Breaking Bamboo

by Tim Murgatroyd

  They waited for more but none was forthcoming. Now Guang longed for the presence of lost leaders. General Zheng Shun and Admiral Qi-Qi would have known what to do. They would have suggested a strategy involving the least risk and utmost honour.

  ‘Grave days!’ broke in Wang Bai. ‘Grave, grave days! Even now, some in the city suggest that the Great Khan has received the Mandate of Heaven. They argue it cannot be treachery to bow to Heaven’s will. I say to you all, gentlemen. Urgently find an answer to such arguments in your own hearts.’

  Wang Bai settled back, his habitually suave demeanour flushed and eager. It seemed the discussion might be over, for Wang Ting-bo began to rise. Suddenly Chen Song was on his feet.

  ‘Your Excellency,’ he said. ‘Forgive my stupidity! I thought we were here to organise our defence. How is it to be conducted, sir?’

  Guang resisted an urge to drag Chen Song back to a sitting position – for his friend was risking a great man’s enmity. Of course, Zheng Shun would have pressed Wang Ting-bo for a practical response, but then he had been a general of great standing, a hero of the Empire. As the most senior surviving officer it now fell to Guang, not Chen Song, to ask that question – but his mind was strangely blank.

  The Pacification Commissioner peered at Chen Song as though at a troublesome child.

  ‘Our defence is to be conducted with unfailing courage and the broadest sense of duty,’ he replied.

  A dark cloud settled on Chen Song’s face.

  ‘Your Excellency,’ he said. ‘Nancheng is still strong. We must learn from the fall of Fouzhou. I believe that breaches in the walls caused by their new weapons need not dismay us. Unlike Fouzhou, we still possess wide moats. Our artillery and crossbows could cause hideous casualties should they seek to attack.

  Moreover, our army numbers tens of thousands. Our granaries retain enough for a year of short rations. We need not despair!

  Or question the Mandate of Heaven.’

  Murmurs of agreement spread among the assembled officials and officers. All had more than just homes and possessions to lose. Honour, once compromised, is a cracked mirror. It will distort the reflection of an entire man’s life.

  ‘Your Excellency,’ continued Chen Song. ‘We must form companies of skilled men to repair breaches in the ramparts caused by their new catapults. We must set up appropriate stores of materials at key points along the walls. Flying columns of the bravest and best could be stationed to rush like angry tigers wherever they are needed. . .’

  ‘Enough!’ called out Wang Bai. ‘You go beyond yourself!

  Gentlemen, return to your duties and await His Excellency’s decrees.’

  Again Wang Ting-bo’s procession formed up. As they left Wang Bai shot Chen Song a venomous glance.

  Once they had gone, the latter muttered to Guang.

  ‘ Decrees? Since when does a Pacification Commissioner formulate decrees? That is a royal prerogative.’ He grew thoughtful. ‘Unless, of course, one aspires to the pleni-potentiary powers granted by the Great Khan to his Provincial Governors. . .’

  Guang was not listening. A small crowd had gathered round him, applauding his decisive actions on the Floating Bridge.

  Others, especially those with strong Fouzhou connections, muttered at the loss of so many.

  ‘A most disappointing audience,’ grumbled Chen Song as they strode down Peacock Hill. ‘You appear in a hurry, Guang!

  Where on earth are you going?’

  ‘To a happier audience than the one we have just attended. I beg you to join me. There are those I would like you to see.

  One especially. . . though that is another matter.’

  *

  Cao’s father once told her in his most serious voice, reciting something learned by rote at the Imperial Medical Academy:

  ‘Noble are the rites. They fulfil what is desired.’ She was sure his voice had been solemn – perhaps it had been humorous.

  Father had been a man of considerable forbearance, or ren.

  Given the rift with his Honoured Parents, the loss of a dear wife and blatant attempts by unloving brothers to seize his considerable property as he lay dying, he had needed ren in abundance.

  Right now, so did she, as all those around her conspired to bring an avalanche of misfortune on the family. Shih was quite determined they should advance the bathing rites normally practised on the third day after a birth because of the desperate state of the siege. But how could a bungled rite please the ancestors or fulfil what is desired? As she was forbidden to leave her bed, it was hard to mount an effective resistance to his plans.

