by Sam Meekings
The recent summons thus heralded the first time I might see more of the emperor than just the glittering fringe of his silken robes. Of course, I have spent many years passing various portraits of our heavenly guide, and though these undoubtedly eschew realistic depiction in favour of exaggeration and flattery, most of the pictures that line the hallways of the Eastern Palace possess a certain radiance and coldness that somehow correspond to the feeling one becomes aware of when the emperor is near. In short, I was afraid. No, that is not quite right. I had been summoned to the presence of the great celestial dragon, the son of heaven, the central force of the entire planet, and there was not a small chance that his wrath would fall upon me like thunder and storm. I was terrified.
By the time I had been led through the echoing antechamber, where the ancestor altar was aflame with pungent offerings, and kept waiting outside the vast meeting hall for a couple of hours, I was dizzy and nauseous. When I was finally admitted, I was almost overcome by the sight of the dazzling banners hanging down around me. As I sunk down to the cold stone floor to kowtow, I could not help but notice how some areas had been rubbed shiny where a thousand heads had dipped down in reverence. For a terrible moment I thought that my back might give in and that I would not be able to rise up to my knees again. It would not be an exaggeration, my friend, to say that it took all my strength to push up from my palms until I rose in front of Emperor Xianzong.
Although for most of my brief time in his presence I kept my head down, I could not help but steal a couple of glimpses at the most important man on earth. Up close, the yellow robe – across which a golden dragon skittered in search of its finely stitched phoenix bride – was dull, a little faded even, while the looseness of the cloth seemed designed to accommodate a man of more than average girth. His face was heavy-set, his pale jowls shaking as he spoke. Beneath a small nose his long moustache was flecked with grey, and it was this that struck me more than anything else; to know that the celestial ruler was at the mercy of time, just as I was at the mercy of his benevolence, somehow had a calming effect on me.
‘Bai Juyi, poet of no little renown throughout the capital, former diligent officer of the Imperial Library, and lately counsellor to the crown prince, welcome.’
His voice was timorous and deep, though there was something subdued about the way he spoke, as if his mind was on other things. Hearing my achievements and titles listed, however, did little to arrest my fears.
‘My son has only words of the highest praise for you, and I am grateful for the attention you have shown him.’
‘Your majesty, it is I who am honoured to have been allowed to spend time with a young man of such remarkable foresight and intellect,’ I stuttered in reply.
‘Quite.’
There was a short silence, and I wondered whether I had committed an unforgivable breach of etiquette by speaking directly to the emperor. Had he invited reply, or had I trespassed upon his speech? I could feel my leg shaking beneath my robe, and I could do nothing to still it.
‘Yet I feel your immense talents are wasted here. You must know that when I first took the throne, our illustrious nation was plagued with the worst kind of treachery: regional governors amassing power for themselves and, in some cases, even turning away from the word of heaven. I have waged war against these rebellious governors and their traitorous armies for more than ten years now, and I will not stop until each one of them bows down before the heavenly rule of the almighty Tang. I have worked hard to subdue these pernicious forces so that I may secure peace and fortune for all of my children throughout the provinces. This has not been easy, and many sacrifices have been made.’
It was not difficult to tell that this was a speech he had given many times, an analysis of his reign that he implicitly expected my agreement with.
‘I know you are a loyal servant of the nation. That is why I ask you, Bai Juyi, to help me keep the provinces secure, to help ensure that the people are not threatened by war and rebellion. I am entrusting to you the position of deputy-governor of Jiujiang. I know you will not let me down. My advisors inform me that the people there are a peaceful lot, and bind their lives to the bounty of the great river. I trust you and your family will be happy in your new home. I believe relief from the pressures of life in the city will allow you to spend more time on your compositions. Nature rewards our poets more than citadels and towers ever could.’
He paused, and the room was still. I did not move. Then I realised it was not a pause. This was the end of the meeting.
‘Thank you, great majesty. I will serve to the best of my abilities.’
Once again I kowtowed and then retreated from the room, careful neither to turn my back on, nor look directly at, the heavenly ruler. I was ushered from the antechamber before I had time to catch my breath, and it was only on my slow walk back across the city that I had time to process what I had been told. I took the long way home, avoiding the web of alleys that surround the Muslim quarter and making my way instead through the midweek market. I passed huge shivering slabs of crystal white doufu set up on wheeled stalls, ornate daggers laid out across makeshift tables, monks shaking pots and waving ink brushes ready to set out horoscopes, and a hundred other common sights that I might never see again. It seemed that everything I looked at threatened to reduce me to tears.
Despite the way the emperor had talked of the new position, it was an obvious demotion. No, it was more than that. It was exile, dressed up in the thinnest of praise. I was being sent thousands of li from the palace, to the backwaters of the country, to be forgotten. And when the emperor had said that I would have more time for my poetry, what he had meant was that my new position was largely symbolic, and that I would therefore have few official powers or responsibilities. In short, there would be no one to hear my complaints about corruption, no one to listen to my ideas about reform, no one to influence or inspire. I was not to be allowed to speak to the crown prince again.
