The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox

by Barry Hughart

  “Why not give up boys for a week and try me?” Grief of Dawn whispered.

  In addition, I decided, he moved like a cat, and Master Li once said that certain Egyptians say that a cat lives in the moon, and everybody knows that the soul of a cat is formed from the composite souls of nine debauched nuns who failed in their vows.

  “Come away with me,” Grief of Dawn whispered.

  “Darling, I’d like nothing better, but his majesty is a wee bit possessive,” he said.

  “Master Li will take care of that. He has a job for you, and that boy you were chasing resembles a Swatow sea slug.”

  “Tell the wicked old man I accept. I shall pack a few essential clothes and jewels—you must see the emerald the king gave me—and kiss the lads farewell.”

  The lad on the balcony had realized he was no longer being chased, and was coughing self-consciously outside the window. Moon Boy was up with a smooth feline motion.

  “Work, work, work,” he complained. “Why must one’s responsibilities always interfere with one’s pleasures? Still, duty is duty.”

  With a catlike bound he was at the window, and with another he was out of it. “Come back here, you little bugger!” he yelled, and he was gone.

  Grief of Dawn smiled and settled back in my arms. “Well, now you’ve met Moon Boy,” she said. “Slightly larger than life, isn’t he?”

  “Will he come to visit after we’re married?” I asked apprehensively.

  She looked at me gravely. “Ox, I can never get married,” she said. “Moon Boy and I think that we were part of the same soul and somehow it was split on the Great Wheel of Incarnations, and a piece of it is still missing. Apart we’re nothing, and even when were together we aren’t complete. We wander the world, Ox, searching for the missing piece, and I can never settle down until I find it.”

  I wanted to argue about that, but Grief of Dawn had a better idea. We were getting back to where we started before the interruption, and things warmed up nicely, and it appeared that the morning would be saved after all.

  “Good morning, my children!” Master Li said happily as he trotted into the room. “Why is it that the most delightful of physical positions to the participants is an aesthetic abomination to onlookers?”

  We managed to get separated, and Master Li took Moon Boy’s position on the side of the bed.

  “Your absurdly good-looking young man just galloped lewdly past my window,” he said to Grief of Dawn. “I’ve never been much for hopping into bed with boys, but if I could be ninety again, I’d be delighted to make an exception with him. Buddha, what a creature! Has he agreed?”

  “Yes, sir,” she said.

  “Good. I want to get out of here as fast as possible. Ox, Grief of Dawn, I want you to find the highest point in the castle you can reach, with the best view of the courtyards and walls.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “This evening Moon Boy is scheduled to perform, and after that the Golden Girls will put on a show. Nobody will pay attention to young lovers walking by the lakes in the gardens. How long would it take you to get a sackful of toads and two sackfuls of lantern flies?”

  “Not long,” I said. “An hour or two.”

  “Splendid,” said Master Li. “Plan to slip out and collect them just after Moon Boy’s performance, and with any luck we’ll be out of here before midnight. In the meantime, enjoy yourselves.”

  Grief of Dawn and I lay back. Dogs were barking and cats were yowling and roosters were crowing and grooms were swearing and cooks were screaming. We got up and dressed and went out to find the highest vantage point.

  About an hour later we were able to report to Master Li that there were two accessible turrets with good views of the castle and walls, and he explained to us that bandit gangs crossed through Chao at this time of the year to reach their mountain hideouts before the rainy season made the roads impassable, and Shih Hu’s favorite sport was massacring bandit gangs.

  “He leads his troops personally, and he’s renowned for being out of his castle and on the attack within minutes,” Master Li explained. “The drawbridges are slow and cumbersome. I want to know whether or not he uses them, and my bet is that he has some other exit.”

