by Guy Salvidge
Now they were conquerors,
As great as T'ang and Han before.
“But the other empires were just small robbers, easily defeated. The Middle Kingdom grew rich on the back of its victories. But it had achieved nothing. The people were no happier than before. And all throughout this time, the Great Thief was chuckling.
“It is said that not only the Middle Kingdom was destroyed by the Great Thief. It is said that other vast empires were brought to their knees as well. I cannot say whether this is true or false. But it is said that the Middle Kingdom was particularly affected. In the east, there once lived hundreds of millions of people. When the Great Thief came, taking the very land from beneath their feet, those who did not perish fled west. You cannot imagine the chaos this caused. There were schemes, strategies and programmes to combat the flood of refugees, but it was useless. The pipes of Heaven had sounded and the Middle Kingdom was no more. And so the Kingdom of Four Rivers came into being.
“Do not imagine that these western lands were spared from the destruction. In the time when the great shields were being built, at the very apex of the old world's power, the leaders of Four Rivers were taking steps to leave the Middle Kingdom for good. At the time when the east was in complete confusion, Four Rivers was growing stronger. When the great shields of Shulao and Kinshao were completed, Four Rivers announced that the Middle Kingdom had come to an end. Other smaller kingdoms did the same. It was the time of the Hundred Wars.
“And so there was another war, fought between the Kingdom of Four Rivers and the desperate empires of the east. In the Battle of Kinshao, the city was captured and later destroyed. Millions died. You cannot understand how many people that is, but I will tell you anyway. Four Rivers fought to repel the invaders, but it was in vain. In the Battle of Shulao, the 'jewel in the crown,' the great shield was shattered. It seemed as though the whole world was coming to an end. Four Rivers fell to its knees.
“But then the attacks ceased. The surge of invaders slackened, caught up in other catastrophes. The capital was moved to Zhenghe, where it has been ever since. So began the Years of Everlasting Peace. But what kind of peace is this? We shall not truly know peace until the Great Thief takes our final breath away from us.
“In the years since Shulao fell, Four Rivers has become a jungle. It was not always this way. This land was once known as the bread basket of the Middle Kingdom. Now it is filled with tigers, boars and savages. Only beneath the shields does the old life go on. Who can say if this is good or bad? Perhaps the savages are closer to Heaven than we are. Perhaps they have more connection with the sages of antiquity than we do. No one can say.”
Ji Tao suddenly became aware that a shadowy figure was watching the camp-fire from the darkness.
“Uncle,” she said. “Look.”
Tuan gestured for them to remain still. The chatter of the young ones died down. There might be more intruders waiting in the darkness.
The intruder turned and fled. Cheng got to his feet but Tuan told him to sit down. “They will not harm us, so long as we stay here. Outside, there may be others.”
“They'll try to rob us while we sleep,” Cheng protested.
“Then you can take first watch.”
But nothing disturbed their rest. In the morning, they ate breakfast and broke camp. Again, Ji Tao found herself walking with Sovann and Ping, but today Kalliyan had worked up the courage to join them.
“Will you walk with us today?” Ji Tao asked her.
“If you don't mind,” Kalliyan said.
“Surely we are better company than your little nephews?” Sovann asked.
The boys were currently wrestling one another while Yi Min looked on.
“They never seem to tire,” Kalliyan agreed.
“Tell us about yourself,” Ji Tao said. “We know so little about your family.”
Kalliyan smiled. Her teeth were white. “My family came from the south two years ago, as part of a merchant caravan. We come from a place called Cloudy South, on the far side of the Great River. There was trouble there.”
“What kind of trouble?” Sovann asked.
“Many of the machines in our city were breaking down, and there was no one who knew how to fix them. Our crops were failing.”
“So you came here,” Ping said. “What did your family bring?”
“Ping, don't be so rude!” Ji Tao said.
