Feng wasn’t much older than the troopers; but he had struck the pose of one a generation older from the start, and by now the soldiers’ deference to him was automatic, even without their superstitious awe of his supposed powers. The short soldier hustled over, bearing the small sheet of paper on two palms held flat and high before him like a tray of gold.
‘Stand your ground!’ Feng barked when the poor soldier, having delivered the paper to him, began to back away. ‘You’re the one the spirits gave this to. Stay by me while I examine it.’ With that, he eased onto a log beside the cooking fire as if onto a throne. The soldier squatted next to him.
No one but Feng knew exactly what would happen next. Faint brown writing began to form upon the paper as his long fingers held it near the fire, as if to see more clearly by its light. I gasped. The short soldier leapt up and stepped away, bumping into the other one, who had run up behind him for a closer look.
‘Read it!’ Feng commanded, but the short one hung his head and mumbled something, passing it to his plump – and literate –friend. The words stumbled from his lips:
If men with swords should seek the stone.
One word: and stones they’ll be.
If history’s a story, then
Which story’s history?
‘Well?’ demanded Feng. ‘Tell me what you make of that.’
‘Can’t say I understand the last half, sir,’ the fattish soldier declared. For an instant, Feng’s eyebrows drew together as if he too were puzzled, but then his face grew stern again. He waved one hand dismissively, and the soldier hurried on. ‘The first part, well, sir, the first part’s clear enough.’
The swarthy sergeant snorted, but he wanted our money; he had a part to play. ‘What’s that, private? Out with it!’
The soldier gulped, and looked down at his comrade, but no help was forthcoming. ‘Well, sir, begging your pardon, but I think “men with swords” means us soldiers, sir. I mean, the Wizard and his, ah, his party, they’re civilians and none of them carries a blade. At least I think not, sir.’ He turned half hopefully towards Feng, eager for any sign that all of us were in the paper’s designs together.
‘Do I seem to you to require so crude a weapon as a sword?’ Feng asked, and Sparker too assumed a haughty look.
‘No, sir. Not at all, sir.’ The soldier turned to the sergeant.
‘So I suppose it’s only us that’s going to turn to stones. Sir.’ The troopers stared anxiously at their leader. Sparker winked at me.
After that, the matter settled itself quickly, or so we’d thought. The sergeant allowed the privates to persuade him of the mission’s dangers. Feng vowed that, though unfortunately he could not vouch for the soldiers’ safety, he and the rest of us would never abandon our quest. ‘You’ve protected us well, where mortal soldiers can protect us,’ he said at last. ‘Surely His Excellency the governor would not wish you to throw away your lives. We are determined to find the stone and, ah, use it to slay the dragon that threatens His Excellency’s life.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘And succeed we will. You may as well report the deed as done when you get back to the Brocade City.’
Feng slipped a purse to the sergeant, who flashed one cynical grin behind the privates’ backs. The soldiers marched a nervous quickstep back the way we had come. Lighthearted, the four of us had climbed for another hour before we heard that voice calling to us to stop. Now I huddled in the crevice with the others, certain we would be found.
Footsteps rattled over the planks of the bridge we had crossed just moments before. ‘Stop! Oh, stop, please. Skywhistle, do please stop for me!’
The sound of the voice, the words, the lightness of the footfalls: whoever it was that laboured so to catch us, I realized, was not the greedy sergeant after all, not the soldiers angered at being played for fools. Though Baby caught my wrist again, I stepped out into the fading light. Farmer Yin’s Second Daughter burst around the last curve of the trail.
I clasped her shoulders with my hands, and she leaned against them, gasping. Her pockmarked face glowed a peach-blossom colour. Her eyes shone. By the time Baby, Sparker, and Feng stepped out of the crevice. Second Daughter had set down the bundle she carried and begun her tale.
The very afternoon – just the day before – that she bought the love charm from me and started looking for the creatures the recipe required, two callers arrived at her father’s house. The visit was quite out of the ordinary, coming in the silkworm-feeding season as it did. But then, the man who showed up so unexpectedly was known for hotheaded impulses.
