The White Mirror (11 page)

“I have just come from his room.”

“Perhaps,” said Hamza, “he is endeavoring to convert the Khampa.”

Andruk looked doubtful. “He is a timid man, always fearful of bandits. I doubt he would approach the caravan alone. But if you are going there, I will come with you.”

As they approached the hut, the sides of which bulged at the seams where blankets were piled within, they heard laughter. They went inside. Sera-tsering was sitting on a log that had been made into a semblance of a throne. She commanded the attention of the muleteers.

“And no one,” she was saying, “knew that the land had been ruled for fourteen years by a man who was dead.” This conclusion was greeted with murmurs of appreciation and interest.

Hamza came to a sudden halt. “First she interrupts me,” he whispered, half to himself and half to Li Du, “and now she steals my occupation?”

Andruk glanced around the single room. Campo was not there. With a bow to Kalden and a nod to Li Du and Hamza, he turned and ducked back out into the snow.

Sera looked up. “Will you join us?”

Hamza crossed his arms over his chest. “So we are passing the afternoon with tales,” he declared.

Sera tucked her hand into her long woolen sleeves. “That is what travelers do when the weather traps them together,” she said. “Or perhaps someone has a set of dice to play the Game of Tigers, or pebbles for the Game of Many Eyes?” She looked around the circle expectantly.

Hamza's face was determined. “If one tells a story, another must follow. Let us see if I can amuse you, as you appear to have amused my companions.” He circled the fire behind her to an available place, and sat down.

“This little scholar librarian,” said Hamza, pointing to where Li Du stood, “whose coat is patched and who walks so quietly through the mountains beside his gentle mule, is, beneath his humble exterior, a truth-seeker and master of deduction. You look incredulous? I could tell you of our adventure in the market city under the mountain, where we met Death on the day the sun was stolen from the sky. Were it not for my assistance, we might never have solved that puzzle. It was I who told him the tale of a great detective, and so inspired him to action. I speak of Judge Dee, that tireless magistrate, who sometimes traveled to Bassorah to visit a distant cousin.”

Li Du watched Hamza's posture change. It became straighter, more commanding, while at the same time he leaned forward just slightly, as if he were confiding in a friend. “In Bassorah there was a market that was also the center of revelry in the city.”

Li Du pictured the slope of white snow outside that led down to the trees, but he did not move. Half lost in his own thoughts, he remained standing by the door. Hamza began.

“As the sun set and the torches and lanterns were lit, light shone through silk and tassels. Acrobats and dancers and puppeteers performed their art. Vendors sold perfume bottles crusted with filigree and jewels, and books with paintings of ships visible only when their pages were pressed together, and scarves that changed color to complement the thoughts of their wearers, and fruits and breads and savories that could turn ill humor to pleasure. Every evening the market was more beautiful and more alive than the evening before, and every morning it was gray and brown and befouled, piled with chewed bones and inhabited by yellow-eyed cats.

“One morning, just as the dawn was about to break and the market hovered between life and death, a guard from the palace glimpsed two figures in an alley, one in patchwork silk, the other in a dark cloak. He saw the cloaked finger turn and strike a mighty blow to the head of the other, who crumpled to the ground. The guard called to his men, and together they apprehended the culprit.

“Now, the man in the silk patchwork who lay dead in the alley was none other than the Sultan's favorite jester, a performer unmatched in wit and talent. He was adept at acrobatics, contortion, sword-swallowing, tightrope-walking, tumbling, juggling, and the telling of riddles. He could assume the mantle of the melancholy fool, the wise fool, or the fool of good spirits, as suited the mood of his audience.

“When his name was cried out through the streets, his wife came running from their home and cast herself upon the jester's body, crying out for justice against the drunkard who had slain him. The culprit, a courtier who had committed no offense before in his life, waited in tears for his execution, and could only say again and again that the jester had loomed at him from the shadows of the alley and would not speak when addressed, putting the courtier so in fear of his life that he struck the jester down, with no intention of killing him at all.