“No, she is right to wonder,” Kalliyan said. “We did not realise how rich your people were in comparison to our own. Our trade goods were nothing compared to what you have here. When we got to Baitang, we sold all that we had in order to stay.”
“How did the family get split up?”
“It was unfortunate,” Kalliyan said. “We were all supposed to travel to Luihang, but there was a misunderstanding, and then the guards wouldn't let the boys and I through. My sister's husband had all the paperwork. We didn't realise—“
“—That's why Tuan is trying to help you,” Sovann said.
“And we are very grateful for his generosity,” Kalliyan said.
“No need to talk like that in front of us,” Ji Tao said. “Save that for Rong Li.”
“I am grateful all the same. Chen Tuan is a good man,” Kalliyan said. “There does not appear to be any discord in your family.”
“Not yet,” Ji Tao said. “But there will be, when my brother decides it's time for uncle Tuan to step down and let him be head of the family.”
“Cousin Cheng would not challenge my father!” Ping said.
“Did I say that? You need to think before you speak, Ping. Now run along and play with the other children.” Ping stormed off.
“What do you think of Liang?” Ji Tao asked Kalliyan.
“He has a kindness about him....” Kalliyan trailed off.
“Unlike my brother,” Ji Tao said.
Kalliyan could only laugh timidly at that.
“All the men are kind on that side of the family,” Sovann said. By this, she was referring to her dead husband.
“I'm sorry,” Kalliyan said. “It must be very hard to lose someone like that.”
“He was a kind man. You should talk to Liang sometime. I think he likes you.”
“Liang?” Kalliyan said. “I don't think so.”
After lunch, Ji Tao found herself babysitting Yi Min again. The boy was clearly missing his mother.
“How far is it to Luihang?” he asked.
“Three or four days, depending on the weather,” Ji Tao replied. Currently the weather was ideal; the day had cooled quickly, although it was thought there might be a storm later.
“My feet hurt.”
“You can walk without sandals. The mud will soothe your feet.” The boy did as he was told, putting the sandals in the back of the caravan.
“What are we buying in Luihang?” he asked.
“Won't your father tell you? Whatever uncle Tuan thinks will fetch a good price back home.”
“What's Luihang like?”
“It's much the same as Baitang, only a bit smaller.”
“I want to go home.”
“I know, but you must be brave. Think what your mother would say if she thought you weren't as brave as your father.”
“I am as brave!”
To prove how brave he was, Yi Min left Ji Tao and returned to the front caravan, presumably to pester Tuan.
“Stupid boy left his sandals,” Ji Tao said to no one in particular.
Soon she was sitting in the back of the trailing caravan again. There were dozens of large bags of wheat stacked inside. By the time they stopped for lunch, the air was stifling. After the meal had been eaten, they sprawled out in the shade to sleep through the heat of the day, mosquito nets enclosing them. Ji Tao rested fitfully. Her throat was parched, despite numerous cups of water. Quietly, so as not to disturb the others, she got up and looked around. They were on the edge of a clearing. From here, there were numerous paths leading into the heart of the jungle. This was cannibal territory.
Sovann had been on sentry duty, sitting on a chair with a mosquito net draped over her, but she had fallen asleep.
Ji Tao came up to her and said, “Sovann, wake up.”
Sovann stirred. “Oh, Ji Tao, thank Heaven it's only you. I must have drifted off.”
“Look how fresh those paths are,”Ji Tao said.
Sovann gulped down some water. “Should we wake the others?”
“No,” Ji Tao said. “Let's have a quick look.”
“You want to go down there?”
“We won't go out of sight of the camp.”
“What about keeping watch?”
Ji Tao shrugged. “You weren't doing much good anyhow.”
Standing at the threshold of the jungle path, Ji Tao began to doubt the wisdom of her plan, but said nothing to Sovann, who looked nervous enough already. All around them were the sounds of birds, and beyond, the scurrying feet of something rustling in the undergrowth. All kinds of animals could be found in the jungle—from wild dogs and wolves to tigers and bears.
