by Justin Hill
Shulien made her way around the rituals of mourning. As she reached the spirit tablet she was given three sticks of incense. The tablet was a piece of cedar wood, carved with two dragons at the top.
Spirit tablet of the illustrious lord Duke Te, who received the title of Grand Master for Governance from the Qing court. Respectfully set up by his pious son, Sir Te Songqing.
She lit the incense sticks from the smoky red candle and set them in the ash of those which had gone before. She knelt and bowed three times.
Shulien still had that sense that she was being watched. She turned and took the room in, half hoping to see Mubai’s ghost standing at the back with his large sad eyes smiling at her. There were many looking at her, but it was a young noblewoman who caught her attention. Pretty, young, upright.
The girl looked quickly away.
“Who is that?” Shulien asked.
Sir Te wasn’t sure.
“That one,” Shulien said. The one with the white skin and black hair and proud bearing. Even though she was dressed in the same mourning white, to Shulien the girl stood out among the other noblewomen like a wolf amongst hounds.
Sir Te screwed up his nose. “She is the daughter of . . . someone. Why, do you know her?”
“No,” Shulien said. But I know her kind. She leaned in close and spoke discreetly. “It is well guarded?”
“Oh yes!” he said.
Shulien did not like this sense of being watched.
“Maybe tonight you could take me to see.”
“I shall,” Sir Te said.
Shulien had cleaned and washed, and was dressed in a simple green gown, the hem embroidered with swirling clouds. Curfew sounded from the drum tower, the boom rolling out over the Forbidden City to Duke Te’s palace. The stooping sun filled the air with a gleaming golden light and birds were returning to their roosts as Sir Te took her through courtyard after courtyard, through the ornamental garden with its endless brick path, right to the private rear of the palace. They passed along a covered walkway, with beams painted in bold colors with scenes of scholars by thatched huts, lily pools and cloud-wreathed peaks. It led to a maze garden, with a low hedge winding around with the brick pathway. The next chamber was being used as a storeroom for winter furniture and braziers, and then they stopped before a blank red wall. Sir Te paused. He looked around, then quickly felt the wall, and pressed the third brick from the top. It slid back, and there was a soft click! and then the wall swung back like a door.
Sir Te stepped through quickly, and with a brief look behind them, he gently closed the door.
They were standing in a tunnel with an arched roof. The only light came from the paper lantern Sir Te held. “This way,” he said. “It is not far.”
The corridor was twenty feet long. It was level and dry, a heavy round moon door blocking the other end.
Sir Te took out a silver key, slid it into the lock, and it opened with a soft chime as the springs came free. He pushed the door open to a small, doorless courtyard, a dust floor and a single plum tree standing before a small locked pavilion with lattice windows. Sir Te stopped before it and fumbled with the keys. “I did not know about this place until just before my father died. He came here alone.” He took the heavy brass lock in one hand and turned the key with a sharp click. The two halves of the lock sprang apart, and he unslotted the bolt and drew it back, pushing the doors open.
The air was dry and clean and dusty. It had an unlived feel to it. He lit the lanterns and they cast a dull red light around the room.
Shulien saw a small chamber, hung with ancient scrolls of landscapes of the finest calligraphy; cups of the finest Burmese jade; white porcelain vases and plates painted with blue willows and women and gardens for wise men; ancient statues of wrestlers, their bellies bound with thick sashes, their arms curled around their sides; there were silver cups, Tibetan tankas of silk and gold; brass lions from the Palace of Eternal Spring in the southern jungles of Yunnan; and a statue of the dying Buddha carved from black marble, that had been sent from some ancient king of Siam.
Shulien walked to a pair of scrolls that lay unrolled on a table.
“The wise man teaches by action, not words,” one scroll said.
“Deviate an inch, lose a thousand miles,” said the other.
She turned to follow Sir Te. He stood next to a high shrine table in front of a small jade statue of the Warrior God, Guanyu, standing on a high altar. On the table was a long ornate box. Sir Te undid the clasps and gently opened the lid.
