The Mandate of Heaven

  Salt Minister Gui and a number of other officials were fawning before the splendid horseman – none other than Jebe Khoja himself.

  Dozens of bystanders watched. A blacksmith’s apprentice in a leather apron turned to Hsiung. ‘Red Turbans,’ muttered the lad, pointing at the prisoners. ‘They must have been spared for a reason. Maybe they’re short of hands in the Salt Pans. I heard hundreds escaped …’ The blacksmith’s boy went dumb for a grizzled man had drawn close to overhear their conversation.

  ‘Interesting, my lads! Who told you that, I wonder?’

  Hsiung realised the man was one of the Great Khan’s hired accusers. He sidled away.

  ‘You!’ called the man. ‘What is in that sack?’

  Hsiung dodged into the square. It was filling with manacled, shuffling rebel prisoners. Orders were shouted on every side, drowned out by whinnying horses and clip-clopping hooves. No one in the thick press of cavalry and captives noticed his presence. Beaten, downcast faces surrounded him, advancing in columns towards the slave pens, herded by trotting riders like cattle to a shambles. Many were wounded or spirit-broken, a few defiant; all wore heavy wooden neck yokes and chains linking their ankles.

  Hsiung looked around for a way out. But he was trapped in a maze, unable to do anything except flow with the prisoners deeper into the square. Abruptly he came to a circle of braziers and glowing branding irons. Here slaves were being marked on their cheeks with the character salt. Beyond them, like an unreachable shore, he spied a clear route to the alleyways of the Port District. A large soldier appeared before him, barring the way.

  ‘You boy! What’re you doing here?’

  Shrieks and groans, the acrid smell of scorched hair, skin and flesh as branding began in earnest. The soldier stepped closer.

  ‘What’s in that bag?’ he demanded. He turned to another man. ‘Sir, there’s a …’ When he looked round the boy had vanished, leaving his sack on the ground. Out of it spilled solid, grey bricks of pure salt.

  Hsiung only stopped running when he was through the broken gates of Monkey Hat Ward. Deep twilight; indigo beneath a layer of low, basalt clouds. Across the city people hurried indoors lest the Watch find them and demand bribes not to report them to a magistrate.

  His heart still beat painfully. Sheer luck had saved him. A group of rebels had kicked over some braziers, chanting Yueh Fei! Yueh Fei! Sparks and glowing coals poured across the cobbles until the rebels were swiftly cut down. In the confusion he had raced between lines of prisoners, so escaping into a shadowy alley.

  Yet Sergeant P’ao’s blocks of salt remained behind, each worth a night’s carousing. Hsiung did not anticipate understanding or sympathy for the loss. He had no means of recompensing the sergeant and expected, at the very least, a beating.

  Night had fallen as he entered Deng Mansions. In the gatehouse he was surprised to find Deng Nan-shi holding a feeble oil lamp.

  ‘There you are!’ said the scholar. ‘I’ve been looking for you. We have a visitor, a most intriguing gentleman. Come, Hsiung!’

  The boy almost fled back into the night. When he realised Sergeant P’ao could not have reached here so fast, he followed his master inside.

  Their visitor possessed characteristics rarely observed in Hou-ming: a belly bulging like a happy Buddha’s and jowls heavy with meat. Good-feeding had swollen his legs and arms. As for his clothes, they rustled slightly when he moved, as only the best, stiffest silks do. Gold and silver thread decorated the hems of his coat.

  Such a gentleman seemed too fine for Deng Nan-shi’s shabby library, yet his hunched shoulders suggested profound deference towards the scholar.

  ‘Come in, Hsiung,’ commanded Deng Nan-shi. ‘Don’t be shy. Here is …’ He glanced quickly at his guest. ‘Perhaps I should not mention names?’

  The visitor’s moon-like jaw rose and fell.

  ‘Now, boy, stand before me!’ ordered the fat man, chuckling for no apparent reason. His accent was unplaceable. ‘My, a fine boy! My!’

  Hsiung glanced anxiously at the door. Had Deng Nan-shi decided to sell him at last?

  ‘Truly he has grown well,’ continued their visitor, rubbing a scar on his meaty jowls, ‘a tribute to your care.’

  Deng Nan-shi acknowledged the compliment. For a long moment the men regarded him. The long dark room hoarded shadows between smoking oil lamps and racks of scrolls, chests of woodcut printed volumes. The hunchbacked scholar cleared his throat.