“Perhaps we should go back,” Ji Tao said.
“No, it's okay,” Sovann said. “Let's go a little further.”
It was darker here. Sovann pointed out a monkey hanging from a branch above them. The path was well travelled, but it had narrowed to the point where they had to walk in single file. Soon they were pushing thick green leaves out of their faces.
“Anything would hear us coming a mile away,” Sovann said.
They came to another clearing. The ground was scorched black, as though a fire had passed through recently. But there was no evidence of where the fire had come from, or where it had gone.
“Ji Tao—over there.”
Ji Tao looked, and saw a naked man hung by a rope from a tree. He was dead. The body was facing away from them; his back was covered in welts. Ji Tao was both curious and revolted. She lingered for a moment, then crept closer.
“Leave it alone!” Sovann said.
The man had been subjected to a multitude of atrocities. His back had been whipped; his scalp was coated with blood, around which flies crawled. The man was certainly a savage; his skin was even darker than Kalliyan's.
“I'm going back,” Sovann said.
“I just want to have a look.”
A ray of sunlight was peeking through the canopy, illuminating the dead man's face. His stench grew stronger as Ji Tao got closer. One of his legs had been gnawed to the bone, presumably after he had been left to hang here.
Coming up alongside the dead man, Ji Tao saw something that caused her to turn and flee screaming. As she ran, the image burned itself into her brain forever: the man's chest had been missing but for the red bones of his smashed ribcage. All the entrails, organs and intestines had been eaten away. And yet his eyes had been open. Ji Tao tried to push the image away but it stubbornly remained.
Later, as she sat in the back of the caravan, she remembered the man's black hair and dark eyes. She recalled the angular shape of his face.
“I'm sorry I left you,” Sovann said.
“It's all right,” Ji Tao replied. Her voice seemed distant even to her own ears.
“Was it terrible?”
“I don't want to talk about it.”
Ji Tao remembered pushing past Sovann on the jungle track. By the time they had reached the clearing, Cheng and some of the others had already been roused by the din.
In the afternoon, Cheng raised the subject again. “What did you see, sister?”
Ji Tao described the man, but Cheng was impatient; he wasn't interested in hearing the gruesome details. Tuan asked her why they had left the camp in the first place. Ji Tao had no reply to this, but Sovann came to the rescue: “To look for healing plants, uncle Tuan,” she said.
“You were supposed to be on watch,” Cheng said.
“No, it's my fault,” Ji Tao said. “I made her come with me.”
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
That was it: she didn't know, and no amount of threats from her brother could change that. Tuan said that there was little point in punishing her, seeing as she had already been traumatised by the experience. Perhaps that would teach her a lesson.
“So they are cannibals,” Cheng said.
“Not necessarily,” Tuan replied. “A boar or tiger might have eaten him.”
“Perhaps, but a tiger can't hang a man up from a tree.”
“No, a tiger cannot.”
When they had set down for the night, Liang tried to cheer her up. “Help me build the fire, cousin,” he said.
“Okay.” Ji Tao busied herself with arranging the kindling.
“Did you see anyone else out there?” Liang whispered.
“No one else,” she replied in a low voice. “But I think they were close.”
“Do you think they ate him?”
“I think maybe it was a tiger.”
“But they must have cut him open.”
Ji Tao said nothing.
“Next time, you remember to take me with you, okay?”
“All right.”
Although she had not been formally punished, Ji Tao felt drawn closer into the web of responsibilities she usually had a way of avoiding. Rong Li kept her under close supervision that evening, insisting that she help with preparing the wild pig Cheng had snared. Seasoning the flesh, Ji Tao thought again of the missing entrails. She ate little.
Late in the evening, when Ji Tao was already lying in her tent, Tuan came to her. “My niece, you saw a terrible thing today,” he said.
She sat up in bed. “I did.”
“You must try to put it out of your mind. There's nothing you can do to change it now.”
