A Single Petal

by Oliver EADE

  “As thick as thieves, those two. But deeply loyal to the emperor.”

  “So it could have been one of the monks who killed him. Found out Chang wasn’t a true White Tiger. And nothing to do with me telling him to find out more about the missing Miao girls after all? Pfff! One burden less, I suppose.”

  Feng picked up a duck leg and chewed on it, spitting skin and bits of bone onto the floor. It was more delicious than anything he’d eaten at Wong’s. As for Feier’s dismal attempts to cook duck, the girl’s food was, at times, close to inedible.

  “And Minsheng?” he asked through a mouthful of duck. “Is he to be trusted? The old magistrate had been a good friend.”

  “He’s our rock, that man.”

  Not the word that came to Feng’s mind, but he ate on. Xiuxia returned with a bowl of tofu, pak choi, a bright, cheery face and those incredible breasts.

  “Chef Wei says if this doesn’t make the teacher clever then he has no brains.”

  Her proximity was enough to lengthen Feng’s jade stem. He didn’t dare turn again to face that bosom for fear one of his hands might take on a life of its own. The woman’s breasts brushed against his back. He focused his attention on the duck’s head, only daring to move when the woman was gone. Perhaps the duck had been deliberately put there as an antidote for desire. Why this woman, at least his own age, had such an effect on him when all those exquisitely pretty charges in his schoolroom had none, he failed to understand.

  “One day someone will cut out that woman’s tongue, my friend. But ‘ til then we must suffer it. And remember she has a heart of gold.”

  But it wasn’t her heart or her tongue that occupied Feng’s pak choi fed brain as he filled his stomach with more of her husband’s delicious food.

  ***

  Feier had no questions to ask; questions would spoil everything. These could come later for she wished the kiss to go on forever, beyond the reach of time and death. Her small fingers touched her lover’s hand stroking her breasts then travelled up to his face, his cheek, as if to keep the kiss there in her total possession. As her lips parted against his, they came together in flames more dangerous than any thunderbolt released from the Jade Emperor’s firebird, and with a fire not even a Celestial Dragon could have extinguished. And when Angwan, her very own dragon, lay spent on top of her, her legs encircling his warm, lithe body, she laughed. She laughed with pure delight, happiness and relief, and if she were put to death for breaking some unspoken, ancient Miao rule, what did she care? She was Angwan’s and could never be given to that old goat, Zhang Tsientse.

  “Quiet,” repeated the young priest in a low voice. “Even in his sleep Yueloong will know pigs don’t laugh.”

  “So... let him come!” she giggled, tickling Angwan behind an ear. “I’m happy, so happy... and I want to tell the whole world.”

  With both hands, she took hold of the man’s head, now nestled be-tween the soft mounds of her young breasts, and lifted it enough to see his face, though it was too dark to see more than the merest outline.

  “I want to see your eyes again. Come close. Let me see your eyes.”

  As he moved his body up over hers she felt a damp trail streak her belly. She giggled when his comforting eyes came into focus just a hand’s breadth from her face.

  “Now you’re tickling me! With your magical brush,” she announced. “Please write something on my belly. Write ‘Angwan’ there. No! Write ‘This woman belongs to Angwan’. Then no-one else can touch me!”

  And the priest, too, laughed.

  ***

  That evening, his head afloat with rice wine, Feng lay awake on hard matting, a simple wooden block for a pillow, tracing the painful ridged characters of ‘White Tiger’ scarred across his belly by brigands. His head wound was healing but the belly scars would forever remind him of his stupidity and his guilt - not for causing Chang’s death, clearly not his fault, but for abandoning Feier in his haste to set right his wrongs. Could he really trust Yueloong not to defile her? How deep was the man’s professed Buddhism?

