Master Wu's Bride

by Edward C. Patterson

  “Yes,” Wu San-ehr continued. “All men must marry.” He paused. “What about Wu Ming-kuan. I saw him moping about the journeymen’s quarters.” He paused again, staring at Chi Lin. “I know he is special to you. We cannot speak of it, but great care must be made for his marriage also.”

  “Ming-kuan has only seen nine autumns,” she said.

  “He is young, but we still must consider the matter. I hear he is apprenticed at the port, a good notion for a third son.”

  “He is in love with the sea and with boats. I would . . . we would like to see him well settled on his ambitions.”

  “He does not know the sea, sister-in-law,” Wu San-ehr said, musing on his wine bowl. “Ships he may know from what the books teach him, but the sea is a stern mistress and must be courted like a pleasure girl.” He blushed. “Forgive my boldness.”

  “He is single-minded.”

  “I will tell you a secret, one that a woman should not know nor gossip.” He leaned forward. “Prince Chu Di has a love for the sea also and plans to build many ships and sail beyond the edge of the world . . . if he should become . . . well, I have said too much. But when it happens, we shall take care of our own. Wu Ming-kuan will have the best instruction. He will sail on the first expedition.”

  Chi Lin’s heart leaped. Such a thing would please her because it was Wu Ming-kuan’s dream. Any quiet reservations she had about San-ehr dissolved. She stood and curtsied to him.

  “Such a thing would settle his heart . . .”

  “And your heart also, mistress. A ghost wife is best served when the progeny of a spirit union is honored as Heaven-blessed. I know what I know. I am a man who likes the feel of a horse between his legs and steel in his fist. No ghost tale about that. But the world is what it is and my departed mother is both honored by the white and by her fictions.” He stood. “I thank you for your hospitality, sister-in-law. Keep your silent vigil at our family’s heart and, when the time comes, our work will be known to the Son of Heaven, whoever He may be.”

  Chi Lin watched the man strut out to the courtyard. She would recall his words many times over the years, even after he was wounded at the Battle of Chiang-kang and ceased to visit the household. He had, in this one instance, taught her much. It was time for her to apply what she had learned, so she summoned Ying Ling and demanded a match for Wu Chou-fa — with no bound feet and to a woman from the House of T’ou.

  Chapter Four

  The Cold Palace

  1

  Abject sadness. Few things broached Chi Lin with deep sorrow, but the Villa was a place which, when first encountered, drew her naturally abundant soft spirit down into her unbound feet. She knew sorrow and, with the exception of her concerns over Sapphire, which always lingered, this first trip to the Villa left an indelible impression on her. She had been diligent until then.

  Chi Lin had met with Ying Ling and managed to arrange a meeting between old Wu T’ai-po, Wu Chou-fa and the T’ou clan. The young T’ou maiden, Moon Flower, was more than exceptional and immediately received the red tea pouch from Chou-fa. Moon Flower was older than Honeysuckle, more austere, but a stunning beauty with high rosy cheeks and deep marble eyes. Chi Lin noticed that Chou-fa could not shift his glance away from her, not even for a moment. And her feet were unbound. The bride price was high, but the dowry was nearly twice that of Honeysuckle’s, a sign that Wu San-ehr was correct in his assumption that the T’ou greatly desired this match. The only untoward event was that Wu T’ai-po fell asleep during the ritual. But he was an old man now and allowances were made.

  By the time Chi Lin set forth with Wu Chou-fa to the Villa, Wu San-ehr’s workforce was already shouldering the restoration. The day was rainy — light rain at first, but a harder downpour as the hours crept apace. Mi Tso-tze attended her mistress beside the chair while Wu Chou-fa rode high on his war horse — a gift from his uncle. The Villa was to the east, beyond the Gui estate, which had placed it in the worst position when the great storm had struck during that fateful autumn. Chi Lin had passed the place many times on the tour, but never saw beyond the walls, although she did recall those walls being well maintained when Wu Liang-tze was still alive. Now they were battered, devoid of paint, shy many bricks and patched in odd places. The gate was intact, but the doors were splintered, unpainted and stripped of metal ornamentation.

