The Mandate of Heaven

  Shensi wrapped a cloak made of dog furs round himself. It crossed Teng’s mind he hadn’t heard many dogs barking lately on Monkey Hat Hill.

  He slapped his hands together and paced up and down to keep warm.

  ‘I’ve come here for a reason, you know,’ he said. ‘If we do not get some cash soon we won’t last the winter. Curse the snow! Will it ever stop? And I’m dreadfully worried, Shensi, not for myself but Honourable Deng Nan-shi. He urgently needs food and medicine. I can’t even rely on picking up extra pupils: nearly all are in arrears with their fees, not that Father keeps proper accounts. A horrid mess!’

  It was not Shensi’s way to answer in haste, yet today he spoke at once.

  ‘Bend your stiff scholar’s pride and we could eat and drink soon enough!’

  He referred to an old debate between them. A year earlier, to fulfil a drunken boast, Teng had taken up some ancient parchment from Deng Library and laboriously painted a landscape in the exact style of the Tang Dynasty master, Chang Tsao, even contriving to make the paint seem suitably faded. More astonishing had been his recreation of ancient seals denoting the artist and previous owners, gleaned from woodcut prints in the library. Once the family collection had included many original paintings of this kind – all traded over the years for food and clothes. Even Deng Nan-shi had praised Teng for his remarkable mimicry. But copying a greater talent was a bittersweet triumph. Teng longed for his own paintings to be regarded as masterpieces.

  Shensi’s proposal was to use his contacts among antique-loving connoisseurs and sell the forgery for a high price. Teng laughed nervously in reply. Oh, he was tempted! Horribly tempted! But such a venture threatened more than just criminal charges – and the punishment would be dreadful if their fraud was discovered – it betrayed all Father had taught him. Misusing higher knowledge and skills compromised the Deng clan’s honour. Maybe even their natural right to rule Hou-ming Province on a just dynasty’s behalf when the Imperial Examinations were re-instated. It threatened the best part of his soul.

  Teng considered Father lying on the divan in the library. Also his own hunger – and not just for food. Why should vulgar merchants parade their wealth? He could buy new silks, wine, precious hours of pleasure with Ying-ge and her delightful fragrances.

  ‘Perhaps,’ he said, remembering a phrase of Yun Shu’s, ‘I have no choice. Perhaps I must lower myself. But just this once. And never ask me again.’

  Shensi chuckled coarsely. ‘Leave the low stuff to me.’

  Teng seemed not to hear.

  ‘I might even turn vulgar merchant myself,’ he announced. ‘Do you remember the bamboo strips from the prince’s tomb I spent so long translating?’

  ‘You won’t sell those,’ predicted Shensi, ‘except for firewood.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ said Teng. ‘From what I have heard … We’ll see. And, of course, you would get half, for we found them together. But I fear those old bamboo books contain a great capacity for harm. I mean, in the wrong hands.’

  ‘The only wrong hands are empty ones,’ said Shensi.

  Teng felt depressed all that day. He had surrendered to instincts of a deplorable kind. Meanwhile Shensi roamed the city in the best clothes they could gather, seeking the highest price for a recently discovered painting of the Lake by Master Chang Tsao. Finally he struck a deal with a new collector said to be acting as a broker to connoisseurs in the Court itself, a high official of unimpeachable standing in the Salt Bureau, called Gui.

  Clouds that covered much of the Middle Kingdom dispersed, leaving in their wake a pale, bright winter sky. The re-emergence of the sun warmed more than the earth: hearts lost to gloom remembered hope. Plans were moved forward.

  Teng walked from Monkey Hat Hill to Golden Bright Temple, the largest Daoist temple in the province. He wore a fine new pair of boots and a quilted jacket of more than respectable cut, the fruit of Shensi’s profitable transaction with Salt Minister Gui. Today, however, Teng had a very different customer in mind.

  Golden Bright Temple, like most of Hou-ming, had known better days during the former dynasty; nevertheless it still attracted thousands of worshippers and idlers each month. A triple-storied gatehouse painted in many colours greeted followers of the Dao. Once beyond, they walked between two glazed pagodas into a huge square surrounded by cloisters and a temple complex six storeys high with fine, ornate roofs. One could survey the entire city and far vistas from the gilded balconies of Golden Bright Temple.

