The Mandate of Heaven (49 page)

‘I see we will make no progress until you are emptied of speculation,’ he said.

Lately the handsome Worthy Master had aged rather than attained the sheen and luminosity of an Immortal. His yellowish skin and thinning grey hair reminded her of the priest called Void: as did a new intensity in the Worthy Master’s gaze.

‘I can tell from your sniff you have detected the scent of the Great Reverted Cinnabar within me,’ he said, not without pride.

‘Worthy Master,’ said Yun Shu, ‘please explain.’

For once he seemed happy to share his secrets. Even inclined to provoke a little admiration and wonder.

‘I know you are not insensitive to the Dao,’ he said. ‘You must sense my progress in the Immortal Work. And the reason for my success? Ha! Here I may well garner a little credit.’ His voice slurred as though tipsy.

‘You would not believe the care one must take. And the expense! Pearls ground to powder, mica, sulphur, mercury and essence of gold! Then again, what of those apparently simple ingredients that turn out to be as rare as a prince’s treasure? Silver-grey mushrooms with seven spots in exactly the same shape as the Seven Primes! Apricot kernels ground to dust and salted with powdered mother-of-pearl! You see, the bamboo strips revealed several paths to Immortality. Oh, the care one must take when heating one’s cauldron!’

Yun Shu listened with a growing sense of dismay. Were the ancient treasures of Cloud Abode Monastery being squandered on
this
? Were the donations of the faithful being frittered on bizarre concoctions? Wealth that could purchase food and shelter for the hungry! Oh, she knew very well how Teng would have judged the Worthy Master’s priorities.

‘Sometimes there are errors,’ he continued, ‘terribly expensive waste. How could there not be? I confess freely to nights of vomiting and loose bowels. Yet each reverse brings me nearer … You look unhappy! You feel concern for my health!’ The Worthy Master frowned. ‘Your concern does not interest me,’ he said, coldly. ‘You disappoint me.’

She could contain herself no longer. ‘Forgive me, but I
am
afraid! Your skin is grainy as old parchment. I fear the bamboo books are false. False counsellors. After all, did their original owner gain Immortality? Or did he turn to dust?’

Worthy Master Jian rose angrily, pacing before the lectern where the ancient books rested. ‘This is how you repay my trust in you!’ he cried. ‘Of course there is trial and error, you foolish, deluded woman.’ Unhealthy blotches streaked his pale face. ‘You have no idea,’ he continued, ‘how I protect you. Even now the Buddhists from Tibet are offering me a sliver of the Buddha’s knucklebone for my elixir. All they want in return is Cloud Abode Monastery. Do not tempt me by betraying my trust, Yun Shu!’

She was sobbing now, dabbing at her tears with a prayer shawl. His tall, thin body leaned over her like a shadow.

‘Why shouldn’t I trade a mere building for the greatest prize! Why shouldn’t I?’ Yun Shu shrank in horror. ‘Do not tempt me!’ he cried. ‘Do not!’

Then, staring down at her weeping figure, he shook his head as though clearing his mind. Still her sobs continued.

‘Yun Shu,’ he said, in a calm voice. ‘I have distressed you.’ She sniffed, trying to master her tears. ‘I regret my lack of balance. I was at fault. You are no use to our rites unless you are serene.’

As her weeping subsided, he sat beside her on the mat, gentle and wise once more. A faint desperation in his eyes softened Yun Shu’s fear to reluctant pity.

‘You see,’ he said, ‘life has taught me a perfect horror of death. No doubt you think that unbalanced? Impious, even. Yet consider how we die a little each day in a thousand ways. Our thoughts arise then vanish. Our breaths come and go. We glimpse a swallow flitting over a twilit sky, hear its song, then it has gone. Friends of one’s youth decay and change until barely recognisable. Father, Mother, Brother, Sister, all share their moment until – like glints of sunshine on a pool obscured by cloud – their light vanishes.’

She listened closely.

‘Yun Shu, how I have meditated upon these things! Over and over! Compare the coarsening of my hair and teeth and skin with that enjoyed heedlessly, thoughtlessly by foolish youth! And death itself, the pain and humiliation as one’s spirit shudders from the body to beg before the Infernal Judges in hell. Who knows what reincarnation and birth one must endure next time? What dreadful lives one has already endured. The tedium of starting yet again, learning and re-learning all life’s lessons only to have that knowledge snuffed in a cruel instant!’

