A Single Petal Read online

  “Look, the man was a Han. One of our own! Why would someone in our village want him dead? It’s got to be one of the monks. or maybe a bitter official targeting the governor. No-one else I know could be involved. Merchant Chang was a brave man. Too brave, it seems.”

  Feier brought a steaming cup of tea over to Yueloong and put it care-fully down on the floor beside him.

  “You also, baba?” she asked, turning to her father. He nodded.

  “Wait!” Yueloong said, holding up his hand. “Feier, Xiaopeng always speaks so highly of you. No Miao girl could equal the praise she showers on your name.” Uncertainty shadowed Feier’s face when she glanced at her father. It seemed both knew what the farmer was about to suggest. “Would you, Feier, in return for her praise, do everything within your power to get Xiaopeng back?”

  “Yes, Uncle Yueloong. Of course I would.”

  ‘Uncle’ was a term of respect often used for the friend of a parent, although the girl had never addressed Chang in such a way.

  “Wait a minute, Yueloong. I think we should leave my own daughter out of this. Just because...”

  The farmer raised his hand for the other man to first hear him out.

  “You wonder whether I too blame your villagers. I don’t. But I’m a lone voice here. For fighting to break out between our villages would only add misery to sorrow. You’ve a score to settle with Fate who took your friend. Feier wants her friend back. I need help here with the rice harvest. If Feier stays behind with me whilst you track down those taking our girls, our men may believe me. We might avoid a conflict that could destroy us all.”

  Dumbfounded, Feng gaped open-mouthed at Yueloong.

  “Baba?”

  Feier’s expression of delight took him by surprise. “You’re threatening to take my daughter hostage?” Feng felt cornered. Why was Feier smiling?

  “Nothing of the kind, Teacher Feng. You and your beautiful child are free to go home whenever you wish. I merely wanted to relieve you of the burden of yet more guilt. Should our men carry out their threat, set fire to your village, and should you and your daughter survive, then further guilt would weigh even more heavily on your shoulders... that you, and perhaps only you, could have prevented such a waste of life.”

  “Baba, please! I’d do anything for Xiaopeng. I may not be of much use in the fields but I could keep house for my friend’s father, and.” She paused.

  It was the ‘and’ that troubled Feng. He thought back to Chang’s description of his daughter’s womanly attributes. He and Yueloong had always thought as one, and his friend must have seen the concern in his eyes.

  “She’s but a child, Feng. Still wears her hair long. Anyone who so much as thinks of touching her in that way would face pain of death - after first feeling the force of my anger!”

  Feng, outnumbered and taken aback by Feier’s response, had little choice left.

  “Where will she sleep?” he asked uneasily, taking in the intimacy of the farmer’s single room.

  “Well, it’s me who’ll sleep with the pigs, if that’s what you’re wondering. Unless the girl would prefer it the other way round!”

  “But the school?”

  In his struggle to find an excuse not to leave Feier behind he’d hit upon the one reason for her to stay.

  “Precisely!” replied the farmer. “No-one else in either of our villages knows as many characters as your daughter. Why, you’ve packed so much knowledge into that brain of hers she could even teach the Emperor’s children.”

  “Uncle Yueloong’s right. I could do it! For Xiaopeng’s sake,” agreed Feier.

  “The children in our village as well?”

  “Why not? I could walk with the Miao children to our village every day and bring them back in the evening. If the children become friends the adults are hardly likely to want to fight, are they? You said someone might have been stealing the Miao girls to cause unrest between us. Well, it would be like the exact opposite if we come together. Then they might bring Xiaopeng and the other girls back!”

  Feng smiled at his daughter’s childish logic, realising she could be right about the separate communities coming together through the children. Besides, there was no real alternative; it would be far too dangerous to take the child with him to Chang’an and they had no relatives in the Han village to look after her. To leave her at the mercy of the marriage maker was unthinkable.

  “But Merchant Chang... his body impaled by the bamboo pole... picked over by wild animals... How will you protect...?” he began, still trawling his mind for a reason to hold on to his daughter.

  “We’ve got men here so angered at losing their wives every devil in hell would fear them! They’ll accompany Feier and the children. No harm will come to them.”

  “But your harvest? You said you needed my daughter’s help with the harvest!”

  “The children will return when the sun’s still high. A strong girl like Feier can do twice as much work as little Xiaopeng.”

  Defeated, Feng sat beside Yueloong, shaking his head. He began to move his tea cup in curious circles on the dusty floor. Feier came over and hugged him.

  “Baba, I will be all right. Don’t worry about me. I know how important this is to you. Go tomorrow! Without me to hold you back. See the prefec-tural magistrate... the Governor himself if you have to. I believe in you, baba. You can’t bring Merchant Chang back to life but you will return little Xiaopeng to her father!”

  Feng knew how headstrong the girl was and for this he could only blame himself. Her force of spirit came from him; how ironical that his determination to treat girls and boys as equals should rebound on him like this. He’d have to leave her behind for she allowed him no other option and he would worry about her every minute of every day. That would become his penance for causing the other friend’s death; but could it also be a driving force, his reward for finding Xiaopeng, to see his beautiful daughter again?

