The Mandate of Heaven

  However, the old tomb-finder and their two Yulai guides seemed more amused than irritated. Lacking allies, Teng subsided and after a while Yun Shu tired of her spiritual practice.

  They were moving through a landscape of exceptional loveliness. Spiralling peaks overhung with mossy creepers on every side and, between them, lush bamboo groves bright with purple, azure and yellow flowers. Insects droned. A gentle patter of warm rain on leaves lulled the travellers’ spirits. After their recent dangers Yun Shu could only consider it a blessing. Yet even now they had reason to be afraid, though not of rebels. The Yulai hunters had informed her they were in tiger country.

  ‘Look at this!’ exclaimed the younger of the pair, lifting his shirt to reveal a back corded with muscle and scored by parallel claw marks. ‘A striped demon did this to me last year! And not more than six li from the path we walk.’

  Teng, who was listening in as usual, felt obliged to intervene. ‘I’m sure it is not necessary to frighten a lady!’ he exclaimed. ‘Or display yourself.’

  She detected discomfort in his voice.

  ‘By all means tell the story,’ she begged the tall, handsome Yulai. ‘I would love to hear the details.’

  He boasted of his narrow escape while Teng listened uneasily. Yun Shu even requested to examine the scars again.

  For all that, it was still dangerous country, and the Yulai sharpened bamboo spears using the knife stolen from the dead soldier. When offered one of the makeshift weapons, Teng at first seemed inclined to refuse. Catching her disdainful look, he leaned nonchalantly on his spear.

  ‘In times like these,’ he opined, ‘even a scholar of high purpose must bend like bamboo.’

  ‘Yours certainly seems a little bendy,’ she said.

  He straightened, plucking at his chin. ‘I have been assured otherwise, Lady Purity,’ he replied. ‘Many times! How tedious this journey is turning out to be!’

  He kept an anxious eye out for movement in the undergrowth and grew tense whenever a beast roared at night. One evening by the campfire she remarked on it to Shensi after Teng sneaked into the bushes to relieve himself.

  ‘We all have secret fears,’ replied the tomb-finder. ‘Haven’t you?’

  Ashamed, Yun Shu glanced at her feet and resolved to be more compassionate in her thoughts. Until the next morning that is, when Teng referred loudly to her as ‘Aunty Sour Tongue’ while she was in the bushes. He also speculated to Shensi whether he was ‘for it from that damn nun again today’. She interpreted it as an insult to her entire Order and found nothing more to say to him, especially when he attempted a jocular conversation about several sausage-shaped rocks.

  They arrived at Mirror Lake towards sunset and Yun Shu wept silently to see Sitting-and-Whistling Pavilion. A steady drizzle fell as they hopped over the stepping-stones to the small island where the shrine stood. Yun Shu was overjoyed to find someone waiting: Mother Muxing.

  ‘Aieee!’ shrieked the Yulai woman, rushing to embrace her two sons. ‘How thin you are! What did they do to you, the devils?’

  Word had not yet reached Ou-Fang Village of Hornets’ Nest’s death; the small group of refugees were similarly unaware.

  ‘Are they after you?’ she demanded. ‘You must hide.’

  ‘We have not been pursued,’ said her eldest son.

  Mother Muxing noticed Shensi and Teng.

  ‘These men are Hornets’ Nest’s spies!’ she cried.

  Teng felt it opportune to intervene. ‘Madam,’ he began, with a trace of condescension, for she was a peasant, after all, ‘you are quite mistaken! True, my companion and I were formerly in the employ of Hornets’ Nest – quite unwittingly, I assure you – but subsequently …’

  ‘No!’ cried Mother Muxing, covering her ears. ‘Honey words! You mean to cast a charm!’

  It took a while for her sons and Yun Shu to reassure her that they would not have escaped without Shensi’s assistance. Once this point was settled, Shensi voiced all their thoughts: ‘Food?’ he grunted. ‘Where, please?’

  They had an hour’s wait before a dozen Yulai men and women from the village appeared with baskets of rice, vegetables, even a small chicken and pig’s kidneys for frying with fiery Sichuan pepper. There were also salt fish wafers, Yun Shu’s favourite, which she ate guiltily, aware that Perfected Ones dined on seeds, wild herbs and sunlight. There was wine, too, and Teng drank urgently.

  After the feast, the villagers settled to sleep in the shrine and cells at the back. Teng, however, stared into the placid waters of the lake.

