A Single Petal

by Oliver EADE

  “I am,” replied the teacher. “Master Tsu has spoken with you? About my reason for seeking audience with the emperor?” “Hurry, hurry!” the man insisted.

  He was a small man with a high-pitched voice. Indeed, if a courtesan’s dress had been substituted for the cloak, and the high hat of office replaced by the towering hair of a court lady, with all its fussy embellishments, he could have passed for a woman of pleasure leasable only to the wealthy. Feng no longer knew whom to trust or when he should show his scorn.

  “I’m not going anywhere until I know who you are and what dealings you have with Master Tsu, the painter.”

  The female-voiced man glanced back at the palace.

  “He’s waiting. Up there. In an ante-room. Spent half the morning arguing in your favour. You’ve no idea what a stubborn man our emperor is. Still lives in a dream of his own. The empress is nowhere to be found. Must mean something, but he still refuses to believe us.”

  “He’ll have to believe me.”

  The man turned to face the owner of the voice, an urchin whose tolerance for idiots had dropped to an unrecordable low. “You? And who are you, urchin?”

  “One who’ll see you beaten to within an inch of your life if you don’t stop this nonsense and take us straight to the emperor,” replied Jinjin.

  Feng and the two officials gaped like carp in a stagnant pool as Jinjin ran on up the steps two at a time. The man with the high voice drew his sword, but the official without a name grabbed his hand.

  “Leave him. He may appear an uncouth peasant boy, but what he’s found out could save China from the empress and her nephew. He’s not our problem. Our soft-hearted emperor is. You, too, will be needed, Teacher Feng. Follow the boy.”

  All the time the ruffian grinned. He seemed particularly amused by the stiff guards in their black uniforms, unblinking as he made faces at them, danced about and waved his hands, stabbing his fingers to within a cockroach length from their eyes.

  “You needn’t worry about Jianjun,” the official reassured Feng. “They’re his men. Don’t be fooled by that clowning. He’s the best in Chang’an. Trained this lot in the martial arts. The elite guard. He’s just testing them. We’ve been scouring the city together. Looking for new recruits because of the times. Go join the boy. Before he gets himself sliced in two, huh? He’s clever but still has much to learn.”

  By the time Feng reached the top of the stairs, Jinjin was inside the palace. Luckily, Master Tsu was there, talking to three black guards. The guards seized Jinjin before pushing him to the ground. One unsheathed his sword.

  “Wait!” exclaimed Master Tsu. “Have you forgotten everything Jianjun taught you?” The guards stepped back. “Why, if you fear a child what hope is there when the White Tigers enter the palace?” The painter helped the boy to his feet.

  Feng arrived at the top of the steps, panting.

  “Yours, I presume, Teacher Feng!”

  “His nothing!” objected Jinjin, rubbing his bruises. “I’m here to see the emperor. Save China from the empress and her nephew. I know where their army’s camped. They’ll attack the city from over the mountains as soon as he arrives from the west. And... and Chen Jiabiao was a traitor. Was really working for them! It’s why I had to have him executed.”

  Master Tsu chuckled.

  “Where did you find this boy, Feng? He amuses me so! And how come he’s survived?”

  “At Wong’s inn. Houzicheng. And he survived because he’s a child of the people. The people I try to teach. The country people. The poor peasants, as your teachers would have you call them!”

  But Jinjin scorned Feng’s offered defence:

  “Poor no more! My name means gold, and I shall be rewarded,” he insisted.

  “Come on, come on! This way,” indicated Master Tsu. The two officials by then had reached the palace, together with the jocular Jianjun. “It’s arranged with the Chief Minister. And listen, oh little peasant of gold. Stay bowed to the floor at all times, ask no questions and leave no questions unanswered. Do I make myself clear? The emperor may be a good man, but these are not good times.”

  The teacher and the urchin boy followed Master Tsu and both officials. Should they have changed their minds and attempted to run from the palace they’d have got no further than Jianjun. Feng wondered whether that smile ever left the ruffian, even when he was busy eliminating opponents.

