by Alice Major
“You feel you have to protect her from her own actions. But that is not what I asked. What action is right for you to take. That is all you control.”
She thought deeply for a few moments, then sighed. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.”
“You are the only one who can know. Think carefully. Let the answer come to you. When you do know, come and tell me.”
“I don’t even know who you are,” Ariel said awkwardly.
“I am the Lady Shen, wife of the Count of Religious Affairs.”
Ariel looked up in surprise. She couldn’t associate this cool, elegant person with such a fussy, self-important husband. “Why would you marry him,” she blurted out, then blushed and said, “Excuse me.”
A look of amusement crossed the woman’s face, but she did not answer the question.
“I am also sister to the Director of Horses,” she said. “You will find my residence in the nobles’ quarter. Get one of the palace people to show you the way. It is not far.” Then she stood and touched Ariel lightly on the shoulder. “Tears have their place, but you will not find answers in them.”
Ariel stayed a long, quiet time in the garden, then slipped back to her room and slept deeply.
The end of the following pulse found Ariel standing at the entrance of the Lady Shen’s residence, where a curious but courteous servant led her to a bench to wait. Shortly afterwards, she was led into a spacious study at the rear of the house. A painted scroll hung by an open window, where bamboo drooped gracefully outside. Brushes and a pottery ink-jar stood ready on the desk. Shen gestured to her to sit in one high-armed chair and seated herself in a second one.
“Now, tell me,” she said with her distant kindness.
Ariel took a deep breath and spoke slowly and carefully. “I think I should go back to the garden, even if Joss and Alasdair won’t come. I think the answer is back there.” She paused and went on. “I’ve been trying to figure out how I’ll get back. I don’t quite like the idea of going alone, but I could probably find the way. I just don’t know how to get away from the palace and get supplies.”
“What would you do when you got there?”
She raised her eyes to Shen’s face. “I’m not sure. I wish I was going back with more. We came here to find help and advice. But no-one seems to know anything much. Or care. But I still feel I should go back.”
The Lady Shen studied her face carefully for a while before speaking. “I think we can solve the difficulty of supplies and companionship on your journey. And perhaps we can send you back with something more. As wife of the Count of Religious Affairs, I have my own role to play in managing the scholars and priestesses.”
Ariel looked at her hopefully. “And they might know about how to return to my own world?”
Shen smiled and shook her head. “I doubt there is anything in the official records that will help us. We have long forgotten that there was ever another world.”
“But you knew? Even before we came?”
Shen nodded. “I was taught this long ago, by an old scholar who was learned in the traditions of the Garden. But I never heard of any way of slipping back and forth between the worlds, like a shuttle in a loom.” She rose and walked to the window, gazing out at the cool quiver of bamboo leaves. “The knowledge you need is probably like an old silk robe. A piece used as a dust cloth here, a few threads caught in a drawer there. Part made into a baby’s cap. And much devoured entirely by time. But we shall open some cupboards and drawers and see what we can find.”
Ariel felt relief trickle between her shoulder blades. “Thank you,” she said gratefully.
“Do not hope for too much,” warned the Lady Shen. I am not certain we shall find anything useful.”
She took a small bell from the table and tinkled it. When the servant appeared, she sent him for something refreshing for her guest to drink. Then she sat chatting courteously while Ariel sipped a clear, pale-coloured tea where flower petals floated.
At last Ariel’s curiosity got the better of her and she ventured to ask, “I thought the Count of Religious Affairs lived in the palace.”
“He does. His traditional residence is near the north pavilion.”
“And you live here.”
“Yes.”
“But don’t husbands and wives live together here?”
The Lady Shen’s eyes were beginning to smile again. “Often they do,” was all she said by way of answer. Ariel realized there wasn’t much more she could ask without being rude. She put her cup aside and stood to thank Shen once more.
“Go back to the palace now and wait. I will send for you,” said the Lady, and led her out.
Waiting seemed long to Ariel. The preparations for the campaign dragged on. After a while, the supplies had all been collected and reluctant soldiers had made their way to the capital from all the parts of the Middle Kingdom. Only a few stragglers were arriving. Now, they only waited for the augurers to pronounce that the omens were right for the army to set out.
Early in each pulse, the director of auguries supervised the kindling of the sacred fire in the centre of the palace courtyard and oversaw the carving of the question in a piece of bone: “The king wishes to undertake an expedition against the White Ti. Shall I not be successful?”
A pattern of small holes was drilled through the bone and it was buried in the hot embers while the Director of Augurers chanted a prayer. A few moments later, it was drawn out again and plunged in cold water. Then soot was rubbed across the surface to outline the fine cracks made by the fire and the bone was handed to the Master Diviner for him to interpret the ancestors’ reply.
But every time, the diviner gave a similar answer: “The road is blocked.” “The millet has not yet sprouted.” “Patience is the root of filial piety.” In other words, “not yet.”
The king would be temporarily cast down, then argue with the Director of Augurers about the precise wording of the question. Then he would recover his spirits. “Next time,” he would say.
