by Harold Lamb
She stretched her slim arms upward imploringly, and Khlit, who was near, saw that her cheeks were blanched under their coating of red.
“Harken, Lord of Ten Thousand Years,” she screamed shrilly, “to a low servant of your beneficence! Heed my message. Because it is a word from the dead for the ear of the Son of Heaven.” Sheer surprise silenced those around her. The singing ceased, and the fiddles broke off their tune. A movement behind the lattice showed that she was observed.
“Harken to a message from the unlawfully slain! Go not on the hunt at midnight. Your Majesty has been tricked with lies. The men of wisdom, who would have advised the Dragon faithfully, were sent away by forged decrees. Where are the generals of your army? They are dismissed. Only eunuchs and their followers remain. The story of the auspicious beast Chi Lin was false, to delude the Son of Heaven. My father, the lowly Chang, was slain at his door because he voiced his suspicions—”
A heavy hand caught the daring girl by the hair and flung her to the earth. The high voice of Wei Chung rang out from behind the lattice.
“A knife for the mad wench! Her wails disturb the Son of Heaven.”
The tall form of Ch'en Ti-jun strode to the side of the prostrate girl. Khlit saw him seize a sword and slash the unfortunate woman savagely. When the sword was running red, the eunuch tossed it aside and kicked the quivering form. The assembled hunters were hustled from the enclosure by the eunuchs.
In the balcony Wan Li had risen with a frown.
“Are you the emperor, Wei Chung?” he demanded, “to have power of life and death?”
The chief eunuch bowed his head abjectly, with a scornful look Wan Li did not see.
“If your servant has offended, may his head fall from his shoulders. I did but speak hastily, fearing lest your Majesty's peace be irked by the prating girl. For what is the like of such to the enjoyment of the kingly hunt that begins tonight?”
Wan Li surveyed him, hesitation mirrored in his good-natured face. The beautiful favorite stepped to his side.
“Lord of my life,” she whispered, “I also have offended. It was I who slew the scurrilous Chang because he dared to breathe tales against my name. His madness has affected his child—”
“I forgive you,” said Wan Li.
The courtyard was nearly deserted when Khlit and Arslan turned to go. To the archer's dismay Khlit picked up the body of the girl and strode off with it to the gate.
“Have you love of the bowstring necklace?” whispered Arslan hurriedly. “Nay, the child is accursed now. Even while Ch'en Ti-jun was striking her, she cried that there was a conspiracy against Wan Li and that those who honored him should not leave his side in the hunt—”
But Khlit shook his head.
“Dog!” he growled. “This is the body of a young girl. Would you leave it to be defiled? Nay; we will give it to a priest.”
For all his protest the archer did not leave Khlit until the Cossack had seen to the burial of the slain girl at one of the temples. Then he followed as Khlit strode back to their quarters with moody brow.
“Truly, this is not such a great matter—a singing girl slain,” quoth Arslan.
“It is devil's work.”
Khlit swung around and grasped his companion's arm. Drawing the Turkish pistol at his belt, he thrust it into his hand. “Will you serve me, Arslan?”
“My will is your will. Aye, that I shall do.”
“Then seek out your horse. Say that you go on business of the hunt. Bear this weapon as a token from me to the Togra. You know Dokadur Khan?”
“The Khirghiz bandit? Aye.”
“Bid him, if he values his life, assemble his men. Say to him that I, Khlit of the Curved Saber, sent you. Say that there may be rich spoil for the taking. But he must be watchful. Post sentries at the entrances of the Togra ravines. I will join you there tomorrow.”
Arslan's eyes widened in surprise.
“But the hunt—who will guide the emperor?”
“I will—with Kurluk and some of the Manchus.” Khlit's gray mustache twitched in a smile. “The hunt? Nay; it has begun. But other game is sought than antelope or tiger.”
IV
The spirits of the everlasting dead have ascended on the Dragon.
But in the tombs, hallowed by a thousand years, they are to be found. Humbly must the visitor come to the tombs.
For the mightiest emperor is a child before the faces of the invisible dead.
Li Yuan F'o, astrologer of the court
In the plains beyond the Liao River the Golden Tomb had been built by one of the early Ming emperors. To guard against discovery, a half dozen tomb mounds were constructed of which only one was used. There was no visible monument, except the high mound of earth rising among some low, pine-clad hills.