  They passed through a second ante-room and waited in front of two huge red-lacquered doors whilst these were slowly opened by a palace servant. A large silk screen decorated with a red phoenix and yellow dragon, white cranes and clouds, blocked further views of the imperial chamber. A eunuch in silks wearing a hat of high office appeared from beyond the screen and whispered to Tsu. Tsu turned and beckoned to Feng and Jinjin. All entered the chamber, each immediately prostrating himself, his face pressed to the ground. A squeaky voice commanded them to come forwards.

  Feng looked up first. Seated on the throne upon a high dais, accompanied by two beautiful women holding embroidered fans, was the imposing figure of the emperor. Eunuchs stood on either side of the women and two lines of court officials flanked the approach to the dais. The man’s beard and moustache were smaller than Feng had imagined, but the emperor’s distinctive hat and red robe of government were unmistakable.

  Feng arose, alone, took several paces forwards, halted when he felt he was close enough to be heard then dropped again to his knees.

  “His imperial majesty requests you speak, teacher of girls!” advised the squeaky-voiced eunuch standing near the emperor. “And be brief!”

  “Your most esteemed imperial majesty, I come with ill news. The one who would steal the Dragon Throne, but who would first create for himself a human flower of a thousand petals, may have completed that task. His flower plucked, one of your agents in the south murdered, another exposed as a traitor, his threat to your divine throne now seems certain. My...”

  The teacher paused briefly and glanced back at Jinjin whose untidy shock of black hair brushed the imperial floor. He had no idea how he should describe the urchin.

  “My prize pupil in the arts and in poetry has risked his life to track down the White Tigers and uncover their camp. His name is fortunate indeed, your imperial majesty. They call him Jinjin.”

  Jinjin looked up and the eunuch beckoned him forwards.

  “Speak, Jinjin of the arts and poetry who would dare advise his imperial majesty!” squeaked the eunuch.

  With his eyes fixed all the time upon the emperor, Jinjin told his story. He spoke of hiding in the cart, watching the capture of the Miao girls, following the trader and Chen Jiabiao, and acquiring a servant:

  “One who could protect me and give service to his imperial majesty as a guard to be trained in martial arts, your majesty. One named Kong.”

  The black-hatted court official hastily acknowledged the veracity of Jinjin’s statement:

  “Your imperial majesty, the boy that Jinjin mentions is indeed to be trained as a special imperial guard by none other than Jianjun. His skill in the martial arts is amazing. We should listen if Jinjin tells the truth. And he makes no mention of the empress. Only the treachery of General Ma and Nobleman Chen.”

  “Your imperial majesty,” continued Jinjin, “General Ma... “

  The emperor raised his hand, a sure sign he’d heard enough, and Jinjin prostrated himself on the floor as he’d done in front of Chen. Neither he nor Feng had noticed the tall figure waiting in the darkness behind the throne. The figure stepped forward, down the steps and stopped beside Jinjin. He kicked the boy in the side, not severely but enough to make the boy cry out.

  “General Ma? What about General Ma?” the figure questioned.

  Jinjin glanced briefly up at the figure, resplendent in military regalia far more elaborate than the uniform Ma had worn in the White Tigers�
� camp; wedged under one arm was the large plumed helmet of a general.

  “Answer General Gao!” demanded the imperial eunuch.

  “Attack,” the boy said. “He’ll attack from over the mountains. Not from the road to the east. He told me.”

  “So you spoke to our little fat pig, huh? And that’s what he told you. You believed him?”

  Jinjin was slow to reply, uncertain whether or not he was supposed to have believed the other general. The delay earned him another kick, harder than the first.

  “No... I mean yes... at that time. I... “

  “So he let you live whilst he waited to see which side his puny cousin was on. That makes sense. That’s how the pig thinks. And he plans to attack from the road to the east. He knew you’d believe him, so told you the opposite. Thank you, urchin poet.”

  The general placed a foot on Jinjin’s head and pressed it down, squashing the boy’s nose and lips into the ground.

