The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox

by Barry Hughart

  “Oh no. Not again,” I faintly whispered.

  “But, Ox, it was so exciting!” the hosteler hissed.

  Exciting? He thought that ghastly chase had been as entertaining as a horse race or a sled down an icy slope? Suddenly I was free of chains. I felt like a dog released from a tether and I almost bolted and ran into a wall, but then the image of a dog stuck in my mind. A small sick dog on a silken pillow carried by a little maid with silly slippers, and I heard the voice of the Celestial Master chanting archaic words like a priestly chant. “If it continues to feel ill, anoint it with clarified fat of the leg of a snow leopard. Give it drink from eggshells of the throstle thrush filled with juice of the custard apple, in which are three pinches of shredded rhinoceros horn. Apply piebald leeches, and if it still succumbs remember that no creature is immortal and you too must die.”

  Master Li had checked. The dog had succumbed. “And you too must die,” said the Celestial Master. You too must die…you too must die….

  I snapped out of my reverie as the cell door creaked open. Sixth Degree Hosteler Tu was tugging at it, and dim torchlight played over his unpleasant features and those of Master Li, and I trotted out after them into the corridor. Master Li took the great ring of keys from a hook on the wall and began unlocking cell doors, but prisoners didn’t stream out. They were all huddled in corners in fetal positions with their hands over their ears, trying to block the screams the junior executioners had made when the hosteler got his hands on them, and I doubted that any would dare to move.

  “Hosteler, last night the Black Watch brought in another prisoner. A girl named Yu Lan. Do you know anything about her?” Master Li asked.

  “No, I have heard of no girl.”

  “Anything unusual?”

  “Yes,” the hosteler said thoughtfully. “A number of prisoners condemned to death have been taken from their cells to some other holding place where they are to be dedicated for a ceremony sometime today.”

  “Dedicated? You mean like animals for slaughter?” the sage asked.

  “I assume so. Rumor has it that the ceremony is to be held in the eunuchs’ courtyard at the time of the solstice,” said Hosteler Tu.

  Master Li was silent for a time. Then he whispered, “Yes, that might do it. The August Personage of Jade is hot-tempered, and if Heaven turns its back….” Then he broke from his reveries and snapped, “Hurry. We have to get up to the courtyard where that ceremony is to take place.”

  Hosteler Tu knew part of the underground labyrinth, and what he didn’t know firsthand Master Li could fill in theoretically, from architects’ plans seen fifty years ago and never forgotten. Like everything else in the Forbidden City, the Golden River is artificial, and a marvelously effective system allows it to pour prettily over a fall and then travel uphill so it can splash down another. The water boils down through crevices into connecting caverns where huge waterwheels lift it level by level to the desired height, and then back up to the surface. We slipped through side passages from the dungeons into caverns that reminded me somewhat of the Sixth Hell. Cursing overseers lashed rows of slaves who powered great horizontal wheels connected to vertical ones, and water splashed incessantly as immense buckets lifted and vanished through crevices in the roof. One good thing was the noise level, which meant we wouldn’t be heard as we made our way along a narrow path close to the overseers. The misty spray from the water helped hide us as well, and I was just thinking how lucky we were when one overseer turned to another.

  “Did you hear the latest?” he shouted. “The guilds made it official! They’ve canceled the Dragon Boat Race, and they even canceled their banquets!”

  I could have strangled him.

  “Tragic, even though the banquet of the Beggars’ Guild is totally unimaginative,” said Sixth Degree Hosteler Tu. “Eleven courses for beggars of the first and second degrees, seven courses, two jars of wine, and a box of salted meats to take home for third degree beggars, five courses, two jars of wine, and a box of preserved fruits for the fourth degree, and fifth through seventh degree beggars receive three courses, one wine jar, and no home box.”

  His voice was getting louder and louder as he warmed up, and I tried to clap a hand over his mouth. The trouble was that we had to walk single file and he could easily fend me off unless I wanted to start wrestling and really give us away.

