Sandalwood Death (45 page)

The palanquin crossed the Masang River stone bridge and headed toward Masang Township’s western gate along a badly pitted dirt road. It was the middle of the day, but the gate was tightly shut. Broken bricks and shards of roof tiles had been piled atop a rammed-earth wall, behind which men with knives and spears and clubs were on the move. Flapping high above the gateway was an apricot banner embroidered with the large single word YUE, representing the Song Dynasty hero Yue Fei. Young men in red kerchiefs and sashes, their faces smeared with a red substance, kept guard over the banner.

The Magistrate’s palanquin was lowered to the ground in front of the gate. He stepped out, bent slightly at the waist. A voice from high up on the gateway demanded:

“Who comes calling?”

“Magistrate Qian of Gaomi County.”

“What is the purpose of your visit?”

“To see Sun Bing.”

“Our Supreme Commander is practicing martial skills and is unavailable.”

With a sardonic little laugh, the Magistrate said:

“Yu Xiaoqi, you can stop putting on airs for my benefit. When you held a gambling party last year, I spared you from the obligatory forty lashes for the sake of your seventy-year-old mother. You haven’t forgotten that, have you?”

With a smirk, Yu Xiaoqi replied:

“I have taken the place of the Song general Yang Zaixing.”

“I don’t care if you’ve taken the place of the Jade Emperor, you are still Yu Xiaoqi. Summon Sun Bing, and be quick about it. Otherwise, the next time I see you will be in the yamen when you are getting the lashes you deserve.”

“Wait here,” Yu Xiaoqi said. “I’ll take a message in for you.”

Wearing an inscrutable smile, the Magistrate glanced at his attendants. They are nothing but simple farm boys, he was thinking.

Sun Bing, wearing a long white gown and a silver helmet adorned with a pair of stage-prop plumes, appeared in the gateway. He was still carrying his date-wood club.

“Visitor at our city wall, state your name!”

“Sun Bing, oh, Sun Bing,” the Magistrate said sarcastically, “you still know how to put on a show.”

“The Supreme Commander does not converse with the unidentified. I repeat, state your name!”

“Sun Bing, you are truly lawless. Hear me out. I am a representative of the Great Qing Empire, Gaomi County Magistrate Qian Ding, with the style name Yuanjia.”

“So, it is the trifling Magistrate of Gaomi County,” Sun Bing remarked. “Why have you come here instead of functioning as a good official in your yamen?”

“Will you let me be a good official, Sun Bing?”

“As Supreme Commander, my only concern is to exterminate the foreigners. I have neither the time nor the interest to bother with an insignificant County Magistrate.”

“Exterminating the foreigners is what I have come to see you about. Open the gate and let me in. We will both be losers if their army decides to come.”

“Whatever you have to say, you can say it from out there. I can hear you.”

“What I have to say is extremely confidential. I must talk to you privately.”

After a thoughtful pause, Sun Bing said:

“All right, but just you.”

The Magistrate stepped back into his palanquin.

“Raise the chair!” he ordered.

“The chair stays outside!”

The Magistrate parted the curtain.

“As a representative of the Imperial Court,” he said, “I am expected to be carried in.”

“All right, but only the chair.”

The Magistrate turned to the head of his military escort. “Wait for me out here.”

“Excellency,” Chunsheng and Liu Pu said as they held on to the shafts, “you must not go in there alone.”

The Magistrate smiled.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “Supreme Commander Yue is a sensible man. He will not do injury to this official.”

With a series of loud creaks, the gate opened inward to permit the Magistrate’s palanquin to enter, swaying from side to side. The musketeers and archers of the escort attempted to storm their way in after him, only to be pelted by rubble raining down from atop the wall. When they took aim at their attackers, the Magistrate ordered them to lower their weapons.