  ‘Before our visitor shares his news,’ he said, ‘I must tell you a story. It is the story of yourself – from a certain perspective.’

  Yet he seemed in no hurry to start.

  ‘He is tall,’ murmured the fat man.

  ‘Listen closely,’ began Deng Nan-shi …

  Ten or so years earlier the scholar’s wife had still been alive, though no longer young and almost past son-bearing age.

  ‘We had no child of our own,’ said Deng Nan-shi. ‘Teng was yet to be born. We wanted a son badly, for I was the last of my line. Without a son, who would tend the ancestral altars when I sought my next incarnation?’

  Then, miraculously, a child had appeared. One day Deng Nan-shi’s wife had come running, saying a baby was crying in the gatehouse, wrapped in a bundle of coarse, hemp blankets. When the cloth was unwound they discovered two things: a naked baby boy, kicking his limbs as though in rebellion against all confinement, a boy with a bawl loud enough to shake Heaven.

  Secondly, a letter wrapped around the child for safekeeping. This was less satisfactory than the splendid child; its ink had run so that only the words Remember the officer who saved you. I beg you to repay what … and a single character, Hsiung, were legible. Whether the character referred to the boy’s name, no one could determine.

  Hsiung looked up, his face burning with emotion. ‘That boy was me?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Deng Nan-shi. ‘There is more …’

  The childless couple had not hesitated; for, indeed, an unknown officer had saved them seventeen years earlier. At last his sacrifice could be repaid, life for life.

  The fat man stirred as if about to speak, then subsided into his Buddha-like smile.

  ‘A year after you joined us,’ continued Deng Nan-shi, ‘Teng was born. A miracle, for my wife was past a woman’s best. Perhaps that was why she weakened and died a few years later. I have never ceased to mourn her loss, as you know well.’

  Hsiung realised he was trembling. ‘Why did you not tell me before?’ he asked. ‘I could have looked for my father!’

  The room remained dark. Lantern light softened the older men’s faces. It seemed neither wished to be the first to reply. Deng Nan-shi asked kindly, ‘Where would you have looked?’

  ‘Anywhere!’ cried Hsiung. ‘Wherever he is!’

  ‘And where is that?’

  Hsiung hung his head.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Now the fat man chuckled again, a chesty noise, mirthless as his smile.

  ‘Ha! Ha! The lad has plenty of spirit.’

  ‘Where is he, sir?’ pleaded Hsiung. Then more aggressively: ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Ah,’ sighed the stranger, raising a plump finger. ‘That is what your honoured master asked me to find out.’

  The two men regarded the boy in silence.

  ‘When may I go to him?’ pressed Hsiung.

  Their visitor ran a finger round his collar; he was perspiring though the night was cold. ‘All I had to help me find him were two clues: the name of Hsiung and that your father had fought bravely at the fall of Hou-ming. Careful enquiries among – let us call them, associates of mine – revealed there had been an officer among the Yueh Fei rebels who fitted that description. But he was captured not long after you appeared in Honourable Deng Nan-shi’s gatehouse and was taken to the Salt Pans. What happened to your father there I cannot say.’

  ‘I am really called Hsiung!’ marvelled the boy. ‘And my father is called Hsiung! I have a clan and my father is alive!’

  Now thei
r visitor grew solemn.

  ‘Young man,’ he said, ‘the Salt Pans is a terrible, terrible place! No one leaves easily or survives for long. My dear boy, I fear you should not expect to see your father. Enough that he ensured you would be protected by the most honourable family in the province.’

  ‘I will find my father,’ said Hsiung, fiercely, ‘I will set him free!’

  The two men exchanged sad glances.

  ‘I hope it has done no harm to tell you the truth. At least, what we can of it,’ said Deng Nan-shi, laying a hand on the lad’s shoulder. Hsiung flinched and pulled away.

  ‘I know he is not dead!’ he said.

  ‘Be comforted your father disappeared for a just cause,’ advised the fat man. ‘If he was alive today that cause would be his life’s work. And if it turns out he is not dead, perhaps your father will reveal himself when it is safe. Perhaps he is a wanted man and does not wish to endanger his son.’

  ‘I will find my father!’ cried Hsiung, his voice retreating down the dark corridor. ‘You’ll see!’

