‘You must promise me one thing, Yun Cai. Do you promise?’
‘What is it, Mother?’
‘Do you promise?’ she repeated, fiercely.
By now I was alarmed.
‘Yes,’ I said, wide-eyed.
‘When you reach the capital, you must never provoke or offend Honoured Aunty in any way. Do you understand? Never.’
Honoured Aunty was Uncle Ming’s official wife. I nodded earnestly.
‘Do not forget. She will always be mindful that you are my son. That is why you should keep on the right side of her. And do not mention any of this to Father.’
That night I dreamt of a cold, beautiful woman who I took to be Honoured Aunty. In my dream she was the Empress Lu, cruelly torturing the Lady Qi, who was Mother. I woke up screaming.
One month passed, then three, and four. Everyone in Three-Step-House began to treat me with new respect, even Father, as though I had been singled out for something auspicious and remarkable.
There is a huge boulder on the hillside above Three-Step-House, where I often sat at this time. I used to scramble up its side, nimble as a mountain goat, and resist Little Wudi’s attempts to join me by poking a stick at him.
We called it Wobbly-Watch-Tower-Rock. At the top I would settle and gaze west, a cool breeze stirring the tuft on my head. Crag and cliff rose against skies of earnest blue. Cloud like a dense plain broken by scattered peaks, snow-capped and enticing, waiting to be climbed. Those mountain-moods formed my soul.
Uncle Ming’s eldest son arrived to collect me at the end of autumn. A long procession of camels and strangely-garbed men climbed up Wei Valley. At the news of their coming, Mother stood stock still, helplessly wringing her hands beneath long, trailing sleeves. She hurried off to a private chamber to compose herself.
Cousin Hong seemed a prince. He alighted from a litter lugged by eight sweating servants and his green silks glittered like polished jade in the sun. Gold amulets and charms to preserve him on the road hung from his clothes.
His plump, pale face wore a smile of amused contempt. I glanced nervously at Father. To my amazement, even he seemed in awe of this strange, gorgeous fellow. It was our first glimpse of Uncle Ming’s wealth, and instead of admiration, it taught shame. Our Lordship of Wei, which had seemed so bright with honour, suddenly paled. Many contradictory and unwelcome sensations contend within the breast of a poor relation.
Father’s impatience for me to commence my studies meant I faced a winter journey to the capital. We left before dawn the next day, after a brief ceremony. I could not help weeping, and Cousin Hong made a great joke of my tears.
Days on road or river brought a thousand new sights and smells. Stooping peasants glimpsed in distant fields, boatwomen plying their oars, or high officials whose carriages dripped with silver – all fed my imagination in ways too subtle to conceive.
We travelled overland through a bare, wind-picked country, colours bled by the winter drought. Cousin Hong rode in his litter while I perched among the baggage on a camel’s back, wrapped in a cloak of sheep’s fur. At night we slept in village hostelries or small towns. They seemed vast cities to me. My senses and thoughts were in constant confusion.
I soon realised that Cousin Hong found me unworthy of notice. One evening, after we had dined in our usual silence, I recited the poem I had improvised for Father on Mulberry Ridge. No doubt I wished to impress him. To my surprise he grew angry.
‘So you can bleat, as your father boasted! Understand at once, I am not interested. My father can hire a dozen poets any time he likes. He is only adopting you because he has a soft heart. You will fail the examination and be sent back to your hut in the mountains with a scorched backside.’
His outburst shocked me. No one had ever treated me in so low a way.
‘ My father saved the life of General Yueh Fei at the Battle of T’su Hu Pass!’ I cried. ‘We are noble, not common peddlers!’
Cousin Hong laughed dryly, but I could tell my words stung. Even he realised there are qualities beyond the reach of cash coins threaded on a string.
We were delayed by blizzards for several weeks and had to spend the New Year celebration a hundred and fifty li north of the capital, in a village whose name I gladly forget, a place where only the lice were energetic. Cousin Hong literally ground his teeth, and I started to feel sorry for him.