  Once inside, Wu Chou-fa halted, surveying the courtyard from his high horse. He was silent, a cold, wet silence, purporting much disappointment and distress. Chi Lin disembarked, stepping into the mud, Mi Tso-tze sheltering her under a san-tze. Despite the rain, the soldiers were heaving debris into pits, their bare backs shimmering with sweat and rain drops. It was a feeble start.

  “Does anyone live here?” Mi Tso-tze muttered.

  “I am afraid they do,” Chi Lin replied.

  The main hall’s roof was crushed over a sagging verandah, the walls braced by bamboo struts and overgrown with weeds and wisteria gone to seed. There were several other dwellings in better condition, but hardly the product of a great house, although here and there a wink of splendor announced the past. A pool with a rock garden showed that at one time it was a showcase in the far courtyard; and there was a fading blue shrine with a headless Buddha settled in the shadows.

  Wu Chou-fa dismounted.

  “It needs work,” he said, his voice breaking. “Auntie, I remember this place well and it was teaming with fancy pavilions and luxurious boardwalks.”

  “It shall be so again, my lord,” she said, unconvincingly. “Your Uncle is generous and your brother has pledged to make it worthy. The T’ou have contributed mightily to its repair.”

  Wu Chou-fa turned to her. He was suddenly animated.

  “You are getting wet, Auntie. You will catch cold and become ill. Please. Please find shelter from the rain.”

  Chi Lin took heed and sought an intact pavilion across the courtyard. It was chilled inside, but covered. There was a peculiar odor. Chi Lin was disturbed by ghostly sounds.

  “Who is there?” she asked.

  “Perhaps we should find another place,” Mi Tso-tze suggested.

  But before they could, a woman emerged from the shadows. She wore a tattered robe, her hair unkempt and was the source of the peculiar odor.

  “Why have you come?” the woman said. “Why are the soldiers destroying our home?”

  “They come to repair it.”

  “But why? This is the Cold Palace. We are the wives of the demon spirit that dwells here.”

  “We?”

  Suddenly, Chi Lin noticed several women. She thought she recognized a few faces, at least glimmers of what she remembered to be Wu Liang-tze’s wives. They tottered about on bound feet, their wrapping hardly hiding the hideous contortions of bone and dead flesh. She recalled that since Wu Liang-tze was disowned by the household and since his body was left in pieces, his spirit would naturally roam the neighborhood, never finding his way to the Yellow Springs.

  Chi Lin girded her nerves and reached out for the woman.

  “You were his wife?”

  “His sixth wife,” the creature said. “We are the later wives. The first wife is already dead. The others fled and some more went back to the Sojourn of Heaven’s Eye. They have not fared well there, so we have remained here.”

  “What do you eat? Where do you sleep?”

  “Sleep, when it comes, is best never disturbed. Food, we beg. Some grow beans. Some stew tree bark. Not many trees now, except the Mulberry. But even they are gone now.”

  Wu Chou-fa entered.

  “Auntie,” he said. “There are women in every place here.”

  Chi Lin stepped aside revealing the sixth wife.

  “They are the remnants of Wu Liang-tze’s misdeeds,” she said. “They are in more need of repair than this Villa.”

  “I agree,” he said. “I will ask the soldiers to cease their clearing and gather these women to a single place so we can assess what should be done.”

  “They need a yi-sheng, m
y lord. And the place needs an army of fa-shr before you go any further. While one uncle fosters restoration through his generosity, another uncle haunts the place and needs to be expunged.”

  Abject sadness. Chi Lin remembered this day, even when she came here later when the halls were restored, the fountain was ripe with koi and the courtyard teaming with happy children, the sons and daughters of Wu Chou-fa playing and being taught in a sturdy new school house. She remembered the wives and the children and the remnants of servants, bellies distended, feet racked and exposed to the elements. Some were beyond saving and would need tender guidance to what would prove to be their graves. The redeemable needed shelter, first in the spare quarters in the Wu household, and later in small courtyard houses in town. It had become Chi Lin’s private venture to assure that those who survived were maintained for the rest of their lives. Whenever she encountered them, she had only one feeling — abject sadness. Perhaps she should have been angry at Wu Liang-tze. After all, his actions against her would warrant it, an extension of his vile life beyond the grave. But, in truth, it could have been prevented after the bitter harvest of that deadly storm. The Wu household could have mustered its forces to address the Villa’s plight even though it had made the restoration of the ji-tzao the priority. But who could Chi Lin blame? Wu T’ai-po? It was not her place to blame her benefactor. After all, it was the Old Lady of the House who said Purple Sage, you mend the household. Thus from the abject sadness of her first encounter at the Villa, Chi Lin mended the household and mended it well.