In accordance with immemorial custom, an armed guard was stationed in the hills, a guard called the kang leen or watchmen at night. The captain of these picked soldiers himself did not know the location of the true grave—a precaution made necessary by the treasures housed within. But on the night of the seventh moon, when the hunt of Wan Li began, a confidential messenger came to the guard from the court bearing an order sealed by the ring at the emperor's girdle, commanding the captain to unearth the doorway of a certain tomb, buried underground.
So it was that, when the midnight gongs resounded in the yamen of Wan Li, fifteen miles away in the plains, Chinese soldiers were working by moon and torchlight to uncover the stone door of the Golden Tomb. Under the pines they worked hastily, for the emperor was coming, and being alone in the hills they were gripped by fear of the dead man beneath the earth.
Wan Li entered his waiting sedan-chair with a light heart as the drums and gongs struck midnight. From the latticed gallery the Lady Li with her women watched his stately figure escorted through the courtyard, illumined by a hundred torches in the hands of mounted attendants.
A roll of drums announced to the waiting soldiery that the chair of the emperor was in motion. In front of it went a troop of armor-clad horsemen, under command of Ch'en Ti-jun. The sedan-chair of Wei Chung followed that of Wan Li. The quick glance of the Lady Li noted that the eunuch's chair was blazoned with the imperial dragon and possessed the same number of bearers as that of Wan Li. To all intents the two were alike, such was the presumption of the chief eunuch who had drawn to himself nearly all of the imperial power.
The lips of the dark-eyed favorite curled scornfully as she noted this proof of Wei Chung's arrogance, passed over by Wan Li. Truly, Wan Li was blind, she thought. A man enslaved by pleasures, bound by his own weak will. Her glance fell upon the group of fur-coated huntsmen riding on either side of the imperial chair, led by the tall rider whom she had heard called the Curved Saber.
Behind the emperor's cortege came an array of courtiers, robed for the chase, and such of the lesser nobles as Wei Chung had allowed to remain at the pavilion. Without the courtyard were waiting the ranks of soldiers and beaters who were to make a wide cast through the plains, hemming in the game to be killed in the presence of the emperor.
When the last torches of the cavalcade had vanished toward the plains, the Lady Li went to the chamber where she was accustomed to burn incense before the tablet of Wan Li. Instead of doing so, however, she locked the door and sank upon a couch, pressing her dainty hands against her temples, staring at a long candle, marked off at regular intervals to tell the passing of the hours.
Once clear of the pavilion, the imperial cortege fell into a swift trot, the sedan-bearers keeping up easily with the horsemen. On either flank the troops of soldiery spread out, their torches marking a line several miles from end to end. The huntsmen accompanying Wan Li kept their place in the procession silently. Their task would not begin until the ceremony at the Golden Tomb was completed.
Khlit rode at their head within a few yards of Wan Li's sedan. The emperor, he noted, kept himself hidden in the screened depths of the chair. Beside him rode the swaggering Kurluk, who had taken Arslan's place.
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br /> Khlit's thoughts were busy as he rode. Chiefly he wondered concerning the singing girl who had sacrificed her life to warn Wan Li against venturing on the chase. She must have known the danger she courted by her rash speech. Arslan had heard her speak of a conspiracy, even under the mortal blows of Ch'en Ti-jun. But he could see no evidence of a plot against Wan Li.
True, the emperor's immediate followers were all eunuchs, or nobles under the influence of Wei Chung. Yet he knew the main body of the soldiery would not countenance any violence to the person of Wan Li, sacred by the traditions of fifty generations. A weapon lifted against Wan Li would mean the death of the offender.
He believed that the Lady Li and the chief eunuch had joined forces. Both were interested in breaking the power of the emperor in order to install the favorite's child on the Dragon Throne. With Wan Li out of the way, this might be done. But how was the way to be cleared?
Khlit did not know. Were all his suspicions groundless? It seemed so. But the old Cossack was wise in the ways of evil, and he smelled treachery as keenly as he scented the damp night air.