He paused, rubbing his hands, a smile of dreamy elation on his face.

‘But to become an Immortal, Yun Shu! To attain full realisation! Then life and death flow and weave together. Always happy, whether loitering in Heaven or wandering the world. Eternally poised to act for the good of all creatures! What demons I would exorcise, how many sick people I would heal! Yun Shu, is that not worth a little suffering? To control the rivers and mountains! Anything at all! Playful as a child, sage as Lao Tzu! Yet we have not even attained the Stage of Shen.’

He stopped and she stared up at his flushed face. Then her heart hardened.

‘If we attain the Stage of Shen,’ she said, ‘you must promise to save Cloud Abode Monastery.’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that I can promise.’

He drew a silver box from his robes. Inside were pills of crushed dates mingled with secret essences and autumn minerals.

‘Eat seven of these and so shall I,’ he whispered. ‘Meditate all the while upon the Weaver Maid and her union with the Cosmic Herdboy.’

They chewed and swallowed together until the pills were gone. Soon his eyes were unnaturally glazed and bright, as she sensed her own must be. Warmth glowed in her deepest cinnabar chambers and her breath quickened uncomfortably. Her heart beat too fast.

He led her up a staircase round the circular walls of the pagoda to the second storey. Her palms felt hot and each step brought a deeper haze.

Sometimes, to distract himself from the pain infecting every limb and muscle, Teng imagined he was a long-legged crane. In this guise, while he hacked at sticky wet soil, his spirit soared free. Up he flew, flapping round the huge wooden derrick – an ungainly pyramid fifteen men high, in the midst of which a great vertical drill rose and fell to batter bedrock deep below the earth’s surface. Up he flew, until he was circling on currents of warm, clean air, untainted by the swamp below.

Aloft the world gained colourful, tempting horizons. North lay the body of Six-hundred-
li
Lake, dotted with islands like green stepping stones he might follow all the way home. To the west blue mountains rose, wreathed in mysterious cloud. Among them was Holy Mount Chang and Lingling County, the possibility of help and friends. But as he circled in his imagination, Teng could think of no way to get there. So he looked east, following the shore of the lake north a full hundred
li
to Chenglingji Port and a civilized road to Hou-ming. That, too, was a way he could not take. Then he looked south, across endless reed beds and salt marsh, treacherous mud and barren hills where only thorns and stubborn scrub found a roothold. A dangerous, harsh, circuitous route home; a way almost too fearful to be attempted.

Frustrated in every direction, the circling spirit-crane looked downward. Then the Salt Pans’ pitiless grandeur overwhelmed Teng’s imagination. Daunted, he resumed whatever backbreaking task he had been assigned …

‘Put more into it, Teng! Remember what I told you.’

The quiet but insistent voice belonged to Foreman Wu Mao, a grizzled, thin young man with muscles hard as bamboo. His words pierced the fog of exhaustion in Teng’s brain. What must he remember? What must he remember? Yes! That if they did not reach bedrock by sunset their whole work gang would be punished. That meant no food … He dug his spade into the wet, crumbly soil and feverishly filled a bucket.

‘That’s it, Teng! Only dig with a slow, steady rhythm.’ Foreman Wu Mao’s voice floated. Vanished. Still he dug and dug until each spade load of earth weighed as much as Monkey Hat Hill. They were lucky that day. The work gang exceeded the target set by Chief Overseer Pi-tou. That night they ate …

Now he had been promoted. No longer digging the hole that surrounded the borehole into the bedrock, he had been assigned one handle of a two-man pump. Up, down, up, down … Thick, milky brine spurted from a bamboo pipe into a huge, cast iron pan already coated with a crust of precious crystals. Flames roared beneath the pan, fed by gas charged with the sun’s essence that burned ceaselessly, piped up from the earth and distributed along snaking tangles of bamboo tubes. Sometimes there were explosions. Eruptions of back-drafting flame would set a dozen men ablaze. Today the flame burned submissively and Teng pumped up, down, up, down, his spine and legs aching, hands raw on the wooden handle until the huge iron pan bubbled and frothed.

