A Single Petal Read online

  “I’ll turn in, if you don’t mind,” he announced curtly. “Must leave early tomorrow.”

  “Hmmm! I see you’re still determined to get yourself killed. One less teacher in the world, ay?”

  One less teacher? All along, that’s how it should have been. One less teacher, not one less mother.

  When Feng finally closed his eyes on dangling cobwebs and the dark ceiling, Meili’s face remained, her eyes warm and loving.

  Another woman? Impossible ... impossible... impossible...

  ***

  Jinjin decided to stay in the cart until they’d reached the Miao village. The road was open and it would be easier to find cover in the village. Besides, he might learn more by listening in to the trader’s conversation with the soldiers. If he could find out where they were actually taking the girls then the teacher would be compelled to praise him, take him on as accomplice, teach him more characters, more poetry?

  And the ultimate reward?

  Jinjin’s manly organ stiffened at the thought.

  Was the ugly man’s daughter truly that beautiful? The teacher resembled the backside of a pig, but Wong had gone on and on about the beauty of the man’s dead wife. Wong wasn’t a man to make up stories. A brush was a brush, a chair a chair and a beautiful girl exactly as spoken. And girls take after their mothers, he’d said. Even though the child’s mind would be filled with the poetry and learning of her father, she must be exquisitely beautiful.

  The loveliest girl in China?

  Jinjin could barely wait to set eyes upon her. He would use every fibre of his body to solve the riddle of the dead merchant and the disappearing Miao girls. The reward of the flesh would be his!

  11 Feier means ‘a swallow’ (literally, ‘two flights’)

  12 woman

  13 ghost(s

  Misjudged Enemies, Unlikely Allies

  Two White Tiger Leagues? Nonsense, mused Feng, bumping up and down on Rou the mare as she trotted along the Chang’an road. Having left at first light, and paid the farmer handsomely for his hospitality and extra provisions, he ignored the man’s advice to turn around and head back to Houzicheng. How ridiculous to suggest the emperor’s ministers were creating a White Tiger ‘myth’ as an excuse to destroy the empress’s nephew’s power base; though any controversy surrounding the mysterious league of traders made it more likely the emperor would listen to his story about Merchant Chang and the missing Miao girls. But Feng decided he’d had his fill of upstart urchins and ignorant peasant farmers. Even if Chang’an was overflowing with thieves and prostitutes, it remained the emperor’s city, a centre of learning where wise men and poets abounded. Should he be refused entry to the palace then he’d scour the poets’ quarter for ears that might listen; like those of Jinjin, but without the annoyance of a boy who questioned too freely and gave his opinions however unwelcome. The urchin’s encroachment onto the private space of Feier had been the last straw.

  Better to keep company with a dumb mare than a runaway peasant boy with a mouth like a flux-smitten arse!

  Rou made good speed over the next few days. A fair exchange for Mimi, but why Minsheng had wished to burden him with the heavy-handled sword, he had no idea. The only other life-forms he encountered were over-laden peasants, their care-worn women-folk bearing filthy, snotty infants fixed rigid into bamboo backpacks, and donkey after donkey after donkey. But he hung on to the fearsome weapon thinking it might fetch a reasonable price at a market in Chang’an. After having spent further nights in pitifully humble dwellings along the way, he realised the strings of coins given by Minsheng would be woefully inadequate to fund his return journey. Even after selling the sword he’d be obliged to offer his teaching services for a few weeks before he could return. If only Minsheng hadn’t taken the Sung Po scroll, for in Chang’an that might have been worth a small fortune.

  Feng made no further mention of the White Tiger League or his true purpose behind travelling to the capital to other farmer hosts. When asked, he said he had secret business that concerned the highest in the land, emphasising that, although a scholar, he was a man of humble means. He should have known better. The ruffians at Wong’s inn, Minsheng and the inquisitive farmer that first night, had been right in suggesting he’d wasted his time keeping his nose buried in poetry and the writings of Kong Fuzi. If more street-wise, he’d have known young boys are given unlucky names to ensure evil spirits seeking strong children would be fooled and leave them alone. In China, to reveal the truth in the world outside the schoolroom was an invitation to harbingers of ill-fortune to assume, and act upon, the exact opposite. For them ‘poverty’ meant limitless wealth. Feng never discovered which farmer sold on the information. So naive was he that when, a day’s ride from Chang’an, a shabbily dressed young man appeared at the edge of the road from nowhere, waving his arms and calling for help, the teacher reined the mare to a halt, slipped down and hurried over to find out what the matter was.

