Clockwork Samurai

by Jeannie Lin

  Chang-wei’s quick dismissal stung. I frowned at him, but he was too immersed in his machine to notice.

  “Electricity comes from lightning,” he explained. “It can also be generated through motion and travels along copper wire.”

  “Qi is generated through breath and meditation,” I argued. “And travels along nerves and blood vessels. Doesn’t that sound similar?”

  “Symbolism can be found anywhere, Soling. It’s for poetry, not science. When one looks carefully, much of what we consider learning is merely based on symbolism. Yin and yang, light and dark. Balance.”

  Chang-wei worked the pedals, and the wheel inside whirred to life, spinning for a time before gradually winding down. From his dark scowl, I assumed this latest effort was unsuccessful.

  “What is wrong with yin and yang and balance? These forces are universal.”

  “They feel right to you. Because you look around yourself and you see men and women and light and darkness, so it’s easy to see the world in such opposing contrasts. But other than the sense of comfort it gives you, how quantifiable is it?”

  My skin prickled at his use of you. As if this were my own personal ignorance.

  “I’m not saying there are not remedies that, for reasons unknown, are effective,” Chang-wei continued. “But how often are they effective? Why does acupuncture sometimes cure a man and sometimes do nothing?”

  “Because everyone’s energy flow and imbalances are different.”

  “Ah, see?” Chang-wei looked up then, triumphant. “Qi defies measurement. How do I know if something inside me is due to an imbalance of qi or simply indigestion because I ate spoiled meat?”

  I was ready to throw my book at him, but I didn’t want to damage the book. “You seem to imply that Western learning is better than ours. While our findings are merely based on symbols and poetry.”

  Chang-wei must have detected the sharp edge in my tone. His argument became more formal, academic, as if debating his colleagues in the Ministry. “From what I can see, Western learning is based on measurement. Definitive rules and observations.”

  “What about cutting into a body that’s already sick?” I challenged. “Bleeding out bad humors? Destroying the body to heal it? Is that measurable?”

  He raised his eyebrows in surprise.

  “We mystics in the Court of Physicians aren’t completely ignorant. When we’re not reading tea leaves, we do read a book or two.” I laid the book open on the lid of the elekiteru before turning on my heel. “There’s a diagram of your precious box.”

  I left him to his tinkering. It was the first time Chang-wei and I had clashed like that. On the surface, it might have sounded like a scientific debate, but my chest was tight, my throat constricted with anger.

  At the heart of his logic, something else seemed to lurk. The insinuation that Western thinking was not merely different but somehow superior to Chinese beliefs.

  Many whispered that Chen Chang-wei was a Western sympathizer, which was a more polite way of insinuating that he was a traitor. In thought if not in action. Could someone who thought Western thinking was superior still remain loyal to the empire? Emperor Yizhu hated the Yangguizi and everything that had to do with the West.

  I didn’t know the answer, but Chang-wei’s attitude didn’t sit well with me. I knew he was inventive and open to new ideas. The way his mind worked left me confounded. Much like how my brother could break anything down to its parts, and from the pieces its essence. The soul of it and what made it work.

  But Chang-wei’s talk of mysticism, symbolism and yin and yang left a bitter taste in my mouth.

  I wandered to the rooms toward the back of the courtyard, our argument hanging over me like a black cloud. My logic wasn’t as precise and clear-cut as Chang-wei’s, but what came to my mind was the memory of the first time I had tried to measure someone’s pulse.

  “What am I looking for?” I had asked Physician Lo.

  The old man shook his head. “Just feel. Observe.”

  So I felt for the patient’s pulse. I noted the strength of it, the rhythm of each beat. And then I did the same for another patient. And another. Some who were sick and most who were well. Over days and weeks and months, I learned the heart rhythms of the villagers we served. Learning whose pulse might skip, gauging what sort of conditions would cause an irregular or weakened pulse.