The woman with him. Mistress Bian, busied herself as a go-between for families of Mothbrow Town. Her companion was the father of the neighbour Second Daughter hoped would become her husband and so free her from her own father’s contempt. That the prospective father-in-law should accompany the matchmaker struck Second Daughter as rather odd. But she was so used to scorn that she assumed he wanted to assure himself that the bride-to-be was not too disfigured by her pocks. And aware of the old man’s reputation, she supposed he had also seen in the call an opportunity to cadge a few drinks. Indeed, when Second Daughter answered her father’s summons to bring more refreshments for the guests herself rather than send in the cook, the chief visitor’s wine-reddened face had beamed.
‘“What matter a spotted peel, when the fruit is sweet?’” Second Daughter said, imitating the old man’s croak. Her eyes grew dim as she continued. ‘And though Mother used to tell me something like that years ago, before she died, it sounded different coming from his slobbering lips, I can tell you.’ Second Daughter’s strong shoulders twitched with surprising delicacy. ‘Father sent me off, but I listened from the hallway and heard the deal concluded. Only it turned out that the old man intended me to be his concubine, not his daughter-in-law.’
Her keen eyes swung towards Baby, who listened as avidly as any of us, half for the story’s sake, half out of relief that no angry soldiers were marching us off towards some awful punishment. ‘Better a concubine than a despised old maid, they say, but not the concubine of that old wine sponge, living in the same house with the one man I ever thought would make a halfway decent husband!’ She shrugged. ‘So, early this morning, I left my father’s house.’
‘And now?’ Feng stepped forward, assuming his place as chief among us, in charge of the situation at last.
Second Daughter lifted her chin. She was no common country girl. ‘And now, since my only sister died last year in childbirth, and I have no other relatives or friends, I’ve come to ask if you will take me in. Father worked me hard. I’m strong enough to be a useful servant, and –’ she looked at me with gentle reproach –‘and I can learn quickly how to earn money selling people what they think they need.’
I blushed, though I did believe the charm could have worked its magic, given a proper chance. Glancing away from Second Daughter, I saw a look of pity sweep across Feng’s face. Then something he would have called discretion replaced it. Would the Moon Lady allow this? And what was to happen after we found the stone? He frowned.
Second Daughter must have seen the same thing. ‘And I’ve brought money,’ she said hastily. ‘No small amount. Whatever you’re up to, I’ll join you. This mountain is the only place I’ve ever travelled to, but I know it well. Mama used to bring us here on pilgrimage when we were girls. Surely you could use a guide.’
This was no time to explain that we expected to be guided by the Moon Lady, and not until later did it occur to me that Second Daughter might be the form that guidance would take. Feng put on the air of the stern yet merciful magistrate he longed to be and nodded curtly. Soon we were all chatting and laughing somewhat giddily, even Feng, as the four of us described what we had imagined when we pressed ourselves into the crevice.
In less than an hour the trail brought us to a run-down convent, and there our party spent the night. Frogs chanted antiphonal refrains well past nightfall, but I slept deeply, relieved to be rid of the soldiers. I often savoured the freedom my boy’s c
lothes gave me, yet I preferred to be known as a young woman: I understood that much at least about who I was.
We continued the next day past grotesque stones and through the unfathomable forest. Slick patches of laurel, their froth of tiny lantern buds preparing to bloom, caught wisps of low cloud that wrapped the trail in obscurity, then fell away as we broke through to clear vistas. Cliffs of bare rock rose like millstones some whimsical giant had upended, and gleaming ribbons of water rushed below us towards the faraway sea.
From certain points of land our ears caught reverberations from the hills. To me, it sounded like a great slide of sand down the face of an unbalanced dune. Second Daughter told us that the local people called it the Mountain Tide because travellers said it resembled the crash of ocean breakers whipped up by typhoons. From its sound, farmers in the foothills foretold rain and the fate of the harvest.
