We came to the Jia-ling River, which eventually flows southwards to the great Yangzi itself. There we had a choice: to follow it a short way downstream to the city of Li-jou – whether expensively by donkeys, or wearily on foot – on a path ledged into one cliff of the river’s chasm, or to travel that distance in half the time, by boat. By now, I had learned something of the ways Feng used when he was the Wizard Mimesis and asked if I might try to win us passage from one of the rivermen.
‘You ought,’ he said, one eyebrow raised, ‘to be content with who you are. But I don’t suppose you ever will be. Go ahead.’
I conceded, silently, the justice of his remark. As Dragonfly and Bordermoon, I had learned the language of accommodation, but Skywhistle – like that spoiled child Greenpearl –inclined towards following the promptings of the will. ‘I’ll get us a ride,’ I said.
I sidled up to one of the boatmen, an oily haired man of perhaps thirty years who lounged on the landing stairs stroking his thin beard as he watched me approach. ‘I bring good news,’ I said, taking pains to make my voice and manner as boyish as I could. ‘The Wizard Mimesis has arrived.’
‘Ho-Ia!’ the boatman called, mockery heavy in his voice. The Wizard Mimesis, eh?’ He turned his head towards three other boatmen squatting on the bank. ‘Roundhead! Guo! Old Hsin! This young tendercheeks brings wondrous news indeed. Go on, boy. Tell me who this wizard is and why it is that I should care.’ He leaned back and fixed his gaze upon me.
Borrowing all I could remember from Feng and Sparker’s patter, I spun the tale of the great Wizard’s skills, the efficacy of his amulets, the awful power of his wrath. I could feel my companions’ eyes resting on me from the shadows on the bluff above the landing stairs and wondered how much they could hear.
‘In other words,’ the boatman said, ‘a drifter who wishes to ride downriver free. And bring his catamite with him. And whoever else can tag along. No, Young Master Tendercheeks, I’ve seen enough of his sort passing through here on the way to Shu. Boatman Wang doesn’t give something for nothing, you know,’ Then he reached out one hand and placed it on my thigh. ‘But I can sometimes be persuaded to make a trade in kind.’
I froze. One of the other boatmen hooted. Every word I had learned, in every language, left me. Not because of his interest in the youth Sky whistle: I had no quarrel with men who went to bed with boys. But I found distasteful the idea of exchanging pleasure so directly for what I wanted. Neither Lutegarden nor Felicity Hall had been a brothel; the most boorish, drunken guest knew better than to violate the unwritten rules by openly presuming that a visit to my bedroom could be bought without attention to the niceties. Yet Nephrite, who remembered enough of the easy ways of Khotanese women to scoff at these Chinese distinctions, had once pointed out that had we been raised as daughters of good families of the Tang, we would have made that same exchange just once, for life, and with even less say as to who the man would be.
My tongue failed me simply for one reason. Even if I forced myself to make the bargain, how likely would he be to keep it when he saw the ineradicable signs of my sex? And what would stop him from earning a few coins by turning us in to the local commandery as a party with something to hide?
Sparker strutted up to where I stood dumbfounded. I held my breath: what would he say?
Chez Wang
Will Sparker talk her out of there? Will the footsore party drag themselves along the cliff side trail to Li-jou, where the Wizard Mimesis can add to their dwindling store of cash by a spot of fortune-telling, some profitable verbal razzmatazz? The peasants of the narrow valleys through which the party passed have been too poor to do much good, but the people of the city will be quick enough to pay for the words that by their very presence mark the absence of the thing – a happy old age, success in business, an auspicious marriage – desired.
Or maybe Sparker will weave of Boatman Wang’s lewd greed a badger game: lure him with promises of the supposed boy, or the boy and a shaggy-haired young man, or boy and young man and dancing girl all three. And then an angry wizard, storming into a shadowy room where an unspeakable drama of multiple secret lusts has just begun to unfold, will throw a pinch of powder on the coals and terrorize the one for whom it is all enacted, and poor Wang will quickly, abashedly, grasp his boat pole and take them down.