  Chang-wei might call it meditation or mysticism, but I began to get a sense of a person’s individual energy. His wellness. His qi.

  Qi wasn’t pulse. Or breath. Or heat. Or the beat of one’s heart. It was all those things, together. Immeasurable, but not unknowable.

  I’d reached what looked like a sleeping room. It was a long chamber lined with a single mat. A layer of dust clung to the floor, and cobwebs hung in the corners. During its time, the school had space enough to house fifteen to twenty students. The disciples would have slept here in the communal room, then awoken to prepare for lessons in the main room.

  But this thriving environment had been ended by a single assassin’s blade.

  I couldn’t ignore the similarities between my father’s death and Lord Sagara’s. Both were men of science and engineering. They were scholars more than politicians, yet they’d been executed for treason when their countries needed them most.

  I left the sleeping quarters to go to the rear of the compound. A building made of stone and brick stood apart from the other chambers. Satomi’s bodyguard stood at the door. As I neared, he moved to block my path.

  “Yoshiro, let her pass,” came the command from inside.

  The warrior’s black eyes peered at me from behind his mask, but finally he stepped aside. My shoulders tensed as I moved past him. His steely gaze followed my every move.

  Inside, Satomi stood at a workbench with a pistol in one hand and a hammer in the other. Around the shop were metal and wooden parts. At first I said nothing, content to just watch as she worked. Satomi tapped iron pins in place on the stock, her movements practiced and efficient.

  “My father taught me,” she said between hammer strikes. “He was interested in the making of firearms using techniques that he learned from the Westerners.”

  She continued assembling the weapon as I ventured closer. “My younger brother is like you.”

  “Oh?” Satomi raised an eyebrow while her focus remained on the work in front of her.

  “He has a talent for knowing how parts should fit together to make a working whole. And for making new creations.”

  “No talent here, Miss Jin. I just repeat what my father did before me. Over and over until the knowledge sinks into my bones.”

  Satomi paused to wipe her brow, and I looked to the diagrams tacked onto the walls. Some were old and worn, but many were newly drawn.

  “You took over your father’s trade after his death?” I asked.

  “This wasn’t his trade. My father was a scholar. A statesman.”

  “A samurai?”

  She looked up sharply at my question, then nodded. “Yes. Samurai.”

  Lord Sagara was well respected, which is why my father had made contact with him. The two had likely exchanged ideas, traded knowledge. It must have seemed like the dawning of a new age of discovery—yet shortly after my father had left this world, Lord Sagara was soon to follow.

  “These weapons you make. I can’t see how they’re not of great value to your empire.”

  “There was a time when guns were highly prized.” Satomi lifted the pistol to look down the barrel, as if sighting a target. “The warlords equipped their armies with firearms, and battles were fierce. But once those territorial wars were settled, once the Tokugawa reigned supreme, and peace came to our land, such weapons were not as necessary.”

  “But that’s a good thing, is it not?”

  “Peace is a good thing,” Satomi agreed soberly. Setting down t
he pistol, she reached for a sander and began to file down the edge of the stock. “My father was a scientist. He loved knowledge for knowledge’s sake. I imagine yours was the same.”

  “He was.” I came closer so only the workbench separated us. My throat tightened hearing her speak of her father and of mine in the same breath. We were still strangers to each other, yet sisters in spirit.

  “My father was also practical,” she continued. “He knew the Western armies continued to use firearms, and that their weapons and ships were growing more powerful. Yet the bakufu—”

  “Bakufu?”

  “Our government,” she explained. “The shogunate. The feudal lords were insistent that we had protected ourselves by closing our borders. With peace within and foreign influences kept out, it was easy to be lulled into a sense of security. We didn’t need the brutality of firearms. Perhaps that is true, but my father continued to study them, and continued to study Western sciences as well.”

  “And the shogunate didn’t approve of his studies.” I imagined a country that would shut out all foreigners must have been similarly wary of foreign ideas. Our empire was no different.

