The Concubine's Daughter (43 page)

“Here by the lake, there is no need of clocks. The birds will wake you and the nightingale will sing you to sleep. Have no more fear for the little one. I will go to the camp below to find a milk-mother. Tomorrow I will carve a crib from the heart of a peach tree. It will bring me great joy.”

Behind him, through a narrow gap in the mat wall, a human eye watched, unblinking. When Old To had replaced the chest and the old woman was silent, Ah-Keung, the herd boy, withdrew, unable to believe what he had seen and heard. His beloved
si-fu
—his great teacher—had given his place of shelter to a witch and an imp as pink as a piglet. Anger shook him as a dog shakes a rat; then shame and anger. Demons he had thought were gone forever taunted him with a shrillness only he could hear.

The Fish awakened to the stirring of birds in the bamboo. As her eyes grew accustomed to the half light, she saw that her cousin’s bed was empty, the baby sleeping soundly in a make shift cot. A figure was framed against the open doorway, making no sound as it bent to peer closely at the sleeping child. “Who is there … Cousin, is it you?” she asked aloud. When no answer came, she asked again, sitting up and rubbing her eyes from the deepest of sleeps. The figure straightened quickly, revealing itself to be a boy with a wide-brimmed hat of frayed straw in one hand and the long wooden staff of a herdsman in the other.

“Forgive me, Ah-Paw, please do not be afraid. I come to pay my respects to the one who has taken my place in the house of Master To.” The voice was that of a boy soon to become a man. He had called her Elder Sister in a tone of cautious respect, but he made her strangely uneasy.

“Do you have my cousin’s permission to steal into his house while his guests sleep? Get away from the child. Do not enter again unless he is here.”

The boy bowed deeply, as to one of great importance, leaning on the staff with a flourish of his hat. “The milk, Ah-Paw. I have milked the goat as I do each morning. It stands on the table and there are eggs in the bowl, still warm from the nest.”

Her eyes now accustomed to the half light, she could see the milk pail and wooden bowl clearly. “Tomorrow you can leave the milk and eggs outside. I will fetch them when they are needed.”

“But, Ah-Paw, there are dogs from the reed-cutters’ camp, and their thieving children …”

The Fish felt her impatience rising. “What is your name?” she asked. “My name is Ah-Keung. I am the disciple of Master To; he is my beloved
si-fu
.” He bowed. “I also find herbs in the far hills and herd goats for the reed-cutters.”

“Thank you, Ah-Keung, for the milk and the eggs. Please leave now. I will speak of this to my cousin. Until I have, do not cross this door.” He bowed again, then turned and was gone.

With the first flush of morning, Old To returned with a cluster of catfish strung from a reed threaded through their gills.. His cousin sat waiting for him, the baby in her arms. She wasted no time in telling him of the herd boy.

He set down the fish on the cleaning board outside the door and began scaling them. “He is not to be blamed,” he said thoughtfully. “The boy gathers herbs and cuts firewood, milks the goat and sweeps the pathway to my door. For that he has a place to sleep and food to eat.” He seemed hesitant, as though this was difficult to talk about.

“He was to be my last disciple,” he said finally, as he sliced the pink flesh into strips. “His family left him on the steps of the temple before he could walk. He was cursed with a twisted foot, so was of no use to them. The monks fed him and as he grew, he swept the courtyard and lit the joss sticks to earn his daily rice. If he left the temple, the children of the village taunted him cruelly, calling him the dog boy, as he dragged his useless foot. He begged to be taught the art of temple boxing, that he might defend his honor, but they would not allow it … perhaps because the boy was lame, perhaps because he was seen as unfit to become a warrior.”

Crossing to the fireplace to stir the glowing coals, he started the fish sizzling briskly in a pan. “The abbot’s heart was not entirely of stone; he agreed to take the dog boy into the temple, but only to work in the kitchen. The boy heard of me while listening to the chatter of novice monks who like to speak of miracles.” Crackling from the stove filled the silence, as he turned the fish with chopsticks.

“It was winter; most of the sampans were idle on their moorings and few fishermen ventured out, but the dog boy crossed the lake alone, swam the icy waters, and dragged his crippled leg through miles of freezing mud.” To paused as though to gather his thoughts. “I found him in the herb shed. At first I thought he was a wounded bird, a pelican trapped in the mud, but his spirit had defied death and he soon recovered.” He broke the catfish into pieces into wooden bowls and mixed it with rice and leaves of dark green spinach. “I did much to straighten his leg, but it is his determination that restored him. I do not even know his
true age, but I think he was seven or eight when he came to me. I have trained him for five years. He has taught his twisted foot to obey him.”

He set the steaming bowls upon the table. “There is courage and great resolve in his soul … but nothing of humility or compassion. It did not take me long to see the seeds of selfishness and impatience. The need for violence grows within him like a sickness. Determination has become blind ambition. These are forces that can never follow the Way of the Tao. This is why I have named him Ah-Keung—the Forceful One.”

They ate in silence for a moment, only the calling of birds and the distant voices of reed-cutters drifting from the foreshores. “So you see, I am to blame. I taught him to defend himself, so that he could find his own way. I did not see that this would never be enough for him, or that he would grow to trust me as a son trusts his father … or that he would seek no other place but here with me.”

