Taming Poison Dragons

by Tim Murgatroyd

  ‘These are bad times,’ I announce. ‘There is war in Chunming, and evil deeds blow across the valley like black seeds. I have decided that we must avert disaster.’

  Eldest Son exchanges a glance with Daughter-in-law.

  For once I fear no reproach. I feel utter certitude.

  Ceremoniously, like a general before the fight, I unroll a scroll prepared with the assistance of Xia-Dong and Lakshi. It sets out the position of my forces.

  I read in a bold voice, so that any unseen listeners are aware of my resolve. For a moment there is a stunned silence in the room. They are unused to decisiveness on my part. Then Headman Wudi calls out: ‘Long live our wise father, Lord Yun Cai!’, and prostrates himself. All follow his lead. Some of the women sob with relief.

  ‘Everything is prepared,’ I say. ‘Wudi, gather the village on pain of my displeasure, young and old, man and woman. The sick or menstruating must stay behind locked doors. See it is done within the hour!’

  He bows his way out and rushes down the hill.

  We use the hour wisely, proceeding to the ancestral shrine Father built in a grove above Three-Step-House.

  There I release white doves from a bamboo cage. The clattering of their wings echoes round the pine trees. Eldest Son can barely disguise his pride. My heart is glad.

  When we reach the gatehouse, hundreds of the peasants await us. They roar with one voice as I arrive. In obedience to my instructions, many bear iron pots and gongs, clay drums and musical instruments. Others carry branches of willow, peach or artemisia, which they wave like swords. Eldest Son and my grandsons are armed with squares of paper bearing potent characters and spells.

  We proceed on the route I have chosen. The uproar is continual. First we drive the demons and ghosts to the west of the valley, blocking their return with spells speared on twigs. The wind rises as if in approval, blowing invisible spirits before us like whirling leaves. And so through the cardinal points of north and south. At each I build a wall of sacrifice, burning incense on a brazier and pouring out sacred earth from the ancestral shrine. In the south, where Two-Face-Crag rises, Xia-Dong ladles out a jar of water while Devout Lakshi chants, transfixing sheep lungs on a stake.

  I lead the procession to the village well. Here the Goddess of Wei Valley may often be glimpsed, smiling up at the villagers, especially on moon-lit nights.

  By now wine flows through the crowd and jubilation is general. We march east, our final cardinal point. A frenzy of noise makes the valley echo. Peasants beat the air with branches, flattening bushes beside the road where stubborn demons lurk.

  At last we reach the bend where the valley narrows between pine-clad hillsides. Monkeys scream and swing through the trees, alarmed by our approach. Meanwhile the remainder of our spells are fixed with iron nails onto the trees, effectively closing the gates on the hostile spirits who flee before us. Xia-Dong sets fire to branches of artemisia, thus satisfying the fifth element. It is done. Our valley purified. Finally, we spit prodigiously, for demons hate to be spat at.

  In the strange way of crowds, we fall silent. People look around nervously. Mothers reach out for their children. A drumming of hooves approaches from the east. Cries of men in battle. I have heard that noise before, such wild shouts, long ago when I was young. Dread fills me.

  ‘Wudi!’ I bellow. ‘Order the people into the trees!

  Quickly, to the trees!’

  He hesitates for breath only.

  ‘Follow Lord Yun Cai! To the trees! Leave the road! To the trees!’

  Panic flutters through the crowd. We become a mass of elbows, heels, jostling bodies. The drumming of hooves grows louder. Before half the people have left the road, horsemen appear round the bend in the valley, whipping their mounts.

  A dozen armoured cavalry wearing sky-blue cloaks, the emperor’s colour, thunder through us. Dust and neighing fills the air, cries of children. Behind them come a larger group of horsemen on shaggy ponies. They bend bows and release a hail of arrows.

  Screams amongst the scrambling villagers. One man falls, an arrow piercing his throat. Our crowd throws the pursuing archers into disorder. Horses rear and collide in confusion, rallying round a flag bearing General An-Shu’s symbol. Though I protest that we should help the wounded, Eldest Son drags me away from the road, up the hillside, our silk robes tearing on thorns and brambles.

