by Kien Nguyen
The sea and land surrounded them under a copper dome of brilliant sunshine. No one else was in sight. Perhaps all the inhabitants were dead or had fled from the recent war and flood. In the white emptiness, they were like strands of grass, clinging to one another on the shoreline.
The children were exhausted. None of them had ever walked for this long before. But the reminders of war were everywhere—the black smoke of burning forests, pieces of wrecked boats and ships, and the occasional neighing of a distant horse. Their pace dragged. The waves—foamy and good-natured—erased the imprints of their passage.
For a long time, Henri carried the prince on his back. A thin boy of sixteen, too tall, with long arms and legs, he sprinted along the water’s edge like a spider. But his strength was fleeting; in the end, he stood teetering on the tips of his toes, gasped for air and coughed, then collapsed. His face was gaunt, a bleak caricature of the hearty novice Pierre once knew. But his eyes were still as green as the ocean, and his sun-bleached hair was curly and bright like a patch of fabric sewn under his hat’s brim. The Annamite prince, half-asleep, reluctantly rejoined the caravan and walked on his own.
In front of them, a cluster of coconut trees dangled limp branches toward the water. Nearby stood a hut, twisted off its foundation and barely retaining its shape. Its wooden skeleton moaned with each gust of wind. Pierre thought of entering the cabin to hunt for food. It was dangerous—the structure might collapse, or it could harbor bandits. But what choice did he have? The prince needed nourishment. His little Annamite treasure. He had a vision of placing this child on the throne of Annam.
He said to Henri, “Go in the shade and collect some coconuts. Look for some sharp stone to open them. Do not come out until you hear me call you. If anything should happen to me —”
He fell silent, unable to finish his thought. He couldn’t possibly entrust the prince’s safety to this youngster. If anything happened to him, he could not imagine anyone, at least not in his flock, capable of carrying on his missionary work. It would take a rare combination of fervor, determination, and political expertise to bring the true religion to this heathen land.
François Gervaise, although ambitious and intelligent, was a coward. Ignorance and lack of faith, the priest’s greatest enemies, had nearly destroyed him. Now among the Mountaineers, would he be true to his mission? The priest might easily be frightened again; what little he had accomplished would be lost.
As for Henri, the novice had been brought to Annam merely through an accident. Pierre couldn’t see that Henri possessed an ounce of the piety that would make it worthwhile for him to educate the boy.
He walked closer to the hut. The opening that served as a window allowed him to look inside. Nothing moved. Still, Pierre could not banish the sense that he was trespassing, a feeling that was reinforced by the foul and familiar odor of rotting flesh. The flood had been here and left the footprint of its fury. The structure seemed ready to collapse.
He thrust his shoulders back and climbed through the opening, reminding himself that his presence had often prompted miracles. Nothing in the shed could harm him, for he was a servant of God!
Inside, the stench slithered down his throat. A decomposing corpse sagged between an upturned cot and a retaining wall. The naked body was silvery gray with soft blotches of blue, like a marble statue. He averted his eyes and saw a small earthen jar, sealed with a wooden cap. It lay on its side, on a bed of soot.
Pierre covered his nose and mouth with the inside of his shirt. When he uncapped the jar, its contents spilled—a mixture of seawater and uncooked rice, soggy from soaking too long. Still, it was edible.
All he needed now was a pot and some dry sticks to build a fire.
In the shade of a coconut tree, they ate the steamed rice balls that Pierre prepared and drank coconut juice to wash the salty taste away.
There was not enough food for everyone, so the bishop gave his ration to Ánh. The boy gulped down the crude meal without chewing, without looking up, and without taking time to taste it. Then he eyed Xuan, expecting her to give up her portion as well. The girl was terrified, but she did not stop eating. Ánh screamed and stamped his feet. Henri placed himself between the prince and Xuan.
The bishop grabbed the girl’s wrist.
“Give him half of your share,” he ordered. The word half caught in his throat.
She hid her face under her hair.
