The Dragon and the Stars

by Derwin Mak

  I fetched one of Baba’s housecoats to replace his sopping garments and put a pot of water on to heat, aware of his eyes following me.

  “You’re not at all as I imagined,” he said at last. “I thought the girl who fashioned that exquisite terracotta rabbit in your father’s studio and who puts his apprentices to shame with her unflagging diligence would be as stout and formidable as he. But instead I find a willowy girl with rosy cheeks.”

  My cheeks, however rosy they’d been, blazed.

  An eyebrow quirked. “Modest too? Unpretentious, modest, and undoubtedly steadfast. If you’re a fraction as diligent as your father claims, you epitomize Kong Fuzi’s ideal of virtue.”

  “You’re a follower of Kong Fuzi’s teachings?” I all but lunged at the opening, anything to shift the conversation from my rosy cheeks, the merits of my character, or even the terracotta rabbit. I’d fashioned that piece after my mother died—she’d been born in the year of the rabbit—and it was not a subject I cared to discuss with this man.

  “Any school that proclaims real knowledge to be in grasping the extent of one’s ignorance can be assured of my devotion.” Prince Fusu winked, startling a smile from me. His return smile transformed him, making him younger, warmer. Our eyes met, and something within me shifted, realigned. Shaken and off balance, I understood later it had been nothing more or less than the foundation of my world giving way to be replaced by a new one: Prince Fusu.

  “Shu-mei?” The prince’s voice shook away my paralysis.

  I bowed, mortified I’d kept him waiting like a peddler at the door. “Please be welcome. My father isn’t home yet, but I expect him soon.”

  “Until he arrives, could I impose upon you for a tour of your kiln? The rain precluded my curiosity last time.”

  “Of course.” I joined him on the stone walkway, striving to appear composed despite the agitated tremors that shook through me. But at the garden gate, I frowned. “Oh, wait, what if Baba’s stuffy official finally arrives?” I clapped both hands over my mouth, appalled. How had I let myself say that aloud?

  The prince chuckled. “I wondered if I’d misremembered the girl who glared at me so fiercely when I mistook her for a servant. But at last, here she is. As to the matter of the stuffy official, I suspect I am he.”

  I smiled shyly back, relieved. “Your Highness could never be stuffy.”

  “And why not? I’ve had the finest teachers to instruct me on all the varied forms and methods of stuffiness. I assure you, I’m a master at it.”

  I bit back a giggle and opened the gate.

  “I’ve been unforgivably remiss in not thanking you for your gift before now,” Fusu said, “but I hoped to be able to convey my appreciation in person.”

  I lowered my eyes. I’d fashioned the marbled tiger from two different clays to create a pattern that was both impetuous and considered—like the man strolling beside me.

  “I showed my father your tiger,” he continued, “and he wishes you to sculpt a matched team of terracotta horses for his afterlife city.” The prince drew a sandstone token stamped with the imperial sigil from a pouch and offered it to me. “How convenient of my father to provide an official reason to call upon you.”

  I only partly heard him, my attention riveted on the imperial token. “The Emperor wants me to sculpt his horses?”

  “He desires that his spirit world be as lively as this earthly one.”

  I glanced up at the tautness in the prince’s voice, reminded of the whispered speculations that had arisen when Qin Shi Huangdi had first conceived his afterlife city, revealing his disquieting obsession with the trappings of immortality. Fusu would never undermine the Emperor, but his tone told me how troubled he was by his father’s recent directives. The prince believed as I did in Kong Fuzi’s teachings, as Baba had taught me: Ignorance is the night of the mind. How much more had it sickened him, the mandated destruction of wisdom?

  I accepted the token. “My efforts will no doubt be inadequate, but I will do my best.”

  “I await with great anticipation your forthcoming masterpieces, sifu.”

  No one had addressed me as a master artisan before. Did modesty require me to protest such honor or would that cause the prince to lose face? Before I could make up my mind, he swiveled, head raised.

  “What’s that?”

  I strained, listening.

  Rumbling, a subtle crescendo in the distance. An approaching thunderstorm perhaps?

  “Men marching,” Fusu said. “A brigade’s worth, but not soldiers.”

  “Not soldiers?”