  He remembered nothing more - apart from the pain.

  ***

  When Angwan slowed his pace on their return to the Miao village, Feier realised he also wanted to prolong their blissful closeness. Another Miao man accompanying them had gone on ahead to watch over the boys who ran wild amongst clumps of waving bamboo, playing hide-and-seek with invisible gui.

  Feier’s only knowledge of the priest had come from Xiaopeng’s girlish talk: a boy able to fight with tigers bare-handed, a master of Chinese chess, who could drink a barrel of rice wine and remain as sober and upright as a monk. As for being a ‘priest’, Feier knew enough about Miao ways to realise that Angwan officiating at ceremonies in place of his farmer father was not the same as being a Buddhist monk. Not having to worry about his celibacy gave the teacher’s daughter a thrill that she tried, but failed, to suppress. She desired to know more - so much more - about the man beside her as they sauntered back to the Miao village. She wished for nothing to be left unsaid. His innermost secrets would become hers to treasure and hide, even from baba. But how to uncover them, she wondered, glancing shyly at Angwan?

  As if reading her mind, the young priest began to open up his past, his future, and his heart. He needed no prompting, and the girl should not have feared disgracing herself with searching questions,

  Angwan had been a uniquely bright child. His father, a wealthy farmer, had inherited from the boy’s grandfather the right to lead village ceremonies and call on the mountain god to hasten the rains for the rice, and drive away the evil spirits of vermin, pests and prowling beasts. Even as a small child, Angwan would constantly be at his father’s side, fetching, carrying, helping in whatever way he could, and the father’s pride in his son was evident to all, as clearly as was his disgust with Angwan’s elder sister, Little Peach, who was both simple and sickly. But Angwan doted on his sister and a strong bond had developed between them.

  It wasn’t long before the boy adopted the role of the girl’s teacher and protector. From the age of ten he would stand between the twelve-year old girl and her irate father whenever her clumsiness had caused a breakage, or she’d managed to spill his wine, and he would refuse to budge unless the man promised not to beat her. Whether through fear of losing the respect of other villagers, all of whom adored the boy and his adult ways, or of upsetting the ancestors who’d delivered this remarkable child to him, Angwan never found out. With him around, Little Peach was never harmed; because of her younger brother, life was not only bearable, it was enjoyable to the very end.

  Eight years before, when the flux swept through every village in the province, Little Peach died. Just fourteen, a good marriage had been planned for her through Angwan. The boy, then twelve, had adopted the role of marriage maker. Everyone knew he would one day take over as village priest. The girl’s father would be able to afford a sizeable dowry; although not the prettiest girl in the village, and completely unable to weave
or produce any item of clothing anyone would wish to wear let alone buy, Angwan found a good match for her.

  She succumbed to the flux four days before the wedding ceremony. Angwan prayed, he wept... he even went to the Buddhist temple near the lotus lake to turn the prayer wheel, for he knew about Buddhist ways from his father’s friend, Farmer Li, but nothing could be done. That Little Peach was struck down on the fourth day before her wedding meant the child was doomed, four being the most unlucky of all numbers. Her brother was at her side with their mother, talking to her, telling the stories that she loved, until that very last breath emerged from her thin parched body.

  Angwan’s anger over his sister’s death still showed eight years after the event, but for Feier it filled a cultural gap between them. Her own anger following her mother’s death from the same flux had never gone away. Her baba always tried to avoid the topic whenever she questioned him, but this young man listened to every word as she set free years of frustration over death, the Buddha and life without a mother. The same illness that had prized each child from the one he or she most loved now seemed to bring them even closer together.

  “I have a mother who would love to gain a daughter!” Angwan remarked.