Another thing that gave him food for thought was the treatment he and the Manchu mercenaries had received. Wan Li had given orders that the huntsmen should be honored. But was this the only reason that he and Arslan had been unmolested, although both must have earned the enmity of the all-powerful eunuchs?
They had been given a position of trust. And it was because Khlit's shrewd mind had guessed at the reason that he sent Arslan to Dokadur Khan. If what he suspected came to pass, he and his friends would have need of aid, even from the bandits of the Togra.
Truly, thought Khlit, this would be a strange hunt. One where the hunters were silken-robed and inscrutable of eye, and where the lives of men counted as less than those of the beasts they sought.
He kept a keen lookout during the ride, but nothing occurred until they came to the pine hills that sheltered the tombs.
Here the soldiery on the flanks came to a halt, and the emperor's cavalcade went forward alone under the pines. A few minutes' trot, and they met the sentinels of the kang leen who accompanied them to the unearthed entrance to the tomb. The sedan-chairs of Wan Li and Wei Chung were deposited near the excavation. Khlit and the huntsmen dismounted and pressed forward curiously.
The torches of the kang leen lighted the place fitfully. Khlit saw that the courtiers and nobles remained at a distance in a semicircle about the entrance. A flight of stone steps led down to what appeared to be a stone slab in the form of a door.
Wan Li had emerged from his chair when he was approached by Wei Chung who escorted him to the tomb. Khlit was anxious to gain a better view of the Lord of Ten Thousand Years and made his way close to the entrance, in time to see his face clearly as he descended the steps and vanished in the shadows of the tomb.
Wei Chung was busied in arranging guards between the sedans and the gate. In doing so, the eunuch failed to notice Khlit, halfhidden in the shadows by the piles of freshly dug earth. The other huntsmen had returned to their horses. Khlit was about to do likewise, when he hesitated.
A sudden thought struck the Cossack. He was but a step from the sunken gate, and unobserved. It might be possible for him to slip into the tomb after the emperor. The risk would be great. But the Golden Tomb was a prize worth seeing.
Khlit did not waste a second thought on his venture. Bending low, he scrambled down the freshly dug earth to the foot of the stairs. The huge stone gate was ajar, sixty feet below the earth's surface. It led into a passage built up with teakwood pillars, the ceiling supported by beams of the same wood, fifty feet above the Cossack's head. Some distance ahead of him light came through a door similar to the one he had entered. A glance showed Khlit the grave tunnel was empty as far as the further portal, and he walked forward quietly.
Midway he hesitated. He had heard a step on the stair behind him.
The sound caused the blood to quicken in Khlit's veins. The light ahead of him was faint, and, looking over his shoulder, he could see nothing in the shadows of the stairway. A moment he waited, then turned, reassured. No one had appeared in the grave tunnel. He remembered that the place was forbidden to all the Chinese except those of imperial blood.
He had little fear of being followed. And to the best of his knowledge no one had seen him enter the mausoleum. Ahead of him, Wan Li would be engaged in his devotions. Khlit made his way to the second door and looked within.
Unlike the first stone gate, the second portal swung on cleverly contrived hinges, making it possible for one man to open it. The hall that Khlit now saw was the grave antechamber, built of jade slabs and empty of ornament. In the center knelt the emperor.
Wan Li's back was toward the Cossack. He held a bronze bowl in which incense smoldered, sending thin spirals of smoke toward the ceiling. His face was toward the third chamber, which was the tomb, visible through half-drawn curtains of yellow silk, gold-embroidered.
In a low undertone Wan Li was repeating a prayer, bending his massive back over the bowl. The glow from the grave illumined the dragon emblazoned on his robe. Beyond him Khlit saw the stone slab bearing the coffin of the Ming emperor. On either side of the slab were ranged sacrificial vessels of gold, emblems and ornaments of gold, studded with jewels.
The jewels reflected, with a hundred brilliant eyes, the light from the everlasting candles. These were huge masses of walrus fat, ascending in a pyramid, half-way to the ceiling. Khlit understood now why they were said to burn for ten years at a time beside the coffin.
Wan Li laid the bowl on the floor and touched his forehead to the stone. Silence reigned in the tomb. Khlit's gaze was fixed unblinkingly on the treasure of the grave chamber. The panoply of death meant nothing to him. The thought came to him that all this gold beside the dry bones of a dead man was like the dragon robe of the living Wan Li—the trappings of immortality decked about a human frame.