  2

  It was a busy time for Mistress Purple Sage. She still tended the worms and led the household in sewing, repairs and, to her great pleasure, gave Wu Lin-kua advice on gardening, the Master of the House ambivalent to the beautification of the grounds, but enjoying the sight of a blossoming garden nonetheless. When Honeysuckle’s time came, Willow, who had remained installed as chief handmaiden, sought Chi Lin’s help. Honeysuckle had a difficult delivery and was brought to the kitchen to help bar Ling-kua from the noise of the event. He still paced in the ke-ting, but at each attempt to enter the kitchen, Chi Lin quietly blocked his way.

  “She must not die,” he snapped.

  “She is not ill, my lord,” Chi Lin replied. “A hundred million miracles happen every day. It is as natural as rain.”

  “But rain can be a nasty business.”

  “It is a cleansing business and nourishes the good earth with tears from the dragon. If you must pace, do so in the courtyard. It is better suited to it, my lord.”

  Wu Lin-kua would argue with anyone else, but Auntie Purple Sage was insurmountable. So he turned and fled to the courtyard.

  Honeysuckle howled, much to Chi Lin’s chagrin.

  “You must suffer in silence,” she whispered. “Grasp my hand instead and push steadily.”

  So Honeysuckle bruised Purple Sage’s hand and still howled like a wounded water buffalo. But it came — a son. A whisper ran through Chi Lin’s mind as she cut the cord and inspected the tiny penis and swollen testicles. No bound feet. It was prophetic. She gathered the child in a blanket and gave it to its mother. She remembered when she had held Wu Ming-kuan for the first time and how wonderful it felt. But Honeysuckle would not be separated from her son. Of course there would be an amah, but the mother would remain the boy’s mother.

  Wu T’ai-po was called, Willow helping him into the kitchen, where the child was shown to him, the genitals revealed and the old man raising his hands to Heaven.

  “He is the ugliest child I have ever seen.”

  “Ugly, yes,” Chi Lin said. “He is a vision to be shunned.”

  She laughed, as did the old man. Then, as if the tide could be held back by a bamboo twig, Wu Lin-kua rushed over the threshold to behold his son. He held him in his hands, lifting him to the rafters.

  “Such a horrid thing,” he laughed. “A terrible gift has been bestowed on me.”

  Then he too laughed, before rushing away with the child to show the journeymen. Within two days he ordered the school house to be restored and began interviewing for a scholar teacher, now that P’ing Chin had gone to the Yellow Springs. The scholar chosen, Lu Wen-wei, was a bit young, but recommended by Chi Sheng, having been a candidate for the National Examinations twice. It would be a few years before the boy (and his two brothers) would be installed in the class room, but Wu Lin-kua meant to mould the teacher along his own lines, that of the Cheng-chu school as prescribed by the Sung philosopher Chu Xi, combining practical compositional styles and empirical observations. All this Wu Lin-kua had formulated before his son was three days old.

  Jasmine deigned to come see her grandson, and when the child was not in readiness for her viewing, she stomped away. It would be three days before she returned in a more civil mood to chastise her daughter-in-law for keeping such an ugly child from her sight for so long. The amah was assigned. But over the many days and moons and seasons, Honeysuckle would not be separated from Wu Tien-po, for so the boy was named. She insisted that the amah bring him around twice daily. This endeared Honeysuckle to Chi Lin because, although the child could be viewed as a doll in the hands of a young girl, it kept a circle of love about the boy and blocked any interference from the ever-sour Jasmine.

  3

  One family concern that never seemed to disappear was Sapphire. She was a pretty child, despite her moods and tantrums, and now budded into a comely young woman with too much time on her hands and not married yet, although the time was coming. Chi Lin already had ideas, but she could not imagine any county family wanting Sapphire. As eccentric as Sapphire grew (she still carried her tattered dolly about on most days), she blossomed early, and the journeymen buzzed about her like bees. Journeymen could be kept away, the gates of the Silver Silence outside their business, but this was not the case with the custodian.

