A Single Petal

by Oliver EADE

  Uncle Li deliberately turned his back on Feier when she asked why Angwan no longer accompanied her and the children to her home village. Without mentioning his daughter’s betrothal, the farmer was making it perfectly clear he laid the blame for their bonding on Feier. His disgust for her was evident in his every expression, the way he stood back whenever she passed him and in every word he spoke:

  “Teacher’s daughter, your food tastes like pig shit!” and “Why do you work so slowly, huh? I give shelter and sustenance and you repay me with idleness. The sooner they marry you off to that old fossil in your village the better! Let’s hope there’s yet enough strength in his bones to beat you into shape. Three moons, I agreed. If your father’s not back within three moons his daughter returns to her own village and her fate.” “I’ll leave now if you’d prefer, Uncle.”

  Feier fought back the tears as she said this, her limbs aching from overwork in the fields. To return to the Han village now would have meant the start of a living death enslaved to Zhang Tsientse.

  “No! I’m an honourable man. Three moons means three moons! Would you have me shame myself as well?”

  The look he gave the girl told her something different; that he had other thoughts, ones that involved her youthful body, before sending her to Zhang.

  During long nights when Feier lay in Xioapeng’s bed, wearied and alone in that smoke-filled room, and when the farmer lay with the pigs, she would let the tears flow. She loved Angwan from every corner of her soul and she believed he loved her as a man should. So why had he vanished? Unlike the other villagers, he was open and honest. Was that the problem? Had the young priest spilt out his true feelings to Yueloong and been banished to another Miao village, maybe the one on the other side of Houzicheng on the road to Chang’an? If so, would he ever return to live the truth with her, not the lie being forced upon them? Or was he at that very moment seeking some secret place, perhaps a hidden cave in the mountains where they might live as man and wife?

  But those tears were also for other reasons: she cried for Xiaopeng, whom she also loved, however deceitful the Miao girl had been, for they’d always shared so much for so long. If her friend were to return, might she have been damaged as Chang would have damaged her? For this, Feier wept, praying she would never be taken in that way by anyone other than Angwan; and she wept for her baba, for she now doubted she would ever see him again unless, as she’d always feared in her mother’s case, he should return reincarnated as a stranger... a baby, even, to her woman?

  ***

  Jinjin mostly felt at ease with strangers. It’s why he so loved working at Wong’s inn. Strangers were like boxes waiting to be opened. As such, General Ma was no different to any other box. What was the man’s true background? Who was his father, if still alive? Was he married - and with sons? And the biggest question of all, why had he abandoned the emperor in favour of the empress’s nephew? There were many questions spinning in his brain about the squat little man so full of self-importance, but the boy was streetwise enough to know how to arrive at the truth without conducting an inquisition.

  The general pulled back a curtain, stepping aside for Jinjin and Kong to enter.

  No fool, this man, thought the boy from Houzicheng. No act of deference. Rather, self-preservation never to offer an unprotected back, even to a couple of urchins. Jinjin knew he could also learn from this man as well as about him.

  A table, a bed and two drum-shaped seats; on a rack behind the bed hung a fearsome array of weaponry, and on the table was a mug half-filled with cold tea, a half-eaten mantou bun and a dragon-handled dagger. Jinjin took everything in, not least the dagger. It reminded him of the general’s eyes, hard and sharp. Added to his beard and moustache, these made the man’s expressions difficult to read. Jinjin’s quest for truths about people relied a lot on the expressions he read in faces.

  “Sit down urchin!” commanded the general, indicating the smaller of a pair of drum seats before removing his plumed helmet and lowering himself onto the other one, back straight, legs apart. He sat rigid as a stone Buddha and Jinjin adopted a similar position on the smaller seat. His head was at the same level at the general’s and Jinjin’s lips curled a smile for having worked out why they were seated. Standing, and without that helmet, Ma was shorter than him.

  “The mute should stay upright,” Jinjin suggested, jerking a thumb at Kong who still bore a provision-laden pole across his shoulders.

  “Just a dumb kitten, eh? But you a White Tiger? Tell me the truth, urchin!”

  Jinjin decided to stick to the truth. This was a man who played the same game as him; a man who could distinguish lies from the truth. “My father,” said the boy, “it began with my father.” “Your father, huh?”

  “They tell me China is like a family. The emperor the head of our family. My father was a fool. More arse than head. Instead of answering my questions he’d beat me with his rod. I soon discovered why. He had no answers. He was utterly ignorant. Stupid!”

  The general picked up the half-eaten bun, and handed it to Jinjin. The boy quickly devoured the offering, all the time watching the knife-slit eyes. Ma picked up the dagger.

  “What made you so confident I wasn’t trying to poison you, ay? Or that I shan’t slit that young throat of yours with this dagger and silence your mouth forever?”

  “Trust!” replied Jinjin, eyeing the point of the dagger. “I. I only knew.”

  The general burst into laughter and slapped his thigh.

  “You only knew I too had a father like that, right? With pig shit for a brain! We share much, urchin, but most of all courage, huh? And you want to know how I became a general?”

  “Killed a man?” guessed Jinjin.