  We had nothing to do until evening except mingle with the distinguished guests. Master Li huddled with Grief of Dawn and sent her out wearing her dusty travel clothes, with a wicked dagger in her belt and her bow over her shoulder and her hair bound by a leather cord apparently jerked from a broken bridle. Her hair clasp was polished like an emperor’s adornment and pinned to the front of her sweat-stained tunic, and if ever there was a wild warrior princess, it was Grief of Dawn. She was besieged by admirers. I got close enough to hear her explain—apparently Master Li’s suggestion—that she was searching for her brother, who had been transformed by an evil shaman and was wandering through the woods in the form of a tiger, with his matching clasp around his neck. After that I couldn’t get within forty feet of her, so I wandered off.

  King Shih Hu’s special people were all over, and Master Li got into a furious argument with the world’s greatest astronomer about the direction of currents in the Great River of Stars during the rainy season: “neo-Chang Hengian epicycles” and “Phalguni asterisms” and “reverse ch’i concentrations”—I couldn’t understand a word of it. I fled to the company of the most beautiful woman in the world and had a very interesting conversation.

  She had blond hair and green eyes and said she was a Greek from Bactria. She also said she was sick and tired of being kidnapped by one king after another ever since she had been ten years old, and she would insist upon being buried standing up because she never wanted to see another bed throughout eternity. I liked her very much, although there was a certain tightness at the corners of her eyes and mouth that argued against a close relationship.

  I wandered off again and talked with an old man who had a very interesting story to tell, because he had once urinated over the statue of a local Place God when he was drunk, and apparently the God of Walls and Ditches had been passing by, because the next thing he knew, he was encased in bronze and standing on a pedestal as a T’u-ti himself, and there was a terrible drought and the peasants demanded that he bring rain to the fields, and when no rain came, they brought out the ceremonial cudgels and beat him black and blue. He still had some very impressive welts to display. I was pressing him for more details when I heard the drawbridge lower, and then a courier came galloping across it and jumped from his horse and dashed into the palace to report to the king.

  Master Li was nodding at me. Grief of Dawn was buried in admirers and couldn’t get away, so I made hasty apologies to the former T’u-ti and ran for the stairs. I arrived at my lookout spot just as the king and his Golden Girls came from a side door into a courtyard and entered the stables. I knew that Master Li had been right when I heard the drawbridge raise and slam shut, and several minutes later I blinked at the sight of Shih Hu outside the walls. He was riding on a revolving couch on a great war chariot. He had racks of bows and mountains of arrows within easy reach, and Master Li had told me that he was one of the great archers of the world and would whirl around and around on his couch firing arrows so fast they looked like a waterfall. The Golden Girls rode on horses, and they were followed by foot soldiers jogging in disciplined ranks.

  I went back down to report that the king had some kind of exit through the stables. Master Li was delighted.

  The afternoon festivities continued with the chamberlain playing host. There were actors and acrobats and Sogdian spin-dance girls who wore crimson pantaloons and performed on top of huge rolling balls. Great mounds of food were brought out. It was half-civilized and half-barbarian. A perfectly traditional dish of ducks’ feet and ham steamed with Peking dates and black tree fungus was followed by an exotic Mongolian stew: venison, rabbit, chicken, fish, figs, apples, peaches, curds, butter, spices, and herbs, all boiled together with mounds of sugar candy. I thought it was quite good, but I noticed that bo
th Master Li and Grief of Dawn spat out the sugar candy.

  The king and his bodyguards and soldiers returned just as the sun was setting. They were in high spirits, and the soldiers were carrying a new collection of severed heads mounted upon pikes. When the king and the Golden Girls had bathed and changed, it was time for the high point of the festivities: Moon Boy.

  I will admit I was skeptical. A person who looked like Moon Boy could announce, “The song of the lark,” and then go “quack-quack-quack” and get a standing ovation.

  We entered a great stone hall. The chamberlain made a great show of rapping walls and floors to show that there was no trickery involved, and then some servants placed a simple wooden table at one corner of the room. More servants brought in two paper fans, a small jar of water, and four cups, which they placed upon the table. Then Moon Boy appeared. He was carrying a simple sounding board like the ones used by girls in my village, and his eyes searched the audience until he found Grief of Dawn. He gave her a wink, and I assumed he was going to perform something especially for her. The servants unfolded a large screen, blocking out the table, and the lanterns were extinguished until the room was almost dark. There was a buzz of conversation while Moon Boy warmed up, and then there were three sharp raps from behind the screen and the room was hushed.