The palanquin passed through the newly reinforced wooden gate and was quickly enveloped in the heavy fragrance of pine oil. Through gaps in the bamboo screen, he spotted half a dozen furnaces that had been set up on either side of the street, the fires kept red-hot by large bellows. Local blacksmiths were hard at work forging swords, their clanging hammers sending sparks flying. Women and children walked up and down the street with flatbreads and leeks stripped of their hard skins; lights flashed in the eyes of the glum-looking women. A little boy with tufted hair and an exposed belly who was carrying a steaming black clay pot cocked his head to gape at the Magistrate’s palanquin, then suddenly raised his juvenile voice in a rhythmic Maoqiang aria:
“A cold, cold day and heavy snow~~northwest winds up my sleeves do blow~~”
The boy’s high-pitched voice made the Magistrate laugh, but what came next was a dose of bone-chilling sorrow. Reminded of the German soldiers who drilled alongside cannons lined up on the Tongde Academy grounds, the Magistrate took a hard look at the ignorant Masang Township residents, who had been whipped into a state of fanaticism by the bewitching black arts of Sun Bing, and he was struck by feelings of obligation to rescue them from their plight. The sonorous inflections of a pledge rang out in his mind—what the First Lady had said made perfect sense: at this critical, perilous juncture, he must reject all thoughts of dying, whether in the name of the nation or of the people. To seek death at this moment would be shameful and cowardly. A world in turmoil gives rise to great men, and it is incumbent upon me to take a lesson from Lord Wenzheng, who defied difficulties and laughed at danger, who fought to save desperate situations and liberate the masses from peril. Sun Bing, you bastard, you have led thousands of Masang residents into the jaws of death, all to satisfy your thirst for personal vengeance, and I am morally and legally bound to see that you are punished.

Sun Bing rode ahead of the Magistrate’s palanquin on a dejected-looking chestnut horse. Its harness had rubbed the hair off the starving animal’s forelegs, exposing the green-tinted skin. Bits of watery excrement hung on the bony hindquarters of what the Magistrate easily identified as a plow horse, a pitiful animal taken from the fields to become Supreme Commander Yue’s personal mount. A young man with a red-painted face led the way, hopping and bouncing down the street with a shiny club that looked like a hoe handle, while a more somber young man, whose face was painted black, walked behind the horse carrying his own shiny club, also, apparently, a hoe handle. The Magistrate assumed that they had fashioned themselves after combatants in the novel
The Story of Yue Fei
, with Zhang Bao leading the way and Wang Heng bringing up the rear. Sun Bing sat tall in the saddle, reins in one hand and date-wood club in the other, his every stylized move and affected gesture the sort that a man might make astride a great galloping charger as he guarded a frontier pass under a chilly moon or while crossing vast open plains—What a shame, the Magistrate was thinking, that all the man had was an old nag with loose bowels, and that he was riding down a dusty, narrow street on which hens pecked at food and spindly dogs ran loose. The palanquin followed Sun Bing and his guards up to the bend in a dried-out river in the heart of the township, where the Magistrate was treated to the sight of hundreds of men in red kerchiefs and sashes sitting quietly on the dry riverbed, like an array of clay figurines. Other men in bright garb sat on a platform made of piled-up bricks in front of the seated men, intoning funereal strains of Maoqiang opera at the top of their lungs, the meaning virtually incomprehensible to the Magistrate, a celebrated graduate of the metropolitan examination:
A black tornado blows in from the south~~a white cat spirit set free by Grand Commander Hong in camp~~white cat spirits, oh, white cat spirits~~white coats and red eyes~~intent on sucking our blood dry~~most exalted Laozi, appear in our midst~~train the magic fists as protectors of the Great Qing~~slaughter the white cat spirits~~skin them, gouge out their eyes, and light the heavenly lamp~~
Sun Bing dismounted in front of a makeshift mat shed. The horse shook its dirty, ratty mane and began to wheeze as it bent its hind legs and released a burst of watery excrement. Zhang Bao stepped back and tied the horse’s reins to a dried-up old willow tree; Wang Heng took the club from Sun Bing, who glanced back at the palanquin with an expression that seemed to the Magistrate to be a cross between arrogance and doltishness. The carriers laid down their shafts and pulled back the curtain for the Magistrate, who scooped up the hem of his official robe and stepped out. Head high and chest thrust out, Sun Bing entered the shed, followed by the Magistrate.