“I will try, uncle.”
“Now sleep. You will need your wits about you in the days ahead.”
Chapter Two
The jungle was alive and yet animals tended to keep their distance from the noisy humans. Ji Tao saw a dhole, a type of small wild dog, fleeing in terror as the caravans lumbered along the path. The dhole was a creamy-red flash—one moment there, the next, gone. What other eyes might be watching them from the seemingly impenetrable jungle?
Liang was entertaining Ji Tao with his boasts of how he would cut down the jungle and tame the savages.
“How will you achieve these deeds, mighty cousin?” she teased.
“Just wait and see,” Liang said. “My scheme will be revealed to you at the correct time.”
“You're not thinking of following in your father's footsteps after all?”
“Me?” Liang laughed uproariously. “Not a chance. What a boring life that would be!”
That was Liang. Groomed to succeed Tuan once the old man retired, he would have nothing of it. It would normally be expected that a son in this position would jump at the opportunity to take control of his father's successful trading business. But not Liang.
“Me, run the business?” he would say. “Impossible! Let Cheng take over, it's what he wants. That way everybody can be happy.”
There had even been talk of joint leadership across both sides of the family. But neither Cheng nor Liang would allow that. “We are like a pig and and a fish together,” Liang often said. By this he meant that they couldn't understand what the other was saying.
“Tell me what you're thinking, cousin,” Liang said. “You are very quiet today.”
“Well, I did want to talk to you about something.”
“Yes?”
“Have you thought much about Kalliyan?” Ji Tao asked.
“Thought about her? In what way?”
“What way do you think I mean, cousin?”
“As a wife?” Liang pursed his lips. “I hadn't thought about it.”
“Why not?”
“I hardly know her.”
“Then get to know her,” she said. “I think she's lonely.”
“You think I could cheer her up?”
“I think you could. I don't know why no one harasses you about getting married.
You're older than me and I get pestered all the time.”
“You think Mother would approve?”
“I doubt it,” Ji Tao said. “Not at first, anyway. But she'd get used to it.”
“Hmm,” Liang said. “She is pretty, but my mind is set on another.”
“Who?”
Liang shook his head. “I can't say.”
“Why won't you tell me?”
“I can't. It isn't right.” Ji Tao's eyes must have widened, for he quickly added: “Don't worry, cousin. I didn't mean you.”
“Who then? Is she on this trip?”
“It would give it away if I said.”
“Sovann?” His eyes said yes. “Oh Liang, you're crazy!”
“I know.” He turned away.
“Rong Li would have a fit.”
Liang's face furrowed. “Well, they said they wanted me to step into my brother's shoes. Why not like this? The mourning period is over.”
“But...” she struggled to find the right words. “It's not the done thing.”
“And yet she's an angel,” Liang said.
“Liang, your head is full of rocks!”
“You don't think I'd have a chance with her?”
“It's not that, it's just....” She didn't want to say it, but Rong Li had been over the top in her grief in the two years since Dewei's death. Only now was she starting to become more bearable. “I'll mention it to Sovann,” Ji Tao said.
“Discreetly,” Liang said.
“You can trust me.”
Ji Tao knew that Rong Li was punishing her when she asked her to watch over the boys for the afternoon. By this she meant not only Yi Min, but Rame and Roshan as well.
“Roshan,” Ji Tao said. “Come over here!” The boy was fooling around on the fringe of the jungle itself, slapping the leaves with his outstretched palm as he walked past.
“You're not my mother! Why should I listen to you?”
“That's enough,” she said. Ji Tao knew that she was not much of a disciplinarian, so she changed tack. “I'll tell you a story.”
“A story?” The boy's eyes lit up. “Rame, Ji Tao is going to tell us a story!”
“Walk next to me, where I can see you,” she instructed. Yi Min came over to listen as well, hands in his pockets.
“Right,” she said. “Are you listening?” The Amar boys nodded.