I have spent the last few days packing and saying my farewells. Perhaps because of this, I have found myself returning again and again to the memory of how I felt when I first arrived in the capital. I can remember swelling with pride when I sent news back to my family that I had passed the imperial examination. There is nothing greater in the world than fulfilling your family’s expectations. Yet I fear I have now let everyone down – especially you, my dear friend, whom I ask to accept my apologies for destroying any chance of achieving the things we once hoped for.
My uncle laying down a fried fish at the base of our ancestral altar – that is the memory that returns each night, as I toss and turn to the tune of the tower bells marking the changes of the guard. I can still see each grey scale gleaming in the candlelight as he set the plate down. It was a giant fish, a mighty river carp, all plump lips and inky eyes. We bowed our heads as he offered it to thank the spirits of our forefathers for watching over me and ensuring my success, and I remember there was a warmth in his voice as he spoke of how proud my own father would have been had he still been with us. My uncle’s words – and the dark, unseeing eyes of the pan-fried fish – stays with me until dawn rises over the city walls and the calls for work begin. That day when I brought the banner home, when I told my family I was to be a mandarin, my whole life seemed pure potential. I was in flight on the wings of my dreams. How strange to think that dreams also grow old.
But once again I am letting my memories distract me! How, you must be asking yourself, did all of this come about? Why was I being commanded to swap the ear of the crown prince for an endless expanse of murky fields and fetid marshes? What was it that had marked me out as dangerous? It is simple.
You will recall that in my last letter I told you of my meeting with the crown prince, and that he confided in me that he was searching for the sacred book of his ancestors, which is alleged to record the history of all future dynasties. Now, upon my travels I have met many men entranced by the mysteries of the I Ching, men who have spent their lives trying to divine the
future. But for some, the vague auguries brought forth by that mysterious text are not enough. I have met men made half mad by their desire to know what tomorrow might hold. Patriarchs wanting to be sure that the family line will continue to flourish, generals longing to know the outcome of a battle, or emperors wishing to see which of their closest allies might turn traitor – all have attempted to see beyond the sunset.
It is common knowledge, however, that only the dead know the future. To this day, emperors offer sacrifice to their ancestors that they might help guide them forward, and though the practice of consulting oracle bones has now disappeared, necromancers and shamans are much in demand at the imperial court. Therefore it should not have surprised me that the crown prince wished to go one step further and so sought to find this mythical book of prophecy. Yet what he had said troubled me deeply.
Indeed, I wandered from the palace after the meeting I described in my last letter with my head burning with worries. The crown prince’s recent predecessors had ceded too much power to the eunuchs, and the disastrous effects of this decision were visible everywhere, from the competent officials frequently being sent into exile to the rows of beggars lining the streets, victims of the mismanagement and corruption that had spread throughout the palace. Yet I barely noticed the beggars crowding round me, nor the noodle-vendors pushing their rickety carts through the streets, nor the novices returning to the temple, for I was thinking about how much worse the country would become if the next emperor wasted the opportunities and resources offered to him in the foolish pursuit of an imaginary book, instead of devoting himself to good government.
However, the prince had asked me for my considered opinion, and thus he deserved a more considered answer. (Perhaps, I thought at first, it might even be some kind of test, designed to help him ascertain whether or not I would make a worthy advisor.) Did it matter that I did not believe in the book, that I found the very concept of it unspeakably ridiculous? Not even a little, for the only thing that mattered was that the prince believed. I therefore decided that before daring to give any kind of answer to the Son of Heaven, I would need to find out more about the book itself.
For once, I had no need to scour the Imperial Library or turn to my more learned friends for advice, for almost instantly I thought of Master Zhong, the shaman I had met on my journey back to the capital. If anyone could tell me something about a legendary book of prophecy, I reasoned, then it would be him. Taking a few days’ leave from my duties, I rose one morning before dawn, mounted my horse, and set forth upon my journey.
I travelled alone and, accompanied neither by my wife nor servants bearing provisions, I found I made great speed. After only two nights I had returned to those familiar fields and, soon enough, had found the dwelling I was looking for. As had been the case the last time I had visited, a long line of peasants waited outside the door to Master Zhong’s hut, and I found myself smiling at the thought of seeing the kind old shaman again.
While I waited for my turn under the shade of an old tree thick with cicadas, I spoke with a thin, middle-aged woman in front of me. Her face was etched with wrinkles and frown lines, and her faded white robe announced her status as a widow. It did not take much encouragement for her to confide to me that she had come to see the famous Master Zhong to ask him to contact her late husband, who had been killed by the sleeping sickness four moons ago.
‘I wish to ask his permission that I might marry again,’ she told me in a shrill, plaintive whisper. ‘I have had nothing but evil looks and bitter words from the families in the village, but my boys need a father and a home. If my husband’s spirit allows it, we could begin again.’
I wished her success, though I could not help reflecting that it is a peculiarly human curse that we so often place our lives in the hands of ghosts. When her turn finally came, she can have stayed in the dwelling no more than a few minutes before she came out smiling, her eyes dancing light with tears. As she made her way down the hillside, I moved to the door to ask permission to enter. A call came back and I made my way back inside that cramped hovel.