  “An easy head to remove, your imperial majesty, but if the boy is correct we’ll save your throne. We have an element of surprise to our advantage, but the pig is a tough opponent. And we don’t know what troops from the west the nephew will have amassed. As Master Tsu and I have been telling you, we must leave tonight. Big difference is we now know to travel south, not east as your scum of an agent, Chen, told us.”

  He reached down, grabbed Jinjin by his scruffy hair and pulled him upright. Thrusting a hand under his chin, he pushed the boy’s head back.

  “But if you’re wrong...!”

  The emperor stood from his throne walked towards Jinjin. General Gao let go of the urchin and stepped back a pace.

  “The boy tells the truth, my general. It is I who has misjudged my followers. Tell me young boy, what would you have as reward?”

  Jinjin looked up at the imperial face half-expecting to see a dragon lurking behind the moustache and beard. Instead what he saw, and mostly in the eyes, was very human; far more so than the faces he’d scanned for stories at Wong’s and the faces he’d studied since leaving Houzicheng urged on by her imagined face that refused to leave his mind.

  “My reward would be for your place on the Dragon Throne to remain secure, imperial majesty,” replied Jinjin. Though sorely tempted to mention the teacher’s daughter, what emerged was indeed the truth. He knew now why this man was ‘father’ to the whole of China, whatever his faults.

  “And you, Teacher Feng? Would you too have a request? If General Gao does his job?”

  The general bowed and remained that way.

  “That the poor people in China - especially our young girls - are allowed to learn about her greatness through the benevolence of her emperor, your imperial majesty,” answered Feng without looking up.

  Troops loyal to the emperor were already amassed outside the city. Jin-jin and Feng travelled together in one of the carts as the column, headed by Gao, set off for the mountains. Neither spoke as each thought about the same girl; for one her image true, the other imagined - and the true was by far the more beautiful - but neither really knew the girl behind those exquisite looks and those eyes of innocence.

  ***

  A while later, peering from the cart, Feng’s eyes traced the winding snake of soldiers, carts and missile catapults in the moonlight all the way down the mountain and across the plain far below to the distant dark city of Chang’an where the imperial forces emerged from the darkness like a ghost army sent by the Jade Emperor. The teacher marvelled at the serenity of the scene. A few farmers in wide-brimmed hats still worked at night with their water buffalo in fields flanking the mountain as if in a world separated from the passing troops. He wondered what difference it would make to those farmers if this vast army were to end up slaughtered by General Ma’s men and the Dragon Throne were to kiss the backside of the nephew of the empress? They would still be interminably shackled to the same destiny, tending the same crops in the same fields. But perhaps their children, especially their daughters, might notice the difference. Feng had to believe this. Without such enlightenment amongst the young people of China there’d have been no purpose in anything he’d done since Meili was taken from him.

  They’d been travelling all night and all day, apart from a short stop for food, and still Jinjin refused to speak. It wasn’t until the sun had sunk below the hills to the west illuminating the peaks above with a soft pink glow that the boy finally appeared to rediscover his voice.

  “What’s it like?” he asked.

  “Being hit on the head and left to die?” queried Feng. “Why, it’s...” “No! Going with a girl. Offering her yourself. What’s it like? How does the girl... I mean, what does she do?”

  The teacher chuckled.

  “A street urchin who knows nothing of coupling? Let’s say it’s like... “ Feng paused. He’d never actually tried to describe in words the bliss of being as one with Meili. Had any poet ever succeeded with such a task? How could characters on paper, however beautiful the calligraphy, represent happiness such as that? “Do you swim?” he asked.

  Meili had come to them having been rescued from the water. If the Miao were right, and the elements and all things in nature have spirits, was she not the spirit of water who once became a woman on earth?

  “No!” replied Jinjin.

  “Then I can’t help you. The closest I can come up with is swimming -yet you and the girl are both water and swimmer.”

  “Does the girl keep her eyes open? I’ve heard men at Wong’s talk about their eyes closing when it happens, when ecstasy binds the girl to you.”

  Feng chuckled.

  “Eyes open, eyes closed? What does it matter? Soon we may both be lying dead in this camp you speak of. Will it matter whether our eyes are open or closed?”