  A large five-day fair had been established in the courtyard. Booths and canopies formed small streets where one could buy mats of fine bamboo and rushes, bows and swords (despite the restrictions on Chinese possessing weapons), dried fruits and meats, pet songbirds and hunting dogs, inks, brushes, honey preserves, artificial flowers and hats, ribbons, books, curios and pictures. There were fortune-tellers, conjurers, portrait artists and musicians vying to draw a crowd. In a time where so many went hungry, a few sales determined whether whole families ate that evening.

  Now the sun had re-emerged, however feebly, people followed its example. Teng was forced to push to the temple through knots of bargain-seekers. On the steps he paused and frowned. Was that his mistress, Ying-ge, hurrying down one of the cloisters towards an entrance guarded by soldiers? But the girl had gone in a moment and he could not be sure. Inside the temple porch he hailed an acolyte, addressing him with his best Deng hauteur.

  ‘I have an appointment with Worthy Master Jian,’ he said.

  The young priest looked at Teng doubtfully. Even in new clothes he did not appear the kind of notable who normally consorted with the leader of all the Daoists in Hou-ming Province. Especially as he was carrying a large, heavy sack rather than assigning the task to a lackey.

  ‘Inform him Honourable Deng Teng is here,’ added Teng.

  Now the acolyte was more amenable and bowed slightly. The name of Deng still opened some hearts and doors in Hou-ming.

  For an hour he waited in the temple porch. An hour of disquiet. It was not too late to return home with the sack of bamboo strips. He could bury them in Deng Library and risk no harm to anyone. If the ancient words were as potent as he believed, dare he unleash such knowledge on the world? That dilemma tormented him.

  Years of slow, careful study had revealed the strips mapped a magical route to Immortality. One that had passed beyond the knowledge of humanity for fifteen centuries. Yet that route required no virtue from anyone pursuing its tortuous path. Instead one needed the morality of a rapacious ghost. Immortality could only be gained by sucking the life force, the very ch’i, from ripe, fertile victims, right down to the lining of their wombs. Its logic was remorseless. Teng feared it deeply.

  There was another reason. Worthy Master Jian was distrusted by his father – and Teng had learned to heed Deng Nan-shi’s judgements about people.

  Of course, the old scholar might be blinded by history. The Deng and Jian clans had been bitter contenders for leadership in Hou-ming under the last dynasty. The Jians, at least, tacked with the wind and served Mongol masters. Did that make them villains? The mere act of living tainted one with compromises … Further speculation was cut short by the acolyte’s return.

  Teng was led up winding flights of stairs to the topmost storey of Golden Bright Temple. Here he found a large balcony with fine views of the lake and distant snow-clad mountains. A place where pure winds aided the contemplation of ineffable mysteries.

  A small table had been set up in the centre of the balcony. Behind it, on a simple chair, sat a man in the gold, purple and black robes of a Daoist Worthy Master. It was the first time Teng had observed Master Jian close up.

  He saw a handsome, sleek man, trim round waist and jaw, with well-balanced features and a habitually sensitive expression, as though he made it his business to feel deeply for all the Ten Thousand Creatures, whether they wanted it or not. He possessed a moist, yet strong mouth that could be relied upon to say what was judicious, wise and proper.

  Worthy Master
Jian’s iron grey hair was neat as a statue’s, yet his large angular eyebrows were black as the hair of youth, denoting exceptional character. In short, he was a man who immediately attracted goodwill, especially among women; a bringer of relief; a visionary; a speaker who could urge confidentially or roar like a ram; a holy gentleman of considerable property, ever distant yet near – or, at least, near enough to suit his benevolent purposes. All this Teng glimpsed in a flash.

  ‘Ah, Honourable Deng Teng,’ said Worthy Master Jian, leaning forward slightly to greet his guest then settling back again. ‘Come before me! You are doubly welcome. First, for the sake of your honourable ancestors and father – I trust the excellent Deng Nan-shi is in good health, by the way, please do pass him my respects – and secondly because you sent the most intriguing letter I have received all winter. Come closer, tell me all about it.’

  Teng did as instructed, placing the sack of bamboo strips on the floor. Though he was not customarily nervous with men of authority, his mouth tasted dry.

  ‘I do have something unusual to bring to your attention, Master,’ he said, ‘a treatise, let us call it, that has taken me years to decipher.’