Ssu-ma would look grimly towards the light node making its slow journey to the north. “It will have to be soon, sire,” he replied. “We are approaching mid-summer. If we do not get the omen soon, we will have to abandon the campaign for this year.”
Joss continued to nurse the strangely familiar exultation inside her. She found herself anticipating the king’s movements and putting herself in his path. She treasured the memory of the times when she made him laugh or notice her in some other way, and turned them over in her mind as she drifted off to sleep.
Lady Shen finally sent word. It came just after the Master Diviner had announced yet again that the time was not ripe. The king had stormed off to the east pavilion, for once very irritated by the diviner’s ruling, and Ariel was standing with a group of nobles who were obviously made nervous by the king’s anger. Someone tapped her respectfully on the shoulder. Looking around, she saw Shen’s servant and slipped away from the others.
The Lady Shen was once again seated in her study when Ariel arrived. On her desk was a scroll, partially unwound. Ariel looked hopefully at it.
“No, I have not been able to find much for you,” Shen said. But as Ariel’s face fell, she added, “Still, perhaps we have a scrap or two.”
She told Ariel how she had consulted the scholars, the priests and wise women in the villages, and how one of the members of the College of Scribes had come to her with a scroll from the ancient libraries. She took the scroll and unwrapped it a little further. Its stiff fabric cracked ominously as it was unrolled.
“This is an account of the beginning of the world,” she said and read aloud the same words that, far away, Li-Tsai had taught to P’eng and the others around the fire.
Ariel listened carefully. “It doesn’t tell us how to get back, but it does say it can be done,” she said at last. “Is there anything else?”
“A little more.” Shen took a small leather pouch from her desk, pulled the thong that held it closed, and shook five small stones into her hand. She held her hand out, and the girl picked one of them up. It was a single piece of quartz, slightly gold in colour with slender needles of silver set in it. Ariel studied it closely, frowning.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I thought perhaps you might know,” said Shen.
Ariel shook her head slowly, then stopped, remembering. “Oh, this could be like the stones Mark told me about. The ones he got from the wild woman.” Excited, she held it up to the light. “And we’ve got the stick thing there . . .”
“They found a scrap of an old scroll in the bag,” said Shen. “It says only that these crystals were part of the Lady Lo-Tsu’s dowry and they have a power for opening gates.” She picked up another of the stones and held it to the light. “There is an old legend that in crystals such as these you see Lo-Tsu’s needles.”
Ariel’s heart lifted. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she whispered rapidly. “I’m sure this will help. Maybe the others will come back with me now.”
The Lady Shen was watching her face closely. At Ariel’s words, she shook her head very slightly. All she said was, “When do you wish to leave?”
“As soon as possible, I guess.”
“Then come here two pulses after this one and be prepared to leave from here. I will have what you need ready.”
The next pulse’s reading of the oracle bones returned an answer that was more ambiguous than ever: “The road to the north is clear. Consider the road to the south.”
There was a lengthy debate among the diviners about the significance of this omen. Finally they agreed that the ancestors had approved the beginning of the campaign. However, Ariel slipped away feeling strangely reassured. It was as though the oracle was meant for her. “Consider the road to the south.” That’s what she would do.
She made a last plea to the others, telling them about the little bag of stones. “It only makes sense to go back to the garden now,” she pleaded. “No one here has anything else for us.”
But Joss’s mouth set stubbornly. “No, we still don’t have enough so we know for sure how to get back. I’m going with the king.”
“Alasdair?”
“I want to go on this campaign too.”
Ariel felt as surprised and disappointed as she had felt when they first argued over following the king. She had convinced herself that the stones and the scroll would turn the tide, would bring the others to their senses. She turned her face away to hide the hurt.
“Okay,” she said quietly. “I guess I’m on my own.”
Joss watched her sister’s retreating back. “She won’t really go. She’s just trying this to change our minds.”
“She really seemed to mean it,” Alasdair said doubtfully.
“No, she’s just playing games.”
On the following pulse, Ariel stood once again in the Lady Shen’s room, her travel pack in her hand.
“I am sending two people with you,” said the Count’s wife. “They will stay at the garden and help with the harvest. Next spring, I will send some more suitable people. We cannot leave the service of the garden to one aging scholar and a girl.”
The scroll, stowed in a wooden box for safety, and the leather bag were on her desk. She handed these to Ariel and watched while she tucked them into the pack. Then she said, “There is one more thing I am going to send with you.”
She took a small roll of cloth from the desk and unravelled it. Nested at the centre was a sky-blue stone disk with a hole through its centre. It was the same cool, heavy stone as the weight on Molly’s stick, and etched all around with symbols.
“This is the oldest treasure of the Middle Kingdom,” she said. “This is the oldest of the ritual jades, the pi.” She put it gently into Ariel’s hand.
“I thought they were stolen.”
“Not this one. At first there were only two ritual jades. The blue pi to symbolize heaven, the yellow ts’ung to symbolize earth. Then others were added.” She took the disk back and showed Ariel a faint crack running across its smooth surface. “A new pi was added to the set when this one was damaged. The disk of heaven should be perfect, the priests thought, so this one was put away with great reverence. Even though it was given to the people of the Middle Kingdom by the Yellow Emperor himself.”