There was the old shaman, fat and bald as ever, sitting cross-legged in the centre of the room, and for a moment it was possible to believe that he had not moved from that position since the last time I visited him.
‘My friend, you have returned!’ he grinned. ‘Come, sit down, please. It is so pleasant to see a familiar face. Indeed, this calls for a celebration. Tell me, will you take some tea? Or perhaps a little rice wine?’
‘Thank you, but I do not intend to impose upon your hospitality for long,’ I replied as I sat down before him. ‘Though tell me, how is it you have a supply of rice wine when you live so far from the city? Surely you do not have the equipment here to ferment your own liquor?’
‘No, you are quite right. I own nothing more than what you see before you. It is really very simple, my friend. Those who visit me bring gifts. As a kind of payment, you understand, for the services I offer. Some bring a little rice, some bring a handful of eggs, some a bottle of liquor. Whatever they can manage.’
He opened his hands expansively, the ripples of a grin racing across his face.
‘And you give them your expertise in return.’
‘In a manner of speaking. I do my best to make their dreams come true. It is not so different to what you officials do in the capital with your handshakes and mediations, though I would warrant that most officials demand a lot more in recompense when lending a helping hand to the common man.’
I sighed. ‘I am the first to admit that things are not as they should be in the capital. There is corruption, yes, but there are also honest men pushing for reform.’
‘Then they ought to beware, for everyone knows what befalls honest officials! My father used to work at court, and I spent the first twelve years of my life in Changan. I would not return for all the silver in the emperor’s caskets.’
‘Your father was an official?’
‘Ha!’ he laughed. ‘Do you really think the locals would walk for hours to visit the son of a petty bureaucrat? No, he was a shaman, just like his father before him, and his father before him. For a time, he was the emperor’s favourite. But I am sure you have not come here to talk about my family.’
‘No, please go on. I am intrigued. I am eager to know more about your father,’ I said.
‘Well, then I shall not disappoint you. Every time the emperor wanted to know which enemy was plotting against him, or what the outcome might be in the latest frontier war, he would turn to my father and ask him to consult the spirits, to tell him what to do. My father was given riches, titles, servants – anything he wanted. All of his dreams had come true. That is, until one day when he was called upon to divine whether the generals on the northern front could be trusted.
‘He dutifully climbed the hill outside the city where he knew the crows to reside, and waited to hear them call. He was used to waiting, to spending hour upon hour in prayer and submission to the spirits. Yet night fell, and still he had not seen a single bird. He sat up all night, doubling his efforts. He burnt incense, chanted incantations, danced and sang until his feet were blistered and his tongue was ragged. Dawn crawled up the hill, but no crow accompanied it. My father did not give up. He turned instead to the I Ching, he cast lots, he studied the stars, he summoned his own dead father and grandfather, he drank cup after cup of tea just to witness the patterns the dregs might form, he sacrificed a dove to try to read the future in its entrails, but nothing gave him a clear answer. In the end, he realised the most terrible truth. His powers had deserted him. He would have to guess.’
I found myself nodding along, drawn into his story, for something in it was oddly familiar. ‘I thought that it was possible to finds signs in almost anything. Surely it is impossible to look and find nothing,’ I said.
Master Zhong smiled again. ‘You are a knowledgeable man, my friend. That is the point of augury and divination, is it not? The principle that the whole world is a book that can be r
ead if only we can understand the code in which it is written. The idea that every crack of thunder might be an omen, that every sunset contains within it clues to the outcome of the day it precedes. The world is a metaphor that refers only to itself. A sceptic might say that any fool can try his hand at deciphering signs, and it is true that many fools have tried. What my father found, however, was that the world no longer made sense to him. It no longer seemed explicable. And yet still he had to do what was expected of him.’
‘I suspect I know where this story is going. Your father made the wrong prediction, and after the emperor found out he was harshly punished.’
Master Zhong shook his head. ‘Perhaps if that had been the case it would have been easier on everyone. No, although he had been forced to resort to making wild guesses, he was shocked to find that events turned out exactly as he had told the emperor they would. Of course, only my father knew that it was just luck. But still he could not bring himself to give up his position of power and all the trappings that went with it, despite knowing that he was no longer able to do anything more than disguise his guesses as prophecies. I think you can imagine the pressure this placed on him. I was only a boy then, and yet I recognised the terrible change in my father. He began drinking, and would fly into terrible rages without provocation. And it was around this time that he began raving about a Book of Crows.’
I drew in my breath. This same book was the reason I had travelled all that way to visit him. Could he have known that?
‘I see that you have heard of it. I am not surprised. My father was not the only person who became convinced that there existed a book that foretells the future. Some say that it was written by Lao Tzu after crows brought him messages from the dead. You look doubtful, but you must remember that there are books that the Muslims and the Romans swear have been dictated by gods. Others argued that this book was the work of the Buddha, who told his followers to write down the whole history of the earth that they might see that suffering is repeated again and again, that mankind never learns from his mistakes, in the hope that this knowledge would lead them to renounce this cycle of suffering and embrace nirvana. They are said to have written this black book using ink made from the fallen feathers of crows.’