  “The bakufu values tradition and the ways of the samurai, which have become legendary. There is a romance to it, the rule of the sword and the samurai code of honor. There is no romance to the way a firearm kills.”

  Absently, she ran her fingers along the stock of the weapon, feeling each curve. Satisfied, she reached for an oiled rag and began to polish the metal. “You haven’t asked why my father was assassinated.”

  “It is not my place to ask.”

  “But you want to know.” Satomi set the pistol down and the rag beside it. She braced her hands against the workbench and drew in a deep breath.

  “I want to know because I have questions of my own,” I admitted.

  “We have tradition here called katakiuchi. Legal vendetta. One can petition for vendetta on behalf of someone who has suffered a wrongful death. Once katakiuchi is invoked against someone, his life is forfeit. He can be pursued openly and killed in broad daylight without fearing repercussion.” Satomi looked directly at me, her jaw set in a hard line. “There was a dispute, and one of my father’s rifles was used to kill a ranking samurai. A sword maker is not held responsible for the lives his blades might take. But in the case of a firearm, the traditionalists believe, since there was so little skill required to pull the trigger, that the death was in part caused by the maker. But the truth is there is a faction within the bakufu that hates foreigners. My father was outspoken in defending outsiders and foreign ideas, so he had to die. It was a pointless death.”

  She bit off the last words as fire flashed in her eyes. This was a wound that hadn’t healed. I felt the echo of my own wound deep in my chest.

  “My father was killed for declaring the Western forces superior to ours,” I told her.

  “When my father was put to death, many thought I would take my own life and follow him. Cleaner for everyone involved that way. But I didn’t,” Satomi declared defiantly.

  “We were destitute,” I commiserated. “It was thought that my mother and I would have to sell ourselves into servitude, yet no one came forward to help us.”

  It was strange to be speaking so openly to a stranger, and a foreigner at that. But the smallest crack showed in Satomi’s hard exterior. “But I am not dead, and you are not a prostitute.”

  “There was a time I wanted to disappear. I wanted to withdraw from everything. From Peking and its politics. From this war with the Yangguizi. Anything to keep my family safe. But now I realize this fight is the only way to ensure our future.”

  I let the words sink in. It wasn’t until I spoke them out loud that I realized I truly believed it. Emperor Yizhu was flawed, a young man pulled in many directions. And our empire was fighting for survival. I was part of that struggle now.

  “My father used to believe that Western science applied with Eastern ethics would prevail. They called such thinking treason,” Satomi recounted sadly. She picked up the pistol and held it before her in both hands. “Engineer Chen. He thinks the same way, doesn’t he?”

  “He was my father’s pupil.”

  “And what is he to you?”

  The bluntness of her question took me aback. Even worse, I didn’t have an answer. “He’s . . . he’s a friend,” I replied, feeling tongue-tied.

  “A good enough friend to risk your life for?”

  “Our empire is worth the risk.”

  “The empire that put your own father to death?” Her eyebrow raised once more, aiming the question like a knife at my heart.

  “Yes.” A sharp pain struck me as I said it. Perhaps that pain would never go away.

  Satomi measured the weight behind that one word. “Here,” she said finally. “This is for you.”

  She held out the pistol to me, and I reluctantly took it in my hands. It was heavy, yet sleek in appearance. The barrel was shorter than the length of my palm, and the metal was etched with an elegant design. It was a weapon that could easily be hidden within the fold of a sleeve or beneath a broad sash. Beautiful, despite its deadly purpose.

  “I’ll teach you how to use it. You’ll need protection for your journey.” The corner of her mouth lifted in not quite a smile. “And I’ll accompany you tomorrow, if you’ll permit it. You might need me as well.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Makoto was waiting for us at the foot of the mountain early the next day. He had secured a wagon and a team of mules, and by midmorning, we were trudging along a dirt road headed east. Yoshiro sat up front beside Makoto, who took the reins. Chang-wei and I tucked ourselves in back with Satomi.