  I catch a glimpse of the mounted archers through the trees, milling in the road below. I know their kind from my youth. Barbarians, mercenaries from the steppes. They wheel and gallop back the way they came.

  I have failed. My attempt to purify the village an utter misfortune.

  Three children trampled by the mounted bowmen loyal to General An-Shu, and two peasants killed by their arrows. One of them was Wudi’s middle son. A boy who grew to manhood alongside my own. His loss pierces my heart.

  Worse must surely follow. The mounted bowmen abandoned their pursuit of the Imperial cavalry, perhaps believing the village ahead was hostile, and turned back to Chunming. If they tell General An-Shu that Wei is in revolt against his rule, we can expect swift reprisals. Of the Imperial cavalry, there is no news. They galloped further up the valley and disappeared, their presence a mystery in itself.

  From my room I hear faint cries and wailing in the village below. Perhaps the villagers hate me for my failure.

  Xia-Dong and Devout Lakshi made off as soon as General An-Shu’s horsemen fled. No one speaks to me or meets my eye. Oddly, only Thousand- li-drunk decides to stay, and goes so far as to beg an audience outside the gatehouse.

  ‘Lord Yun Cai should be happy!’ he cries, in his deranged way. ‘All the demons have left the valley. The ceremony was a complete success!’

  I regard him angrily. Is he mocking me? He winks.

  ‘Thousand- li-drunk knows more than you!’ he cries.

  ‘Lord Yun Cai will be glad of saving a certain officer’s life.

  All the demons are gone. Look around, can you see any?

  Ha! That is why Thousand- li-drunk is so happy!’

  ‘What is your real name?’ I demand. ‘Stop your games!’

  ‘Ah, no more games.’

  His glee hardens into a sly smile.

  *

  ‘General An-Shu will never become the Son of Heaven,’ he says, suddenly sober. ‘The people have not turned against the Emperor. The Mandate of Heaven has not been withdrawn from His Imperial Majesty. Remember that, in your dealings with the cavalry who escaped.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  Taking a grasshopper from his basket, he pops it into his mouth and slowly chews. Gathering his small bundle, he wanders off without another word.

  The wine-coloured light of dawn seeps through the shutters and paper curtains. My head spins from all I have drunk. Over half the jar still undrained. Yesterday seems far away – the horsemen and their cries, hooves sparking on the flinty high road, Wudi’s middle son falling, a feathered shaft protruding from his throat.

  I fumble into my outer garments and listen at the chamber door. No one hovering for a change, not even Daughter-in-law. I hide the wine jar behind a painted screen, in case someone punishes me by removing it.

  The short corridor to the back entrance is deserted. I hear arguing and urgent voices elsewhere in the house, but these fade as I slip the latch and step outside, hurrying along a path bordered by stands of sprouting bamboo.

  The path winds up towards our ancestral shrine, yet I will not go there. The dead stare as well as the living.

  Instead I follow a trail leading further up the valley, resolutely keeping my back to Three-Step-House and the village below. If I do not look they may as well not exist, for a moment, for eternity, such distinctions a dream. The path climbs round huge, lolling boulders whiskered with lichen, then crosses a stream over mossy planks.

  I pause, soothed by the trickling water as it runs over stones and trailing ferns. When I scoop a handful, it tastes cold, flavoured with peat.

  Further down the hills
ide, the path meets the road.

  Pines surround the highway, steep grassy banks. Here I sit to regain my breath, and fall into a pleasant doze, the wine swirling back to the top of my head. At once I enter a hazy dream and hear songs in the trees, the rustle of feet, whispered voices, distant and indistinct. To wake now is a great labour, yet I cannot help myself. My head jerks up.

  I look around. The road is no longer deserted.

  I am surrounded by half a dozen villagers, talking in low voices. For a moment I blink, taking in details – a wheelbarrow, bundles on backs, frightened eyes. Then my gaze settles on a familiar face, one I least want to see in my bedraggled, sottish state.

  ‘Ah, Wudi,’ I say, and can think of nothing more.

  He looks a long, scornful glance. His weathered face is set in a scowl of grief. The people round him include his wife and two granddaughters.