  Impatience flickered across the Worthy Master’s angular face. ‘A treatise?’

  ‘It expounds ancient wisdom and knowledge,’ said Teng, hurriedly, ‘I have come here to offer it to you.’

  ‘Ah,’ exclaimed Worthy Master Jian, ‘an offer!’

  He stared past Teng as if in profound contemplation of the distant mountains. The silence on the balcony gathered weight. Teng could hear a babble of excited voices from the market in the courtyard below, the sounds of a quarrel about prices, laughter, all the tawdry, vulgar noises of commerce. Suddenly he felt an overwhelming desire to disturb the Worthy Master’s stillness.

  ‘The treatise teaches one how to become an Immortal,’ he blurted out. ‘It instructs followers of the Dao how to acquire the Pearl of Immortality.’

  Still the Worthy Jian meditated. He turned to Teng, as though dragged back reluctantly to temporal affairs.

  ‘So your letter promised,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ continued Teng, ‘it sets out a clear, proven method.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Worthy Master Jian. ‘You are now an Immortal, I take it?’

  Teng blushed with confusion. ‘No, I did not say that, sir, with respect …’

  ‘You call it proven. How can it be proven without proof? Are you that proof?’

  ‘As I say, Master …’

  ‘Let me see this book,’ interrupted the Worthy Jian.

  Reluctantly Teng handed over one of the round bundles of bamboo strips tied with leather thongs. Worthy Master Jian cast him a resigned look and unrolled the book. Yet his gaze was intense as he read the characters.

  ‘This,’ he said, reading slowly, ‘this is old. Where did you find it?’

  For a long while he listened as Teng described the prince’s tomb. When the scholar fell silent Worthy Master Jian tapped the volume with his forefinger.

  ‘So, Honourable Deng Teng, you found these texts – all the natural property of the Dao – and wish to restore them to me. Your illustrious family was ever a friend of the Dao. I believe Cloud Abode Monastery, in particular, benefited greatly from your Grandfather’s generosity. Very well, I accept. And more than that, offer my thanks.’

  Worthy Master Jian sat back in his chair, smiling amiably. It took a moment for Teng to comprehend what had been said. ‘Worthy Master, in my letter I mentioned the sale of this relic. I am hoping for a large reward in cash, so I might help my Honoured Father in his illness.’

  Again there was a long silence. Only now Jian’s handsome face wore a look of surprise, perhaps even sorrow. ‘Cash?’

  ‘Yes,’ repeated Teng, doggedly. ‘Sir, you cannot conceive the dangers I suffered to win these holy texts and the hours spent setting them in order and translating obscure characters …’

  ‘Cash?’ broke in Worthy Master Jian, as though thinking aloud. ‘A son of Deng Nan-shi asks me for cash. These are new times, I suppose, and all things decay and renew themselves, even once noble families.’ His voice fell into a bemused whisper. ‘Yet when a Deng tries to haggle like a petty merchant … Ha! Of course! Your father set you up for it! He once criticised the markets I hold each month before the temple and this joke is his revenge. How witty!’

  ‘You do not understand,’ said Teng, desperately. ‘You see …’

  ‘Cash!’ repeated the Worthy Master. ‘How amusing of your father! Please inform him I was suitably taken in. I grant him a complete victory.’

  For a moment Teng felt inclined to argue further. Then his resolve collapsed. The Worthy Master’s jibe about merchants filled him with deep shame. Unbearable for the Dengs to descend to the level of mere peddlers! Teng attempted a chuckle. ‘My Honoured Father will be … amused.’

  ‘And I accept his kind offering,’ said Worthy Master Jian, reaching out for the rest of the bamboo scrolls. ‘Though what use it may be I cannot guess. Yes, and the other books in your bags, I might as well unburden you of those as well. And I do believe you mentioned a translation?’

  Soon afterwards, Teng found himself back in the market of grasping voices and eyes and flushed faces. His dignity as a Deng had suffered no compromise. Only now his sack was as flat as his purse. He felt nauseous and his forehead ached. He gazed up at the topmost balcony of Golden Bright Temple, catching a glimpse of priests clustered round a seated figure at a table. Teng had the peculiar feeling Worthy Master Jian was already evaluating the books of bamboo strips – and with more than casual interest.