  “The Merchants’ Guild, on the other hand, is a credit to civilization and cancellation of their banquet is a national tragedy,” the hosteler said loudly. “Even the lowest degrees, seventh through fifth, receive birds’ nests, pigs’ trotters, domestic duck, chicken, and three kinds of pork. Merchants of the fourth and third degrees are entitled to the same plus shark fins, salmon, and fried lamb. These courses are also offered to second and first degree merchants who additionally receive bear paws, deer tails, goose, crabs, and mussels. The merchants of the Mongolian guild, however—”

  “Hosteler Tu!” hissed Master Li.

  “But you must know!” yelled Sixth Degree Hosteler Tu. “It must be recorded that guilds are allowed local delicacies, and in Mongolia they add for all degrees slices of mutton dipped in a mixture of raw eggs beaten with chopped ginger and then seared over charcoal fires!’

  That did it. Overseers wheeled around and yelled for soldiers, and an officer and ten men appeared out of nowhere and charged with spears, and after that things got very confusing. We’d backed into a wall that was almost beneath one of the great rising waterwheels, and the spray that closed around us was blinding, and the noise of wheel and water blocked out almost everything else. Li the Cat hadn’t bothered to have Master Li’s throwing knife taken away—after all, we’d been chained to posts—and he was able to fend for himself. I was trying to pick up one soldier and use him as a battering ram against others, but that left most of the work to the hosteler, and I will freely admit that of all the killers I’ve encountered few could come within leagues of Sixth Degree Hosteler Tu. Those long webbed fingers, those sharp-pointed teeth filling a mouth that could stretch wide enough to swallow a muskmelon, the feet that slipped from sandals to reveal prehensile toes planned for strangling, that soft unresisting body absorbing the hardest blows like a feather pillow, and then falling in folds over a victim and clogging air passages like an obscene shroud of flabby fat. All the while the hosteler giggled, mind you, and his reptilian tongue flicked happily over his lewd lips—still, not even Hosteler Tu could ignore blows from a dagger.

  When I finally staggered up from my pile of bodies and looked around I saw Master Li apparently unhurt, but the hosteler had been battling the bulk of them and now he had his arms around the last, the officer, crushing him in a bear hug. The officer was stabbing the hosteler in the back with his dagger, again and again, and then the two of them toppled to the ground beside the water, wrapped in their final bloody embrace. There was a gasp and a sickening snapping sound, and the officer twitched and lay still. Master Li knelt beside the hosteler and examined him.

  “I’ll be damned. He’s still alive.”

  The hosteler’s eyes opened.

  “Hosteler Tu, I wanted to ask you something very important,” Master Li said, speaking slowly and carefully. “I have reason to believe that Number Ten Ox has been receiving a message, again and again, but the meaning has been disguised because to impart it is taboo.”

  Me? A taboo message?

  “I also have reason to believe that the disguise is formed from slang of the first Dragon Boat Race, slang which your people may still preserve,” Master Li said. “The first slang term is ‘mother.’”

  Hosteler Tu’s eyes were partially focused on this world and partially on the next. “Mother? Boat race?” he whispered. “The mother is the same as t’ou, the head, meaning the boss of the boat. Mother stands on the high prow and sends commands with long flowing scarves, but what you must understand is that the Merchants’ Guild of Canton offers all degrees an additional course of fo siu u, ‘roast pork fish,’ which actually does taste a little lik
e pork but is poisonous if cooked with broccoli.”

  “Hosteler Tu, the next word is ‘grass,’” Master Li said urgently.

  “Grass is slang for k’i, the scarves used by mother to send commands. They’re green with white tips and look like tall grass waving in the wind, and in Shanghai the guild adds herrings called ‘little father’s eldest sisters,’ and—”

  “‘Brothers,’ Hosteler Tu, the word is ‘brothers,’”Master Li said.

  “Brothers, yes, oh yes. Eight of them. Four in front of the wall and four behind. Lead oarsmen who set the stroke, and they wear red bandannas and have red ribbons around their oar handles, and in Shanghai they also add a delicious threadfin called ‘horse-friend-gentleman-fish,’ which is—”

  “Hosteler Tu, you just mentioned the ‘wall.’ What is it?” Master Li asked.

  “The wall is the raised platform in the center of a Dragon Boat, where the drummer takes the commands of the mother and transmits them with his beat,” the hosteler whispered.

  He was sinking fast. Master Li raised his voice to shout directly in the hosteler’s ear.

