’

*

An hour later, Guang gazed at a low pavilion by the lakeside in amazement. It was as though Chen Song had sensed a deep wish.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked.

‘Quite,’ said Chen Song, complacently. ‘Your glorious ancestor Yun Cai lived here at the height of his early fame.’

‘The pavilion is surrounded by other buildings,’ said Guang.

‘Great-grandfather’s poems describe it as standing alone, encircled by a deer park.’

‘That was a hundred years ago.’

‘This is truly Goose Pavilion?’

‘Your noble ancestor will clap immortal hands as you enter,’ said Chen Song.

Guang fervently hoped so. It might help to dispel unpleasant recollections of Black Tortoise Street.

Goose Pavilion had become a lodge for travellers to the capital, part of an elegant lakeside inn. The tariffs were high but Guang would have paid twice what the innkeeper asked. He found out from a garrulous servant that the original Goose Pavilion had perished by fire fifty years previously, so that nothing remained of Great-grandfather’s haunt but its name. He chose not to mention this fact to Chen Song in case it embarrassed him.

At least Goose Pavilion was pleasant. Several days passed without word from Wang Bai, who remained in the Palace debating the rescue of the Twin Cities. Although Guang sometimes chafed at his role as bodyguard when he should be defending those he held dear, at least there was honour in the importance of their mission. Wang Ting-bo had loaded his nephew with desperate petitions and memoranda to His Imperial Highness’s First Chancellor, urging the court to send fresh supplies and troops.

Each morning Guang and Chen Song inspected their small flotilla of paddle-wheel destroyers to ensure the sailors were ready to cast off at a moment’s notice. That duty done, the day became their own.

No one they met mentioned the war far away to the west or the daily sacrifices holding back A-ku’s horde. The low hills surrounding the West Lake framed slow, exquisite sunsets.

Flocks of water-fowl rose and wheeled over the water. Mongols were unreal to the people here.

Guang spent many hours staring at the West Lake, as he suspected Great-grandfather Yun Cai had done. Yet his thoughts were far less noble or lofty than his ancestor’s. He often found himself gazing at artfully-dressed ladies who reclined in pleasure craft. Sometimes he drowsed and dreamt of Lu Ying, recollecting their last meeting in Shih’s medicine shop with peculiar clarity. Wang Ting-bo’s letter had hinted she might be recalled to Peacock Hill soon, though it set no dates; and surely the increased grant of grain and other rations he was sending each day implied a return to favour. It surprised Guang that such a prospect made him uncomfortable. Lu Ying had offended Cao and was clearly a foolish, flighty creature. Yet her parting look as he left Shih’s shop had been forlorn, not scheming. Against all sense, he found himself wanting to think well of her. And as he gazed at the lake, her striking eyes – the exact shade of precious green jade – seemed to glint on the water. It was easy to picture her graceful figure and soft limbs.

One night Guang visited a floating oriole hall with Chen Song to rid himself of Lu Ying’s image, but returned unsatisfied, troubled by imagining another woman beneath him. It was nearly midnight and a messenger in palace livery waited at Goose Pavilion.

‘Commander Yun Guang?’

He offered a letter bearing Wang Bai’s personal seal.

‘Chen Song,’ said Guang, having surveyed its hastily-written contents. ‘I must go to His Excellency in the palace. Prepare our ships to leave at dawn.’

Guang donned sword and jade waist-badges, before following the messenger through silent streets. The night was moonless and his guide lit the way with a swaying, circular lantern attached to a long bamboo pole. Instead of entering the palace by a front entrance, Guang was led round the outskirts of the Imperial City to a small gatehouse hidden behind the Bureau of Salt Revenue. Guang glanced uneasily at the high palace walls. He had no wish to enter them, especially by a back door.

The messenger knocked and whispered through a hatch to someone within. The gate swung open and six guardsmen carrying halberds with long, curved blades blocked the way.

After more whispering, the soldiers stepped aside.

