Breaking Bamboo (5 page)

Later that morning a fat warrior rode into the village on his shaggy pony, dragging two prisoners behind, their arms and necks bound by ropes and branches shaped into yokes. Former neighbours for all Guang knew. Certainly their clothes suggested quality.

Guang turned his attention to the village. Most of the low houses seemed intact, smoke rising from the hearths. Scores of peasants were at work in the remaining fields, tilling or tending the irrigation wheels. On the far side of the valley above the village, Three-Step-House stood as always, its elegance un-diminished. This was the hardest sight, proof of right turned wrong. He examined the distant figures of servants and tried to identify them. They were too far away, in time as well as distance.

No one disturbed him in the tiny cave as the hours passed.

When he awoke, he ate the last of his rice-cakes and checked his equipment. Cautiously, before darkness fell he struck flint and tinder, aware how sound travelled in strange ways through the valley. Then he lit a small fire-pot attached to his belt.

Taking his monk’s staff, part of an elaborate disguise that had served him well on his journey through the occupied lands, he attached an iron cylinder to the end of the bamboo pole, binding it with twisted cords of hemp.

Scents of evening entered the cave. Birdsong faded.

Unexpectedly the valley’s monkeys, silent all day, began to cavort and scream. He took it as a favourable omen. Sliding his pack and staff through the overhanging entrance to the cave, he wriggled out, emerging on the ridge above Wei.

Fires glowed round the cluster of tents, but the village itself was silent beneath its curfew. There had been no curfew when Father was Lord. Surely that time would come again! Guang’s enterprise at the shrine could only bring it closer. Heaven loved the filial, and the scroll in his pouch was a crossbow loaded with piety. He padded into the night, a shadow moving between pine and pawlonia trees and stands of rustling bamboo.

*

Crossing the valley proved simple. Perhaps too simple. Were they were waiting for him to reveal himself? One could take no chances with demons. It was well-known their shamans used human bones and spells to detect enemies. Yet finding the old, familiar paths proved easy. He circled round Three-Step-House where fires flickered in the courtyard and drunken men squatted and jabbered, stealing through the darkness to a grove on the hillside above the house.

Silence of night, glow of fire-flies. Heaven’s constellations lent significance to every movement. His had been a harsh, disappointed life, yet now Guang felt powerful as though destiny guided his steps.

In this mood he found the ancestral shrine built by Great-great-grandfather – a famous hero of the struggles against the Kin barbarians a century earlier – to celebrate his ennoblement.

Here Great-grandfather Yun Cai also rested, a poet still honoured throughout the Empire though sixty years dead.

After him little glory had been added to the Yun family name.

He remembered Grandfather as a shrewd but kindly man, well-respected by the peasants.

As for Father. . . Lord Yun had been woven from a coarser yarn. For all the old man’s failings, it still sickened Guang to think he did not sleep among their ancestors. No one knew where the old man’s bones lay.

After the first exhilaration of arrival he examined the shrine.

Grass grew high round the walls and the door hung askew on its hinges. Broad leaves from the pawlonia trees and old pine needles littered the flat roof. Something glinted in the starlight and he stooped. A sliver of carved jade, broken but recognisable: the tablet of Great-grandfather’s daughter, Little Peony, who had died long ago in infancy. The Mongols had defiled her spirit’s eternal resting place for a little sport. Unaccustomed tears clouded his eyes. How low his family had fallen! They had been debased. Anger confused shame and guilt. Yet he had a remedy.

Pushing aside the broken door to the shrine he bowed and entered.

The darkness was absolute. Here past and future met. He could not bear such darkness. Fumbling in his pack, he found a candle and lit it from the fire-pot at his belt. He leant his staff against the wall, well away from the flame. The low room danced with uncertain light.

A survey of the Yun clan’s mausoleum made Guang’s breath hiss. The heart of all he was, all he might ever be, had been despoiled! The tablets of the dead lay in shards on the damp earth. Beside them lay dried-out human excrement.

The candle flickered. Trembling, he extracted the scroll from his pouch and unrolled it in the dim light. Here was why he had undertaken this terrible journey, the weeks of fear as he travelled on foot from town to town through lands still stricken by war. Once he had been forced to hide amidst the submerged shoots of a paddy field, only his nose and mouth above water while a Mongol patrol searched for him, prodding the water with lances and sticks.