  “With a girl, everything matters. Every detail.”

  The poor boy may never know that pleasure. How can any man face his ancestors without having known this? What purpose would his existence have served?

  “The Miao girl - Xiaopeng - she calls for her father every night. Why her father? What hold does a father have over a daughter, teacher? And should a girl not choose for herself?”

  Feng sensed the conversation encroaching upon dangerous territory.

  “You asked me what it’s like for a man and a woman to come together. I’ve answered and need say no more. I only know Farmer Li will be the happiest man in China if you’re right about his daughter and wrong about Ma’s attack. The one thing her father will want to know, but which you, young urchin, cannot tell, is whether she’s been taken.”

  Jinjin shrugged his shoulders. Soon afterwards the covered cart came to a halt short of a pass between two peaks. General Gao dismounted from his horse, an enormous figure made even bigger with his plumed helmet. Alone, he approached their cart.

  “We’ll go together,” he said, shifting his gaze away from Jinjin and the teacher towards the mountain pass. “We’ll look down from up there. If the boy’s correct, we spend the night here and attack before dawn. Wrong, and he ends his days up here, his bones to be picked over by vultures, his spirit never to find the peace of his home town. And you, teacher, will remain in the palace an unpaid slave to education, never again to see that fabled daughter of yours!”

  Jinjin and Feng climbed down from the cart. The boy scrambled behind the general up the scree. Before reaching the pass, Jinjin held back. General Gao looked round, saw the boy’s hesitation and drew his sword. Feng feared the worst, but the general then sank to his knees and crawled to a view point from where he could survey the plateau beyond unseen. Jinjin’s mind had been elsewhere, formulating a plan, one that might ensure the teacher’s respect. The boy took off again, half-running, and when Feng saw him join the general on all fours, and the general re-sheathe his sword, he knew Jinjin had been right and would live.

  From the high mountain pass they had a perfec
t view of a broad plateau that spread to the rolling hills to the south and black night pastures daubed grey by orderly rows of tents. General Gao’s keen eyes appeared to take in every detail - where the horses were positioned, the catapults and the weaponry.

  “You’re a lucky young man,” he whispered to Jinjin. “See! Everything ready, there on the road to the south. Ma’s so predictable! It’s why he defected. Brave on the battlefield, takes risks... but he knew I can always out-manoeuvre him. So he changed his allegiance at the first opportunity. Which tent, urchin boy?” Jinjin grinned. He would out-manoeuvre both generals! “Oh what a fool he must be! I can see it. Far end of the camp. The long one! Right?”

  “Correct, your excellency! Guarding the prettiest girls for the empress’s nephew,” Jinjin informed him, in defence of General Ma’s intelligence.

  “Miao girls? Pfff!”

  As the imperial army assembled itself in the dark across the steep slopes below the pass, Jinjin and Feng ate mantou buns in silence in their covered cart. Feng soon fell asleep, and when the coughs, the whispers and the whinnying of horses had stopped and Feng was snoring, Jinjin slipped noiselessly down. Crawling on hands and knees from rock to rock, curving round the side of the mountain out of sight from scouts on the pass, he descended slowly towards the unlit tents of the plateau below. He could scarcely believe how easy it was for a shunned urchin to determine the destiny of the Middle Kingdom. General Ma was no fool, whatever Gao might say. There’d been an understanding, a trust even, between the boy and Ma. Both had felt it, of this Jinjin was sure. The teacher had failed to answer satisfactorily when questioned about the role of a father in determining the fate of his child. What guarantee did he have the man would agree to his demand? With Feng dead and Gao’s troops destroyed in their sleep, Ma-the-father-figure would give him protection, maybe even a small unit of soldiers. He could hasten on to the Miao village beyond Houzicheng, claim the girl and return with her to the imperial city. He’d become one of the new emperor’s mandarins and the girl could forget all that learning. And why was the teacher so keen to treat girls as boys? Was it because he had no sons? He, Jinjin, would beget sons who could glory in his name.