  Feier halted and watched as two boys chased one another around the bamboo stems. Why did he say that? And could she ever be mother to such lively boys?

  “How did you... you know... after your sister died?” she asked, walking on. “Cope?” The girl nodded.

  “Someone appeared in my life,” he replied. Someone?

  Feier flashed her distress at him before looking away. “So different from the others. Clever, with a mind of her own, a smile that melted my insides until they could take whatever shape or pattern she might wish for them. And a beauty rarely seen in these parts. Even in Hangzhou she’d be sought after! Although she and I were too young, for she was but a small child then, I knew I could now at last move on, leave my dear sister to her fate and, well, hope that some day... “

  “Does Farmer Li know this?” interrupted Feier with bitterness. “You’d surely both be old enough now. Why won’t you marry this rare beauty you speak of instead of Xiapeng? Does her father not approve?”

  Feier’s jealousy of the mysterious, unnamed woman sharpened her voice. It sounded detached, almost rasping. Angwan laughed.

  “He doesn’t know... and neither does she!”

  “You shouldn’t play games like this. Uncle Li told me Xiaopeng is to be your wife. It’s been arranged. This other woman, she’d be no more than a concubine and village people don’t have concubines!”

  “He told you this, did he? Pah! He and my mother, they have no idea! Xiaopeng will make a good wife for a man wedded to his water buffalo. But me? No way! Why do you think I spent a month in a Buddhist monastery?”

  “Why? So, well, perhaps you fear... I don’t know... fear for your soul? After death? No path to follow, perhaps?”

  “Nonsense! Like I said, her father doesn’t know now but soon he will if Fate delivers him back to her. He’s a Buddhist. So is she. At heart. There must be nothing about her that is unknown to me when I make my intentions clear. Already I’ve learned from the monks all I need to about her ways and beliefs.”

  “This sounds so wrong. Besides, Farmer Li is the only Buddhist in your village.”

  “Who said she comes from my village?”

  Feier remained silent. Now she wished Xiaopeng would return, and this other woman, whoever she was, would disappear forever. If her friend and Angwan should marry, at least she’d have an excuse to continue to see him.

  “Feier, I can’t believe you don’t know who this girl is! After what happened.”

  “That? Oh no! Please! It’s nothing to do with me! I’ll hear no more about this. Why, poor Uncle Li would be devastated to hear you speak of it! Not another word, I beg of you!”

  “Feier! Every day when you awaken, you hear her. You hear the crane that should be set free. She speaks to you all the time in that pretty head of yours! Since I was twelve and she was six, I’ve not wished to even look at another girl. Every week she used to come to our village and brighten it up. After she’d left with her father for her own village on the other side of the lotus lake I would long for that day to happen again the next week. A week always seemed far too long to wait, but I learned to be patient.” Feier stood still, staring fixedly at the ground.

  “You mock me!” she accused, but there was no anger in her voice; only a fear that none of what she’d heard was true.

  “Mock? Why should I do that? You asked for me to speak plainly, so why do you berate me?”

  Feier felt confused. The last thing on earth she wanted was to upset the man, but he’d already said enough to split apart her fragile life, alienate those she loved the most and, worst of all, have her beaten to death or banished forever from the province.

  “What you say is impossible!” she said before hurriedly taking off again towards the hill that separated them from the Miao village rice fields. There was a determination in her step that belied her inner bewilderment. He called after her, the very words she wanted to hear:

  “No path is impossible. You, a Buddhist, should know that!”

  She worked hard for Farmer Li over the next two weeks. It seemed to her this might make amends for what the young priest had said. The farmer was amazed at the girl’s dedication to duty and daily grind; the rice harvest was gathered at twice the speed his own daughter could achieve, and still the child had the energy to walk to the Han village and back six days a week where she produced exquisite flowing calligraphy with hands chaffed raw by toiling in the fields, cleaning, washing and cooking. Not once did the farmer’s daughter complain, and not once did she let down her guard about her secret: that she loved the young priest with a fire fierce enough to consume the largest of celestial dragons. Like everyone else in the village, Farmer Li was bewitched by the girl’s deer eyes and gentle smile.