  All I know about sound-masters is that the greatest produce sounds that don’t actually exist. Somehow they manage to suggest a sound to the ears of the audience, and the minds of the listeners fill in the rest. Master Li, who had heard the great ones for nearly a century, later said that Moon Boy would become a legend that would live ten thousand years, and I had no inclination to argue with him.

  I remember hearing a small soft wind blow and looking around to see who had opened a window, and then flushing because I realized it was Moon Boy behind the screen, waving the paper fans. After that I listened with growing wonder and awe as Moon Boy performed a peasant song for Grief of Dawn. I cannot possibly describe something that must be heard, but I made quick notes later on, and I might as well include them here.

  Soft breeze carrying night sounds, village sounds…. Dog barks loudly, sound seems to be coming in through a window…. Man grunts right at my ear, rolls over in bed…. Barking fades away, two pairs of sandals passing by window, a laugh and a hiccup…. In distance a wine seller calls goodnight and closes his doors…. Wind is shifting, blowing from a river…. Water sounds, barge poles splashing…. Faint laughter, a man begins a bawdy song, words carried away on shifting breeze…. Dog begins barking again, right in ears, deafening…. Man swears, gets out of bed, stumbles toward window…. Sharp yelp and sound of wood scraping across floor as he bangs his knee against a table…. Dog even louder…. Man fumbling for something, grunts as he throws, barks change into yelps and howls, echoing from cottage walls as dog races away, sound fades…. Man yelps as hits table again, crawls back into bed.

  Woman sighs and rolls over, whispers to man…. Man laughs softly, woman giggles. Find myself blushing as soft lovemaking sounds come from bed…. Lovemaking louder, rhythmic…. Baby wakes up and begins to cry, man curses, woman groans…. Woman gets up and begins nursing baby, man gets up and relieves self in chamber pot…. Boy wakes up and says something sleepily, man curses and tells boy to get up and relieve self if needs to…. Mixture of sounds: man and boy relieving selves, woman singing softly to baby, baby sucking and cooing, crickets, hoot of owl, breeze through leaves…. Boy back to bed, baby back to sleep, man and woman back to bed, woman whispers, man begins to snore.

  Fire! Voice shouts outside window, other voices join in, everybody out of bed, baby crying…. Man yelps as hits table, shouts out window…. Voices say something about a barn…. Feet milling around outside, sounds of doors opening and closing, clank of buckets, creak of windlass, man yelps as hits table again…. Sandals on, runs outside…. Clanks and splashes from bucket brigade, flames hissing and roaring…. Incredible confusion of sounds: people shouting, horses neighing, donkeys braying, cattle and oxen lowing, chickens squawking…. Gates open and thunder of hooves as animals gallop out…. Old man shouting, “My hay! My grain!”…. Woman screams about sparks on her roof.

  Something very strange. All sounds of the village seem to be lifting slowly into the air…. Twisting, turning…. As though August Personage of Jade has reached down to China and picked up the village and is turning it this way and that in his hand…. A slow, quiet, vast puff of breath as though blowing the fire out…. Animal sounds die down, bucket and water and fire sounds die down, shouting and screaming die down…. Village settling back down to earth, one sound after another fading away…. Boy’s sounds fade away, woman’s sounds fade away, man’s sounds fade away…. Baby cooing happily…. Baby gradually fades away…. Silence.

  Three sharp raps. The lanterns are lit, the screen is pulled away. There is nothing but a table and a sounding board and two fans and a jar of water and four cups, and Moon Boy, who clasps his hands together and bows.

  Grief of Dawn and I slipped away easily while the audience besieged Moon Boy. I had the sacks and sticks and lanterns ready, and while we caught toads and lanternflies she told me that it was a good thing we were getting Moon Boy out of there because the soft life was causing him to lose his voice, particularly in the high registers, and unless he could find some pretty boys who would give him a good run across the hills he was going to be nothing but the best, as opposed to being supernatural.