‘You two! Drink!’ urged Foreman Wu Mao, offering a bucket. ‘No charge for water in my floating oriole house! It keeps your
yang
strong!’

Swaying with exhaustion oddly like nausea, Teng did as instructed, gulping earthy water with more pleasure than he had many an exquisite wine …

‘Lazy slaves! Do not wait for it to cool!’

With that barked command, Overseer Pi-tou strode off to the next work gang tending their garden of salt, to repeat the same bellowed order. Foreman Wu Mao was left with his forehead pressed into mud, alongside the dozen members of their gang. When he rose, his normally measured voice was edged with fear.

‘You heard the Overseer! We should not wait for it to cool! Fetch wet rags!’

These he wrapped round his bare feet and hands. Using a ladder, he climbed the still scalding cast iron pan, making no complaint other than a grunt when his skin brushed the metal. Shovel load after shovel load of salt crystals were poured into buckets before Foreman Wu Mao could stand no more.

‘Each must take a turn,’ he gasped. ‘We must finish this before he comes back.’

When Teng climbed the ladder he felt faint. Swirls of noxious fumes from the burning sun essence and steaming brine left him giddy. He tried to use the spade accurately but his face was melting like wax in the shimmering heat, his forehead blistering painfully. The first shovel load emptied into an upheld bucket, as did the second. The third missed entirely, landing on the muddy ground. Teng bent to scrape up a fourth when an angry roar stopped him.

‘Get that fool down from there!’

Hands grabbed his ankles. He was dragged from the ladder until he knelt, whooping pure air on the wet ground.

‘Why, it’s the gentleman scholar!’ crowed a harsh, self-satisfied voice. ‘I’ve had orders about our gentleman scholar.’

Teng understood his bad luck. Overseer Pi-tou had happened to wander past their derrick and seen the salt wasted by his clumsiness.

‘Hey, Wu Mao!’ barked Pi-tou. ‘For squandering salt your gang gets half rations tonight.’

If it had been prudent to moan, all Teng’s comrades would have done so. As it was, they averted their eyes from Overseer Pi-tou’s hawk-like face and shaven head.

‘Well then, punish him for it! All of you!’

Teng’s fellow slaves and indentured labourers were prodded into a line by Overseer Pi-tou’s soldiers and, one by one, kicked or punched Teng as he knelt. A smirk crept across the Overseer’s face.

‘That’s the way to do it! Eh, scholar?’

Even in the midst of the beating Teng realised his comrades’ blows possessed more show than force. At the word
scholar
, Foreman Wu Mao cast him a quick, searching look.

That night Teng lay beneath a single blanket on the wet earth. It was drizzling. The southern end of the lake was famous for its rainfall and he had grown used to constantly grey skies. Even through the steam evaporating from hundreds of boiling, simmering iron pans, he had noted the way swells of light gilded the rain-clouds above, how they billowed in the wind like dragons puffing out their chests. Perhaps misery unlocked these insights. Certainly he had never noticed such things so deeply; insights that made him long for brush and ink and paper to capture a little of what he had learned.

Those were harsh lessons. Every moment of every hour haunted by pictures – Deng Mansions burning, roofs collapsing with sprays of sparks, smoke, roars of wind-fed flame … And the certainty his actions had brought disaster upon their ancestral home. Through his greed and vanity, believing he could make fools of their enemies. Clever Deng Teng! Now, for all he knew, his own father was dead, burned alive as he sought to extinguish the flames. At best, cast adrift without a home, sick and frail, in need of medicine to suppress the malign mushrooms detected in his wizened frame by the doctor. Teng knew no means to discover the truth. Asking questions in the Salt Pans would be madness, especially if Overseer Pi-tou found out – as he was sure to do.

Teng shivered beneath his blanket. Strength seeded by Deng Nan-shi’s tales of the Deng clan’s natural greatness and fitness to rule put out roots. Strange, perhaps, it should germinate in the mud of the Salt Pans. Yet Teng understood the only restitution he could offer his ancestors. He must restore the glorious name of Deng. At the very least, there must be sons. And surely that same rich, nutritious blood-broth would sustain him while lesser men perished. The blood that had run through Hero-general Yueh Fei: the curse and blessing of his destiny.