  The night was spent fitfully trying to work out what, as the emperor’s eighth agent, he should tell the great man. The father of China would not want to hear what he already knew yet did not believe. As Tsu had implied, China’s destiny laid with the Miao girls and that place where the forces of the empress’s nephew were amassed. The White Tigers were the key to everything. The following day he would scour the city for White Tigers. Better, perhaps return to the restaurant to question Xiuxia, the emperor’s ears. Xiuxia and her bosom! Would there be a time of day when Chef Wei had to pay a visit to the market to buy his ducks and vegetables, for that would be the best time to question the proprietress? He finally drifted off to sleep against a backdrop of images of Xiuxia slowly releasing her bosom from the confine of her bright red dress.

  ***

  Feier traced the curves of Angwan’s eyebrows with her finger tips then touched his nose and lips before taking his hands in hers and placing them over her breasts.

  “I want to go to Taishan [19],” she announced, “to the holiest mountain. Will you take me there? So we can climb to the very top with all those pilgrims and cry out to the whole world: ‘Feier belongs to Angwan! Feier is no longer a child!’ If the First Emperor climbed that mountain, why shouldn’t we?”

  Angwan’s lips followed the curves of the girl’s neck and shoulders sending shivers of excitement through her body.

  “Not like the First Emperor, please,” he whispered softly, “He died but not you, my.... my... my... oh... Feier!”

  After they’d made love again it seemed her orgasm would never end, but sadly it did and, as if the other might disappear now it was over, the young man and girl-turned-woman clung together in fond embrace. Feier sobbed.

  “I don’t care now if I do die. Just let it happen with me in your arms, my love.”

  “No, Feier, don’t you see? We’ve made a new life together. To keep hidden inside you. And before they take you away to dress you in red and cart you off in a covered rickshaw we’ll tell them. Then they can do nothing. They cannot kill a woman with child. So, we’re banished together! We can go a long way away. Escape from our ancestors. I’m a priest. I can marry us myself.” But the girl continued to cry, this time for her baba. Suddenly he seemed so important, for he was her only living ancestor. “You, my girl, can give lessons,” Angwan continued, softly stroking her damp, secret place. “A girl as a teacher... in this new China of your father’s. And me? I could do anything.”

  Her lover’s words brought no comfort. She didn’t want to think about the future, only an unending presence in his arms. She kissed him again to seal that future inside his lips, to prevent it from escaping and separating them forever, and they found Heaven together for a third time.

  The dragon and the phoenix became one, a force from which would spring new life.

  ***

  A week earlier, when Angwan had approached Li Yueloong with, what seemed to him, a perfectly legitimate suggestion, the farmer’s response had taken the young man completely by surprise.

  “The teacher hasn’t returned,” the young man had said. “This can only mean one thing. Xiaopeng cannot be found and his shame prevents him from coming back. Or he’s dead. Feier must replace your daughter. Xiao-peng’s future shall become Feier’s. She works hard, she’s trusted by our people and her children will be brought up as Miao.”

  Before Li spoke Angwan knew from the other man’s eyes he’d said the wrong thing. It was a hot day. The farmer and his elderly brother were having a break whilst Feier remained in the field with the water buffalo, gathering rice grain.

  “What are you trying to say, Angwan?”

  “I’m saying I’ll honour Xiaopeng’s memory by marrying Feier. She’ll be an asset to our village. Without a teacher of their own, the Han people will come to u
s for their children’s learning. They’ll pay us handsomely. With tools for our farms and homes, with bowls and plates and things the Han craft so well. I know our cloth can fetch a higher price in Houzicheng market than theirs, but... “

  “I forbid it,” roared Old Xiang who’d been lurking in the shadows. He stamped a foot into the dust.

  For a while, Angwan had been wary of Xiang. He knew of his antagonism towards the girl and feared those darting eyes that bored into the souls of others. The man had never married, perhaps because he was too busy interfering with the lives of others. Angwan had no recollection of a smile having ever brightened up this drawn face, and he’d always looked old, even when the young priest was a boy. Yet the younger brother remained in awe of him. Perhaps something had once happened that ensured Yueloong was forever beholden to the miserable Xiang. Angwan wondered whether the farmer’s Buddhism had something to do with it - or had that merely been the younger brother’s last act of defiance? Whatever, the burst of fury took Angwan by surprise. He’d hoped for support from Yueloong, but the famer’s eyes showed confusion.