  “The tread of an army is a tide that swells in a measured, beating gait.” Fusu’s eyes no longer saw me, focused upon some inner reflection. “This is undisciplined and irregular.”

  “A parade then?” I suggested.

  “Shall we go see?” He pivoted and strode to where Baishi had tethered his horse, leaving me to scramble after. He flipped the reins free and mounted while I struggled not to trip over my skirt. He leaned to me, hand outstretched.

  Should I have hesitated, refined and decorous like a court lady? I didn’t. I gripped his hand, and he swung me up behind him.

  My riding acquaintance was limited to infrequent occasions atop draft horses and, once, an indulgent cow. I teetered, feeling as graceful and secure as a sack of rice on a bamboo fence.

  “Don’t be afraid. Hold on to me if you’re unsteady.”

  “I’m not afraid.” I hoped I sounded bolder than I felt. “But I admit to a certain unsteadiness.”

  “Fei-hua is as courteous as she is swift. Neither of us will let you fall.”

  I remained dubious, but contrary to my expectations, when Fei-hua sprang forward, I didn’t topple off, a feat I credited to luck, as it certainly could not have been skill. I did, however, clutch at Fusu like a drowning woman, kicking Fei-hua with my heels in the process. Fortunately, her disposition was as gracious as the prince had said, and she didn’t take offense.

  I eased my grip, and, as though he’d been waiting for this, Fusu leaned forward, bringing us low across Fei-hua’s back. She, in turn, transformed from an earthbound creature to one of wind, anchored to this world only by the prince’s will. To call both Fei-hua and the drays I’d sat before “horses” was like calling a blue-glazed platter the sky. And what I’d taken as a gallop had actually been for her an easy canter.

  I laughed in fierce exhilaration, intoxicated by the heady combination of Fei-hua’s speed, the heat of Fusu against me, and the thrill of basking in both. The prince turned his head, beaming like a boy.

  All too soon, we slowed. I brushed streamers of hair from my eyes and saw why. A procession of hundreds of men marched on the imperial highway; scholars all, their vocation was apparent from their somber robes.

  Prince Fusu slipped from Fei-hua’s back and handed me the reins. “Wait here.”

  I didn’t know if he’d addressed me or Fei-hua, but fortunately the mare considered it one and the same. I had no notion what to do with the straps of leather he’d given me, and doubted I could’ve dissuaded her if she’d had other designs.

  Where had the prince gone? I scanned the highway until I spotted him engaged in discussion, not with a scholar but with a soldier. Before I had time to speculate about their conversation, Fusu came pelting back.

  “I regret that our visit must be curtailed,” he said, hurling himself into the saddle. He waited only for me to grasp his waist before spurring Fei-hua into a breath-stealing run.

  “What’s going on?” I had to yell to be heard above the strident wind.

  “The Emperor has ordered the execution of those scholars for adhering to Kong Fuzi’s teachings.”

  I almost tumbled off in horror. The only thing that saved me was Fei-hua, who slowed, allowing me to regain my balance.

  “Shu-mei, I must return to the palace to plead with my father to stay this massacre. Forgive me for subjecting you to such distressing circumstances, but can you bear it a little longer? We’re alm
ost back to your home.”

  Shamed that consideration for me had caused the prince to delay, I released his waist. Accommodating me, Fei-hua eased to a stop.

  “I know this region,” I said, gathering my skirt. “I’ll walk from here.” It was too much to wish for a graceful dismount, but I hoped I could maintain a modicum of dignity.

  “I can’t allow you unescorted—”

  “Nonsense. This is almost my back door. If I shouted, Baishi would come charging up with his handcart.” I gave up on dignity and floundered off, landing on my rump in a swell of silk.

  “Shu-mei! Are you hurt?”

  I picked myself up, scowling. “I’m fine. Why are you still here? Hurry and save them.”

  The prince regarded me for a still moment. “You are most remarkable, Shu-mei.” He wheeled Fei-hua, and they were gone in a storm of hooves.

  When they were out of sight, I brushed myself off and began the hike home. Distance flown atop Fei-hua translated to an exhausting plod, made worse by the hateful skirt tangling my legs. But physical discomfort was nothing to the turmoil in my head. Those scholars. Surely Prince Fusu would be able to dissuade the Emperor from slaughtering them.