  ‘I am sorry about your son, Wudi,’ I say, with an effort.

  The slur in my voice shames me. ‘Very sorry!’

  Yet he does not even acknowledge my words. Turning to his family, he orders them on. They toil up the road, burdened by baggage and belongings, until out of sight. A desire to chase after him, beg forgiveness for not averting his loss, almost propels me to my feet. But I am too tired.

  And I do not blame him. He has every reason not to acknowledge me. Just as a bad emperor may lose the Mandate of Heaven through fecklessness, so may an inept lord lose the respect of those he has been set above.

  A weary walk back to Three-Step-House. All the freshness and splendour of the morning has gone, trees and stones somehow lifeless.

  At the gatehouse I find Eldest Son talking to men from the village. He frowns as I approach and I notice he does not bow. The villagers examine us both curiously.

  ‘Do not stand and stare,’ he barks at them. ‘Go and keep watch on the road. At the first sign of travellers, send a runner to me.’

  They leave us alone by the gate gods, and Eldest Son’s face sags. I suspect he has had less sleep than me.

  ‘Father, where have you been?’ he scolds. ‘The valley is full of brigands. And what about the horsemen who rode through yesterday? It is not safe. Where would we be if you were captured?’

  Better off, I think.

  ‘I met Wudi,’ I say, sadly.

  ‘Yes, he is taking his wife and granddaughters to a relative in Crow Hamlet. They will be safer there and he has promised to return by nightfall.’

  ‘Wudi would not speak to me. I have known Wudi all my life. Yet he would not speak to me.’

  ‘You must make allowances, Father. His son. . . I do not understand why our ceremony went so wrong! We have offended the Gods!’ he cries, bitterly. ‘They are ungrateful! We sacrifice to them with all propriety. What more do they want?’

  ‘Hush,’ I say. ‘Lest they hear.’

  ‘What are we to do, Father?’

  There is something pitiful about his tone, as though he has never quite become a man. Am I to blame for that? I realise how hard he finds our present danger. He needs guidance, reassurance. I repress a desire to trail wearily back to my room.

  ‘Should we send the children to one of the monasteries?’

  he asks. ‘And our valuable clothes, the little chest of cash?

  They might be safe there.’

  ‘We may need the money and cloth for bribes,’ I say.

  ‘Should we all go to the monastery, Father?’

  ‘If the Lord flees, so will half the village,’ I say. ‘Your Grandfather would know exactly what to do. . . Perhaps if we made a sacrifice at the Ancestral Shrine.’

  ‘There is no time!’ cries Eldest Son. ‘The barbarian horsemen will be telling their tale in Chunming by now.

  They will burn our house to the ground! How long will it take for them to send troops here?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Should we all go to the monastery?’ he demands again.

  ‘It might be safer. But the village needs us. If we fail in this duty, we will forfeit all respect. Send only your sons, only them. They are children, after all. Besides, the headman has done as much. The rest of us must stay.’

  ‘But my wife is with child!’ he says, desperately.

  This surprises me. I’m told less than half of what happens in Three-Step-House. I should feel happy at her fecundity. Yet good fortune can be a curse in times like these. So I say: ‘That is good news. Yes, send her with the boys. We can pretend her pregnancy is more advanced than it is. . .’

  I struggle to recollect something important. Thousand-li-drunk spoke of the Imperial cavalry who galloped through in their sky-blue cloaks, pursued by General An-Shu’s men.

  *

  ‘What of the Emperor’s horsemen?’ I ask.

  Eldest Son waves an impatient hand.

  ‘They have been seen loitering further up the valley. It is typical of our misfortune! For some reason they wish to plague us.’

  Again I recall Thousand- li-drunk’s words. For all his air of mystery, he seemed certain the horsemen were to our benefit. Eldest Son interrupts my thought.

  ‘You must go to the monastery as well, Father,’ he says.

  I peer at him. To go would be to resign the burden of my position as Family Head. I could drink wine and write poems all day with learned monks for company. A tempting prospect. But I have not sunk so far. Not quite.