  “Several! With my bare hands. Didn’t even need one of these.” He waved the dagger at Jinjin who was still unsure where this was leading, or where the tip of the dagger might end up. “A conspiracy, you see. And I used my ears and my brain. I was a mere imperial guard at the time. Hated our weak poet of an emperor with his feeble, over-inflated eunuchs, his idiot ministers. But I realised I could do nothing as a humble guard.”

  “Nothing!” echoed Jinjin! “I see that.”

  “Yeah, well what you can’t see is the detailed planning, the thinking it involved. Began with those careless officers talking when drunk.” “And you don’t drink?” questioned Jinjin.

  The general shook his head and stared at the boy, as if wondering whether he’d been too careless with his open talk. Then, perhaps deciding Jinjin had no more malice than the bite of mantou he’d just swalloed, grinned self-satisfaction. The man probably enjoyed little pleasure in this place other than the sight and scent of virgins.

  “Too right I don’t! Downfall of many an able man, the drink! So, you see, I knew what they were up to. Had two choices. Denounce them or join them. I was tempted, but knowing how thick-skulled their general was helped me to decide. He, the poor fool, was like our fathers. Stupid! In being so, he showed me the correct path to greatness!”

  “So many stupid men in power,” observed Jinjin. The knife slits fixed on him. Playing with me? Jinjin tried to focus on the eyes within the slits to better read the man. Nothing! But he knew this general was no fool. “Which is why I’ve chosen to come to you,” he added.

  “What they planned was doomed to failure,” continued General Ma. “But I saw my chance. Over three moons I got to know everything about those dolts. Five of them worked for that donkey of a general. I watched every action they took, found out where they would meet up to drink themselves silly. Began to think like them. To destroy an idiot you have to do that! So, one night, when they were all legless, I approached as quiet as a leopard...”

  “Not a tiger?” queried Jinjin.

  “A tiger?” The general went quiet, his eye slits cutting into the boy. Jin-jin squirmed. He thought he’d said the wrong thing. “A white tiger
?” repeated the man before bursting into guffaws of mirth. “Tiger, oh no! A leopard. I hadn’t the power of a tiger back then. Only the stealth of a leopard. Stealth and cunning were my weapons. And these...”

  Ma raised up his thick-fingered hands into the boy’s gaze. Jinjin thought how oddly large and out of proportion they were in comparison with the general’s squat body and neckless head once bereft of that magnificent, plumed helmet.

  “More deadly than all of these toys of war that my dozy soldiers play with!” With a sweep of one of those hands the man took in the fearsome weapons beside him.

  “You strangled them?” asked Jinjin.

  “Oh no! Far too noisy. All that gurgling and grunting. See... one hand so... “ General Ma held his left hand cupped, palm up. “Like a woman, huh? The yin. The other, the yang, looks down at the vessel he wishes to enter. Right? You understand, little urchin who’s never been with a girl?” The spade-like right hand hovered over the left. “Only there’s a head in the way. A quick twist... and as silent as a leaping leopard...”

  The lower hand flicked back at the wrist, the other downwards with eye-blink speed.

  “Soundless! Dead. when the jerking stops! One, two, three, four and five. All five of them flipped over to the land of the restless gui.”

  Jinjin caught sight of Kong staring with curiosity, his own spade-like paws gripped tightly around the bending pole across his shoulders.

  “But how did you...?” he began.

  “In the planning,” answered the general before the question could emerge. He tapped the side of his melon-shaped head. “Intercepted messages by winning their confidence. A fools’ fool. Those poor bastards! Trusted me with anything because I said nothing. But you, young urchin, you speak too much!”

  The boy squinted at the general, a habit he’d acquired at Wong’s place whenever uncertain where to direct the conversation, which wasn’t often. He remained silent.

  “That very day I’d already informed the chief minister’s special eunuch about their plot. A fellow who smelled like a woman and moved around the palace like a shadow. I promised to deliver the traitors’ heads on a board and after I’d done that thing I became General Ma. From guard to general with only five twists of the hand. I tell you, when removed, those heads together weighed more than a stone Buddha. And two Buddhas later I added General Chin’s!”

  Jinjin wondered how much General Ma’s detached head would weigh.

  “So... at last I had access to court gossip. And the empress. That monkey of a husband she’s married to is blind to the calligraphy of destiny written in the woman’s eyes!”

  Calligraphy of destiny? Have to remember that, thought Jinjin, annoyed a neckless general with animal hands could use words that invaded the sacrosanct territory of the poets. I’ll impress the teacher’s daughter with the ‘calligraphy of destiny’.

  “You know... “ General Ma’s head swivelled on his broad shoulders to check on Kong through those knife-slits then back again to study Jinjin. He curved his short straight spine towards the boy. Jinjin got the message and circled his hand at Kong who obediently turned to face the other way. He leaned up close to the general, close enough to hear whispered words:

  “The empress can’t stand her poet husband. Some say he hasn’t entered her for years. Indeed, maybe never. Think of that! Nor his most beautiful concubines, either. What a waste of yin, ay? They also say his eunuchs are more than willing! This weakling head of the central kingdom - head of the family of China? A rabbit sits upon the Dragon Throne! A rabbit that enters eunuchs!”