There was the Green Destiny: a long straight sword, forged a thousand years before, eight steel rods folded nine hundred times by a master smith, the likes of whom no longer existed in the world. The sword that had once hung at Guanyu’s waist. It was like touching myth. The blade was unblemished, unchipped, undented, a greenish tinge to the steel. It was light, a uniform width, three fingers wide from end to end, the edge as sharp as a razor despite the years. In the blade clouds swirled in intricate patterns of light and dark. Shulien got caught for a moment in their interweaving. She and Mubai had spent many evenings staring at those patterns, as if there were a meaning there.
She touched the golden hilt. She stroked the ironwood handle, stroked the finely plaited yak-hair grip. She shivered suddenly. Mubai had carried this sword for many years. After his death she had brought it here, but now the sight of it uncovered long-buried memories. She had thought her grief had hardened and grown thick, like an old scar, and was surprised how easily she could be cut again. When she spoke her voice was a whisper. “This sword has brought me so much sadness but still I cannot help but gape. Such beauty, such power. What warrior is worthy of wielding this blade?” Her voice trailed off.
She could feel Sir Te’s nervousness and paid him no heed. Mubai had given the sword to the duke for safekeeping. If anyone could claim ownership of Green Destiny it was her, as Mubai’s closest living friend, not Sir Te.
She sighed.
It was not right to blame others. Duke Te had hidden this sword for so many years, had kept it both safe and secret. Sir Te was clearly inadequate to the task of holding and guarding such a treasure, but when the strong are missing, the weak and inadequate and unlearned man must step forward.
Sir Te was only trying to do what was best.
She sighed again. More sadly this time. “This is where your father came to think?” Shulien said.
Sir Te nodded. “Only he came here, and only he was allowed to eat the fruit of this tree.”
Shulien took in a deep breath.
“And this is where he kept Green Destiny?”
“Yes,” Sir Te said. “But he would not let it go. It was too dangerous, he said.”
“He never used it?”
Sir Te shook his head. “No. It must always be hidden, my father told me. He made me swear before he died that I would tell no one. History is the best hiding place. Forgetfulness. Dust. Lost to memory.”
Shulien nodded, but she was not so sure. Memories lived long, she thought. Sometimes longer than the people themselves.
“Thank you,” she said. “I am glad to see it once more. It reminds me of happier times.”
Sir Te shut the lid and rebolted the door, and as the moon rose through the falling curled branches of the plum tree, he shut the gate behind them, and Shulien let out a long sigh.
This place was too full of ghosts, she thought.
“I am tired,” she said. “I think I will sleep now.”
II
There was a hush in the central hall of the second courtyard. It was time for the coffin to be nailed shut. Duke Te’s four sons stood in a line, their silver ritual hammers raised to be purified. Each looked awkward and stiff and incompetent.
Wei-fang had joined the hired mourners. The place was deserted of warriors. He suppressed a smile. He felt cocky. If this was what the House of Te had fallen
to, then, he thought, this should be easy. He had known from personal experience that the maids knew far more about what was happening in a household than the owners or the guards. He had paid one of the serving girls a bit of attention, and a combination of soft words and a winning smile and she had been very forthcoming about where Duke Te kept his most treasured possessions.
“Not in his study,” she had said, shaking her head. “No. He keeps them in the northern courtyard. Past the storerooms. No one’s allowed there, except the master of the house.”
A little investigation and Wei-fang now knew which courtyard to try; he was almost giddy with expectation. He bowed his head as the funeral master aligned the lid of the coffin properly and then the silver nails, each stamped with the character for luck, were held in place. Sir Te fumbled with the first one. He muttered something and the funeral master’s smile set a little too hard.