  “Hosteler, I assume the ancient wu hing system of parallels was in place, so ‘field’ means east and ‘stall’ means west, but I must know about the goat!” the sage yelled. “What is…the…goat?”

  I thought Hosteler Tu was dead. Then his eyes opened, and they were perfectly clear, and his voice was firm.

  “The shao, the steering oarsman of a dragon boat, is always called the goat for two reasons,” he said as if lecturing. “First, he butts head with almost the entire stern while wrestling with his oar, and second, he’s an outsider who’s expected to take the blame if the boat loses. A goat is a professional, a hired oar. No amateur can handle a hunk of wood that stretches forty feet and weighs more than a ton, and no amateur can cook for the guild of Nam Viet, where the additional course is lips of hsiang-hsiang, meaning gibbons, seethed in beer made from juice of the areca nut.”

  His eyes popped wide, staring up at something invisible to the living. A spasm caused him to jerk backward, and then Sixth Degree Hosteler Tu slid down the bank with the dead officer in his arms. They landed in the water and disappeared. Frothy pink bubbles popped to the surface, and a red stain slowly spread and drifted toward the huge lifting buckets of the wheel.

  “Farewell, Hosteler,” Master Li said softly, and the frothing water answered, “Burp…. Burp…. Burp.”

  We met no more soldiers as Master Li directed me toward one of the staircases that led to gardeners’ sheds, but when I took the old man on my back and climbed up and out beside a swirling pool where water was being dumped from a wheel we both received a shock, this time from nature. I was sure the day had passed and it must be midnight at least, but it was only early afternoon, and what an afternoon! The Yellow Wind had closed around Peking with a vengeance, and whirlwinds danced and darted through the city and sent clouds of debris spinning up into the air to sail this way and that and then drift back down to earth like dirty snowflakes made from ripped canvas, reed matting, splintered bamboo, garbage, and dead rats. Sand lashed our faces. Wind howled like wolves as gusts ripped between rows of elegant palaces, and a giant hissing noise came from lashed leaves and scraped tiles. The water of the Golden River was covered with a frothy cloud of spray from the impact of a billion tiny yellow grains, and the sun behind the haze seemed grossly swollen and as red as blood. Rows of blackbirds sat motionless upon towers and parapets, silhouetted against a burning sky.

  “Sky-flame,” Master Li muttered in my ear. “What happens once can happen twice, even including a Death Birds Ghost Boat Rain Race. Ox, the fastest route to the eunuchs’ courtyard is the Golden River, so find a raft and a pole and let’s go.”

  I knocked the shearing blade from the end of a long bamboo tree-trimming pole and ripped the large wooden door from a gardener’s shed and tossed it down into the water. It made a good enough raft, with enough buoyancy for the two of us, and I pushed off with the pole and caught what current there was. I rammed the pole rhythmically, shoving with long smooth strokes, and we picked up respectable speed. Several times we plunged down over falls that were too decorative to be dangerous, and soon I could see ahead to our destination, and my heart felt squeezed as I realized the huge basilica I was looking at was the barracks of the Black Watch, where Hog and Hyena and Jackal had taken Yu Lan. In front of it was a low wall that also formed the back wall of the eunuchs’ courtyard, between their elegant palace and the Palace of Southern Fragrance. All this was slightly downhill from us. The Golden River was taking us to falls that frothed down a low stone cliff that was one of the few natural barriers in the Forbidden City, and formed the front wall of the eunuchs’ courtyard. I want to clearly establish the scene as viewed from that little cliff. One looked down into a large circular courtyard paved with marble, in the center of which was a raised stone platform around an ancient well that had once been used for sacrifice during religious rites. A second raised platform stood at the base of the cliff so the waterfall could form a dramatic background, and there dignitaries perched in their pride during great occasions. Left was the Palace of Southern Fragrance, right was the eunuchs’ palace, and back was the basilica of the Black Watch.

  The closer we got, the more clearly I could see that every window and balcony was packed with people gazing down to the courtyard, which was in turn packed with eunuchs and soldiers. When we were close enough to see the river disappear over the cliff Master Li had me pole to shore and lift the raft out. We continued on foot, and when we stuck our heads through some reeds beside the waterfall we were looking almost straight down at the dignitaries’ platform, where chairs were arrayed like thrones. In the center sat Li the Cat, flanked by the two powerful eunuchs whose names had been on the list of corporate officers. Then on each side were the chairs of the remaining mandarins of the tea conspiracy, and Master Li’s fingers tightened on my shoulder as we saw the five ancient cages beside the thrones.