“Just half,” Pierre said. “You are the prince’s property. Your duty is to serve him.” His cheeks burned with shame. But he had to safeguard the prince.
Henri took a small bite of his food and thrust the rest to the prince. “Here! Take mine. I am not hungry.”
Ánh took the morsel from the novice’s palm. Henri licked the few grains that clung to his skin. He gave a forced smile to Xuan.
She divided her food, offering a portion to Henri. He took it and they swallowed simultaneously.
Pierre averted his eyes.
The afternoon breeze from the sea lulled the children to sleep. The tide was rising toward the palms. Pierre sat against a tree with his back to the ocean. He wanted to have a clear view of land in all directions in case they were being followed.
A few colorful sea snails burrowed in the wet sand near his feet. He watched the little bits of formless flesh, each hauling a tower of shell on its back. He wondered what vital force drove these tiny creatures to fight for their existence. Was God’s strength even within them?
He was afraid to rest. He dreaded the awful plunge of surrendering himself to sleep—the loss of control. He tried to sleep with his ears cocked toward any sound, but it wasn’t enough. Worry hung over his head, holding him awake.
The weight of the prince pressed on his lap. Ánh lay quietly, sipping the air with his mouth. At his waistband a silken pouch bulged with a square object. Looking inside, Pierre saw a heavy block of jade, topped by a carved dragon holding the Earth. Pierre uttered a soft sound of surprise. It was the jade seal—the national treasure that proclaimed the king’s power, the only possession that the Mountaineers had somehow not found. How clever of the royals, he thought. Giving the seal to the youngest member of the dynasty was the surest way to protect it. Pierre straightened the boy’s clothing, causing him to stir.
Prince Ánh waved his thin arms, fumbling for his toy. Pierre placed it in his fingers, and he turned quiet again.
Sifting his fingers through the sand, Pierre gathered a few stones that had been washed white in the saltwater. He stored them in an empty coconut. With the sap collected from the roots of a cactus, he would seal the opening and turn the shell into a noisemaker. The prince could shake it to let Xuan and Henri know when he needed them. When night fell, the sound would help others to locate the boy.
Pierre had to save this boy’s life. Ánh was young enough to be molded and conditioned into the type of ruler the bishop could control; and besides, the boy had a trace of ruthlessness that Pierre found promising. It would make him strong against his enemies.
True, there had been at least fifty princes in the palace, each with his own right to claim the throne. But during the attack by the Tonquinese, Pierre had witnessed several of King Due Tong’s brothers and nephews being slaughtered, along with their families. Truong Loan, the powerful vice-king, had been executed in front of a crowd, his possessions divided among the Tonquinese leaders. How many more had died since they abandoned Hue Citadel, he had no way of knowing. In order for the West Mountaineers to gain sovereignty over the kingdom, they would have to obliterate the entire Nguyen royal family. From what he had seen, the rebels seemed capable of doing just that.
And in the event the present king survived, Pierre was sure to find favor. Rescuing the ruler’s favorite nephew would certainly help build a bond of trust between the Annamite monarch and the Jesuits. Whichever way the events unfolded, the bishop stood to gain.
That is, if the South won the war.
So far, the king’s army had proved to be impotent. Soon Due
Tong would realize how much he needed the help of France. As a bishop, Pierre would be the perfect mediator to plead for French military aid to Annam.
Then and only then would he be able to convert this kingdom to a Catholic, French colony.
They traveled by night to avoid the oppressive heat and risk of being discovered. The evening’s coolness soothed their wounds, but the dripping moisture soaked their clothing. The relentless sound of thrashing waves kept their nerves on edge. Far in the sky, the half-moon floated on soapy clouds. Its light penetrated the thick darkness, creating strange images that danced across the glassy ocean. The children bathed in its glow, their thin limbs swaying like tree branches.
Pierre had traveled this way before. The coastline would take them back to Quinion Province, where they could seek refuge in the Portuguese monastery with Brother João and Brother Tiago before continuing the long journey to Saygun City.