  “You forbid it? But...” began Angwan, approaching Xiang. He wanted to hit him, but that would have played right into the bitter old man’s scheming hands.

  “I forbid it absolutely. Your future lies with my brother’s daughter. Her alone. And if she fails to come home, if those Han devils have destroyed her, you remain a bachelor. Like me. You can think about little Xiaopeng and the children you’ll never beget. Oh, don’t imagine I haven’t been watching you and that girl. I’ve seen the way the teacher’s child looks at you and I’ve warned Yueloong many a time. Send her back, I told him! Let her make eyes at some poor Han boy. But my niece’s husband-to-be? Never!”

  Yueloong appeared troubled, as if trying to understand. As the young priest had said, Feier was a good worker and he enjoyed her company. Also, she was pretty almost beyond belief. It appeared his heart was telling him one thing whilst his brain, controlled by his brother, was saying another. At first, his heart spoke:

  “Brother, don’t be too hard on the girl. She’s tried her best here. Her cooking may be atrocious, her weaving skills non-existent, but... well, she brings cheer to my home. Angwan was only...”

  “No! You know nothing, I see! The children tell me everything. About what happens when this son-in-law-to-be and that little vixen are together.

  They hear things, too. Yes, our village children have ears, you know!” Xiang turned to Angwan.

  “You didn’t think of that, so captivated by her snake-like charms! Yes, the things she says about Xiaopeng! Tell her father! And tell him why you’ve failed to denounce that whore!”

  Angwan flushed, for there was some truth in what the old man said. He kept silent.

  “He’ll not say, brother. His guilt seals his lips. Well, I’ll tell you! ‘Stupid’! That’s what the little witch calls your daughter. The girl who’d taken the Han child into her home and who’d taught her what little she knows about the things a woman should know, who treated her as a good friend.

  Stupid?”

  “It wasn’t like that. I... I... I mean we... “

  Never before had Angwan felt so lost for words. Yes, Feier had once used the word ‘stupid’, and out of context it must have felt like a hammer blow for Yueloong in his loss, but it was what the mischievous children had left out in their reporting that defined the Han girl’s true nature.

  “Xiaopeng might appear stupid when it comes to poetry and the noble words of Kong Fuzi, but she has a strong heart, is able in the home and has good health. She’ll make you a good wife, Angwan.”

  The boys who had hidden unseen close to the young lovers, only fed the word ‘stupid’ to Old Xiang. Roles had been reversed in their delivery of Angwan’s proposal to their young teacher: they’d lied that Feier had asked the young priest to marry her.

  Still Angwan said nothing.

  “Stupid?” repeated Xiang to his brother. “Your daughter weaves the finest cloth for miles around. And another thing she said. ‘Xiaopeng’s only fit for a man with one water buffalo’. That’s you, Yueloong. One man with his buffalo. As if you and your daughter are unworthy.”

  “No,” protested Angwan in a desperate attempt to set things right. “I said that. Not she. In fact... “

  “You? She? What difference does it make when you’re poisoned by her?”

  That’s when doubt vanished from the farmer’s face. Maybe it was too close to the truth for his heart to bear for, seen through another’s eyes, his life of servitude to Sheng Nong, the Han god of farmers, was meaningless.

  Truth is always more painful than lies. The farmer’s face hardened like a carved temple Boddhitsava, and turned as bitter as the priest’s medicinal plants. With a sound like a carcass being dragged over gravel, he trawled his throat for the anger welling from his soul and spat it out onto the ground at Angwan’s feet.

  “Leave at once or I’ll kill you both! Why did I protect you, huh? Answer me! Even before my friend, your father, died, I helped pay for your education. With my hands and my sweat! It was I who persuaded your mother to give you time in the monastery. To learn the Buddhist and the Han ways. To help both our peoples. To understand them, for our trade. Make better cloth for their ancestors’ miserable children. not fall prey to their demon daughters. And I was the one who hid your shame from others before Xiaopeng was taken. But you lied about that too, didn’t you. ‘Stupid’? My dearest little girl ‘stupid’, when you bring disgrace upon your own ancestors in such ways, huh?”