  The night had cleared, revealing stars beyond count. Yun Shu watched him glance upwards, thoughts unreadable except for a sad, mournful demeanour. She cleared her throat. Swaying slightly, he turned.

  ‘So you cannot sleep either,’ he said, his voice thick with wine. ‘What a night it has been! One to remember forever. Good, generous people after so many foul, cruel ones. So many!’ He shook his head. The whites of his large, dark eyes caught glimmers of star and moon. ‘Of course I learned how your parents treated you,’ he continued, ‘and about your marriage. I was very glad to hear from Lady Lu Si you have found a safe, honourable place among the Nuns.’

  Somewhere in the distant hills a tiger roared. Teng flinched.

  ‘It will not trouble us here,’ she said. ‘I, too, have fears at night.’ Yun Shu lapsed into silent confusion.

  He glanced at her. ‘Oh, I’m not afraid. Not with you to scare off tigers.’

  ‘Do you take me for a new Mulan?’ she asked.

  ‘Not exactly. But you have grown … yes, strong since we were children. Perhaps sorrow taught you to be strong.’

  Really they should not talk like this. He had drunk too much wine to be decorous. Yet she wanted to hear more of his thoughts, especially the indiscreet ones.

  ‘Tomorrow Shensi and I will re-visit a house of the dead,’ he said, ‘the prince’s tomb. You are welcome to join us.’ He hesitated. ‘Yet I have a misgiving it may have consequences for us all. They say the past is dead, but I’m not so sure. Well, we shall see.’

  He bowed and entered the shrine. Yun Shu stayed a while longer, looking towards Holy Mount Chang capped by its crown of stars. She imagined floating from its peak as an Immortal to fly among bright points of light in a sea of emptiness.

  As usual, her thoughts soon descended to earth. Mostly she marvelled to be in Teng’s company. Of course, she had every reason to hate and distrust him. Had he not betrayed her? Had he not condemned her to years of drudgery and scorn? There could be no forgiving that.

  Yun Shu squinted up at the silhouette of Mount Chang. The new Teng was different from the gloomy, prickly boy she remembered. Though still pompous, he had aquired a knack for irony that amused her. And it was hypocrisy not to acknowledge he’d turned out handsome. At least, in a shallow, worldly way some women might find attractive. Foolish women, admittedly.

  Maybe she had been too harsh on him. After all, exploring the dead prince’s tomb demanded unusual courage. Oh, that would be a story to tell the Nuns! Teng had described the tomb’s wonders on their journey to Mirror Lake until she felt an urge to see for herself.

  The next morning Yun Shu wondered what folly persuaded her to join Teng and Shensi on their mission. Yet after the villagers left she slipped on her shoes and ran to catch up. They were following the lakeshore, burdened with sacks and lanterns ‘borrowed’ from Sitting-and-Whistling Pavilion. If they felt any trepidation at purloining Lord Lao’s property they gave no sign.

  Shensi glanced quizzically at Teng as she arrived.

  ‘I invited her,’ explained the scholar.

  ‘Perhaps,’ he added, addressing Yun Shu, ‘you will glimpse the true nature of the Immortality you crave.’

  An hour later they stood in the entrance of the tomb, soaked by the relentless monsoon, Shensi stubbornly sparking tinder and flint until lanterns were lit. Yun Shu hesitated, then followed the tomb-hunters into a tunnel reeking of earth and decay.

  The time that came a
fter was not measured by neat divisions of minutes, but by sensations, smells, sudden alarms. Though Shensi and Teng appeared confident she found herself trembling. At a crossroads in the darkness they encountered piles of jumbled bones, men and animals mingled together without regard for their souls. She cried out, panting fearfully. Shensi watched her but did not offer to lead her back to the surface.

  ‘Do not be afraid,’ said Teng. He turned to his companion. ‘Go on, Shensi, we’ll catch up.’

  Shensi nodded and waded into the black wall surrounding them, parting it with his upraised lantern. As his light vanished into a huge chamber, Teng laid his own on the floor and crouched beside her, where she knelt before a mound of bones.

  ‘This is Hornets’ Nest’s work,’ he said. ‘Piling them up, I mean. Long ago they were sacrificed to serve their dead Prince in his eternal life, as the old histories explain. Like all poor folk they were allowed nothing but tedious toil – even in death. Yet I’m sure their ghosts are at peace now, Yun Shu. They are resting from their labours forever. And so they defied His Highness.’

  She barely controlled an urge to clutch his arm.