  “It’s the cages, Ox,” Master Li said quietly. “Now our only hope is to reach those cages before Envy gets to them. If I’m right he only needs one more, and that must not be allowed to happen.”

  Apparently we had arrived at a pause in some sort of ritual. I hadn’t realized how abnormally silent the crowd had been until a vast collective sigh greeted the chief figure of the ceremony, who stepped from behind a screen decorated with sacred symbols. It was the Celestial Master. His cape was decorated with skulls, and behind him came a high priest carrying an ancient stone club on a gold-embossed pillow. They slowly mounted the steps to the platform around the old well. There was a long ritual prayer I couldn’t hear and probably wouldn’t have understood anyway, and then the ranks of soldiers parted to make way for two lesser priests leading a line of chained prisoners. The first prisoner was released from the lead chain. Still manacled, he was hauled up the steps and kicked down on his knees before the Celestial Master.

  The high priest raised his arms and voice to Heaven, chanting something or other, and the Celestial Master raised the stone club above his head. I gaped in disbelief as the club swung viciously down and smashed the skull of the prisoner, and then with a powerful contemptuous kick the ancient saint shoved the corpse to the edge of the well, and it toppled down into darkness. A great cheer rang out from the crowd, and the mandarins applauded. I stared at the sage.

  “They’ve been praying to get the attention of Heaven, and the emperor of Heaven is not likely to be pleased,” he said in a hard tight voice. “If the August Personage of Jade has a fault it’s his hot temper, and we’d better do something fast before the Doctrine of Disaster gets an unfortunate workout.” He punched my arm with short rapid strokes. “The cages, Ox. We must get those cages and we can’t worry about risk. Let’s go.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  A second human sacrifice was being hauled to the Celestial Master’s ax, which meant nobody was watching the cliff as I carried Master Li down it. I heard the cheer as again the
stone ax crushed a human skull, and I began praying for help. Fervently, but not blindly. I had a very clear image in mind. Where was the puppeteer? If Yen Shih would only appear with that dancing daring light in his eyes, swords in each hand flashing faster than the wings of hawkmoths….

  We reached the shallow pool behind the platform and started slogging forward, and then Master Li let out a tiny yelp and stared up and to the left. I gasped as I saw a figure climbing down the wall of the Palace of Southern Fragrance. It was not the figure I’d been praying for, but it was just as powerful, and it was headed straight toward that platform and those cages. Blue cheeks and crimson nose and yellow chin and silver forehead seemed appropriate to the scene that framed them: whirlwinds tossing dark clouds of debris into the air, hissing Yellow Wind, a swollen blood-red sun, gusts howling around palaces.

  “Hurry, Ox! He can’t get another cage!” Master Li yelled.

  I did my best, leaping forward with the old man on my back, vaulting to the platform. I was still on my knees on the platform’s edge, preparing to stand and leap, when the great ape man landed light as a leaf between the thrones. He snapped a mandarin’s neck with an easy chop of one hand and scooped up his cage, and for a moment the creature’s eyes looked directly at me, and at Master Li, and I almost thought I saw amusement in them. Then with two more leaps Envy was off the platform and racing to the wall. One alert soldier managed to hurl a spear that fell five feet short as the ape man began to climb. I could scarcely run as fast as Envy could scale a wall, and in a few seconds he was gone, carrying the cage.

  Unfortunately we were still there. The mandarins were shrieking and pointing at us, and squads of soldiers were racing forward, and we were saved from being turned into pincushions by massed arrows because they would have hit mandarins and eunuchs as well, but it was only a brief reprieve. Li the Cat was howling for blood, and the Black Watch was closing around us, and at that instant something happened that caused every head to turn. I thought I had heard the most horrible screams possible when Hosteler Tu had practiced his art down in the dungeon, but I was wrong. These screams were even worse, and they were coming from the Black Watch’s basilica, and my eyes jerked that way along with everyone else’s.