  Who knows, he thought to himself, perhaps in my travels I might meet a young man worthy of her?

  Only Feier knew the true reason for her wish to stay behind in the Mi-ao village.

  ***

  The path to Houzicheng left the valley of rice fields, a carpet of patchwork greens that spread out from the perimeter of the Miao village to the blue distant mountains, and ascended a steep escarpment. After climbing the first of three hills separating the valley from the plain of Houzicheng, the teacher stopped to rest on a half-moon bridge spanning the steep-banked, fast-flowing Five Crane Stream. He brought Mimi to a halt and, with the bamboo pole that had impaled the merchant serving as a staff, clambered down to a narrow waterfall to fill his flasks.

  How his daughter adored Mimi. It had been the donkey who’d made the merchant’s visits tolerable for the child, but it was Feier who insisted her father take Mimi with him to Houzicheng where he would demand to meet with the prefectural magistrate.

  “Baba, you must take her! I insist! You can’t possibly go alone!” the child had told him. “Besides, she’ll keep you company, carry your bag-gage... and remind you.”

  Remind me?

  Feng knew what she meant. Like the bamboo pole, the donkey should have reminded him of Merchant Chang and his purpose. But Mimi made him think only of Feier. She loved the beast, and in Mimi’s baskets were bundles of clothes, blankets and neat packages of food the child had made to last him several days. He promised Farmer Li he’d be back with Xiao-peng before the passing of three moons. An empty promise, for he’d sworn he’d only return with Xiaopeng; both knew they might never see each other again.

  ‘I insist!’ the girl had said when they’d argued over who should keep Mimi.

  Just like Meili. She was always insisting upon things. Feng couldn’t remember ever having refused her, but a mere child like Feier insisting so?

  Child no longer! Woman, and a
part of Meili, her virtue entrusted to Yue-loong?

  That was surely the greatest esteem he could have granted his Miao friend; or had guilt left him dangerously weakened?

  As for Feier, Feng was proud she’d shown not a flicker of disrespect for his deceased friend since coming across the gruesome scene near the lotus lake. She had hated the man as much as Feng had admired him, but she overcame that hatred out of regard for the dead. She’d promised to burn incense for his spirit every seven days, although not at the temple. Feng had instructed her not to go anywhere near the place until he’d got to the root of the sordid business. Yueloong, a Buddhist convert, had a small image of the Buddha on a shelf above Xiaopeng’s bed where Feier would be sleeping. She’d be able to burn incense in front of that image, small though it was.

  A woman indeed and already a teacher! In a strange way, Feng welcomed his escape from the daily grind of teaching. It gave him time to think more about his own particular worries about Feier, and would perhaps give him a chance to grow strong for his daughter for without Meili he now needed every sinew of strength he could muster to secure her happiness.

  He packed cool water flasks into one of the bamboo baskets before urging Mimi along the stepped path on the other side of the bridge. Not once did she falter or show any of the obstinacy usually expected of her species. Somehow the donkey seemed to connect him with Feier, for Feng was sure the love between child and beast was mutual. It must have been for Feier that Mimi kept on going, her head nodding in time with the obedient clop of her hooves on the stony ground.

  The only person he met after he and Mimi had climbed two more hills was an old woman bearing a stack of brushwood on her back, so large she resembled a dead bush walking on bent little legs. She acknowledged him with a token nod of the head. Anything requiring greater exertion might have finished her off, thought Feng, although there was something endear-ingly tough about her time-worn, shrivelled old body. That she’d ever been young and beautiful like Feier was inconceivable, but she gave the impres-sion she clung to life like a vine to a tree. Behind a rough, contour-lined face that gave little away there seemed to be a determination as fierce as any warrior’s, and after she’d passed him by Feng resolved to draw inspira-tion from the old woman. Like her, he’d never give up. Friend Chang would be avenged, Xiaopeng would be freed and returned to her father and he would be reunited with Feier.

  On the other side of the third and steepest hill, steps led down to the outskirts of Houzicheng. Feng had given little thought to the absence of other travellers over the hills, but the emptiness of the narrow streets of the town puzzled him; mid-morning and they should have been bustling with traders, merchants, wives, mothers and playing children. Perhaps his memory was playing tricks, but that was how he’d always perceived Houzicheng: a teeming sprawl of streets wedged between the rammed-earth walls of houses, winding alleys alive with the shouts of men and women and the laughter and noise of their little charges. But he’d not visited the provincial town since before Meili had died. Maybe it was Meili’s very presence then that had, in his mind, made the place seem so bright, so cheerful, so energised.

  He led the faithful Mimi though a cut that stank of urine and stale food to the market place in front of the temple. It was here that the whole population of Houzicheng and the surrounding district appeared to have gathered. Many market stalls had been abandoned, their wares trustingly protected only by frayed, torn covers.

  “What’s up?” Feng asked a fruit seller.

  “What indeed?” echoed the man. “The new magistrate has gone to pray. For even more riches, no doubt! And he has the governor with him. Word soon got around, seems like half the world wants to take a look at the fellow. See if he’s as ugly as the last one. Me, I couldn’t care a damn. They’re all the same, anyway. Corrupt as a monkey’s backside!”