Or will something go wrong with the con? Perhaps, as Skywhistle fears, the boatman, eagerly tugging at the trousers that both hide and indicate the lad’s round buttocks, will discover the reality behind that veil. What he has here isn’t what he thought it was. He is in the middle of a story that is not at all the one he expected, not a manly tale where orderly causes –now this, now this, unnh, ahh, unnh, now this and this – give rise to – sweet! final! ahh, predictable! – effects. No, what he’s found is this one lawless woman, disruptive, multiform, and floating free, outside the order of things as he has been told them.
Or – in this book it’s certainly within the rules – will some god or goddess intervene? Perhaps a giant magical river turtle, sent by Lady Guan-yin or the Dragon Monarch, will suddenly emerge from the swift currents of the Jia-ling, a tortoise ex machina to bear the baffled foursome happily away, while poor Wang’s jaw drops and his audience of cronies stares.
The story is as the reader writes it. But what determines what the reader reads? Have it any way you want to. Boatman Wang.
more from
Esoteric Transmitted
Records of the Bizarre
by Lha Er-sun
A CUNNING ALCHEMIST
In the riverside city of Li-jou, a man called Miser Wang met a wandering alchemist, who travelled with two apprentices and a beautiful concubine. The alchemist casually mentioned that he could create pure gold from lead, along with a few taels of real gold which were needed as a catalyst. After that, Wang invited the party to his home, where he treated them to a lavish feast. As they drank, the concubine danced, her delicate arms fluttering, her body free and sinuous, as if in dancing she achieved her heart’s desire. Soon Wang was afire with lust for the woman and lust for wealth.
The alchemist had explained that his pursuit of spiritual purity prevented him from working the transformation for his own benefit, but he allowed Wang to persuade him; Wang needed only to provide the catalyst. The mixture had to remain overnight in a tightly covered pot, so after all was arranged the party went off to bed. Shortly before dawn, the concubine crept silently into the bedroom used by Wang, who could scarcely believe his good fortune. But no sooner had he removed his trousers than one of the apprentices burst into the room and began shouting for the alchemist, who soon appeared.
Enraged by this betrayal, the alchemist gathered up his party, including the weeping concubine, and stormed out of the house. By the time the embarrassed and frightened Wang thought to look inside the smelting pot – which of course was empty – the four had left the city. They, and Wang’s gold, were never seen in those parts again.
HUNTRESS IN DISGUISE
During the Kai-yuan reign period, a party of travellers made their way from Li-jou to the land of Shu, planning to enter that region by Swordgate Pass. These people – an impoverished scholar and two servants – were fleeing a famine which had struck the area around the Imperial Capital. But when they reached the checkpoint at the pass, a greedy officer pretended to find some irregularity in their travel documents. Since the scholar refused to encourage corruption by paying a bribe, they were turned back.
Trying to find another route into Shu, the party left the trail and struck off into the mountain forests. Up and down they scrambled, until they were thoroughly lost. The scholar’s female servant sat on a large rock and began to weep silently with hunger and fatigue. The male servant set a snare and soon caught a strange variegated bird. In desperation he plunged his knife into its lovely breast. But as soon as the blade entered the bird’s heart, its skin parted and a slim young woman stepped out.
‘A Persian sorcerer spirited my mother away to be his bride,’ the m
ysterious woman said, ‘and cast a spell that sealed me in the form of a bird. Now you have rescued me, and at last I can continue my quest to rescue my mother. But tell me, what are you doing here, in these lonely wilds?’
Upon hearing the party’s dilemma, the young woman, who had learned the language of the birds, summoned great flocks of her former companions. These birds wove of their feathers three soft nets. At her urging, the travellers stepped into the nets, and were swiftly carried over the rugged transverse valleys and ridges, into the great basin of Shu.