  Twenty-one

  Eunuch Bo-Bai hurried towards the Temple of Celestial Teachers, his bamboo staff scraping the cracked, moss-stained flagstones of the courtyard. He paused at a steep flight of limestone steps to catch his breath, glancing back the way he had come. The bronze-bound gates of Cloud Abode Monastery remained firmly closed.

  He could hear the low, monotonous drone of chanting within the temple and caught scraps of words: The Dao that is bright seems dull … The great square has no corners … The Dao conceals itself in namelessness …

  They had only reached the forty-first sutra! Yet he dared not wait until the chant had fully unfurled like a gauze banner floating around the incense-filled temple. The steady beat of gongs and handbells signalled preparations for the next sutra. Bo-Bai slid apart the painted doors and bowed his way into the Temple of Celestial Teachers.

  Within lay a complex pattern of brightness and shadow. Dozens of tall candles on bronze holders flickered around a life-size clay statue of a pot-bellied, grinning god in the lotus position. The worshippers stood in precise geometric positions before this ancient image of Chenghuang, the City God. All were female and dressed in gaudy robes denoting their status as Nuns of Serene Perfection. The lesser nuns wore yellow outfits that had once been golden; their superiors wore purple and blue silks, similarly faded and frayed at sleeve and hem.

  Bo-Bai sidled over to a young woman in purple at the apex of the geometric pattern of worshippers before the altar. As he whispered in her ear she did not change her expression other than to blink rapidly.

  At once Yun Shu retreated backward, bowing herself out of the Temple, all the while reciting a charm to avert misfortune for abandoning a rite. Another of the nuns, older and more care-worn, gave her departing superior a curious glance then occupied the vacant space at the head of the pattern. The forty-second sutra began: The Dao breeds one; one breeds two; two breeds three; three breeds the ten thousand creatures …

  Yun Shu joined Bo-Bai on the limestone steps. The old man struggled to lower himself to his knees in apology for interrupting her, until she laid a gentle hand on his arm. There was something incongruous, even unnatural, about a venerable man deferring to a woman whose smooth complexion implied little worthy knowledge of this world – or the next.

  ‘What is it, Bo-Bai?’ she asked, in a distracted voice.

  Her eyes widened. She sniffed the ai
r, peering at the twilit sky. Distant plumes were billowing up from the city to the south of Cloud Abode Monastery.

  ‘What is burning?’ she asked.

  ‘Lady Yun Shu,’ said Bo-Bai, ‘people have built bonfires all over the city to celebrate a great event. The Buddhist Holy Men from Tibet have brought a relic to Hou-ming.’

  She fidgeted with her sleeve, plucking at a loose strand of silk. ‘You interrupted the rite for that?’

  ‘No, no,’ he said, impatiently, ‘the Buddhists claim the relic has spoken to them. It requires a suitable place to be venerated now it resides in Hou-ming. They say it wishes to live beside Chenghuang himself. Here,’ he added, forcefully.

  ‘I do not understand. What is this chattering relic?’

  ‘The Buddha’s knucklebone.’

  Yun Shu laughed at his earnestness. ‘Nonsense, Bo-Bai! Cloud Abode Monastery will always be Daoist.’

  ‘People in the city are enthused by the relic. See how many fires burn!’

  ‘Then I shall urge Chenghuang to teach the people better sense,’ she said. ‘We may be sure He will listen.’

  Bo-Bai looked less certain. The Mongols were adept at playing off Daoist against Buddhist as a means of diverting opposition to their rule. With this in mind, sects of Tibetan Buddhists had been encouraged to seek followers in the Middle Kingdom. Sects that owed their prosperity and safety to the Great Khan.

  Taking off a headscarf woven with divine symbols to reveal glossy, black hair, Yun Shu hurried back to the Temple. She felt uncomfortable when Lady Lu Si led the rite in her absence, fearful the nuns would draw unfavourable comparisons with her own conduct.

  ‘See what else you can learn, Bo-Bai,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘When the sutras are completed I shall inform the sanren of your news.’

  The Temple of Celestial Teachers was the heart of Cloud Abode Monastery – and, in a spiritual sense, of Hou-ming itself. For hundreds of years the statue of the City God, Chenghuang Shen, had resided there, flattered and pampered by generations of Nuns.