Then he was conducted deep into less exalted areas of the Palace City, away from the broad avenues and gilded splendour of the Imperial family’s quarters, into a dark warren occupied by menials who carried the palace on their shoulders. Despite the late hour, he glimpsed washerwomen and lesser eunuchs bent over ignoble tasks. A line of drudges pushed a convoy of wheelbarrows transporting night soil. Without a guide he would soon have been lost. Flies and moths pursued the bobbing lantern down twisting alleyways. At last the messenger pointed at a low wooden door studded with rusty iron nails.

Guang kept a hand on the hilt of his sword as he pushed it open. A long, low-raftered chamber lay beyond. Then his fears became relief, for Wang Bai sat at a table, writing with great concentration by the light of a guttering candle. Guang noticed strain and anxiety on the older man’s usually suave face.

‘Ah,’ said Wang Bai, barely glancing up. ‘Sit on this stool beside me, so we may talk quietly.’

Guang did so. His superior sipped a cup of cold tea.

‘I smell wine on your breath,’ said Wang Bai.

‘Many apologies, sir!’

‘You are wondering why I chose to meet you here, rather than in the ambassadors’ quarters,’ he said. ‘It is because I wish our meeting to be private.’

Guang watched in surprise as Wang Bai rose and checked each window for spies.

‘Are things so bad, sir?’

‘I shall speak frankly with you, Commander Yun Guang.

You have always been loyal to my family. My mission has gone well in only one respect. The Son of Heaven’s First Chancellor has agreed to send a large fleet to re-supply the Twin Cities.

They hope to breach the blockade.’

In his excitement Guang half-rose: ‘With fresh supplies, we shall hold off the Mongols until they rot! You are our saviour, sir!’

Wang Bai showed no sign of elation.

‘The world is not so simple. I said only one aspect of my mission has been accomplished, no more. It may well be the least important.’

Guang watched as his patron rose and again checked the door. But the messenger had withdrawn a dozen paces up the alleyway and so could not eavesdrop. Wang Bai came over and bent close. Guang felt hot breath on his cheek and ear; the odours of liver and perfume. He shrank from the intensity in Wang Bai’s eyes.

‘I have a task for you,’ he said. ‘One that is quite secret.’

Guang blinked uneasily.

‘What need is there for secrecy here, sir?’ he asked. ‘Where can be safer than the Son of Heaven’s own palace?’

A hollow laugh greeted this question.

‘I merely wish you to deliver a letter and ask no questions.’

‘I shall do so, sir. On one condition.’

Wang Bai blinked in surprise.

‘
You
have conditions for
me
?

‘Forgive me, sir, but you mentioned our mission being un -

successful. My entire family are trapped in Nancheng. I would know the worst.’

Wang Bai regarded him coldly and Guang understood a judgement was being formed, one that might determine his future.

‘Very well,’ said Wang Bai. ‘Why should you not know? It will be discussed everywhere soon enough. His Imperial Highness has appointed a new Supreme Pacification Commissioner to oversee my uncle. And I have been refused the position of Vice Governor in Nancheng Province. Such a promotion, it was felt, would make the Wang family too powerful.

So our great loyalty is rewarded with ingratitude and shame.’

Guang bowed. Suddenly he wished to be far away from the palace and its intrigues, somewhere simpler and cleaner.

‘Forgive me, but could not one of the palace servants deliver this message? I should oversee the flotilla.’

‘I have spoken and that should be enough,’ replied Wang Bai, sharply. ‘There is no danger to you, none at all.’

Again Guang might have demurred. But he was used to obedience when it came to the Wang clan and placed his fists together in a salute. A thick scroll was passed over. His patron whispered urgently and Guang’s eyes widened as he grasped the strangeness of this duty.

‘Furthermore,’ added Wang Bai. ‘It must be accomplished before dawn.’

‘That is only four hours off!’

Wang Bai nodded.

‘I depart at sunrise. I recommend you join the flotilla before the fourth bell. Unless you wish to walk back to Nancheng.’

‘Yes, sir,’ he said, reluctantly.