The tent was illuminated by a pair of candles, whose light fell on the image of an idol on one of the walls. Pheasant tail feathers rose above the head of the figure, which was clad in a ministerial python robe and sported a magnificent beard, looking a little like Sun Bing and a lot like the Magistrate. Thanks to his relationship with Sun Meiniang, the Magistrate knew quite a bit about the history of Maoqiang opera, and he immediately recognized the image as that of Chang Mao, the school’s founder, who had somehow been appropriated as the revered Taoist protector of Sun Bing’s Boxers of Righteous Harmony. Upon entering the tent, the Magistrate was greeted by intimidating sounds and the sight of eight wild-looking youths, four on each side of the image. Half had black faces, half had red; half were dressed in black, half in red. Their clothing rustled in the stirred-up air, as if made of paper, and when he took a closer look, he saw that that’s exactly what it was. Each was holding a club, the shiny surfaces indicative of hoe handles. They served to further diminish the Magistrate’s respect for Sun Bing. Can’t you manage something new, something fresh, Sun Bing? After all this time and energy, the best you can come up with is some tired old rural opera tricks. And yet he knew that the Germans did not share his disdain; nor did the Imperial Court or Excellency Yuan. Nor, for that matter, did the three thousand residents of Masang Township, the youthful attendants in the tent, or their leader, Sun Bing.

Following a ragged series of shouts announcing the discussion of military matters by Supreme Commander Yue, Sun Bing strutted over to a rosewood chair and swayed his way into it. With a dramatic flair, he intoned hoarsely:

“State your name, visitor!”

With a sarcastic laugh, the Magistrate said:

“Sun Bing, that’s enough of your insatiable play-acting. I have come neither to listen to you sing opera nor to share the stage with you. I have come to tell you that either the cinders are hot or the fire is.”

“Who do you think you are, speaking to the Supreme Commander like that?” Zhang Bao, the horse preceder, said, pointing his club at the Magistrate. “Our Supreme Commander leads an army of tens of thousands, men and horses, unimaginably greater than anything you can boast of!”

“I trust you haven’t forgotten, Sun Bing,” the Magistrate said as he stroked his beard and stared at Sun Bing’s scarred and scabby chin, “how you lost your beard.”

“I always knew that it was you, you double-dealer,” Sun Bing raged. “I also know that prior to our battle of the beards, you—crafty, petty tyrant that you are—treated your beard with a mixture of ashes and a glue-like substance, which is the only way you could have beaten me. Losing is one thing, but you had no right to pluck out my beard after pardoning me.”

“Would you like to know who really did it?” the Magistrate asked with a smile.

“It had to be you.”

“Right,” the Magistrate replied calmly. “Without doubt, you had the better beard, and if I hadn’t taken precautions, you would surely have won. I pardoned you to show the people that I am a generous, forgiving man. Then I covered my face that night and ripped the beard off your face in order to quell your arrogance and turn you into an obedient member of society.”

“You dog!” Sun Bing pounded his fist on the table and jumped to his feet enraged. “Grab this lousy dog of an official, men, and pluck out his beard! My chin has become barren thanks to you, and I am going to turn yours into the Gobi Desert!”

Zhang Bao and Wang Heng raised their clubs threateningly and bore down upon the Magistrate, aided by shouts from the wild youngsters.

“I am an official representative of the Imperial Court,” the Magistrate warned them, “dignified and properly assigned. Don’t you dare so much as touch a single hair on my body!”

“I curse the merciless, insignificant little Qian Ding~~In your role you are a moth that has flown into the fire, fallen into a trap, landed in my hand~~a blood debt will be paid on this day~~”
With the Maoqiang aria on his lips, Sun Bing charged, raised his club high over his head, yelled “You rat . . . !” took aim at the Magistrate’s head, and swung mightily.

Calmly, the Magistrate moved backward, easily sidestepping the blow, and grabbed hold of the offending club, pushing it ahead of him and forcing Sun Bing down on all fours. Zhang Bao and Wang Heng raised their clubs and swung in the direction of the Magistrate’s head; he dodged their blows with a cat-like leap backward and then sprang forward like a leopard, causing the two heads to bang together with a loud thud. Somehow both of their clubs landed in his hands. With his left he hit Zhang Bao, and with his right Wang Heng. “You damned freaks,” he cursed, “get out of my sight!” The two men shrieked and scampered out of the shed, holding their heads in their hands. With them out of the way, the Magistrate tossed one of the clubs away, but held on to the other. “And you little freaks,” he cursed, “are you waiting for me to do the same to you, or will you clear out on your own?” Seeing how fast the tide had turned, the eight wild youngsters took the latter course, some throwing down their clubs, others dragging theirs out the door with them.

The Magistrate grabbed Sun Bing by the neck and lifted him off the ground.