  “Hard to pass ourselves off as peasant farmers with an armed warrior guarding us,” Makoto said dryly.

  Yoshiro turned in his direction but said nothing. He wore his suit of armor and mask as always and conducted himself with the same rigid silence that I was coming to associate with the samurai class.

  “I’m well-known among these parts,” Satomi insisted. “There’s no use in hiding.”

  “We’ll be taking a less-traveled route. If we come across any patrols, the two of you remain quiet.” Makoto directed a look at Chang-wei and me. “I’ll do the talking.”

  The area we traveled did appear secluded. There were no other wagons or travelers on the dirt road.

  “Is there danger out here from bandits?” Chang-wei asked.

  “This domain is very secure, the roads and cities well protected. No honest work for mercenaries,” Makoto said with a laugh. “Which is why I’m forced to find work among the Shina-jin.”

  The mule team fell into an easy pace. The surrounding hillsides were green and lush, and occasionally we passed through patches of farmland. I saw a few farmhands working the fields, but they paid us little attention, and we were left to our journey unmolested.

  “I meant no insult, what I said yesterday,” Chang-wei said to me in the middle of a long stretch of silence. His voice was lowered, meant for me alone. “I respect what you do.”

  “But you think it’s all folk remedies and old superstitions,” I countered.

  He sighed. “I never said that, Soling.”

  Maybe I did want to pick a fight. We had gone to sleep last night barely speaking to each other. I told myself it was because Chang-wei had been absorbed in his new project with the elekiteru. He never did get the thing working.

  “It’s just frustrating sometimes. Hearing educated men speak of elixirs of immortality and forbidden points. Feeling my pulse and telling me my disposition based on every tick.”

  I glanced at him from the corner of my eye. “Give me your arm.”

  He looked at me warily.

  “Your arm,” I insisted with a curt nod.

  Chang-wei let out a long-suffering sigh and folded back his sleeve, exposing his forearm. With a roll o
f his eyes, he held it out to me.

  I bit back a smile. His display was somewhat endearing. He glanced over at me as I took hold of his wrist. The muscles of his arm flexed as I placed two fingers over his pulse point.

  “The patient is irritable. Imbalanced,” I diagnosed. “An excess of male pride.”

  I caught a smile from Satomi before she averted her gaze to the hillside.

  “Is that so?” Chang-wei asked haughtily.

  I switched to the pulse at his neck, just below his jaw. When he tilted his head upward to look at me, my own pulse jumped. When he was this close, it was impossible to deny how handsome I found him. How I was teasing him now just as an excuse to touch him.

  “Definitely too much yang,” I continued, my breath thin. “Prey to mood swings.”

  His throat moved as he swallowed. “And the cure?”

  My gaze latched onto his mouth. It was finely shaped. Stubborn at times, but also clever and expressive. He often showed so little emotion that I’d learned to read his mood from the tiny quirks of his mouth. At that moment, I really wished we were alone.

  “A good knock to the head,” I prescribed.

  He gave a short laugh, and my chest warmed. As my fingers slipped away from his neck, a thread of unease wormed its way into me. I had only been playing, not truly reading Chang-wei’s condition, but for one second, I had sensed something strange. A skip in his pulse that seemed out of place.

  “Soling?” he asked when I remained silent for too long.

  I willed my shoulders to relax as I leaned back in the wagon beside him. “You’re forgiven.”

  “How gracious.”

  I nudged him with my foot. It was childish of me, but I hadn’t felt young and childish in a long time. His foot stayed close to mine, stroking a line against the arch of my slipper before falling away.

  I was probably making too much of the gesture, but maybe I wasn’t.

  * * *

  We made it through the first day uneventfully and set camp as the sun started to set. Makoto unhitched the mules to feed and water them while I rummaged through the supplies. There was millet and rice and a few jugs of wine.