Guang lifted the candle and closed his eyes, remembering far away Nancheng.

Four months earlier a different candle had flickered in his twin brother’s medicine shop. It revealed two unusually tall men, almost identical in appearance except that one was slim and delicate, the other swollen with muscle. One possessed an officer’s tufty beard and extravagant long hair while his counter part was clean-shaven. This slim man wore a doctor’s robes.

The other’s faded silks were cut in a military style.

It had been midnight. Empty flasks of cheap wine stood on the table between them, arranged into a neat lotus pattern by Shih. They were wild with wine, beyond all sense. At least, one of them had been.

‘We should deliver a letter to our ancestors, asking for guidance!’ Guang had roared at Shih. ‘Everyone is doing it!

Now Father is dead we have no one to intercede on our behalf with Heaven. They say such a letter should be read aloud to the tablets of one’s ancestors. Ensign Liu did it last month. He was promoted within days!’

Shih sipped his wine.

‘Of course that is impossible for us,’ he had replied, patiently. ‘Our ancestral shrine lies deep within lands held by the enemy.’

‘Impossible? Nothing is impossible for a man of spirit! I’ll do it myself. My present commission is ended. Why shouldn’t I?’

Shih had smiled.

‘Because a hundred thousand Mongols stand between you and Wei Valley.’

‘By my honour, Shih, write this letter and I’ll deliver it! That is my oath. I will prove to Father’s ghost that I am worthy.’

‘We should sleep and hope the Jade Emperor forgets your rash words.’

‘No, I swear! What should such a letter say?’

Then his brother had laughed as though at a bitter joke and declared: ‘Let us ask Heaven why it chose to deny Father’s heir his inheritance.’

‘Fetch paper!’ cried Guang. ‘As Eldest Son I desire my inheritance above everything. Write it down.’

‘You
are
drunk.’

‘Write it down, I say!’

Finally Shih had mixed ink and taken up a brush, not expecting what would follow. Guang hated to judge his only brother harshly, but as an officer he had learned it was dangerous to flinch from painful truths concerning a subordinate’s character.

And though he found much kindness in his twin brother, there was something irresolute about Shih, some inner weakness Guang could not name, yet distrusted.

As dawn crept through the silent streets of Nancheng, brushing closed eyelids and paper curtains, slipping through the windows of Dr Shih’s surgery, the letter urging their ancestors to restore the Yun clan’s lost prosperity was completed.

‘This is a poor drinking game,’ said Shih, laying aside his brush. ‘We would have done better to compose verses.’

But the letter had been written. Even when drunk, Shih’s writing was eloquent and precise.

‘I will deliver this to Wei Valley personally,’ Guang had vowed. ‘Then they will take notice!’

‘Go to bed,’ urged Shih.

‘I have given my oath,’ he declared, half-afraid of its enormity. ‘For Father’s sake.’

Then Shih had shocked him.

‘Our letter is addressed to empty air,’ he said, so very sadly and quietly that Guang had not known how to reply. ‘Father wasn’t worth your oath. If you want guidance, step outside and pour a bucket of cold water over your head.’

Guang’s thoughts swam with wine. How dare Shih tell him what to do? Authority from a younger brother bordered on insolence. If he chose, as family head, he could force his younger brother to kneel before him – that was the law. Yet anger swirled into quite another mood. He felt like weeping.

All he wanted was that Shih, so long estranged, so stupidly a stranger, should love him and forget the folly that had kept them apart most of their lives.

So, as a joke, Guang had followed Shih’s advice, pouring not one but ten buckets of water over his head until the occupants of Apricot Corner Court laughed and cheered him on. Even Cao forgave him for keeping her husband awake all night with his rumpus. Yet he had remembered his vow. A reckless desire to prove himself better than other men lent him purpose.

‘Do not be so foolish!’ urged Shih, over and over. ‘If the Mongols capture you, they will surely execute you as a spy.

Father would weep to see his favourite son killed.’

Guang had ignored the warning. He enjoyed preparing for his journey to the West, devising tools to deceive the enemy, boasting to friends in the taverns of Nancheng of the honour he would win. After so many boasts there could be no turning back.