A FIT HOME FOR POETS
A certain young scholar of Jia-jou named Feng journeyed from his home some three hundred li northwards to the Brocade City. Near Rinseflowers Stream, he found a rustic cottage where he might apply himself to his studies. To it, he gave the peculiar name of River Tortoise Lodge. Although Scholar Feng claimed to have no talent for poetry, a government clerk found some discarded poems beside Rinseflowers Stream just below the cottage. In simple but refined language, the poems praised the rural scenery: wild ducks and glimmering dragonflies, giant green bamboo and river shoals of jade-white sand. Word of the young man’s genius quickly spread through the Brocade City, but he declared that the poems were the work of a reclusive young Taoist residing with him, whose name was Lunar Emerald. No one ever met this Taoist youth, but the poems became the talk of the town.
Shortly thereafter. Scholar Feng, his shy companion, and their two servants moved away, and the cottage fell into ruin. A generation later, the renowned Tu Fu built his Thatched Hut there, and some decades after that the witty and talented Xue Tao retired to the same area, planting fragrant loquat trees beside her doorway. Truly, this place was a fit home for poets!
TRAITOR OR TRUTH-TELLER?
During the reign of the Brilliant Emperor, a Soghdian fortune-teller named Skywhistle, who had learned his arcane arts in Persia and spoke that curious tongue, appeared in the central market of the Brocade City. It was said that the future was whispered to him by a magical pearl which he kept secreted upon his person, and many people came to him seeking to know their fates. One day, he told a crowd that in two twelves of years, the emperor himself would be forced by a rebellion to travel the difficult road to Shu. A plump dancer who bewitched him would be strangled at the Horsecrest Post Station en route, and the fleeing monarch would set up his capital-in-exile in the Brocade City. All the townspeople reviled the fortune-teller as a traitorous liar, and he barely escaped the city with his life. Later, it all turned out as he had predicted.
THE CONSOLATIONS OF LITERATURE
In the years following his flight from the rebel forces that temporarily occupied Chang-an, the abdicated Brilliant Emperor lived in a back apartment of what was now his son’s palace. There his faithful chief eunuch used to tell him stories. These were not the finely wrought tales of the literati, nor was His former Majesty interested in elevated verse. Rather, when Gao Li-shi found him sighing for his enchanting, perished Precious Consort Yang, the eunuch would recite simple parables told by marketplace storytellers, and chanted monkish homilies on Buddhist sutras. In this way, he loyally attempted to cheer up the former Emperor. Only one tale did Gao Li-shi refuse to tell: how he himself had quieted the fleeing Emperor’s mutinous military escort by murdering the Precious Consort in a temple to the Lady Guan-yin in the valley of the River Wei. Some say the death of that beautiful woman augured the downfall of Great Tang.
A GULLIBLE GOVERNOR
During the Tang dynasty, a magician named Mimesis called on the military governor of Shu, and by a few showy tricks quickly won the governor’s trust. ‘My assistant,’ he announced, ‘is a shamanka who has the power to interpret the very signs of nature, even when they have been altered by the work of human hands. Would you like to see this?’ The governor assented, and the magician summoned the young woman in. ‘She is a mute,’ Mimesis explained, ‘but she is quite adept at making her meaning known. Do you have a mat of tortoiseshell bamboo?’
Of course, the governor had several such beautiful mats, upon which entertainers danced at his state banquets. The mute shamanka selected one, stared at its mottled markings, and began to sway. ‘Now she communes with the Lo River divinity herself,’ the magician said, ‘who once sent a giant turtle inscribed with vermilion script to the ancient sage-emperor Yao.’ Coming out of her trance, the sibyl began to make frantic signs with her hands. ‘Alas!’ cried Mimesis. ‘Your Excellency is destined to be called soon to the netherworld by the fiery-eyed younger brother of the Dragon Monarch. She tells me that one thing only can save Your Excellency. There is a certain magic stone on Mothbrow Mountain, not far south of here. If you can provide us with the financial means to make the journey, she will lead me to it, and with it I will destroy this malevolent dragon before he can summon you.’