  ‘Do you remember the bones in the watchtower?’ he asked. ‘And the wild dog Hsiung killed? How long ago it seems! Shensi says bones are everywhere.’

  His earnest voice echoed in the empty darkness. A furtive glitter was revealed in his eyes and she recalled his betrayal. In this fearful place, she grew certain he would hurt her again. Like all the men she had known – Father, husband, Dear Uncle – he would hurt her. But only if she was foolish enough to trust him. Yun Shu rose. The thread between them, frayed by ten troubled years, snapped back in their faces.

  ‘Let us find Shensi,’ she whispered, ‘I don’t like it here.’

  He nodded. ‘Let us find him.’

  He raised his lantern and led her into a large echoing cavern. More bones on the floor. Shards of broken pottery like fallen leaves. Yun Shu longed to cling to Teng’s dirty robes as they advanced towards another glow-worm in the endless night. When they joined Shensi his expression was grim.

  ‘Nothing valuable left!’ he spat. ‘Nothing at all!’ Nevertheless he continued to sift methodically through the broken pottery. Teng hurried past him into a smaller chamber and emerged some time later with two heavy sacks.

  ‘You’ve found something?’ asked Shensi, eagerly. ‘Show me.’

  His partner held open the sacks and Shensi leaned forward. Yun Shu also peered curiously over his shoulder. The bags bulged with bamboo strips inscribed with ancient characters; also bones, tortoise shells, ox pelvises and shoulder blades, similarly inscribed.

  ‘Are you mad?’ asked Shensi. ‘Who will buy that?’

  Teng laughed with an edge of hysteria that echoed round the huge cavern like a warning – or challenge.

  ‘No one alive!’ he cried. ‘Only the dead will buy! And me! Just us Dengs!’

  Yun Shu gasped at such inauspicious words in so dreadful a place. She felt her store of ch’i energy, her life force, so diligently accumulated by meditation and the Great Work, diminish within her. They were sucking her essence! They were like hungry ghosts. What a fool she had been to come here! But the tomb-finder merely laughed at his companion’s folly.

  ‘The dead don’t pay in any currency I know,’ he said.

  After they emerged into daylight and walked through the drizzle back to Mirror Lake, Yun Shu avoided Teng’s touch or breath lest he taint her Inner Pearl. Suddenly it seemed as precious as her chastity when Dear Uncle forced her legs apart, crushing her face with the flat of his hot palm, grunting in satisfaction. This recollection strengthened her resolve. Yun Shu’s expression was implacable by the time they reached Sitting-and-Whistling Pavilion.

  ‘I can allow you no further,’ she said, blocking their way onto the stepping-stones that led to Sitting-and-Whistling Pavilion. She was hugging herself, fists clenched, afraid her slender presence would not deter them.

  Shensi and Teng watched in astonishment but Yun Shu was determined not to weaken. The Great Work of her existence depended on it; all she had suffered would be lost, and with it her worth in this world, her future! What did offending Teng and Shensi matter compared to that?

  ‘You are tainted!’ she cried, fear swelling into hysteria. ‘Both of you! I cannot allow you near Lord Lao’s shrine until you have been purified. You are infected by death.’

  ‘We are all touched by that sickness,’ said Teng. ‘We catch it with our first breath. Didn’t you know?’

  ‘Not all of us are cursed!’ she said, something softer entering her voice, perhaps an appeal for understanding.

  ‘Lady Serenity has had a fright,’ Teng confided to Shensi, as though she was not present – the arrogance of a man towards a foolish woman. ‘Not that I blame her.’

  Shensi, however, was less tolerant. ‘Does no one in these damned hills honour their debts?’ he growled. ‘I call her an ungrateful bitch.’

  That word cancelled the possibility of retreat.

  ‘I shall give you all the food and cash I possess,’ she said, haughtily. ‘Then you must go.’

  A flush tinged Teng’s high cheek-boned face. His eyes narrowed. ‘As you wish, Aunty High Hat.’

  Shensi spat into the lake and turned to his companion.

  ‘Never mind her. I’ll make those enquiries we talked about. And get our share if I can.’

  ‘Do not risk your life for it,’ said Teng. ‘As for me, I’ll return to Hou-ming. Join me there when you are able. There’ll always be a welcome for you in Deng Mansions.’

  Yun Shu, for all her previous certainty, felt an urge to change her mind. Perhaps Teng was right. Fear motivated her conduct and fear was an enemy of balance. It was too late now.

  ‘If I get paid anything, my friend, so shall you,’ Shensi promised.