Eventually we came to the old monastery below Central Peak. After supper, we sat on its front terrace of beaten earth, and Second Daughter pointed out to us the nearby summits: White Cloud Peak and Echoing Hill. Just behind them, her mother had told her, was the cave called Three Immortals, after an ancient goddess and her two sisters, and next to it a famous square-shaped rock, ten feet across, known as the Chessboard Stone.
This sightseeing is all very well,’ Feng interrupted, ‘but we have a job to do, you know, and no sign yet of where or how.’ At that, even Sparker stilled his jokes. Though the winter weather and lack of money had forced us to finish our journey from Chang-an slowly, we had all felt a growing urgency since we reached Mothbrow Town. I had told Second Daughter of our quest for the stone – and earned a frown from Feng for doing so. Now she too was caught up in frustration: where on all this great uplift of layered rock were we to find the stone for which we hoped the Moon Lady would grant our various rewards?
Feng muttered something about angering the goddess by adding on a tagalong. Baby, Sparker, and I had learned not to take his attempts to play the austere official altogether seriously, but Second Daughter lowered her face and slipped off to bed. Soon darkness fell. The rest of us followed her to the damp-walled rooms the monks had given us, one for the women, one for the men; fortunately, they left us to sort ourselves out. With only brief goodnights, we fell separately to sleep.
The droning of the monks at morning worship woke us before dawn. Blinking, I rose and drifted out into the chilly incense-laden mist that filled the monastery courtyard. One by one the others came, stamping their feet and waving their arms in the pearly dimness, as eager as I for the warmth of the morning meal. Only Second Daughter did not appear. When a silent old monk with an apron tied over his robes bowed before us, indicating that we should follow him into the guests’ dining room, I stepped back into the women’s bedroom to waken her. She wasn’t there. Nor was she in the privy.
I hurried to the dining room and told the others. Baby’s round eyes grew wider. Sparker cracked a joke about fox spirits that appear and disappear and when no one laughed looked sorry he had said it. Feng laced his fingers together thoughtfully.
At dinner the night before, we had talked over our plans, deciding to seek guidance at the temple of Lady Guan-yin that lay some four hundred steep steps farther upwards. Now Feng argued that we might as well proceed. ‘Second Daughter knows that’s where we’re going.’ His belligerence melted then. ‘And perhaps the Lady will intercede on her behalf if something’s wrong.’
And so his tender side revealed itself. Feng wasn’t much for prayers, except the official observances performed by good Confucian scholars, despite the fine shows he put on as the Wizard Mimesis. Much as Sparker enjoyed our trickery, he seemed to be the one with genuine leanings towards realms beyond the human. But when we reached the temple, Feng lit incense with the rest of us.
We rested awhile. Sparker yelled her name, yet we saw no sign of Second Daughter. In the tones of a regretful but unyielding father, Feng told us it was time to go.
Sparker shouldered his pack and made ready to follow the master he had served since boyhood. Baby got to her feet with none of her usual lithe vigour. To my own surprise, I continued squatting and said, ‘No.’
Feng’s head whipped round. ‘Come on. Parrot, don’t be silly.’ He rarely called me that, insisting that he and I ought to be called by our assumed names at all times. ‘I do feel sorry for the girl, you know. But she’s bound to turn up somewhere. Here, we’ll leave a note on this pillar if you like.’
I shook my head. It occurred to me to pretend I had received some heavenly message, but I didn’t want to lie. For months, Feng had led us, and I had given it no thought: he was the eldest, and educated, and a man. But, I reminded myself now, the Moon Lady had charged me with finding the stone and Feng with assisting me. I would wait for Second Daughter.
‘Parrot.’ Feng’s voice was softer now, something like Ghalib’s or even Baba’s when I had amused them, though that note rang false when young Feng took it on. ‘Parrot, we’ve a higher duty. We can’t be distracted by one lost person. We’ve got to go.’
I saw no point in answering. I didn’t move. Then Baby’s hands fluttered, though no one paid them notice until she stepped back and squatted down beside me. Sparker stood stock-still. Feng gave up his higher principles and sullenly agreed to wait till midday.