  ‘Will it not be unlucky?’ she asked, for the twentieth time

  ‘We dare not risk such a thing.’

  ‘Then I fear we shall lack Guang’s presence in the rite,’ he had explained. ‘Guang expects to take his place on the ramparts as soon as the Mongols begin their next assault. That could be at any time.’

  ‘Why must you keep mentioning them?’ she asked.

  Cao hugged the bundles sleeping on her chest, then sighed: ‘I only want what is best.’

  ‘I am sure of one thing,’ he said. ‘I have never seen the sense of waiting three days for the first wash. It is an unclean practice.’

  So it had been decided.

  Noon lit the corners of Apricot Corner Court as Cao plumped her pillows and was helped into her best bed-gown by Lu Ying. Such an attention naturally pleased Madam Cao –once it had seemed certain the concubine would lie where she did, cradling their family’s future.

  When Cao was presentable, Lu Ying retrieved the babies from their cots, a dreamy expression on her flawless face, as though she was imagining her own children if Heaven proved kind. It amazed Cao how adroit Lu Ying was at handling babies, considering she was useless at almost everything else.

  One by one the infants were fed at Cao’s breast while Widow Mu hovered, urging her not to grow dispirited if their gums took time to clamp.

  Widow Mu’s continued presence in Apricot Corner Court stemmed from a notable bargain brokered by Dr Shih. Old Hsu’s clan had every reason to detest the dumpling seller, yet if Widow Mu had not acted as midwife, Cao’s labour would surely have ended in tragedy, for the delivery of twins is a formidable matter. Dr Shih was also aware that if he drove her back into the streets, she and her children would starve.

  A middle way occurred to him – one that required a remarkable quantity of ren on all sides. That Widow Mu’s son should be indentured without pay for seven years as Old Hsu’s Son’s apprentice. As for Widow Mu and Lan Tien, they would re-occupy their former quarters until peace returned. Then they must find a living elsewhere.

  Cao considered the dangers of her husband’s actions as she guided one warm mouth after another to her nipples. Old Hsu’s family would hardly treat Little Melon well, especially with so little food to go round. Though Widow Mu seemed grateful now, Cao knew her well enough to suspect the condition was unlikely to be permanent.

  At last the children suckled peacefully, both appearing content. Cao had feared she would need to favour the boy at the girl’s expense. ‘Plenty for everyone,’ Widow Mu remarked smugly, as though her own breasts’ abundance were in question. Sweeps of joy and pride crossed the clogged places of Madam Cao’s spirit. Happy tears filled her brown eyes and her arms tightened round the sleepy babes.

  Under Shih’s direction, candles and lanterns were lit to form a magic trail from Apricot Corner Court to the bedchamber where Cao lay in state. Such meagre refreshments as they could afford in siege-time were laid out in the medicine shop for their guests.

  The men gathered outside, talking of Fouzhou’s bloody end and the Mongols’ next assault. Meanwhile Lu Ying and Widow Mu squabbled over whether to heat the babies’ bathwater with locust branches or artemisia leaves. Cao waited patiently, cradling her babies, who ignored the debate, gorged on milk.

  Finally, Lu Ying gained ascendancy for only she could afford to place a string of cash and a strip of red silk round the tu
b.

  As was often the case, Widow Mu soon recovered her dignity. In her position as Honoured Madam Midwife it was customary for her to lead the bed ceremony. She sat on the covers where Cao lolled, then scattered a straw sieve, mirror, rusty key, onion, comb and an ancient bronze weight stamped with a cloud seal, all round the bedclothes. Incense offered to the god and goddess of the bed burned nearby.

  Naturally, the boy must bathe first, then Little Sister. Widow Mu remarked that the girl would surely benefit from drinking her brother’s dirty bath water. However, it was not long before he soiled the bath in a copious manner. All the women grew alarmed. Did it denote bad luck? Perhaps it showed he dis -approved of Little Sister.

  ‘I suggest we tell no one,’ whispered Lu Ying.

  ‘I’ll tip the water out of the window when no one’s looking,’ said Widow Mu.

  Finally the room was prepared. Madam Cao appeared as a dowager Empress in her bower, babies in swaddling cradled in her arms, the bathwater pure as a mountain stream. A bowl and spoon were set up beside the tub, supervised by Lu Ying.