  When at last I straggled through our gate, Baba came charging out, the stark lines of worry on his face flooding me with guilt. Prince Fusu’s visit, the glorious ride, and the Emperor’s condemnation of the scholars spilled from me in a disjointed babble.

  By evening, everyone had heard of the four-hundred scholars executed, buried alive, and Prince Fusu’s exile to the northern frontier for daring to champion them.

  Baba caught me when I crumpled and rocked me as I sobbed. He carried me to my room, tucking me in my coverlet as though I were a child.

  When I had cried all the tears I had, I lay awake, eyes open and mind abuzz. I didn’t court sleep. When my mother died, sleep had brought nightmares, dark images that laid my grief bare on nerves already keening. Solace for me resided in wakeful activity. As soon as I heard Baba’s soft snores, I rose and slipped to my studio to pray for healing and strength, the cool resistance of clay my benediction at the altar of my worktable. Immersed in my litany, immersed in clay, my head cleared.

  I recognized this desolate empty place that had opened in me. It was the same as when Mother had died. More insights came, one after another like beads on a string. This crushing grief was not because of the scholars’ deaths—a great loss and tragedy to warrant tears, yes. But what had sent me to my knees was Prince Fusu’s banishment.

  How shallow my character that I grieved more for a single man’s exile than for hundreds of deaths. Moreover, I had no claim on the prince, had never had any claim on him. Realistically, he was no farther from me in the depths of Suizhou than he’d been in the palace.

  I contemplated the shape beneath my hands. Although I’d given my fingers no directive, they’d fashioned an equine’s long, fine nose, big, intelligent eyes, and delicately outlined nostrils. I knew this particular equine.

  “Hello, Fei-hua.”

  I fetched the Emperor’s token, tucked into my sleeve and forgotten in the afternoon’s turmoil. Tracing the roughness of the imperial stamp against the slippery sandstone, I recalled a snippet of Kong Fuzi’s teachings: One should sorrow but not sink under sorrow’s oppression, and also, If one takes no thought about what is distant, one will find sorrow near at hand.

  Qin Shi Huangdi was an old man. One day, Prince Fusu would guide the empire back upon the path of enlightenment. And after his inauguration, I would present him with a terracotta horse in Fei-hua’s image, so lifelike one might expect it to toss its head and stomp the ground. I would offer as well another of Kong Fuzi’s proverbs: He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn toward it.

  Days unfurled to months, the flowers of the calendar—orchid, osmanthus, chrysanthemum-losing their petals as I cast and recast Fei-hua in clay. Evoking nuances of gracious strength and refined swiftness tasked me to my limits, but anything less than perfection was unacceptable. I’d remolded Fei-hua’s head yet again when the news came of the Emperor’s death.

  I donned the proper mourning attire, but inside, I rejoiced. The work on Qin Shi Huangdi’s afterlife city grew fevered, and Baba was called upon to attend the funerary ceremonies, a weeks-long affair.

  As I checked his satchel to ensure I’d packed everything, a courier hurtled to our gate bearing another imperial writ. Baishi, shuffling with as much speed as his creaking joints could produce, delivered it to my father, and he and I hovered at Baba’s elbow, brimming with curiosity.

  The document was spare, but its meaning was clear to anyone versed in matters of court intrigue. The Imperial Secretariat had conspired with the youngest prince to discredit Fusu in a bid for the throne. In a coup of innuendo and forged documents, they’d presented Fusu with a letter from his father proclaiming him seditious and disloyal.

  There was only one recourse for a son so dishonored. The prince had swallowed poison.

  Fusu was dead.

  My eyes burned, but I couldn’t cry. How ridiculous I was to bawl like a child when the prince had been banished yet be utterly dry-eyed at his death.

  Baba wanted to postpone his departure,but I wouldn’t let him. History was littered with the corpses of hapless officials caught in the turbulence of violent succession. His constancy and worth as a servant of the empire must remain above suspicion.

  Alone, I drifted to my studio, my mind estranged from my body by a juncture of white numbness. When my fist slammed into Fei-hua’s clay features, I felt only surprise, as though another dictated my actions, another will that pounded the clay until all signs of careful labor had been erased.