  But the girl and the priest shared another secret, one too terrible for either to mention, not even in the privacy of the open road between the two villages.

  ***

  Jinjin slipped down from the back of the cart after the trader had tethered the old nag to a spreading ginkgo tree at the edge of the Miao village. He crawled on hands and knees and hid behind the tree’s broad trunk from where he peered cautiously as Chen Jiabiao dismounted and handed the trader a string of coppers. The trader headed towards the village whilst Chen went to the rear of the cart and removed several sack-cloths, one of which, moments earlier, had been Jinjin’s only protection. A voice called out from a pig-shed beside the nearest house. The trader halted. Three guards wearing imperial yellow and purple emerged from the shed and ran to the trader. Strings of coins changed hands, the trader rejoined Chen Jiabiao beside the cart whilst two guards ran back to the pig-shed and the third ran on into the village. The squeals issuing from the shed were definitely not porcine. Soon, each guard appeared with a kicking, struggling bundle draped over his shoulder and ran with it to the cart. Chen Jiabiao wasted no time. He smothered both girls in sackcloths, thus rendering their fraught cries inaudible to anyone further than a few paces away. The guards helped Chen and the trader push the girls into the cart, covering them with more sackcloths. The trader climbed in after them, crouched down and whispered something to the writhing double-humped mound. What he said must have terrified the girls for they immediately went quiet.

  There was an agonised shout from the village. The trader looked up. Moments later, the third guard reappeared from beyond the first clutch of village buildings. In one hand he gripped a red-stained sword, a girl’s head held firm under his other arm as he dragged her along, backwards. The trader leapt from the cart, ran to meet the guard and covered the struggling child with another sackcloth before roughly tossing her into the cart to join her village sisters. The girl’s captor cleaned his sword
on the sackcloth, the smeared blood of possibly a father or brother her last link with the Miao village and the only world she and her two friends had ever known.

  Chen Jiabiao clambered into the back of the cart as the trader turned the old nag around and coaxed her along the track towards the Chang’an road. After binding the sobbing girls together with rope, he crawled up front to sit beside the trader. Meanwhile, the three imperial guards mounted horses tethered to fencing behind the pig-pen, kicked them into action and sped on past the ginkgo tree and the trader’s cart in the direction of the imperial city. Shrieks from the village informed Jinjin the body of a slaughtered village man must have been discovered. The trader whipped the old nag into a laboured trot and Jinjin followed, slinking unseen from tree to tree, more determined than ever to see his plan through. His desire for female beauty aroused, nothing would prevent Fate from delivering to him a girl far more lovely than those pretty Miao villagers.

  Out on the road to Chang’an, keeping up with the cart was easy, for the horse soon slowed to a pace befitting her age. The boy’s main concern was about being spotted and suspected. He’d already witnessed evidence of these men’s brutality. Fortunately, Chen Jiabiao and the trader were too engrossed in conversation to turn round and check on their precious booty, for on stretches of open road he would surely have been seen. They passed through several villages unchallenged. Perhaps, Jinjn wondered, the men were known. Had the White Tiger League already claimed territory on the way to Chang’an? The boy neither cared nor fretted about the distance involved as long as he learned where they were taking the Miao girls. His reward: the right to wed the most beautiful girl in his province - and maybe the whole of China. The emperor would ensure the teacher offered no objection. With the courage of a tiger he could do anything.

  The first evening the boy slept in the street. Chen Jiabiao and the trader had entered the courtyard of a small monastery at the edge of town. The boy remembered the teacher’s suggestion about certain monks being in collusion with the abductors of Miao girls and wondered whether the place was a safe haven where the captive girls could be fed, bathed and groomed for an uncertain future. Jinjin soon found another street urchin to prick for information. Tempting the lad with a bun stolen from Wong Wenling’s kitchen, he fabricated a story about being in the pay of imperial officials to spy on two brigands who had entered the monastery with a cart-load of illegal produce. The boy, a stocky lad named Kong [14], was made to swear he would keep watch on the monastery and awaken Jinjin should they show any sign of wishing to leave town.