  For a long while Hsiung wept on his bed, unable to sleep. Then he rose, wearing his blanket as a cloak, and left the house by a side door. Soon he reached the mound shaped in imitation of Holy Mount Chang and ascended to the moon-gazing pavilion. The night sky had cleared to reveal dazzling webs of stars. Hsiung stared south, looking for signs of flickering flames – the fires of the Salt Pans that were rumoured to never go out. But that dismal place was too far away to be seen except by Immortal eyes.

  Inside, Deng Nan-shi and the fat man talked deep into the night. Often the names of Yueh Fei and Hornets’ Nest entered their conversation.

  Seven

  The next morning Teng woke to an air of intrigue in Deng Mansions. New things were happening in the abandoned chambers and corridors. Who, for example, was the fat man in silks lurking in a secluded room at the centre of the house? And why did two tall strangers lounge near his chamber, swords discreetly concealed in cloth wrappings?

  Above all – and here Teng could not suppress jealousy – what had inspired Father to spend a whole hour with Hsiung last night? Teng held little hope of finding out from Hsiung himself. His old friend had ignored his greeting and hurried out of the courtyard and down the lanes to the city below. He seemed in a great bustle, like a high official on secret business.

  Teng waited at the crossroads below Deng Mansions for his return, perched on the back of the giant stone tortoise. The beast was company of sorts and Teng pretended to ride it all the way to the Western Mountains as Lao Tzu had ridden his ox. Next he played at being a xia on a magic turtle, sweeping away hordes of Mongols to preserve the honour of … what? The Empire? A lady? Yun Shu came to mind, her name trailing guilt. Let it not be Yun Shu but Hsiung. Saving him would renew their friendship forever.

  The afternoon passed slowly on Monkey Hat Hill. A few bird-trappers went by, bound for the bamboo groves with nets and sacks. Families filled the road briefly, seeking Cloud Abode Monastery where they would sacrifice to their ancestors. Otherwise, silence and opaqueness in the chilly air.

  Teng’s loneliness, his frustration and hidden grief, welled up. He remembered Mother’s ghost when he was five years old. How he had cried out, half in fear, half relief, and hid behind a doorframe so only his shaven head with its tufty topknot was exposed. She had not noticed him as he watched her shuffle down cracked marble steps to the garden; down to an ornamental pond guarded by stone dragons. Even then, so close to her lost life, she had been a shadow.

  ‘Mother!’ he had called, high-pitched and eager. ‘I’m here! I’m here!’

  The dark shadow peered in his direction. Teng had stifled a sob and run forward, so intent on embracing her that he misjudged the marble stairs and tumbled, cutting his knee. When he looked up she had gone, never to be seen again, yet always there, forever in midnight corners, sighing in the wind.

  Tears pricked his eyes. Hsiung appeared at the bottom of the hill and Teng ran forward to meet him. ‘Hsiung! Here I am! I’ve waited all day for you!’

  The older boy cast him a troubled glance and strode past up the hill, vanishing through the gatehouse of Deng Mansions. The pain in Teng’s chest tightened.

  After a meal with Lady Lu Si, during which she twittered about sutras and divine blessings in Cloud Abode Monastery, Teng withdrew to his study for calligraphy practice. Only then did heaviness lift from his soul. Taking a sheet of cheap paper, he painted the character shadow, bordered by swirling infinities of cloud. To give balance, three tiny birds formed an arrowhead, skimming towards distant, snow-capped mountains. He also painted pine, bamboo and plum trees laden with blossom. By the time he finished, the light was fading quickly. Teng became aware of someone watching.

  ‘Hsiung!’

  The tall boy leaned forward, apparently fascinated by the painting.

  ‘How can you do that?’ he murmured. Then he stiffened. ‘It doesn’t matter. My ancestors were all famous soldiers! I shall paint my way to glory with a sword! A sword always crushes a mere brush.’

  Though Teng knew the history of the Empire disproved such a notion, he did not want to argue, secretly relieved to have been sought out by his old companion. Hsiung hovered by the doorpost.

  ‘I will only enter if you swear an oath of secrecy,’ he said, fiercely. ‘A soldier’s oath!’

  ‘I’m not a soldier,’ said Teng, ‘neither are you.’

  ‘So you refuse to swear!’

  ‘I did not say that … Why are you angry? What is wrong, Hsiung?’

  ‘Swear!’