  Still under the control of this unknown craftsman, my hands mounded the clay anew, fashioning an elegant brow, expressive lips, and aristocratic nose. Recognition ran through me like a burning wire: Fusu’s brow, lips, and nose—an unquestionable likeness. I caught my breath and raised my palm to wipe the features away. But a tiny incongruity made me hesitate. Was that crease about the eyes something I’d done? I shook my head. Foolishness. Of course it was. I raised my hand again. This time, I couldn’t mistake it. In the space of a blink, the lips had thinned, suggesting a frown.

  I touched the down-turned mouth. The contact sent a tingling intimacy through my fingers of a nature I’d never known before. I snatched my hand back and squinted shut my eyes.

  “Prince Fusu,” I whispered, “don’t you think I’m too insignificant to haunt?”

  I peeked open an eye.

  One eyebrow arched higher than the other. It was the same expression Fusu had worn when he’d teased me and proclaimed me modest. An ache blossomed in my chest, the first taste of wrenching grief.

  “No.” I jerked around, giving my back to the clay head. “Don’t. If it’s vengeance you want, I’ll serve you. But don’t be kind or gentle. Be terrible or fearsome or nothing at all. Otherwise, I’ll march out and tell Baishi to throw you into some pit or bash you flat, and I’ll never touch clay again.”

  I waited for the hurt to fade, for the merciful numbness to seep back before I dared turn around. On my worktable, the clay face had emptied of expression and personality, just as I had demanded.

  Without my father’s comings and goings to punctuate my days, I could work unchecked save only by my stamina. Under the scrutiny of vacant, clay eyes, I crafted a body to match the head, kneading and molding until I collapsed from weariness upon the straw mat in my studio.

  Grueling pace notwithstanding, this work was the easiest I’d ever done. Limbs and torso manifested effortlessly, as though I didn’t sculpt the clay so much as remind it. In a matter of days, quicker than I thought possible, all lay finished and drying.

  I rose from my workbench to summon Baishi, and the accumulated complaints, fatigues, and distresses of my body, disregarded this while, came alive. Bent over, hands on my knees, I waited for the sickening dizzine
ss to ebb before wobbling outside and trekking to the little dragon.

  Baishi had already removed the large bricks from the kiln’s entrance and stacked them nearby. I crawled inside, edging past the firebox to the stacking floor. Crouching beneath the low ceiling, I measured the space, using my forearm as gauge. I’d never fired so many large pieces at once, and if I loaded them too closely, they could fuse disastrously.

  I eased out of the dragon’s maw and was unsurprised to find Baishi waiting for me with a soft cloth. Wiping the soot from my face, I wondered, for the thousandth time, how he seemed to know when I needed him at the kiln.

  It required two days and two nights of ceaseless blast fire to mature the clay to terracotta. Baishi and I camped outside, alternating shifts to feed wood nonstop into the furnace. He tried to bully me into letting him take two shifts for my one, but I’d have none of that. So instead, he foisted huge quantities of lumpy rice and salt fish upon me until gratitude and annoyance became the same. Exasperated, I shooed him away, preferring to oversee the final hours alone. At last, weary to the core, I cast the last stick of wood in and stumbled home, too spent to change out of my smoke-drenched shenyi before surrendering to sleep.

  Discomfort goaded me awake—nettles and grass plastered by oily soot to tender flesh. I blinked, the darkness outside my eyelids the same as within, and fumbled for a lamp. Its wan glow caught my reflection in the bronze mirror. I yelled before I could stop myself. Hair matted by clay and ashes, face and shenyi layered in grime, I looked like a yaoguai demon from the underworld. If Baba saw me like this, he’d scold me deaf. Or summon a priest to exorcise me.

  I heated bathwater and soaked and scrubbed until as much skin felt scoured off as dirt. Yaoguai purged, I was left wide awake. So I put on a fresh shenyi and tramped across the garden, bearing a single lantern to augment the moonlight. The little dragon would take as much time to cool as it had to fire, but inevitably, I would spend the next days retracing my steps between kiln and house as a feeble sop to impatience.