Holed up in a miserable inn, while a curious dog inserted its snout up his fine silk coat, he got drunk and poured out his troubles. I listened silently. As I came to learn, he was missing a fine time by his absence from the capital at New Year. Wine lent him eloquence.
He told me of the New Year markets where dishes of rice coloured green, red, white, black and yellow were auctioned. To eat them brought good fortune and he always bid the highest. He told me of painted door gods and paper streamers bearing lucky characters, covering the festival-city like blossom. Firecrackers and gongs and drums filled the streets with noise, so that only a fool bothered to think. Men dressed as gods paraded on stilts.
Chimes and flutes chased misfortune round the Pond of Dragons, then through the Gate Of The Eastern Flowering, never to return.
‘We must get back in time for the Feast of Lanterns!’ he mumbled drunkenly, as though to a dear friend. ‘Ah, Yun Cai, then you will see something.’
‘Let us depart tomorrow!’ I cried, in my high-pitched voice.
I should add that he had favoured me with a cup of strong wine, to ‘float in’ the New Year.
‘What of the snow? Only a madman travels in snow.
We would shiver all the way.’
‘Let us shiver! Father marched in blizzards when he was an officer. Order the servants to prepare our departure!’
Cousin Hong bristled for a moment. Such decisions lay with him, not a boy. Then he laughed.
‘You understand nothing. My litter is heavy. The bearers would sink in the snow.’
‘Ride on one of the camels like me. Have the litter follow behind. That way, we shall reach the city in time for the festival.’
He belched.
‘No wonder your father is called a hero,’ he said, wonderingly. ‘You’ll end up a general for sure!’
But he did as I advised, and as a result we reached the capital in time for the Feast of Lanterns. Cousin Hong never forgot this episode and afterwards nicknamed me
‘Little General’. It was good that I had one friend in Uncle Ming’s house, even an unsteady one. I had need of any friend.
We caught our first glimpse of the capital as night was falling. Here I must win honour and esteem or scuttle back to the mountains, a failure in my own and Father’s eyes. Cousin Hong had driven the servants forward all day with promises and threats. For several li the sky to the east glowed, as though from a great fire. When I remarked on it, Hong chuckled.
‘Wait and see!’ he cried. ‘Just you wait, Little General!’
We were in a low valley full of roadside tombs, then the City of Heaven spread before us.
It seemed ablaze, but not consumed. Small flashes, like distant lightning, sparked across the horizon. A low rumbling filled the air.
We descended the hillside in haste and found ourselves beside a jetty on the shore of the West Lake. Miles of water glittered in the moonlight, covered with boats of every size, like fireflies scattered across a grey mirror. Each bore a lantern, some many, so they were beaded with strings of light. Cousin Hong leapt from his camel and rushed to the shore. By chance a fishing skiff was moored there, rocking alarmingly. Inside a couple were disporting themselves.
‘Hey you!’ he cried, apparently blind to what was going on. ‘Hey you! Take us to the city and you’ll earn three hundred cash.’
The young fisherman and his wife (assuming they were married, a large assumption at festival-time) fumbled with their clothes. Unabashed, Cousin Hong jangled three strings of cash coins, feverishly repeating his offer. He was a man possessed by demons. I believe he would have traded half his inheritance to enjo
y the festival. Within a minute the bargain was settled. The fisherman stood by the large oar at the rear of his craft and we scrambled aboard. His ‘wife’ stood disconsolate on the shore. It was my first lesson that anything was for sale in the City of Heaven. Now Cousin Hong lolled like an emperor in the prow and I was left to gaze.
We passed dragon ships poled by men drunk and singing. Everyone tipsy and gay. Fast boats propelled by paddle-wheels formed a wake of moon-lit foam. Others were floating restaurants, crammed with talking, eating, laughing people, young and old, silk robes catching the light, hard faces softened by lamp-glow. We passed the decorous craft of nobles and outrageous barges full of coarse singing girls, enticing any who would hop aboard into curtained booths.
