Swords From the East (32 page)

"Who are you, uncle?" said the officer a little uncertainly.

"I am Ye Lui Kutsai Mingan, prince of the district of Liao-tung."

"The Prince of Liao-tung was carried off by devils in the reign of the late emperor. You are a crazy man. It is true that the crazy man hopes the heavens will fall; the poor man hopes for a riot."

With an effort Mingan restrained his impatience. He was suffering. The gray stallion had died under him before he reached the sands on his long ride. He had bartered the mare and his sword for a camel, had crossed the desert, exchanged his worn-out Bactrian for a swift-footed pony, and had foundered the animal three days ago. Thereafter, begging food of evenings, he had limped along the highway, fearing that the van of Subotai's army had caught up with him, although he had seen nothing of them. But in the last day no Chinese market carts had passed him.

Still, he was at the Wall in time-if only the officer in charge would close the gate! There were men enough on the broad summit to hold it in definitely-a hundred every arrow-shot along the parapet-squatting over their morning rice. Mingan did not like the looks of the rusty spears, or the chickens kept for dinner by some of the men-at-arms, or the cotton sun-shelters erected on spears, or the women camp-followers who strolled from group to group. His tongue was swollen in his throat from thirst, and his fingers quivered with weariness. His glance went from the Wall to the highway, and he uttered a soft exclamation.

From around the nearest turn, two miles distant, a tiny puff of dust appeared, rolling toward the wall as if blown by the wind. Mingan's eyes narrowed and he thought that black specks showed through the yellow dust.

"Look!" he cried.

The commander of a thousand looked, and his peace of mind was disturbed. He peered at the sky. No trace of warning smoke against the sheer blue. The dust was travelling too swiftly for carts or horse-sedans.

Clang! He struck the heavy gong with the bronze hammer three times-the signal to close and bar the Western Gate and take stations on the wall.

The dust was spreading out, fan-wise, on either side of the highway, as if a river in flood were surging around the turn in the road. It was little more than a mile away and already the black dots that were riders could be seen on the horses. Mongols they must be to maintain such a furious pace. But it was the sheerest folly for a sea of horsemen to dash against the rock barrier of the wall.

And then something happened below them.

As if taking alarm at the sight behind them, the cattle herders began to drive their beasts forward furiously, shouting, waving their high straw hats, beating the steers on the outer fringe of the herds. A solid mass of horned cattle was driving through the gate. The soldiers who were shoving at the massive doors of teak and iron found that the pressure of the cattle made it impossible to budge the opened gates.

They tried to turn back the stream of frantic beasts, but the herds followed the leaders blindly. Mingan, studying the herders, became convinced that they were Mongols in disguise, and the cattle were captured herds, sent to the gate purposely.

"Shoot down the beasts from the wall," he cried to the officer, who had begun to quiver in anxiety.

By the time archers lined the wall and began to direct their shafts into the bellowing masses, the Mongol attack was within a quarter of a mile. The first few riders carried smoking torches, and when these encountered the rearmost of the cattle, the beasts scattered to the sides of the road, away from the fire and smoke.

A regiment of cross-bowmen had taken station on or near the tower, and their quarrels whizzed down at the oncoming horsemen. Meanwhile, the rush of beasts through the gate had thinned out sufficiently for the laboring soldiers to move the doors forward slightly. Seeing this, one of the Mongol herders ran forward and cast himself in the path of the swinging mass of wood and iron. His body was caught and wedged between the lower edge and the earth. A dull snapping of bones was heard, and the gate ceased to move.

Mingan saw a rider, the first of the Horde, dash through the portal. He was struck from his saddle by a crossbow bolt. Another suffered the same fate. Two companies of Chinese spearmen ran forward to form inside the gate, but their ranks were broken by the rush of horses which jammed through the opening, forced forward by the weight of the column behind.