  With that, the two comrades embraced. After Yun Shu had handed over the food and cash, they went their separate ways, Teng towards Port Yulan and Shensi back into the hills. Teng paused before he left, as though about to speak. Then he shrugged, picked up his sacks of bamboo strips and bones, and departed.

  Yun Shu prayed to images of demon-officials and Immortals appointed by the Heavenly Court. Of course her motivations were pure. Why not preserve her Immortal treasure, little enough as it was, earned through meditation and breathing exercises, chants and prayers, hour after hour, day after day? Teng was wrong to say only the poor were forced to toil.

  Inner voices argued back. How unreasonable to hold a grudge! They had been children. How did that satisfy the Third Precept? And what would happen to Teng now? She could imagine him plodding through the limestone hills, easy prey for just about anyone. If he became meat for tigers, how could she explain it to Abbess Lu Si, who had doted on Teng as a boy and still regarded the Deng clan as the legitimate rulers of Hou-ming? These were worrying prospects.

  She pictured him arriving in Port Yulan. His troubles would hardly end there. He had no money for the passage-fee back to Hou-ming. And while he was at home with the most obscure scroll, she suspected the dockside loiterers would fleece him like a village idiot.

  Yun Shu chanted and burned incense until, weary of disquiet, she curled up on a prayer mat while the monsoon spilled from a warm, swirling grey sky.

  ‘Are you sure you left her here?’

  Even in the fogged state between sleep and consciousness, the voice was familiar. Joy quickened into wakefulness. Yun Shu threw aside her blanket and cried out: ‘Bo-Bai! Is it you?’

  Outside, she did indeed find Cloud Abode Monastery’s eunuch servant, wearing travel clothes and accompanied by porters. It was his other companion who provoked her frown. There, smiling sardonically, stood Teng.

  Weeks earlier word had reached the monastery of a battle near Port Yulan. Then Governor Jebe Khoja himself sailed off with an army to punish the Yueh Fei rebels. ‘We were all afraid for your safety,’ said Bo-Bai. ‘And though Abbess Lu Si petitioned Worthy Master Jian for permission to send me to find
you, he refused, ordering all Daoist clergy to stay clear of rebel areas lest we be tainted.’

  ‘Tainted?’ interrupted Teng, glancing significantly at Yun Shu. ‘You Daoists seem to like that word. It’s a shame you’re not so pure yourselves. Worthy Master Jian, for instance, never protests when the peasants starve.’

  Yun Shu remembered the Worthy Master from her ceremony of acceptance as an Acolyte, a handsome, active man with shining silver hair, watching her closely as he stroked his wispy beard.

  ‘Go on,’ she told Bo-Bai.

  ‘Abbess Lu Si decided to send me in secret,’ said the eunuch. ‘Before she did, Honourable Deng Nan-shi visited her with a request. He, too, had heard of the battle in Lingling County. He begged that I conduct his son, Honourable Teng, back to Hou-ming.’

  Yun Shu felt a blush coming on and folded her arms. ‘And what was Abbess Lu Si’s response?’ she asked, already guessing the answer.

  ‘Yes, of course! What else?’ broke in Teng. ‘Lady Lu Si was like a stepmother to me after Mother died. She, at least, has a sense of generosity.’

  Bo-Bai nodded solemnly. ‘A very strong sense.’

  ‘How foolish of me,’ muttered Yun Shu.

  The eunuch glanced sharply between them then continued his tale.

  Upon arrival at Port Yulan, he found the hill country restless with rumours: Hornets’ Nest had been overthrown by his deputy and Jebe Khoja’s army slaughtered almost to a man. Recruits were flooding to the Yueh Fei cause. In short, it was advisable to return to Hou-ming while one still could.

  Yun Shu, however, had other plans. ‘I am afraid that I cannot return just yet,’ she said. ‘I swore an oath to walk upon Holy Mount Chang and cannot leave until it is accomplished.’

  ‘Cannot is a debatable term,’ said Teng. ‘You mean will not. A simple removal of not solves the problem.’

  Yun Shu ignored him. When it became clear she had no intention of relenting, even Bo-Bai agreed. He needed little encouragement. The eunuch had long desired to offer a sacrifice on the Holy Mountain to ensure he was reborn in his next re-incarnation as a complete man. He even kept the shrivelled member he parted with as a boy in a jar of vinegar in case a miracle occurred in this life. Everyone knew miracles were commonplace on Mount Chang.