Cousin Hong triumphantly pointed out places of interest on the shore. Here, the Monastery of the Miraculous Mushroom where a junk was moored. He told me it was never launched because each time it set sail a storm followed. There, the famed pagoda on Thunder Point, an octagonal tower built entirely of blue-glazed bricks. It glittered that night like a barbarian’s savage blue eyes. Huge statues of the Buddha carved into cliffs. Stands of willow or bamboo where parties could be glimpsed, dancing or revelling. Cousin Hong roared out coarse greetings to strangers as we passed.
In the midst of this uproar, one grey-bearded old man sat patient as a heron on the shore, fishing rod in hand.
At last we reached the Eastern Shore and disembarked.
By now I was terrified and elated. Cousin Hong fell to his knees and kissed a handful of dirt. He summoned a wine seller, and bought a large jar, which he drank in one, wine dribbling down his chin. Passers-by applauded and cheered.
His belch, when he finished, was like a thunder-crack.
‘Follow me, Little General!’ he cried. ‘If you lose me, it will be your own look out!’
*
I took his warning to heart. The crowds jostled and shoved, remorselessly circulating. Not one of those people knew my name or had a reason to care for me. I clung to my cousin like a monkey attached to its owner’s wrist by a cord.
Buildings towered. Houses lit by numberless lanterns, some made of glass with many facets, others of coloured paper. A million tongues were chattering until individual voices were lost.
Cousin Hong stopped frequently, stuffing delicacies into his plump face, downing cups of warm wine. His appetite seemed boundless. For all my confusion, I sensed he was anxious to be returning home.
Crowds gathered around acrobats, their faces painted like idols. We passed a show of marionettes, paper figures dancing on sticks. I stared at women wearing head-dresses shaped like butterflies. Precious, mysterious creatures compared to our homely mountain-girls. Ladies in dresses white as frost, accompanied by bellowing young gentlemen, lanterns hanging from long staves like dancing stars.
Urchins burned pellets of coal-dust which flared beneath skipping feet. Fireworks of bamboo crackled and banged.
I had never heard so much noise except during a storm. It was the roar of humanity, in a certain mood.
At last we reached a large, forbidding gatehouse and Cousin Hong instantly sobered. Statues of the gate-gods glared down at us, scimitars in hand. He turned to me and grinned. ‘Little General,’ he said. ‘Now your new life begins.’
Uncle Ming’s residence in the capital demanded many adjustments. My childhood freedoms were at an end, lost in a maze of strangers. I was utterly dependent on my relatives; not merely to fulfil Father’s hopes, but for every mouthful in my bowl.
One must always begin with home. Uncle Ming’s overlooked the Great Wine Market, adjoining the Imperial Way. Within high boundary walls, topped with metal spikes to deter thieves, were a dozen buildings where Uncle Ming’s sway was absolute. At the rear of the enclosure ran South Canal, busy with boats and barges and the singsong cries of river-folk. I came to know it well, for my bedroom leant over the water, at the top of a low wooden tower.
Besides the house intended for his family, the enclosure contained warehouses and breweries, as well as accom-modation for servants and apprentices. It was a place of constant bustle. Fermentation and the clatter of jars were continual. The sweet, heady scent of wine floated like a tender mist. Uncle Ming had many customers to satisfy, including nobles and the Imperial Court.
The front gatehouse gave straight onto the Wine Market, and for four days of the week thousands thronged there. Such variety! Simple stalls displaying a few home-brewed jars. Poor men hoping to sell wine by the cup. Fine merchants in wooden pagodas on wheels, where they conducted business, softening up customers with free samples. Soldiers and market-officials on the look-out for bribes, however small.
There were always dozens of drunkards, drawn like bees to an ever-open flower. Food-sellers tended charcoal braziers, crying out to passers-by. Steamed dumplings.
Rice cakes. Pork fried with ginger, anise and bitter melon.
Salt-fish spread in a paste on buns. Prawn sauce flavoured with lime. One man kept a kennel of panting, over-stuffed puppies behind his stall; I have rarely tasted meat so tender.
Uncle Ming’s house stood on the shady side of the square. In summer this was a blessing and relief. The rest of the year we shivered, especially in the family apartments. There is nothing colder than fashionable, black lacquer furniture; or dull, conventional pictures of angry gods. Rooms swept obsessively until there was no trace of dust or muddle. These chambers were Honoured Aunty’s domain.