  All was ready and Widow Mu meekly entered Apricot Corner Court. The assembled guests regarded her silently. Old Hsu’s relations barely suppressed their hostility. But to disgrace the rite would disgrace themselves and break their bargain concerning Little Melon’s cost-free apprenticeship. So they quietly joined the queue into Dr Shih’s house.

  First came the father himself. He carried slices of apricot, cut from the courtyard tree. Without removing his eyes from his wife he dropped the fruit into the bathtub, along with a coloured egg carved from wood – a real egg was too precious to waste in hungry Nancheng. Then he scattered a spoonful of cold water into the bath, along with all the silver coins he still possessed from healing Wang Ting-bo’s heir.

  For a moment Shih hesitated. Madam Cao met his eyes, happy and triumphant, yet somehow uneasy, as though all this unexpected good fortune might be plucked away. Then he smiled and impulsively kissed his wife’s hand. Lu Ying fluttered her fan at the intimacy of this gesture, while Madam Cao flushed crimson.

  Next came Commander Yun Guang. He was covered from head to knee in lamellar armour, though he left his weapons at the door. He seemed more aware of Lu Ying, who was standing modestly by the bathtub, than the two infants. Yet Guang reached out for the sleepy boy and Cao worried at his roughness as he held him up to the window, laughing to his brother: ‘Note the brow on this little fellow! Loaded with thought! Evidently he takes after you.’

  He passed the boy back, quite ignoring the baby girl except for a curious glance. That, thought Cao, is to be the way of it forever.

  After all the other guests had gone and Shih was allowed to sit beside her, they looked up, startled by their bedchamber door rattling. Shih rose to open it.

  Lord Yun clutched the lintel, leaning heavily on a stick. His hands were shaking and a little drool dribbled from his mouth.

  It was the first time he had fully recovered consciousness since his fit, three days earlier. Since then Shih had washed him and spooned rice gruel into his mouth, while Lord Yun struggled to speak a single coherent word.

  ‘Father! You should not be out of bed.’

  The old man peered across the room, his eyes fixed on the babies. Instinctively, Cao hugged them closer to her chest. Lord Yun blinked furiously. Half his face had permanently frozen, not a muscle moving, but the remaining half retained expression. He tried to speak and a strange sucking noise came forth, followed by a hiss. A look of great confusion crossed the wreck of his handsome face. He glanced from Shih to the babies.

  ‘They are your grandson and granddaughter,’ said Shih, softly. ‘Do you wish to bless them, Father?’

  For a moment Lord Yun hesitated, blinking with his good eye. Cao wondered how much of his wit was paralysed.

  Whether his feelings still possessed full movement. The old man seemed to nod. Perhaps he was merely shaking.

  ‘Now that Guang has renounced the title of Firstborn,’

  added Shih, defiantly, ‘my son is my heir, just as I am Eldest Son and heir to your title.’

  Cao wished he had not mentioned this. It surprised her Shih should be so heartless. The effect on Lord Yun was immediate.

  The little softness in his gaze was replaced by pride, angry hauteur. The half-paralysed mouth twisted and he managed a contemptuous snort. After a fierce effort of crab-like shuffling, he turned his back on the children.

  Shih helped Lord Yun from the room, a strange smile in the corners of his mouth, and Cao’s eyes pricked with tears. Both for the son who had never known a father’s affection and the lonely old man who seemed incapable of earning any love at all, except through duty.

  *

  There were few quiet moments at the North Medical Relief Bureau. Even at night the enemy contrived ways of injuring the city’s defenders – their huge new catapults were constantly busy, lobbing boulders and thunderclap bombs, many stolen from the captured arsenal of Fouzhou. Fire arrows flew over the walls day and night, so that special squads patrolled Water Basin Ward, extinguishing blazes with sand and wet hemp cloths.

  Still, no direct assault on the ramparts had been attmpted since Fouzhou’s fall. The explanation had nothing to do with clemency. General A-ku was ferrying his full army across the river, including more of the giant catapults, so they might choke Nancheng to death.

  The lull allowed Dr Shih and his assistants to bandage up those who had survived the previous battles and send some back for more. It also enabled death, a constant lodger in the Relief Bureau, to claim more chosen sons.