Old To shrugged his shoulders. “I chose the wrong disciple. Perhaps with time he will grow brains—learning to become a man is more difficult for some than for others.”

A
s soon as she
found the marvel of her own two feet, Siu-Sing began the time of discovery. Every sight and sound and smell seemed to become a part of her—the sky floating on the vastness of the lake, the bump of boats across water, the smell of drying herbs and wood smoke. Birds and small animals became her friends, the marsh a waving jungle of reeds, the groves of bamboo a never-ending pattern of scattered sunlight. Far away, misty mountains touched the sky. The world was filled with wonder, and every day brought new adventures.

One morning by the lake began like any other—the grassy slopes swept by gentle breezes, the cicadas busy in the fruit trees. Siu-sing had washed her face in the water jar, eaten breakfast at the table under the pear tree. Old To had left before dawn and climbed the wooded slopes above the hut, and the Fish was cleaning the congee pot and scouring the fish pan.

Siu-sing’s feet led her toward the herb shed. She had been told to stay away from there, but was curious about the secrets that lay inside. Although the bamboo mats in the windows were rolled up, they were too high for her to look through. She could see many strange and shadowy things hanging from racks of bamboo poles.

The herb-shed door was usually closed, and she could not reach the heavy wooden latch. Today it was ajar, with just enough room to squeeze through. Inside was dark and cool, filled with earthy smells and the fidgeting of swallows in the roof. It was a place of great mystery. Hanks
of drying plants and flowers hung in rows overhead; pots and urns filled with tree bark, seeds, roots, and mushrooms lined the walls.

Ah-Keung the herd boy rose slowly from his shadowy corner when Siu-Sing stepped through the door. She did not see him until his voice broke the spell of discovery.

“Good morning, Little Sister; welcome to my house.” He laughed softly at her jump of surprise as she moved quickly back to the door. He stepped into the flood of light, holding out a clump of seed pods, inviting her to sniff their fragrance. When she bent closer, he stroked her hair and pinched her cheek.

She backed away at the touch of his hand.

“Don’t run away so soon. Did you not come to visit me?” He squatted beside her, his eyes blacker and deeper than the darkest corner she had ever looked into. The cicadas seemed to stop singing at the sound of his voice. There was a smell about him that she did not know was the smell of many goats.

She tried again to turn away, but he held his closed hand out to her. “I have a gift for you, here in my hand. Can you guess what it is?” She shook her head; his voice was so friendly that she hesitated.

“Take it … it is yours to play with.” He held his hand closer, smiling at her.

His teeth are not clean
, she thought,
and his hand is dirty
. But slowly, uncertainly, she offered her open hand.

The spider he dropped into it was as big as her palm, fat and hairy, its long legs tickling as it ran quickly up her arm and into her hair. She felt its sticky feet scrambling to escape, rummaging deeper into her hair. Her screams rebounded from every darkened corner of the shed.

He grabbed her arm, anxious to stop her squealing, clawing the spider from her hair. “Don’t cry, don’t cry.” He sniggered. “It will not bite you—see, I have killed it.” He opened his closed fist to show her its mangled remains.”

Suddenly, the door was thrown wide and the Fish was there beside her, lifting and holding her tightly, her voice shrill with rage. “If you have harmed this child, your master will hear of it.”

Ah-Keung raised his hands to fend off her fury. “Forgive me, Ah-Paw, I did not wish to frighten her. When she entered the shed, I was asleep. The light was poor; I thought it was a boy from the reed-cutters’ camp, sent to steal ginseng. When I saw it was the Little Star, I tried to warn her. There are things that bite and sting in the herb shed; I have killed scorpions and snakes more than once. A little girl should not be allowed to wander unattended into a place like this.”

He reached for his staff and gestured at the shaft of light falling upon the tangle of webs. “This is a breeding ground for spiders, not a playground for little ones.” He used the staff to gather webs until they streamed thickly from its tip, black spiders scuttling for cover; then he poked at the bunches of herbs above them. “There are terrible poisons here as well as wonderful medicines. Only my master and I know which will give life and which will bring death.”

Ah-Keung shook the clump of sticky fibers from the staff and stamped upon another fat spider before it could escape. “I beg you, Ah-Paw, it was a misunderstanding. Do not speak of this to my
si-fu
.”

His voice took on a different tone. “He would not be happy to know that the Little Star was allowed to enter the herb shed unprotected. He will blame us both … but it is I who killed the spider, and you who put her in danger.”

The Fish saw that he was right; she should not have allowed Siu-Sing to wander alone. “Very well, on this occasion I will say nothing, but if you come near this child again, it is you who will be sent away.”

Ah-Keung bowed with a wide sweep of his hat. “It shall be as you say, Ah-Paw, and you will watch over her more carefully.” He flopped the hat onto his head. “Nothing must happen to the Little Star.” The sarcasm in his words was clearly intended; he had put this bag of bones in her place. The Fish turned away, clucking her tongue and muttering strange and ugly words. From the safety of her shoulder, Siu-Sing watched Ah-Keung set off along the track behind the straggling goats. Only then did she see that his stride was vigorous and his posture straight, but one leg seemed slower than the other, and there was a strangeness in his swinging step.