Now, in the mausoleum of his ancestors, Guang unrolled the scroll with trembling hands. Suddenly he felt foolish. Surely Shih was right: silence would greet their message to the dead.

Yet the darkness was full of watchful eyes, he could sense them.

And they were waiting. Clearing his throat, he peered at the characters on the scroll, illumined by the flickering candlelight.

‘I, Yun Guang, head of our clan, bring you most respectful greetings, so that you might report our welfare to the Jade Emperor’s secretary.’

Nothing stirred. No sign he was heard. He cleared his throat again.

‘Although our home has fallen to the barbarians, we still strive to emulate your illustrious example. We beg forgiveness that we have no sons. Did you benefit from our sacrifices for your souls over the last year? We fear that because they took place so far from Wei, they are ineffectual. Did you come to take the offerings we made at morning and evening on the first and fifteenth days of each month? If they displeased you, we beg forgiveness.’

He paused. Listened. It occurred to him that any enemies on the prowl outside must hear his droning voice.

‘Honoured ancestors, I come to the purpose of this letter. We supplicate that you assist your family still alive in the Middle Kingdom. Let me, Yun Guang, gain the promotion merited by my labours in the Emperor’s service. Arrange a fresh commission for me, I beg you, by interceding with the ancestral spirits of those who promote and demote. Your other descendent, Yun Shih, asks only for sons so the family rites may continue, or failing that, a daughter. If you agree to these requests, we entreat that you show your goodwill without delay.’

He lowered the letter, rolled it tightly, and placed it solemnly in an alcove choked by cobwebs. Then he waited for a sign. His heart beat anxiously. Oh, they had heard him, he was sure of it! Why did they not speak? Had he risked his life for no reward? Moments lengthened. The look of deference he had worn while reading the letter hardened into a frown, then an ugly scowl. So this was their verdict! That he and Shih were unworthy. Well, they were wrong, a thousand times wrong!

Guang drew himself up proudly as he had before hostile superiors when opposing their decisions.

‘You are fools to scorn us!’ he said, haughtily. ‘We are your only hope.’

Then he froze. Instinctively snuffed the candle. There were voices outside. Groping in the dark, he reached out for his thick bamboo staff and held it tight, listening to the night.

*

One of the voices was drunk, slurring words in a barbarous language. The other, a girl with a Wei accent, protested fearfully.

‘No! Please, not here!’

So
this
was his ancestors’ reply: a reminder of their wretched shame. Abruptly, his mood became cruel and cold. He restrained an urge to dash outside and set about them. It was clear from the girl’s cries and the Mongol’s chuckling grunts what was going on. As he waited in the dark Guang’s mouth twitched like a cat’s tail.

Now he could hear heavy, laboured breaths. The wall of the mausoleum received rhythmic thuds, mirrored by the girl’s squeals. Dust drifted from the ceiling. Guang knew that he should wait until they went away. That was the safest thing.

Instead, as the thudding reached a climax, he twisted the rope handle in the middle of his staff and there was a quiet creaking noise. Inch by inch, something sharp and smeared with black paste emerged from the very tip of the bamboo pole. He checked the metal canister and fuse lashed onto the side of the end section of the staff. Then he pulled up a scarf to cover his face, crept to the doorway and slipped out.

The Mongol had the girl pinned against the wall of the family shrine. Guang recognised her as one of the old bailiff’s daughters. In the starlight he glimpsed her ravisher’s hairy, muscular legs.

The man was tall for one of them, dressed in expensive silks.

He possessed the shaved tonsure and pigtails customary among their kind; the usual flat, ugly nose and cold, narrow eyes beneath heavy, brooding lids. The girl’s own eyes opened wide as she saw Guang. The Mongol was chuckling again, cooing affectionate words. For a strange moment Guang felt he was somehow wrong to interrupt their love-game.

Then he cleared his throat with exaggerated delicacy. The Mongol paused, turning to see who had interrupted him.

The speed of his next movement surprised Guang. The barbarian leapt straight at him. He barely had time to swing the spear and twist the poisoned blade.

When the girl stopped weeping he questioned her. She gazed up at him fearfully, glancing frequently at the dead Mongol as though afraid he might come to life. Guang resisted an urge to reassure her. Perhaps she was grieving for her lover. If so, she deserved only scorn. He shook her hard by the arm.