  “Well, he still seems to have a certain ability,” I said weakly.

  She laughed and kicked me in the shins, and we made our way back with our bulging sacks. Master Li was waiting for us at the stables, which was a pity because we couldn’t stay and watch the Golden Girls. It was their turn to perform. The great lawn was as bright as day with thousands of lanterns, and they were entertaining the guests with a hair-raising game of polo, which I had never seen before. (It had been the rage at court ever since it had been imported from India, but I was not exactly an ornament of the court.) The Captain of Bodyguards was particularly spectacular, because she thought nothing of crashing her horse into another one at forty miles an hour, and as Grief of Dawn watched them I could see that she was yearning for a sable uniform and a polo mallet. I dragged her away.

  We had time to decorate toad faces with a little white paint while we waited for Moon Boy. At last he managed to pry himself away from the adoring mob, and he slipped through the shrubbery carrying a large backpack of clothes and jewels.

  The toad, as everybody knows, is one of the five poisonous animals, and is the Beast of Moon and Night, and it spits Vermilion Dust that causes malaria, and is the confidant of the tortoise, the most devious and inscrutable of all living things. When toads have feasted upon Chinese lanternflies their bellies swell to grotesque proportions, and since the lanternflies are swallowed whole they continue to produce greenish flashes of light at twenty-six pulses per minute. The effect is quite startling. The effect is particularly startling when the green pulsing bellies are highlighting white-painted demon-toad faces. If one adds ghastly ghost screeches from Moon Boy, the result can be an experience that will remain with you for life.

  One hundred of the hideous things hopped through the doors of the stables, and the screams of the soldiers and grooms were drowned out by the howls from the audience at the polo match. We stepped aside to avoid being trampled to death, and inside of a minute the stables contained nothing but toads and horses. We raced inside.

  The exit was easy to find, because it was directly across from the king’s war chariot. It was a wide tunnel, sloping downward, and we grabbed torches. Master Li hopped up on my back and we ran down the dark passage. The king would scarcely allow an open path for his enemies, of course, so the problem was going to be getting through the doors. The tunnel leveled as it started to run beneath the moat. Ahead of us was a huge iron door, and Master Li told me to stop. His eyes moved slowly over the walls.

  Rows of iron shields hung there. The centers of the shields bore strange emblems
, and they protruded from the smooth surfaces. The emblems seemed to concern every subject from agriculture to the zodiac, and Master Li thoughtfully chewed on his beard.

  “I suspect sequence locks,” he said. “The king rides down this passage on his couch on the chariot and punches shields that form the code to open the door. It’s almost certainly set up so that the wrong code will cause an unfortunate result, which means that the king can remember it even if he’s drunk or half-asleep. Probably a personal horoscope, or his lucky stars. Does anyone happen to know when he was born?”

  Nobody did, but Grief of Dawn said, “When he picked me up and put me on his lap I noticed the amulet around his neck. It had the planetary symbol of Mercury.”

  “Good girl!” Master Li rubbed his hands happily. “If the amulet means enough to him that he wears it permanently, the code may simply be characteristics of his guiding planet. Let’s see if they’re all here.’”

  He had me walk up and down the line while he hummed through his nose and studied weird symbols. Then he had me go back to the beginning.

  “We must hope he’s used the Chinese system. If he’s used a barbarian one we can expect a twenty-ton spike-studded iron plate to fall on our heads,” Master Li said matter-of-factly. “The organ associated with Mercury is the spleen.”

  I closed my eyes. Master Li reached out and punched the spleen symbol. Nothing happened, so I timidly made my way down the line of shields while Master Li punched symbols.

  “The taste associated with Mercury is salt….

  “The color is black….

  “The element is water….

  “The parent element is metal….

  “The child element is wood….

  “The friend element is fire….

  “The enemy is earth….

  “The earthly analogue is a stream….