Such fumbles were inauspicious, Wei-fang thought. A father like Duke Te deserved better sons. For a moment he thought of his own father and mother, and the fiancée he had escaped from. He put such thoughts away and made his excuses to the other professional mourners, rolled up his personal scroll of funeral calligraphy and slipped outside into the front yard. The sun was setting. It was time to start.
Serving men and women were rolling round tabletops into the yard to be set up for the mourners. The Te clan was rich and wide and powerful, and there were many who claimed a connection.
One table was set without any seats. That was to feed the spirit of the dead and all the ancestors and wandering ghosts. A red lacquer tray held watermelon seeds, sugared plums, coconut and melon in separate compartments. Similar trays were being carried around by the blue-dressed household servants.
Wei-fang took a green sugared plum as the maid brushed past him. She smiled shyly at him and he gave her a quick smile back, and lost himself in the bustle of mourners and servants. It was easy to go unnoticed. He slipped behind a pillar into a side courtyard and pulled off his gown of funeral white.
Underneath he wore a black suit. He rolled his white gown up and stuffed it into a large blue and white ceramic flowerpot.
In the Palace of Duke Te everyone was making their way, like roosting birds, to the front courtyard to feast. The rear courtyards were deserted, except for a few nightwatchmen hanging lit lanterns between the buildings.
Wei-fang swung himself up to the roof.
The sky was darkening; the first stars were beginning to burn in the sky above his head. He paused for a moment to savor the view from the heart of the capital, just next to the Forbidden City.
Over him the great gates of the city reared up. Qianmen, Tiananmen, and the acres of hutongs: little alley-blocks of houses and halls and plum trees and families sitting down to their evening meals. To the east, between him and the rising moon, were the walls and halls of the Forbidden City, ranked one behind the other. Wei-fang felt he could almost see over them to the palace gardens, the scent of jasmine blossoms, pretty girls, the finest wine that only the Emperor himself could drink. And there was Coal Hill, where the last Ming Emperor had hanged himself for shame rather than suffer the indignity of conquest.
He froze as a young couple passed beneath, late for the feast. The man was a little unsteady with wine and he fell against the girl a couple of times, and she staggered as she took his drunken weight, and kept him moving forward.
Alone on the roof Wei-fang watched them pass.
He heard the laughter of the drinkers, the joy of friends drinking and eating together, and he felt an ache. Hades Dai banned wine within his camp, and many times Wei-fang had paused by an inn, or a sing-song establishment, and something deep and primeval had yearned to go in and drink. To drink the wine, to laugh and sing, and look into the almond eyes of some young and clever beauty. But beauties were only for Hades Dai.
He breathed deeply. Hades Dai’s rule was wrong. It was unfair, but Wei-fang had sworn an oath. This was his first great adventure, and he would not fail, himself as much as the rest of them. If he did then what had been the point of leaving his mother behind? He would not fail.
He could not fail.
To walk the way he was going would not have taken more than ten minutes. But going along the roofs took Wei-fang more than an hour. He moved so gently the tiles did not even tilt under his weight. There was one place no one was allowed to visit. One corner of the great palace where no doors led to. That surely must be where the sword was hidden.
A moth landed on his cheek, fluttering its furred wings as it waited for the moon, and a bat plucked it from him as if he were a tree or a wall or statue. Other bats flittered oblivious around him.
The gibbous moon was a hand’s breadth above the topmost tower of Coal Hill by the time he reached the hidden courtyard. There was the plum tree, there the locked moon door, and as he slipped along the wall, there was the empty courtyard and the Hall of Antiques.
Wei-fang felt giddy for a moment. He crept forward. He had learned much from Iron Crow. Discipline was chief among them. He swatted his worries aside and crept forward with the same discipline that had brought him here to the brink of success. A few minutes later his shadow stopped on top of the Hall of Antiques. He carefully lifted the clay tiles free. One, two, seven were enough for him to slip through the gap. He peered down. The rafters had been papered over. He lowered himself very gently, took a knife from the sheath that was strapped to his calf, and broke the surface of the paper, cutting a hole along the rafter’s edge where the paper was taut and would cut the easiest.