The impasse broke before then. Second Daughter – again panting, a beautiful peach-blossom colour again glowing on her cheeks – ran up the last steps to the temple porch where we four waited. Hesitation overlaid her excitement, but she poured out her story, too absorbed in her own feelings to notice the tension in the air.
She had got out of bed last night when the moon rose – it was just short of full – and shone through the open window. In a soft voice she claimed that the light had woken her. She stole from the room and out of the monastery and made her way in the flood of moonlight towards the cave called Three Immortals. ‘Mama used to tell us girls that she wanted to take us there,’ she said, ‘but there was always so much work waiting at home that we didn’t have time for side pilgrimages. Still, it wasn’t very hard to find the way. When I got there, I felt… easier.’ She looked away. ‘Maybe thinking of Mama helped. Anyway, I found a nook just inside the cave mouth. It was chilly, of course, but I made a nest of last autumn’s leaves, so I didn’t mind much, and I fell fast asleep.
‘After a while – maybe the cold woke me, or maybe I dreamed it, I don’t know, really –1 heard someone call my name outside the cave. For a moment I hoped it might be Mama’s ghost, I’d felt so close to her there. But I saw a bare-legged woman in a shimmery white dress, who nodded her head with satisfaction when I came out to where she stood.’
At the mention of the woman in the white dress, Feng caught my eye. The rift between us vanished.
‘The moon had crossed over to the western sky by then,’ Second Daughter continued, ‘but I could still see clearly. Most things looked grey, the way they do by moonlight, but next to the bare-legged woman – even though she looked young, she somehow made me think of a hermit who had been studying mystic arts in the hills for years –1 saw a huge flat stone, bright yellow-green.
‘The stone’s colour told me its name. People call it the Sulphur Flower Stone. I’d heard it lay somewhere near that cave. I could see another colour too: a bright red design on the flat surface of the rock. The bare-legged woman handed me a writing brush, and ink and paper, telling me to copy what it said. I did the best I could.’
‘What did it say?’ asked Sparker, his face merry with the thought of a messenger from heavenly realms.
Second Daughter hesitated. ‘Just a minute. I want to tell you the strangest part. Every word I copied disappeared from the stone the moment I brushed its duplicate on the paper. As soon as I finished, the woman waved me back towards the cave, and –I swear I’m not lying – walked up a moonbeam into the sky.’
‘Don’t worry. Second Daughter.’ Feng leaned forward earnestly; clearly this sign of the Moon Lady’s favour had convinced him we
ought to keep this bold farmer’s daughter with us. ‘We believe you. But we’d like to see the paper. The message is surely important.’
Now the hangdog pockmarked girl replaced the lively runaway. ‘I haven’t got it. I know I took the paper with me back to my leaf nest in the cave, but in the morning it had vanished. Believe me, I looked everywhere. That’s why I’m so late arriving here.’
‘The paper must have been made of moonlight,’ Sparker said in an uncharacteristically serious voice, ‘so it vanished when the moon set.’ His months of masquerade had had their effect: he had become quick to offer theories about the ways of the supra-human world.
‘The copying out may just have been to help you remember the message, Second Daughter,’ I added. ‘Tell us what it said.’
The look she gave me mingled shame with an arched-browed amusement at the world’s unfairness. ‘Do you suppose my father hired a tutor for me? I don’t think he would have done that for my brother, if I’d had one, and he certainly wasn’t going to waste the money on my sister and me.’ Baby rested one graceful hand on Second Daughter’s arm. I felt my cheeks burn. Sparker snorted.
‘I’ve sometimes felt book learning got in the way of real knowledge,’ he said. ‘Begging your pardon. Master Mimesis. But now I’ve got to admit it can have its uses.’ He ducked his head, picked up a pebble, and began to practise making it vanish and reappear.
I felt too clumsy to say anything, but Feng echoed Baby’s gentleness. ‘Never mind. Second Daughter. You’re not to blame. Here, take this stick and write out what you remember in the dirt here. Don’t rush. No doubt you can picture quite a lot of it.’
Silk Road Page 29