“In due course, the Sultan ordered the courtier executed. But just before he was to step onto the gallows, there came a cry from the square. It was the cook who lived near the market, and he stepped forward tearfully. ‘You must not kill this man,' he said, ‘for it was I, and I alone, who killed the jester.'

“The cook explained that when he came home the night before, he saw a man in the garden, believed him to be a thief, and in the dark he struck him. When he examined the stranger and found him dead, the cook was so afraid that he carried the body to the market and propped it up in an alley, where it looked as alive as a living man. But the cook could not bear to see another accused.

“The cook prepared to meet his death, but just as he was going to the gallows, there was a cry from the crowd. It was the doctor, who lived in the house next to the cook. ‘You must not kill this man,' he said, ‘for it was I, and I alone, who killed the jester.'

“He explained that he had come home that night very late. The jester must have come to see him about an ailment, and was sitting on the top of his stairs. But the doctor, not seeing him, tripped and sent the poor jester tumbling down. When he examined him and found him dead, the doctor was so afraid that he strung the body on a rope and lowered it from his balcony into the garden below, which he knew to be frequented by hungry dogs. ‘And so,' he finished, ‘he was dead already when the cook struck him.'

“Now the doctor prepared to meet his death, but just as he was about to be executed, another cry came from the crowd. Now two people stepped forward, a tailor with a weathered, kind face and his wife, a woman of vibrant beauty. They spoke in tones broken with grief. ‘It was we, and we alone, who killed the jester,' said the tailor.

“‘As everyone knows I have been at sea a year and a day to sew a coat for a king in a distant kingdom. I returned only last night and my wife, overjoyed to see me, hired this jester to entertain us on the celebratory occasion, knowing him to be excellent company. Wanting to show him hospitality, we insisted that he eat and, though he said he had already eaten, prevailed upon him to share our dinner. And that is how he choked on a fishbone and died there at our table. To our shame we were afraid. We carried him to the doctor and left him there in the hope that he might by some miracle be revived. So you see, we alone were responsible for this deed.'”

Hamza paused as if he had finished, and Sera, who was using a knife to shell walnuts and hand them around to the muleteers, said, “That is a good tale, but I have heard it before.”

Hamza's smile was one of immense self-satisfaction. “Perhaps you have,” he said, “but you see, there are few who know that Judge Dee was visiting the Sultan's court on that day.” Hamza set his hands on his knees.

“So the tailor and his wife, who had been so happy to be reunited after many months, prepared for death. But just then another voice cried out from the crowd, ‘Oh Sultan, stop the execution!'

“The Sultan looked and saw Judge Dee step forward out of the crowd.

“‘What,' said the Sultan, ‘will you say that it was you, you and no other, who killed my jester?'

“‘No, Sultan,' replied Judge Dee, ‘but all the same I do not think that the confession of the tailor and his wife is the final term in this series. I beg your forbearance to allow me to offer an alternative explanation.'

“‘You may speak,' said the Sultan, much intrigued.

“‘Today we heard four confessions from four culprits who think they killed the jester, but not one of them wished him dead. It occurs to me to wonder, this being a violent and sudden death, whether there was anyone who did desire it. Sultan, was the wife of the jester a jealous woman?'

“The crowd began to whisper and the Sultan, after a moment's thought, nodded his head. ‘She is known to be so.'

“‘If the tailor's wife, a woman of surpassing beauty who had for a year and a day lived without her husband at home, did several times hire the jester to perform for her, would it be in the character of the jester's wife to suspect that this evening's entertainment was in truth a romantic assignation?'

“The Sultan nodded again. ‘She has many times said that she would kill her husband should he ever stray from her. But even if what you say is true, you forget that the jester was alive when he came to the house of the tailor, and that the tailor and his wife saw him choke upon a fishbone.'

“The tailor's wife, who was a very honest person, cried out, ‘Alas, it is true. I saw the bone in the fish as he put it into his mouth.'