He folded the square of paper back. A few rat droppings fell into the room below. He watched them skitter down. They were as loud as drumbeats in his mind. He cursed. Iron Crow would have looked sadly at him, and said nothing. Sometimes silence was worse than words.
Wei-fang breathed long and deep and slow. The rat droppings landed. They bounced. They scattered. They lay still. Wei-fang’s blood pounded for a moment. But the room was still. No alarm was raised. Nothing happened.
There, on the altar table, was a long case. Wei-fang made sure there was no one around, and slipped down through the hole, landing on all fours, like a cat.
His palms were sweaty as he undid the clasp that held the case shut.
The silver clasp was warm to the touch. It flicked up, and he caught it in one finger and laid it silently open.
A little moonlight fell down through the hole he had made and lit the sword in its case. Wei-fang’s mouth was dry. He swallowed anyway, and slipped off a black cotton glove. His ungloved hand reached out to touch it. His fingers closed on the grip, and he felt a thrill of power go through him, and his mind whispered to him: Why give it to Hades Dai? You are the one who stole it. It is yours!
Joy filled him—warm as a cup of wine—as he lifted the sword clear. It was light and balanced. He held it up to the moonlight, and it shone. As he moved the blade it gleamed cold and strange and green.
Wei-fang almost laughed.
“Don’t,” a voice hissed in his ear.
Wei-fang flipped back. He landed on both feet, hand still holding the sword. But however fast he was his opponent was faster. He flipped again, caught a roof beam with one hand, and swung himself across the room.
He was free, he thought, but as he landed he saw the shadow waiting: a small, lithe shape, blacker than the shadows.
A hand caught his wrist. He twisted it, kicked the owner and heard a gasp.
An unmistakably feminine gasp.
“A girl?” he hissed and the answer was a short hard kick to his gut.
For a moment his enemy crossed through the beam of moonlight and he had a brief glimpse of a masked face: smooth white skin, large black eyes, and long lashes. It was the painting of a beauty, he thought, not a mortal foe. And that was his second mistake.
“How did you get here?”
“I followed you,” the girl said, and he had t
o knock away her fists.
They stood toe to toe, thrusting, kicking, parrying. It was bewildering and exciting. “Who are you?” he started to say, but did not get the first words out before another kick that almost crushed his manhood. He slapped the third kick away, but she had him by the hand and for a moment panic bubbled up through him as he remembered the night he had left home and the matchmaker had mocked him.
The girl drove at him with a frenzy of furious kicks and punches. He punched and parried until his forearm was sore. He would not let go of the sword, but having it in his hand was slowing him down. He cursed as he knocked a punch from his face, a kick to his ribs, one-handedly batting away another flurry of attacks. Remain calm, Iron Crow had taught him, but it was hard.
“Stop!” he hissed again, twisted and squirming from her blows. He was being driven back, step by step. Another low kick forced him back one more step and he knocked a rosewood table with a tall green vase on top. The vase wobbled. Both the fighters stopped.
“Wait,” he said.
For once she listened. Her masked face nodded and without taking his eyes off her face he reached out and steadied the vase.
“Will you stop now?” he hissed.
“Give me the sword,” she said.
There was something about the way she spoke that left him tempted, but he shook his head. “If I could I would,” he said, “but I can’t.”
“Can’t, or won’t?”
He frowned for a moment. “Both,” he said, and ducked the first two kicks.
He saw an opening, but he hesitated. There had to be a better way out of this.
“Don’t make me angry,” he said, but she came at him in a flurry of fists and elbows and he let out an exasperated sigh and went onto the attack. She twisted away from his punch and kneed him in the ribs. He grunted as she kneed him again. The third time he felt as though his ribs were cracking and he desperately flung her back with a trick Iron Crow had shown him. She grunted in surprise and pain, and almost let go of his wrist, but not quite.