Honoured Aunty was Uncle’s first wife and the mother of his three official sons. Cousin Zhi, the youngest, spoilt and vain, clung to his mother in ways which made me wonder about their relations. He was short and wiry as a fox, and quite as dainty. Then there was Cousin Yi-Yi, a strapping, amiable fellow, but one that would normally be classified as an idiot. Finally, Cousin Hong, the first-born, and Uncle’s heir.
Honoured Aunty ruled the family through force and guile. Her eyebrows were exceptionally long and curved, betraying an angry temperament. A short, dumpy woman, she had married Uncle when he was still poor, and hawked his wares on the street until freed by prosperity.
Her clothes, though of the finest – and I soon became aware she took professional advice on matters of style –never seemed to quite fit. Her favourite haunt was a gilded, ivory chair decorated with carved dragons. She had ordered a similar throne for Uncle, though I never saw him use it. Around this cardinal point the servants scurried. Others came on business, including a sorcerer who had daily converse with demons. I was terrified of this old man, with his spells and brazier for burning animals’ tender organs. One day he winked at me suggestively and said (he was inebriated at the time): ‘I hope my mistress’s enemies don’t hear about the curses I place on them. They might wonder why they are always in good health.’ After this I avoided him even more. His taste for young boys was notorious in the household, and Honoured Aunty sometimes insisted the prettiest of the apprentices satisfy it.
As for her attitude to me, I was grateful for indifference.
Cousin Zhi was her obsession, leaving no energy for anyone else. Despite the edict that every son should follow the profession of his father, she had consulted the most expensive astrologers in the city, and determined he would pass the examination to become an official and gain the highest honours. Needless to say, Cousin Zhi was in complete agreement with this destiny.
I recall one interview with Honoured Aunty, a week after my arrival. She summoned me before her splendid chair and set about me with a bamboo-stick of questions.
I knelt before her, head bowed.
‘How many silk dresses does your mother own?’
‘I do not know, Honoured Aunty. Forgive me.’
‘How many servants do your parents have?’
‘A dozen in the house. Then there is the whole village.’
This answer displeased her.
‘What title does my husband’s brother use?’
‘Lord,’ I said, simply.
‘You seem very sure of yourself. Remember
you are in my house now.’
Her tone frightened me. My position was precarious, without a single friend in a limitless, strange city. I remembered my mother’s warning to never offend her.
‘If I am at fault, Honoured Aunty, I beg a thousand pardons,’ I said.
‘How many pigs are there in your father’s sty? I take it he eats meat once a week, or does he find it too expensive?’
And so it went on.
‘Does your father travel by litter or walk everywhere?
No doubt he cannot afford a horse.’
I forget the other questions. There were many. Finally she touched upon her true fears.
‘They say you write good poems and this is why your father thinks you will succeed in the examination. Is this true?’
I shrugged modestly. Yet a note of defiance touched my voice, the tiniest trace, for I sensed her iron, vengeful nature. I sensed, too, she respected strength.
‘In the City of Heaven,’ I began, then fell silent.
‘What? Speak louder!’
I recited a poem composed to impress my new teachers at the Academy. A formal, tiresome piece, yet exceptional from one so young. I have it still on a yellowed sheet of paper, my brush-strokes crude and earnest. It provoked amazement when I showed it to my teachers, for I had mimicked the court style of the Early Tang perfectly, through complex internal rhymes and an elaborate pattern of tones.
In the City of Heaven a thousand voices.
Urgent fluttering wings of cicadas.
Crickets sing until daybreak.
I must heed when teachers speak.
Honoured Aunty stared at me, for once confused.
‘Enough!’ she cried in a shrill voice, clapping her hands.
‘Tell the servants to bring your Cousin Zhi to me at once.’
I scurried off gladly.
After that Honoured Aunty ignored me except for sideways glances when I entered the room. This was something I avoided at all costs. Yet I had only just begun to make her acquaintance.
Taming Poison Dragons Page 6