She took Ariel’s chin with her fingers and looked into her eyes. “I feel it belongs in the garden, and I am trusting you to take it there. Will you promise?”
“Yes.” She looked back into Shen’s eyes until the other woman seemed satisfied.
“Very well.” Her cool fingers touched Ariel’s cheek lightly.
As the disk was being wrapped again in its strip of cloth, Ariel asked, “But won’t someone notice it’s gone? Won’t there be trouble?”
“As I said, it is no longer used in the ceremonies. Few people who are now alive even know it exists. And there is yet another pi in the casket in case someone should think to look.” Shen’s voice was dry as she concluded, “But I doubt anyone will look. Now come.”
She led Ariel into the courtyard where two young men stood beside a small, heavily laden donkey not much bigger than a large dog.
“These are the brothers Chu-hin and Chu-yu of my household,” said the Lady Shen. “They are trustworthy and resourceful, and will go with you to the garden. By doing so, they will be held in even higher regard by me.”
The brothers bowed, eyeing Ariel’s foreign face with a shy curiosity. She looked back at them gratefully.
“I advise you to leave now, while the supper hour means the streets are quiet,” said Shen. She touched Ariel’s cheek again gently. “May Yao-ch’i herself protect you.”
Few people noticed the small procession as it wound through the streets of the capital—two young men in labouring clothes with a donkey, followed by a girl in a peasant’s gray-blue travelling tunic, with her eyes cast down and her face shadowed modestly by a straw hat. They left by the same southwest gate through which Ariel had entered. Just outside the city, she paused a moment and looked up at the walls towering above her. She cast a look over her shoulder, sighed slightly, then turned to face the steep, wide, dusty track up to the top of the river valley.
At about that moment, the king was walking with his intimates in the pleasure garden, jesting about their departure on the following pulse.
“I trust the yellow robe is packed, Ssu-kung,” he said. “When we enter the capital of the enemy, I shall wear the colour of the great Huang-ti.”
“It is packed.”
“And the dragon helmet of the hero Chuan-hsu? And the gold armband of the sorceress queen of the west? I will look magnificent, won’t I, little ambassador?”
Joss flushed. “The best-dressed conqueror,” she agreed, catching his intense pleasure like a ball tossed to her in a game.
But when she returned later to her sleeping room, she found the note from her sister and—for a moment at least—doubt chilled her excitement.
“She really did go,” she said aloud. “She really did.”
Chapter Seventeen
At the garden, while they waited for the travellers to return from the capital, Molly watched the pulses of the light node come and go. Life had fallen into a rhythm. Mark, Li-Tsai and P’eng went on with the work of breaking up ground and sowing the small black millet seeds. Molly took over the task of tending the fire in the li and helping as much as she could to prepare food. But more and more she craved the time she spent in the garden. During her time away from it, she felt weaker, more crippled. Inside its walls, she felt a measure of strength return to her. Soon, she decided to sleep in the hut there. When Li-Tsai saw her bedding being carried to the garden, he sighed but seemed resigned.
P’eng continued to carry the ritual bowl to the offering s
tone. But now she took other food as well, and would sit with Mark and Molly beside the quiet trickle of the pool to eat. As the time passed, they began to notice the same faint crackle around the light node that, far away, Ariel and the others were noticing too. They saw the flickering ring around the node steady itself into a slow sweep of gold; then they felt the unfamiliar breeze. Finally, Molly woke to the spatter of rain on the moss roof of her sleeping chamber.
With the millet safely planted, P’eng turned to other tasks. During one dry spell between the first showers of the rainy season, Mark rolled Molly’s wheelchair into the li to find P’eng carrying a large basket of fibre into one of the village huts. It looked a lot like the material in the garden.
“What is it? Where does it come from?” asked Molly.
“From the reeds,” the older girl replied. She explained how, each spring after a long winter, they would rake huge piles of reeds out of the slough.
“The stalks get soft from lying in the water all winter,” she explained. The bundles of reeds were beaten with wooden paddles and pulled through spiny branches from thorn trees to separate the fine, flaxy inner fibres from the rough material of the outer stalk.
“And now it is almost ready to spin,” she announced proudly. “There is lots more in the store hut that Chuan and I prepared after the last long winter. There will be new blankets for all of us.”
As the rain began again, she wheeled Molly into one of the huts that was bigger than the others and with more windows. There, she took two flat pieces of wood down from the wall. Each was spiked with thorns like a clumsy hair brush. She laid a clump of the flax fibres over one of them, then started teasing them with the other paddle to make them lie flat and parallel.
“Let me try that,” Molly said suddenly. She felt a sudden itch to feel the waxy fibres under her own fingertips. As P’eng showed her, she teased handfuls of flax into alignment and rolled them into loose rolls.
When they had a pile of these rolls, P’eng bound them onto the end of a long, heavily carved staff, wrapping thin strips of cloth in a criss-cross pattern to hold them in place. She tucked this distaff under her arm and reached in her pocket for yet another tool.