The governor readily complied, giving the magician and his various assistants money and travel papers. So concerned was the frightened governor with the success of the mission that he insisted on sending a military escort as well. The magician tried to convince him that his own powers were sufficient protection, but to no avail. The party disappeared somewhere in the mists of Mothbrow Mountain and were never heard from again. But the governor lived on for many years.
Hexagram 37: The Moment Defined
Hexagram 37: The Family…
The Judgement: The perseverance of the
woman furthers.
– I Ching Wilhelm/Baynes translation
Early in the fourth lunar month of – you call it ad 734 – in the Brocade City and southeastwards through Shu to the Yangzi River gorges, the mulberry trees are putting forth their softly folded leaves. Life is quiet – no tax collections, no social visits – for the duration of the Silkworm Month. The rapacious larvae must be warmed and fed both day and night.
In the Imperial Capital, a predecessor of Precious Consort Yang, Wu Hu-fei (who will be the Brilliant Emperor’s First Lady for three more years, until she dies from the ghostly ill wishes of murdered princes who rivalled her own son), has already conducted the rites for worshipping the silkworm goddesses. In the private gardens of the palace, she made sacrifice at an altar set up on a terrace, while her ladies gathered round.
She has done this on behalf of all the women under heaven who stay awake at night in the fourth month to chop the mulberry leaves they have gathered, and sprinkle them on the trays of silkworms, and later must unwind a tender thread from each cocoon, to spin and weave the lustrous treasure which is coin of this mighty realm.
Outside dusty Dun-huang, twenty schoolboys in a monastery school bend their heads over their desks, copying their primers on clean scraps of paper from old scrolls. Their writing lines up cheek by jowl with wills and ballads, deeds and inventories, biographies, lost letters, contracts, the constitution of a social club: previous blank space fills with what is more precious –words.
A lay devotee on a retreat in a cell next door finishes writing out a sutra. May I share the merit from this good deed with my father. May I share it with my brother the schoolmaster. With all beings may I share this merit and may I ripen them to supreme knowledge, which is enlightenment, beyond all words.
Nearby, in a convent, the holy sisters stitch.
Head in hands, the Acting Assistant Controller of the Ministry of Babble tries to think how he can write down what he has to say. His August Highness, the Jade Emperor, awaits a report on the Luminous Emerald-Green Lunar Essence Sprite. The rains he summoned to Chang-an need not be mentioned; floods and famine have so often been that city’s lot. But now (he presses his forehead harder into the heels of his hands, regretting his fit of vengeful pique, remembering his blissful communion with that mirror-image Other among the creamy cumuli), how is he to explain away the troublesome officer who, thanks to a tip from an anonymous celestial bureaucrat astride a yellow crane, questioned the green pearl’s forged travel papers and tried to block her entry into Shu at Swordgate Pass?
East of Chang-an, the Silk-Weaving River Dragon, daughter of
the Lo River Divinity, discourses on the nature of her kind. ‘Of the five elements, wood is the one for which dragons have an affinity,’ she says. ‘What a surprise, then, to hear of a wooden weaving-shuttle that fell into a lake and transformed itself into one of my race.’
Seagem’s husband, the Hsiao River Princeling, knots his eyebrows in delicate concern. Is he doing the right thing? His vermilion uncle thinks he should, but then, among dragons. Uncle is something of a misfit. The Princeling eases over to his beloved wife. Pausing at a table in a corner of their bedchamber, he carelessly picks up a pair of silver scissors, and begins to slap them gently against the palm of one hand.
The light slap-slap of flat metal on flesh, a sound like the lapping of moon-pulled wavelets on the shore of a great lake, breaks through Seagem’s concentration. She lays her writing-brush aside, and sighs, and looks up to see who stands so close behind her. Her husband. She blows him a vague kiss and turns back to her desk. Beneath Cavegarden Lake they reckon time by great hourglasses that drizzle seed pearls instead of sand, and hers says her calligraphy practice for that day is less than half-way done.
‘Dear?’ The Princeling’s voice is hesitant, unobjectionable, only kind.
Silk Road Page 27