The moon seemed to hum with energy. They came to a small shrine at the fork of a crossroad, an indication that a village was near. He looked into the dark, hollow interior of the ghostly house. Incense wisps lingered inside.
He prayed that the monastery would still be standing. What if it is no longer there?
Pierre wondered if he had enough strength to continue his journey unaided and with two children and an adolescent he still mistrusted.
For the first time, he received no guidance from the voice of God inside him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
March 1776
François squatted on the branch of a banyan tree, gripping a lance. It was a crude weapon, a stout iron bar laced to a pointed spearhead, but practice had made it rest naturally in his hand. His body, bare except for a brown cloth wrapped around his midsection, was coated in mud. The dirt’s earthy odor served to mask his human scent from his prey. A dagger was looped through his waistband.
He sat unmoving, quiet and alert, with his back leaning against the tree trunk, as he surveyed the greenery that encircled him. His face, freckled by the filtered gold of the sun, studied the forest with the patience of a leopard. There was no sound, no movement, except for his breathing and the blink of his eyes.
In a tree nearby, a shadow stirred, breaking the silence. One of the other hunters had grown restless. François tensed. The squirming ceased, and the jungle fell back to a tense stupor.
For the past three months, since returning to the King’s Screens Mountains, François had made himself a part of the rebel force. For the first time since his arrival in Annam, he felt that he comprehended the role of a missionary. No longer could he rely on the Bible or his expressive drawings of Christ on the cross to get the peasants’ attention. He studied their ways of thinking, asked them about their hopes, their dreams, and their fears as well as their beliefs. Only when he was truly accepted as one of the natives could he contemplate building another church.
Under Prince Thom’s direction, he had been assigned to join a legion of fifty men whose task was to hunt and gather food for the community. From the start, his Western stature, strength, and stamina gave him an advantage over most of the Annamites, and his eagerness to learn intensified his skills. As days passed in basic survival exercises, his palms developed calluses. He allowed his hair to grow wild like the majority of the men. Like them, he shaved his beard daily to keep his face clean.
Every day he devoted himself to his insatiable new interest in the Annamites’ culture. Now François could identify a person’s origin by the inflections of his dialect. He questioned everyone around him to learn the history of East Asia, memorizing the war strategies, ruses, and deceits of kings and emperors of past eras. In doing so, he discovered the depths of loyalty the Annamites had for one another and for their sovereigns.
His hard work was noticed, and he was advanced to the leadership of a band of ten hunters. In the eyes of the peasants, he was no longer a foreigner—a white ghost—who had invaded their land. They had accepted him, even Annamizing his name. He was now known as Father Phan.
From his roost, he heard the beaters crashing cymbals from a distance. Anticipation rushed through his arm. With his weapon, he could kill any animal, large or small. He flexed his bicep, raising and lowering his weapon in his hand, expecting the arrival of the prey.
He felt, before he could see, the thunderous stampede. Then a herd of wild buffalo charged toward him, running from the noisemakers. There were hundreds of them, slick black and rippling with muscular humps, climbing the slope in unison, trampling everything in their path. Their red eyes seethed like molten lava. As they poured past him, he tightened his fingers around his spear. His hunting instinct, formed in Villaume and heightened by time in Kim Lai, prompted him to search for that one single beast that would present a perfect target.
He spotted his choice. A bull! It sprinted away from the rest of the herd with its head down. Its elongated, pronglike horns thrust forward, stabbing at some invisible foe. A loner! In its round eyes, bright under a shaggy mane, he detected no fear, only rage.
The cymbal sound was coming closer. Instead of fleeing, the bull stopped and turned toward its pursuers, lowering its head and kicking the dirt. From where François hid, the buffalo’s heavy forequarters were almost directly below him. He could see every swell of muscle beneath its massive bulk.