“‘Does it not strike you as strange,' said Judge Dee, ‘that a man who has learned the secret art of opening his throat to swallow swords and nails should choke to death on a fishbone?'

“Judge Dee turned to the wife of the jester, who was as pale as the inside of an apple, and said, ‘You did not know that the tailor had returned, and thought that your husband desired the tailor's wife. So you poisoned his dinner.' Judge Dee turned back to the Sultan. ‘So you see, the jester was already dead when he came to the tailor's home, though only Death himself knew it. Death, and the jester's wife.'

“Seeing the accusing faces of the crowd, the wife cried out, ‘Yes, yes it was I, and I alone, who killed the jester.'

“The Sultan, who was not without mercy, and who was much impressed by these strange events, declared that the jester's wife would be executed unless she could tell him a story stranger than the one he had just heard. And so she began…”

As Hamza started his next tale, Li Du slipped quietly out the door.

 

Chapter 9

He was not the first to cross the fields after the storm. Trails of footprints and hoofprints connected to form cryptic constellations in the snow. The trees seemed to grow taller as Li Du approached them. Just before he entered the forest, he stopped and turned around. He had descended far enough that from his present angle he could no longer see the manor or the huts. He lifted his gaze higher to where the forest resumed. He thought he could almost see the hollow tree halfway up the stairs to the mountain temple. Higher still, there was an elusive suggestion of jagged peaks amid the clouds.

A short walk through pines and stubby oaks brought him to the bridge. Muddled footprints led across it. Icicles hung from its single leaning railing. Underneath, water flowed smooth as gray marble between banks cluttered with frozen filigrees of ice and leaves.

He crossed and started up the path, kicking the toes of his boots one at a time into the snow. When he could, he used the footprints that were already there to keep him from sliding down the steep incline. Glimpsing movement overhead, he looked up and saw the torn scrap of cloth from his own sleeve fluttering out of reach on a branch. For a moment he expected to see himself standing on the path, looking ruefully at the damage to his coat. He pushed through the specter, and continued up.

The boulder Doso had described was distinctive, and Li Du identified it easily. It was a hulking miniature mountain that wore a crown of tangled trees. Its craggy face, streaked with snow and lichen, observed Li Du with an expression of morose foreboding. He left the path and skirted the rock. On the other side, he found a crumbling old stone wall half covered by a rhododendron thicket.

With no path under the snow, it became difficult to navigate the dense brush and brambles. Li Du lost sight of the footprints that had preceded him, but he perceived an odor, and followed it. It was the smell of elemental movement beneath the earth, acrid and metallic, and it led him to a thin stream trickling through the snow.

He followed the stream until he came to a broad rock face, the lower half of which was interrupted by a series of loamy tiers. These were accessible by way of various small paths leading up through the trees and boulders that crowded both sides of the escarpment. Li Du counted three deep pools, each with a mantle of steam hovering just above its surface. He guessed that there were more of them hidden from view higher on the rocky face.

Squatting on a flat rock beside the nearest pool, Li Du dipped his fingers into the water. It was warm enough to sting his cold skin. He shifted, dislodging a clump of snow, which became transparent the instant it touched the water, then disappeared. With the sleeve of his coat pushed up to his elbow, Li Du extended his arm beneath the surface. The wall of the pool was coated in thick slime.

He stood and made his way carefully to the next pool. Again, he reached in. This time, his fingers caught on a section of the wall that was rough. He could feel score marks, and cavities where stones had been pried away. Using a knife drawn from a battered leather sheath at his belt, he scraped at the rough section until he felt a piece of it chip away. He caught the fragment and raised it out of the water to examine it. It glistened red. He put it in his pocket.

Leaning back on his heels, Li Du raised the knife to dry it on his sleeve. He was about to return the blade to its sheath when he paused. The silver that was inlaid into its wooden hilt had darkened. It gleamed opalescent purple and green. He recognized the effect of age on unpolished silver, but in this case, it was as if a hundred years had gone by under the surface of the water while an instant passed above it.