The cross-bowmen on the tower had barely loaded and wound their weapons a second time. For a mile on the western side of the Wall, groups of mounted Mongols wheeled, discharging a cloud of arrows at the summit. Shaft after shaft was released without pause, keeping the defenders engaged at a distance from the gate-tower, while the stream of horsemen passed through along the highway, wedging back the half-shut portals.

"I, unworthy," quietly spoke the officer at Mingan's side, "must now face my ancestors."

His limbs no longer trembled as, ordering the nearest commander of a hundred to hold the tower as long as possible, he turned and went down the steps with a firm tread. Pressing through the disorganized spearmen, he swung up his sword and cast himself among the ponies of the Mongols, disappearing from view almost at once.

The war shout of the Mongols rose over the clamor on the wall. A chief in resplendent attire came into view. He looked up curiously at the overhanging bulk of the arch that was no longer a barrier, and ordered the mailed swordsmen that followed him to dismount and storm the tower steps from the rear.

Mingan, already down from the wall and out of the fighting, recognized Chepe Noyon and reflected that he owed the Tiger a wager of a hundred weight of gold. He wondered, as he caught a riderless horse and threw himself into its saddle, if he were not dreaming-as in the past. No one molested the ragged, weaponless creature, and soon he was free of the throngs of fugitive soldiers and coolies. Looking back, Mingan saw that the dragon standard had been cast down from the tower, while horsemen were riding up the steps, forming a column at the summit to clear the top of defenders.

The battle of the Taitung Gate had only begun, but Mingan had seen enough to know.

The Great Wall of China had fallen.

He urged his pony into a trot and faced toward the city of Taitung to complete the last stages of his journey. He would carry the news of the disaster to the emperor.

XII

The Prophecy of the Stars

The court, however, had kept away from the western border. It was, in that never-to-be-forgotten feast of Hao, at the capital, Yen-king, which in time would come to be called Pekin. And, with the court, the Emperor Chung-hi was shut up in the palace grounds.

On the day that Mingan rode into the streets of Yen-king and crossed the bridge to the palace sector of the city, he was told that Chung-hi and his officials were listening to a new play in the Garden of Delightful Hours.

Mingan stabled his horse-he had exchanged the tired animal at a village on the highway for another beast-in one of the alleys of the fortunetellers' quarter, under the rising ground on which the palace stood.

Mingan climbed the steps toward the main entrance and looked down when he reached the gate. Yen-king, vast as a kingdom within walls, was intent on the festival. Streamers adorned the barges and junks on the gray river; processions wound through the main thoroughfares; the smoke of incense sprinkled alleys and pagoda alike.

He won past the sentries at the entrance, saying only that he was a fortune-teller. His beard and tattered garments bore out his pretense. Astrologers and trainers of canaries and dogs often came up to pray for attention from the nobles, and-this was a feast day.

"Good sirs," he bowed to the idle soldiers, "I read the stars. Let me within, to prophesy!"

His experience with the keeper of the Western Gate had taught him the uselessness of proclaiming his name and rank. As quickly as possible, without attracting attention, he moved through the walks where he had played as a boy. The sun was very hot, and few people were about. But beyond the dwellings of the queen and the imperial concubines, he found a group of slaves dressed in purple silk. They were loitering in front of the arch that gave entrance to the Garden of Delightful Hours-a new pleasure spot, an artificial hill, built, as Mingan learned later, so that the emperor could take his ease where the summer breeze could be felt.

"I have tidings from the western wall," he announced eagerly. "The barbarians have passed the wall. Let me in to the Presence."

The leader of the slaves looked up from his task of feeding a peacock. He wrinkled his nose.

"The Son of Heaven may not be disturbed. Until evening he sits before the stage of the actors."

"Dolt!" Mingan's teeth gritted behind his beard. "I have ridden from Taitung, and before that from beyond the sandy desert itself."

"Perhaps you have come also from the ten courts of purgatory," gibed the feeder of peacocks.

He extended his hand suddenly to finger Mingan's pouch and girdle for coins, fruitlessly.