He lunged from the tree branch and landed on top of his prey. With his left hand grasping the bull’s horn, he jammed his lance through the thick hide below its right ear. The beast jolted as blood sprayed from the wound. It flinched, snorted, and swiveled, struggling to topple its enemy.
François held on. A season with the West Mountaineers had renewed his strength and confidence. His fingers slipped from the horn but caught the buffalo’s mane, and he let the animal carry him through the woods. Around him the forest remained as before, green and brown and dotted with gold, only now the colors blended together like a smudge on a canvas. Where were his companions? Their plan had been for François to select an animal and make the first attack; the others were to help him finish the task. For now, at least, he was alone with the wounded, enraged beast.
When the bull slowed, he gripped the spear, pulling hard. It yielded to his strength, tearing the flesh on its way out with a loud ripping noise. His right hand was red and slippery. He saw the wound, just for a moment, before the hot crimson stream stung his face. The buffalo gave a powerful shake, tossing its head. It hurled himthrough the leaves, and he landed in a bed of damp black earth. The buffalo shuddered, snorted blood, and broke away into the deep forest.
He sat, catching his breath. There was no one else in the clearing but him. He heard his teammates’ voices, calling to one another, following the same trail of blood he had pursued. The sound of cymbals was growing nearer.
“You cannot escape,” he said aloud.
He staggered to his feet and picked up the lance. The forest around him was strewn with crushed leaves and broken twigs. He sniffed the air, detecting the odor of blood. He was sure he had inflicted a fatal wound on the animal. It could not have gone far before it weakened from blood loss. He walked through the woods, following all signs of the bull’s desperate flight.
The closer he got to his prize, the bloodier the path. He found it standing behind a flowery shrub, trembling and rolling its eyes at him. He advanced. Both his hands lifted the spear, ready. The bull glared back; a hoof scratched the dirt.
With a bellow it charged him, a soaring wall of black fury. The air churned. He stood still. When it came close enough, he plunged his spear into its shoulder, feeling the trident head reaching for the heart. The buffalo’s massive force crashed into him, and he was hurled through space, while it collapsed on its forelegs. He landed on his back. The animal let out a last bellow of desperation; its lips trembled. From the kneeling position, his prey tumbled to its side and rested its head in its own blood.
When he approached, it was too weak to move. The spear protruded from its neck. Standing over its body, he waited for it to die. At last, its bel
ly swelled in one final forceful heave, and it expired, just as LGc and three other West Mountaineers caught up with him.
“Father Phan!” LGc cried. “You’ve done it! You’re the master of the hunt.”
Outside the City of Hue, the rebels camped patiently, waiting to gain entrance. So far the conquerors—the northern army of Tonquinese—were silent within the protection of the citadel. They had attacked the South in order to seize the kingdom’s wealth, and they had succeeded. Having forced the southern king and his family to flee toward Saygun, they now held the famous capital of Cochin China at their mercy.
Inside the wall, the citizens suffered. Each day brought new reports about the cruelty of the invaders. Only the captors knew the fate of the southern kingdom. Who would be its new ruler remained an unanswered question. The three brothers hoped that the Tonquinese had come only to plunder the citadel, not to conquer new territories. The rebel forces could not wage a long war.
It was mere luck that the Tonquinese war boats had been able to take over Hue City without a struggle because of the recent flood. There were few skirmishes between the armies of the North and South. The campaign was mostly an ongoing massacre of innocents. As the Mountaineers waited, the civilian death toll continued to rise.
The three peasant brothers would seek to form an alliance with the northern army so that they themselves could assume power after the invaders departed. So far, all their requests to meet with the Tonquinese officials had been rejected. Though the intruders’ arrogance was intended to humiliate the West Mountaineers, it failed to discourage them into withdrawal. In fact, defiance anchored them, and the longer the rebels were forced to wait, the stronger their will became. With every day they remained on the King’s Screens Mountains, they grew in numbers, as peasants from the valleys, hills, and jungles joined their force. All the while, across the Perfume River, their enemy, like locusts, swarmed over their once stately capital city.