  ‘Very well, I will … but not by mere soldiers. I swear by my noble ancestor, Yueh Fei. So there!’

  ‘Oh, and General Yueh Fei wasn’t a soldier, was he?’ demanded Hsiung, triumphantly.

  Hsiung’s agitation lessened. He glanced up the corridor then slipped inside, sliding the door shut behind him with great difficulty for the wooden frame was swollen by rot.

  ‘Teng,’ he whispered, ‘I went to see Sergeant P’ao today. I owed him hundreds of cash – oh, do not ask how!’

  Teng nodded reassuringly.

  ‘When I got to Salt Minister Gui’s residence, I found Sergeant P’ao and his men packing their belongings. They sail for the Salt Pans tomorrow! Gui has been posted there!’

  ‘Good riddance,’ muttered Teng.

  ‘It is not so simple!’ said Hsiung.

  At times faltering, sometimes rushing forward, he told the same tale their fat visitor had related the previous evening. Teng listened intently. Gone was the cynical, angry boy who had tormented him so often. Tears were in Hsiung’s eyes, smeared by a rubbing fist as he vowed: ‘I will save my father, Teng! Just you see! I will break his chains or die!’

  A long silence followed this terrible oath. Teng felt an urge to giggle nervously. Yet he recognised the vow as sacred, its implications frightening – if taken seriously.

  ‘You really mean to accompany Sergeant P’ao to the Salt Pans?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  Teng shook his head. ‘Then I will never see you again. He will sell you as a slave.’

  The two boys sat with bowed heads. In a far away voice, Hsiung said, ‘When I visited Sergeant P’ao, guess who else I met? Yun Shu. She was sweeping the courtyard with the maids. She wouldn’t look at me. But her feet were as big as ever.’

  ‘Sweeping?’ said Teng. ‘That is a common servant’s work.’

  Realising the implication of his words took a moment. Hsiung’s reaction, however, was instantaneous. ‘Like me?’ he asked, coldly.

  ‘No, not you, I meant …’

  Their thread of intimacy snapped.

  ‘Remember your promise,’ said Hsiung, dragging open the swollen door with an agonising creak and groan. ‘Only, please tell Master … Honourable Deng Nan-shi … where I have gone. And thank him. Thank him for everything. Tell him that when I have found my father I will repay my debt to your family a thousand times over! I will never forget!’

  ‘You won’t
dare go to the Salt Pans!’ cried Teng. ‘All you ever do is get angry with me! And boast!’

  But Hsiung had gone. Teng’s words echoed in an empty chamber.

  At dawn Teng sat upright in bed. In a moment he was padding through cold, dark corridors to the kitchen. A familiar smell greeted him and he laughed. The stove was warm, a neat fire smoking. For all his bragging and fierce soldiers’ oaths, Hsiung had decided not to leave after all. Teng rubbed his hands before the flames. Though it would be tempting to jeer, he was determined to say nothing. He would even help prepare the morning millet to show he did not view Hsiung as a common servant.

  After a while he grew restless and was about to step outside when he noticed something wrong: Hsiung’s pile of neatly folded bedding and clothes had vanished. Only a single blanket remained.

  ‘Fool!’ cried Teng, dashing out into the courtyard.

  A thick lake mist was rolling inland. Droplets beaded plants and wooden surfaces. Think, he urged himself, a scholar of high purpose thinks before he acts.

  Then Hsiung’s intention became obvious. If he was to leave for the Salt Pans with Sergeant P’ao they would hardly crawl upon muddy roads for hundreds of weary li. Not when a swift passage across the lake was possible. In addition, Teng had noticed a small fleet of river junks gathering in the harbour over the last few days.

  He considered rousing Deng Nan-shi. But a perverse desire held him back. Yesterday, on the stone tortoise’s back, he had imagined saving Hsiung from hordes of Mongols. Now was his chance to be a real xia!

  Picking up his bamboo sword, he hurried into the misty lanes of Monkey Hat Hill then out into the stirring city. Although he had only visited the Port District once, Teng did not lose his way.

  But when he reached the stone bridge over Bright River, he found a queue of people and carts. Soldiers were searching all Chinese for contraband or hidden weapons; Mongols or their servants were waved through without question.

  ‘What’s happening?’ he asked an old peasant woman carrying a basket of winter greens. Luckily, she gave no sign of recognising him as a cursed Deng.