Khlit looked at Wan Li and smiled. A weak creature wielding the power of other men's making—a man ruled by women and courtiers, obedient to the words of astrologers. Was this the ruler of a hundred million?
Wan Li was praying again. Echoes in the rear chambers caught the murmur of his voice and whispered it back to Khlit. In spite of his scorn, the Cossack comprehended something of the spirit which had brought Wan Li to the tomb, the faithfulness to the memory of those who had worn the dragon robe before him. The link which bound Wan Li to the dead.
The emperor rose to his feet, and Khlit stepped back from the stone gate. He walked swiftly to the outer door and slipped through it as a sound behind him told him that Wan Li had closed the portal of the grave chamber.
The outer tunnel was now in darkness, and Khlit was forced to feel his way forward by the teakwood pillars. He went swiftly, not wishing to be observed by the man behind him. From the massive entrance gate he passed to the stairs, halting in the shadows at one side of the excavation.
It would be dangerous for him to walk out into the torchlight before the emperor came out. He reasoned swiftly that Wan Li would summon his men to help close the stone door. Then Khlit might make his appearance without exciting curiosity.
As he had thought, it happened. A resounding blow on the door by the man behind him brought Wei Chung with a dozen of the kang leen running to the stairs. As the dragon-robed figure passed up the steps within arm's reach of the Cossack, Wei Chung and his followers swung-to the door.
The gate thudded into place, and the fastenings were secured. Khlit joined the men, who retraced their steps as the task was performed. He was in time to gain his horse, held by Kurluk, and trot to where his men were waiting before the imperial cortege was in motion.
Surely, thought Khlit, Wan Li's mind had been fixed too long upon the dead, for his face was stony and drawn as that of a man who has seen his own grave.
He saw Wei Chung assist the imperial passenger into the sedan and lean within, as if to adjust the cushions, before he closed the door. Then the chief eunuch motioned to the courtier
s; the drums sounded, and the chair-bearers broke into a trot. Khlit brought his men to their previous position, abreast the imperial sedan. They passed swiftly through the pines and out to the plains. The kang leen remained behind to guard the tomb.
It was near the hour of dawn. A fresh wind had sprung up in their faces, causing the torches of the cavalcade to flicker and the silk trappings of the sedan to rustle. The stars were dimmer overhead, and the spears of the horsemen who rode in the rear were outlined against the scarlet glow of sunrise in the east.
The huntsmen about Khlit were crying to each other, cheerful with the prospect of the coming hunt. Ch'en Ti-jun reined back his horse until he was within earshot of Khlit.
“Ride closer to the emperor's chair,” he cried softly. “Remember the warning of the Lady Li.”
Khlit made no response. The attending eunuchs and courtiers were a bow-shot length away; the soldiery even further. Only the hard-worked bearers and a half-dozen linkmen were between the huntsmen and the chair. There was no sign of any danger. Nevertheless, Khlit did as he was instructed.
The closer formation moved the Cossack slightly ahead of Wan Li's chair. His men formed a ring about it. He heard a sudden exclamation from one of the riders and turned.
A glance showed him what had happened. One of the torch-bearers, pressed closer to the sedan by the huntsmen, had allowed his brand to touch the side of the chair. Instantly the dry sandalwood lattice-work and the silk trappings caught. A cry of horror broke from the bearers.
The flame crackled in the high wind. It licked up the side to the roof of the chair. The shout of the bearers was echoed by the nobles who had sighted the fire.
“Treachery!” screamed Wei Chung, leaping from his sedan. “The dogs have attacked the emperor!”
“Slay them,” shrilled Ch'en Ti-jun, striking at the nearest of the huntsmen. “Save Wan Li!”
The man within the chair could not have seen the flames. The bearers, plainly paralyzed by fear, had let their burden fall to earth. One of the Manchu riders, endeavoring to wrap his cloak about the flaming wood, was struck in the face by an arrow launched toward the group. Kurluk beat at the mounting fire with his heavy hat, only to be almost unhorsed by the rush of Ch'en Ti-jun.