  The general sat back and guffawed. Jinjin copied him, although had no idea why he should find any of what he’d been told funny.

  “So, urchin boy, the father must go. He’s forfeited his right to serve his family.” The eye slits then found their mark somewhere deep inside Jinjin. “So you left yours as well?”

  “Had to,” replied Jinjin, smarting. Mention of his father was like rubbing salt into a wound.

  “Of course! No need to kill him, though. It’s different with the emperor. Killing is the only way to prize him off that throne. The only way to make Heaven see sense. Listen, boy, the empress is a good woman. Her nephew has got to be better for China. And as for... you know...”

  “The Miao girls?” suggested Jinjin, looking for a response in General Ma’s slits. “He likes women, right?” The general stiffened, and what Jinjin saw in the narrow black lines between the man’s eyelids was something closer to suspicion than to trust. Another series of guffaws from the man relaxed the tension. “A thousand petals? Gets strength from their yin? Am I right, your excellency?”

  “As right as an urchin can ever be.”

  “But why Miao? Why not girls from Hangzhou?”

  The teacher? Never asked whether the teacher’s deceased wife came from Hangzhou. The most beautiful women have to come from Hangzhou.

  If what was said about the teacher’s daughter was true, he, Jinjin, would be furious if it turned out she had no ancestral ties with that celebrated city of the East. The girl’s imagined face, perfect to the tiniest detail, had filled his mind most of the time since leaving Houzicheng. The nose, the chin and... oh, those eyes! They would be his. Yes, her ancestors would have to come from Hangzhou. He’d see to it they had no choice in the matter.

  The general’s expressionless face gave no answers.

  “I mean, I know about the thousand petals. We all do. And Miao girls can be attractive. Skilful with the loom, too. But... “

  Not a mere petal, but a complete flower, magnificent in her beauty. Hangzhou? But Chang’an is where he’d take her. Chang’an is where he’d show China his true worth. Meanwhile...

  “But why not Han girls from Hangzhou?” repeated Jinjin.

  “His mother was Miao. Died when the emperor-to-be was but a child. Fathers again, see? The empress hated her violent brother. So much so she had him, well, let’s just say he got seriously ill. Rather quickly. She was a mere courtesan then. Had contacts, though. Sneaked her nephew out from under the chief minister’s nose. Across to the mountains of the west. But you’ll know all of this being a White Tiger, right?”

  Jinjin squirmed. Kong was now staring as if to challenge him to get out of the fix. After a pause the innkeeper’s urchin answered:

  “It’s not so much a question of what I know but what I understand. I mean, even one who’s half Miao can surely still see how superior Han girls are to their Miao sisters.”

  The general drew in a deep breath and cupped heavy hands over his knees. It appeared he was about to stand, perhaps to remove a large sword from the armaments rack with which to detach Jinjin’s head, or even do that flick of the wrists thing with those hands. Instead, he nodded, in agreement.

  “The father. again,” he said. “Blamed the man for his mother’s death. Getting back at him by filling his own court with Miao girls, I imagine.”

  Then he stood and reached out for one of the larger swords on the rack, removed it and ran two fingers along the blade, testing its sharpness.

  “Why am I telling you this? You White Tigers are supposed to be the emperor-to-be’s brains and we soldiers only his fists.”

  Jinjin had never before felt as unsure in conversation as he did with General Ma. He would usually take the lead and direct the flow of words, but here was a man who played with him, provoking whilst pretending to put him at ease. But if nothing else, the boy was a fast learner, and it came to him in a flash. His mind was racing in several directions at once as he anxiously watched those thick fingers caress the cold steel of war, but just when he had almost decided to reconcile himself with the inevitability of death, he blurted out:

  “Teacher Feng suspects Chen Jiabiao!” The general carefully replaced the sword and turned to face him, still listening. “I told him he could be wrong, but with one of our number murdered
I had to be certain. After all, a flood has to begin with just one drop of water.”

  “And removing one drop of water won’t prevent a flood,” parried the general.

  “But if that drop contains poison... “ began Jinjin. “Just tell me what you want,” interrupted General Ma. Irritation had altered the tone of his voice, and irritation meant uncertainty.

  “Time,” answered the boy. “That’s all. My ears and eyes will do the rest.”

  “Time? Do you think I’m a magician? Time’s what no-one has! As soon as the emperor-to-be arrives from the west we attack. At first light the following day. You White Tigers have no idea how to conduct a war. We sweep down on the city from the mountains back there!”

  A stubby thumb indicated the tent wall behind him, beyond which a wall of mountains separated the plain of their camp from the city of Chang’an.

  “Could be tomorrow, the next day or even two moons away. So you see, I cannot promise you time. Huh! The fist is ready, but the brain, it wants only to sleep.”

  “All the more reason to check out what Teacher Feng told me!”

  “Which is?”

  A sneeze from one of the girls the other side of the curtain caused the general and both boys to turn heads. The sneeze was followed by a burst of girlish giggles. It was almost as if the girl sensed Jinjin’s plight and was giving him thinking space, for he wasn’t used to telling lies.