"Assuredly you will be shortened by a head if you cry out like this in the hearing of the court."

The others laughed and fell to jostling the stranger. Mingan planted his feet and smiled at them.

"Honorable keepers of an exalted post, if you will not admit me, send word within that the Wall has fallen."

Laughter greeted his remark, and, with a new inspiration, the prince joined in: "You are merry, good sirs, and I would like to abide with you. But I am one of the actors in the play, and the time for my appearance on the stage is almost at hand. I must seek my companions and paint my face."

The leader of the slaves grimaced cunningly.

"A blind cat can smell a dead rat! The players are all within-aye, even the one that takes the part of a barbarian Tatar, a most evil person whom you somewhat resemble."

Surveying Mingan's remnants of Mongol dress, however, he pursed his lips thoughtfully.

"Are you another-"

"Tatar," nodded Mingan. "And if the emperor is kept waiting you will all sleep this night in the city of old age-the burial ground. Ha-do you misdoubt me? Did I not take the part of a rider from the steppe, with news? Aye, mark you well-now I am a courtier of Liao-tung."

He stood erect with folded arms and spoke a few words in the dialect of the educated classes. Observing the effect on the attendants, he changed swiftly to Mongol gutturals.

The slaves were convinced. No one, they thought, but an actor of merit could assume such varied roles. Mingan passed up the steps to the highest terrace of the garden.

It was of vast extent. Here and there among the rose-beds groups of palace handmaidens sat, and guards rested in the shade. In the center, under a circle of canopies, the emperor and his courtiers listened to the declamation of the players on a bare stage in front of a clump of cypresses. Mingan surveyed the scene, frowning.

He could not penetrate the ranks of nobility, nor, if he did so, would he be permitted to speak to Chung-hi. He must devise some way to catch the emperor's attention.

Suddenly he smiled to himself and, circling the groups of people, sought out the clump of trees that stood at the edge of the terrace. Behind them was a drop of a dozen feet. On a lawn below sat a half-dozen actors-jugglers, flame-swallowers, and the like. Mingan judged that the players of the piece were all on stage, to which a bamboo ladder gave access from the lawn below. It led through the cypresses to the back of the stage.

Mingan descended hastily to the idle performers and, paying no attention to their stares, appropriated a pair of the shoes customarily worn by actors. When he had done this, he daubed his cheeks and forehead with red and gilt paint.

"What is this?" one of the mountebanks spoke up. "The Tatar of the play is already on the stage-"

"But I am not," smiled Mingan. He took advantage of the other's hesitation to step to the ladder and climb the rungs. The tinkle of the orchestra became clearer, in tune with the drone of someone's voice.

Pushing aside the branches of the screening trees, Mingan strode out on the stage. Only one actor was within view of the audience-a man, dressed as a woman of the court, who was reciting some verses that were apparently of an amusing nature. The rest of the company, hidden behind branches of the cypresses that served as wings to the stage, hissed at Mingan angrily. The "woman," surprised, ceased speaking.

Mingan stepped to the front center. The music-a wailing of reed-pipes, fiddles, and drums-went on because, according to custom, the orchestra was made up of blind men. Schooled in the manners of the stage, it was easy for the prince to invent a verse in accord with the music-

Then came his introduction, as usage prescribed.

"I am a poor prince of Cathay, taken prisoner by the barbarians in my youth and forced to leave my beloved books for the pursuits of a warrior on the plain. From the ward of the barbarians I have learned many things not written in the books of the sages, and now in the hour of my empire's danger, I have come hither in the hope that I may take my place in the ranks of Cathay."

The other actor was staring at him in blank dismay, and the watchers under the canopies stirred with curiosity. Mingan's appearance had broken up the play most effectively, but he had the interest of the court, and that was what he wanted. The music changed to a harsher note, and the prince followed it out. Stamping one high-booted foot, he looked around as if searching for something he did not see.