  During the ensuing silence the three men were balanced in anger and hatred, the young priest standing stultified between the brothers.

  “I don’t blame the teacher,” added Yueloong finally breaking that silence. “He’s my friend. We had an agreement. I never break my word with a friend. I’ll give him a full three moons, but you, Angwan, must vanish. Xiang can speak to the girl’s village elders. Find an old Han goat for the child to wed.”

  Angwan attempted to stifle his anger and clear his head. He needed clarity to draw up another plan, one that he’d tell no-one. Not even Feier. Not yet.

  “Tomorrow my brother will go to their village. He’ll seek out the marriage maker her father so fears. She’ll find a goat for the girl, without a doubt.”

  The young priest, a volcano about to erupt, left. He saw the girl he loved bent low in Farmer Li’s fields and halted. The farmer stood watching him from the doorway. He could do nothing, was unable to call out, explain... even say goodbye. Suppressing the urge to run to her and carry her like a bride over his shoulder, away from his village, he left for the only place where he might find refuge: the Buddhist monastery.

  ***

  As he grovelled before the nobleman, Jinjin’s attention was diverted by the man’s shoes. Unlike the cousin’s sturdy footware, these were not the shoes of a warrior. Indeed, they were more the shoes of a woman, silk with an embroidered trim. The soles were probably made from soft leather. His gaze trav-elled up to the sword and the hand resting on its hilt. Looking at these things released a resurgence of the confidence for which he was famed at Wong’s inn and which had helped him find common territory with the general.

  “The teacher is much respected, Nobleman Chen. All across China, some say. Even in the Imperial City. For bringing girls into his class. And communities together. Why, once a week... “

  “Yes, yes! I know all of this. And about his friend, the Miao farmer who pretends to be a Buddhist. Do you take me for some sort of a fool?”

  “No, excellency. Just that they say...”

  “I don’t want to hear what ‘they say’. Only what you have to tell me -and why you’re here, little scum!”

  “Merchant Chang!” announced Jinjin. It was the only thing that came to mind.

  “My friend Chang? Who was murdered by the teacher’s daughter?”
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  It wasn’t often that Jinjin felt himself thrown off balance. Whenever it happened, speech deserted him until jumbled thoughts ceased to dance around. They were still dancing when he peered up at Chen’s face. He tried to focus on those eyes that resembled calligraphic streaks of ink drawn across fresh parchment. They were similar to those of the man’s military cousin, but lights were visible in them and that made a difference. He could read them as he had with so many eyes at Wong’s place. They were searching his face for a response that might give his game away. An expression of surprise, perhaps? That, too, Jinjin had mastered. Chen’s casual reference to the teacher’s daughter made no sense. The girl who had grown more real inside his head than anyone outside was incapable of such a brutal act. She was a mere gentle child who would soon yield to him in total obedience, and in that obedience would have nothing to fear from him. He would teach her respect, so there’d be no need for the beatings and harsh words as suffered by his mother. And when he’d secured himself a place at court, whichever emperor ended up sitting upon the Dragon Throne, he would display his wife, the most beautiful woman in China, dressed in robes of the finest embroidered silk, not the cheap garments of the Miao folk.

  Chen Jiabiao was playing games. The boy’s face remained impassive, but behind that face bubbled anger that this gaunt figure who called himself a nobleman should taunt him with such untrue words about his future wife.

  “I assume that’s why you’re here, urchin. To get permission from me to kill the girl. Because you’re uncertain about the new magistrate in Houzicheng, huh? Well, you’ll not need to worry much longer about that uneducated, overinflated buffoon.”

  “I... er... had to be sure, excellency,” answered Jinjin.

  “Sure? Sure of what?”

  “The girl. I mean she’s very young. And beautiful. How can I just...?” “Beautiful? Pah! He is beautiful!”

  Chen turned slightly, enough to take in the frozen figure of the other boy. The shimmer of confusion on Kong’s face gave everything away. He could hear! Jinjin would have killed him if there’d been an easy way.