  Orderly Mung Po entered the small office where Dr Shih was taking a rest and nodded a greeting. Master and servant had relaxed their manners over the course of the long siege. Mung Po held a bowl of tea and dish of cold rice mixed with specks of dried, grey meat of the kind known as ‘miraculous mushroom’ because no one cared to name its source.

  ‘This was delivered from the ward canteen,’ said Mung Po, apologetically. ‘It tastes fresher than yesterday’s.’

  Shih grunted and took the bowl of tea instead.

  ‘Why not visit your wife and son for a while?’ asked Mung Po.

  ‘I cannot leave until Dr Du Tun-i’s spirits recover a little. You know that.’

  Dr Du Tun-i lay on a cot in an adjoining room, lost to grief.

  Since the sight of the corpse-mound there had been little work from him. However hard Shih urged him to recollect courage and duty, Du Tun-i turned away with hopeless eyes.

  ‘Well, it is a hard thing to lose one’s entire family,’ conceded Mung Po. ‘Although the loss of his uncle is scarcely to be regretted.’

  ‘If they did indeed perish,’ said Shih, aware Du Tun-i might overhear. ‘Which I doubt.’

  Mung Po left him to his supper. Though he took no pleasure in the meal, Dr Shih swallowed every last grain of rice and shred of meat. Then he closed his eyes and relaxed to aid digestion. A body starved of regular food must take care.

  Thoughts of Lord Yun flitted. The old man stayed on his bed except to fulfil necessary actions, and even then he had to be held upright. It was a sad decline. Half his face remained immobile. The other seemed alert as ever. Sometimes Shih wondered if the drugs he had used to quieten the old man’s awkwardness had poisoned him. There was no knowing. Some questions are better left unasked.

  Dr Shih’s tired mind drifted far from the North Medical Relief Bureau and he fell into a dream until he was a boy again, back in Wei Valley, Guang running alongside him up the steps of Three-Step-House. How swiftly they floated! Hand-in-hand up the steps! Birds sang all around and the plum trees were decked with white blossom. At the topmost house two women waited, their arms held open to catch the rushing boys: Mother and Aunt Qin. How young they looked, always young! Shih buried his head in Aunt Qin’s silken dress and looked at Guang. Their eyes met without shadow. Then a darkness fell across the boys and both flinched. Someone tall and broad leaned over them. But Shih’s fear evaporated as quickly as it
had come, like breath clouding a mirror, for it was Father. Dear Father! The boys bowed respectfully to the smiling, handsome man, then reached up for his embrace. All along Wei Valley the trees murmured in the wind like surf and the sky was peony blue, all the way to Incense Burner Peak, and Shih felt happiness fill the dome of Heaven . . .

  He sat up with a jolt. Dusk had deepened in the room.

  Something had woken him. A noise. Voices outside. Shih rose and hurried into the street. A small crowd had gathered, pointing excitedly at a pair of pagodas belonging to a Daoist monastery. The towers were a landmark in the city. They stood a li behind Swallow Gate on a man-made mound said to have been constructed by a Buddhist angel.

  ‘They’ve hit South Bell Tower!’ cried a man in the crowd.

  It was true, a stone from one of A-ku’s infernal catapults had smashed into the pagoda, so that it leaned dangerously. To the dismay of thousands who watched, the building collapsed, storey by storey, falling across its sister tower. Then the second pagoda toppled more suddenly than the first. The crowd went silent. The significance of such an omen, given Fouzhou’s fate, could hardly be plainer.

  Shih noticed a rider cantering towards them, followed by a small escort of cavalry. Many in the crowd fell to their knees.

  For the people’s faith in Captain Xiao had grown as the siege grew more desperate. Guang leaned down from the saddle.

  ‘We must talk earnestly,’ he said. ‘And in a private place.’

  His expression filled Shih with alarm.

  There was nowhere without eavesdroppers in the Relief Bureau, so Guang used his influence to clear a section of the battlements near the Water Gate of Morning Radiance. Only swifts nesting in cracks in the stone walls or frogs singing to one another on the muddy riverbank might overhear them.

  The two brothers leaned against the parapet and stared at the waters below. The moon, full only yesterday, had already begun to wane. Both averted their eyes from the corpses rotting on the wharf-side of Fouzhou. Guang hurriedly turned so he faced Nancheng. His gaze crept over the rooftops to the Prefectural buildings on Peacock Hill. He met Shih’s troubled look.