  ‘Do as I have said,’ I mutter. ‘Now I must go to my room to think. Have some food brought.’

  ‘Father! Do you intend to get drunk?’

  ‘What if I do?’

  For a moment he blocks my way, bristling, then subsides. He bows. I sense that, however much I annoy him, he is relieved I am not deserting him for the monastery.

  ‘Forgive me, Father.’

  ‘Do as I say. That is enough.’

  I stumble up to the topmost house and my room. At least the wine jar is where I hid it, and apparently undiminished, though it looks as though someone has been poking around. I dip the ladle and pour myself a cup, then raise it to my lips with two shaking hands. It does not taste so sweet as it did last night. Proof, perhaps, I have not had enough.

  Tentative taps on the door. I start up, peer round. The taps become firm knocks, at once revealing my visitor.

  Everyone can be recognised by small signs, as one knows a friend in the distance by his walk.

  ‘Enter!’ I croak.

  Daughter-in-law’s head appears round the lintel. She wears no make-up, surely a sign of something. I motion her in. She adjusts her silken dress and cape; then, to my surprise, gets on her knees before me, paying homage. I blink suspiciously.

  ‘Do I disturb Honoured Father’s rest?’ she says, for once not fixing me with her blackbird’s eye. She seems almost afraid. Evidently I am to be spared advice concerning my most intimate ailments.

  ‘Well, Daughter-in-law?’ I say.

  Her eyes remain fixed on the ground.

  ‘I have come to say farewell, Honoured Father,’ she says, sniffily. ‘And to ask for your blessing.’

  Then I remember. She and the grandchildren are to find refuge in the monastery near Whale Rocks. At such a time I should give appropriate advice.

  ‘You will be accompanied by some stout fellows,’ I say.

  ‘There is little danger. But you must leave as soon as possible. And obey the monks in everything. Remember you are their guest.’

  It is the best I can manage.

  ‘Why can’t my husband guard me and the children on the road?’ she asks.

  ‘He is needed here,’ I say.

  She does not move to go.

  ‘Are you displeased with me Honoured Father?’ she asks.

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘You are sending me away.’

  Now I see her anxiety. One of the five grounds for divorce, and the most common, is offending one’s parents-in-law.

  ‘No, foolish girl, it is not that. These are dangerous times. You are aware of our situation. I want you and the
grandchildren to be safe, that is all.’

  Still she does obeisance. I grow uncomfortable.

  ‘Something else is troubling you?’

  ‘Yes, Honoured Father. It’s someone I’m forbidden to mention.’

  I can guess who.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘My husband’s brother. . .’ she says.

  ‘What of him?’ I snap.

  Then the dam holding back her tongue gives way.

  ‘Old Mother Orchid in the village has heard through her niece that Youngest Son is a Captain serving General An-Shu. And she heard it through her second cousin who saw him parading in Chunming. They say he is a big man now and. . .’

  ‘What’s that to me?’ I interrupt.

  ‘He orders hundreds of soldiers about in Chunming and wears a fine uniform. And he has the General’s ear. I heard he has been granted a house larger than our own, with a garden and a staff of servants, as well as. . .’

  ‘Enough, woman! Again, I say, what is that to me? You know he is no longer my son. We have a document from the Prefect to prove it. Enough on this matter.’

  Of course, she is right to worry. A roll of paper can be crumpled in a moment, an edict overturned by a whim.

  Her fear is simple. At present Eldest Son will inherit my estate in full. A special dispensation granted by the Prefect of Chunming has set aside the law stating property must be divided equally among all male children. Yet the Prefect of Chunming is currently hanging by his heels from the city walls, his eyes food for crows. He was a good man, in his way, and of respectable family.

  ‘Honoured Father is always right,’ she says. ‘Still anyone can fret in times like these. I have to think of my sons, your grandchildren. What of them, heh?’

  Her natural manner has returned. It comes as a kind of relief.

  ‘I am not an astrologer. Anything could happen.’

  ‘But we all remember Youngest Son from when he was a boy,’ she continues. ‘He has a temper like a bad dog.

  What if he gets it in that stubborn head of his, that he has been wronged? It’s enough to make me tremble!’