  Po Bo outgrew his diminutive wiry monkeyness, sprouting broadly at the shoulders and sporting a handsome countenance. He was more clever than smart and, by the time he assumed the role of custodian, commanded several handy servants and the kitchen staff, although he took care around Mo Li. He loved to lark still, something Chi Lin did not mind because it amused her and added life to the Silver Silence. Po Bo played tricks on the kitchen staff and on little Butterfly, who would feign anger, but had become game enough to follow anger with subtle flirting. Chi Lin was lax with Butterfly, who was helpful to Tso-tze, but otherwise lived an idyllic existence within the Silver Silence. She had her own small alcove and seemed never to have longed to return to her ji-tzao roots. She never asked for her family and they never made inquiries after her. Her only aversion was to Sapphire, who had taken it into her head that Butterfly was an interloper. This was Chi Lin’s fault, and she knew it. She treated both girls equally, although it was emphasized that Sapphire was a Wu woman of Household, a daughter of Wu Hung-lin, and little Butterfly was nothing more than a lucky waif and, at best, a ward of the Silver Silence. There were several fights between the two girls, mostly provoked by Sapphire, but finished by little Butterfly. These altercations involved small gifts — a hairpin, a button, or a pomade given to little Butterfly by either Chi Lin or Mi Tso-tze. Inevitably the dispute was refereed by Po Bo.

  Chi Lin was careful to assure Po Bo had been taken to the pleasure house by the journeymen and introduced to women, if, for no other reason, as a reward for a job well done. Some marriage would be arranged for him, but unlike the clan settlements, servants generally chose their own mates because no families were involved. Chi Lin assumed Po Bo would fancy one of the kitchen staff at some point, or perhaps one of the sewing or silk girls. She even imagined that he might be a good husband for little Butterfly. But Sapphire had other notions and soon Po Bo was tantalized, a dangerous thing for a servant in an established house. Of course, Chi Lin knew of such things, the memory of Gao Lin being more than a memory but manifested in an apprenticed Wu son learning ship’s rigging at the port. But Chi Lin was clever and Gao Lin was astute. Sapphire was a silly girl and Po Bo w
as prone to boasting.

  Po Bo was industrious, Chi Lin pleased with his service. She liked the boy now turned to manhood, but would be loathed to lose him to silly notions. So she considered moving Sapphire to the Villa after the renovations were completed. Unfortunately, Chi Lin was in no position to make this decision. She approached Lin-kua on the matter, but he was lost to fatherhood and scarcely paid attention. He referred the issue to Jasmine, who took a position opposite to Purple Sage for no other reason than to be contrary. However, Jasmine’s contrary position held sway and Sapphire remained in the Silver Silence.

  Chi Lin summoned Po Bo.

  “Yes, mistress,” he said. “What is needed?”

  “Sit, Po Bo,” she said. They were on the verandah and in clear view of much activity. “A word on a matter for concern.”

  With this, Po Bo did not sit, but rather cramped himself into a subservient ball.

  “What have I done to displease you, mistress?” he wailed. “Do not send me away, mistress.”

  “Nonsense. Stop this at once.” Po Bo muttered, but came to order. “I asked you to sit.”

  He did so, but peered at her like a shy calf.

  “I did not mean it,” he whispered.

  “You have done nothing to displease me . . . yet,” she replied. “I mean that you should become a man.”

  “I am a man, mistress.”

  “Yes. And a man must take a wife.”

  “I know this to be true, mistress.”

  “Is there one whom you favor above any other?”

  Po Bo paused. His lips trembled. Chi Lin could almost read his thoughts. She saw his lips forming to say a name, a name she did not want to hear.

  “You cannot have Sapphire,” she said. “She is a daughter of the house and, worthy as you may be, it can never happen.”

  “She is lovely, mistress.”

  “And she is unkind to draw you to impossible notions. She will leave some day, to be given to another household as her sisters will be. You must promise me, Po Bo, that you will not hold any hope for Sapphire’s company.”