  “New magistrate? And the old one? What’s happened to him? Called to higher office in Chang’an?”

  “Well, there’s stories and stories, and stories within stories. No-one really knows.”

  “Stories?”

  Feng wondered about the missing Miao girls. Did they, the officials, know? Had his job already been done for him? Would he now be able to collect Xiaopeng and return to Yueloong and Feier?

  “Is it about...?” he began.

  “Can’t say! No-one dares speak it... only that it’s to do with what’s hap-pening out in the west.”

  Feng knew about the grumbling troubles with western Turks and Tibetans, but everyone knew. There was no secret about their irritating incursions into Chinese territory since the government had grown soft under Tang rule. He shrugged his shoulders, disappointed. He led Mimi to the animal drinking trough beside the well, and from there followed the track along the river bank to the inn where he and Meili would always stay when he’d been studying for the civil service examinations. He tied Mimi to a post at the entrance and called out. A portly man with untidy, greying hair emerged from the shadows and stared at Feng awhile before his fat face lit up with a smile of genuine recognition.

  “Student Feng! My old friend! And where’s your beautiful wife? Mei...er?”

  “Wong Yungchin! I’m so pleased you’re still here. I feared... well everything seems so very different.”

  “Me still here? It’d take more than a hundred drunken soldiers to get rid of me! No, make that a thousand! So you’ve brought a donkey instead of your wife, friend Feng!” the inn-keeper chuckled.

  Feng looked down at the ground. He’d always felt a pang of shame at being the one who’d survived the epidemic, as if it was his fault that Feier was motherless.

  “Feng? Did I say the wrong thing? Mei... um... your wife... she’s all right, ay? You were the envy of the town to have a woman so beautiful, you know!”

  The teacher slowly shook his head. “She’s not well? Just a passing affliction, for sure!” Feng glanced up at the innkeeper and the other man saw it in his eyes, as he had with Yueloong.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, so very sorry. When? How?”

  “The flux. Remember? That great epidemic? When half our village got wiped out. Happened just before I was due to attend for the civil service examination. I couldn’t... could not go through with it. I...”

  “You? The brightest student in the whole province? What...?”

  “They were very understanding. No blows of the rod. Gave me a hum-ble job as village teacher instead. They thought that was punishment enough, I suppose, but in truth... “ Feng found the strength to grin. “I have a daughter. Remember? The girl got her looks from her mother and her learning from me. She helps me in the school now. We go together to the Miao village where... “

  Feng stopped short. He knew Wong to be a trustworthy man, but the wall? Could he trust the walls in a town that now seemed so foreign. Did they have ears?

  “Just a room for myself, friend Wong. For as long as it takes.” “As long as it takes? You always were a hard man to fathom, friend Feng. But you can have your old room. Where you and Mei... er... “

  “Meili.”

  “... you and Meili always slept.”

  Oh, to sleep again with the ghost of Meili!

  If only the spirit of dreams could have given him that one last comfort, a night of bliss again with his young wife. Nevertheless, it was the best room in the shabby old inn and such kindness showed the regard Wong had for him. He decided to tell the man the truth at the right time and when he was certain the walls had no ears.

  Innkeeper Wong helped him in with his bags, took Mimi across the courtyard and fed her whilst Feng stretched out on the bed in his room, resting his weary head on the ceramic pillow of a pig. The last time he’d lain there with Meili the pillow was of a chubby little boy resting on his tummy with his feet in the air. When Meili had mentioned this in the morning a younger, slimmer, fitter-looking Wong had joked that the pillow would help her bring
a healthy young male child into the world as a com-panion for their daughter. But as Feng lay there, his eyes following the patterns made by ceiling cracks, the very same that Meili would have seen, he thought back over his life with Feier and came to the conclusion no other child, male or female, could have given him as much happiness as his daughter had.

  Or as much worry!

  He dozed off thinking about Feier and awoke, still thinking about her, to a background of noisy chatter in the tavern downstairs. The rice noodles at Wong’s inn were legendary in that part of the prefecture thanks to Yungchin’s wife, Wenling, and it sounded as if the crowd thronging the temple grounds had shifted to the tavern. Doubtless each man would have something to say about the new magistrate and Feng felt it would be wise to listen in on the gossip before seeking audience with the man the follow-ing day. Perhaps to find out what had happened to his predecessor would be a good starting point. Also, the smell of Wenling’s cooking was exerting a powerful pull on his nostrils.

  Wong Yungchin spotted Feng standing reticently in the doorway of the crowded downstairs tavern. There wasn’t a single empty seat. No-one else seemed aware of his presence as customers jabbered through moutfuls of noodles and hot plum wine. The innkeeper beckoned to Feng and made a space for him beside a wiry man with a fox face who was sounding forth on rumours of compulsory conscription to military service for those unable to pay the increasing burden of taxation.

  “Something’s afoot, I’m telling you,” the fox-faced man complained to an older man with a droopy moustache sitting opposite them. He glanced sideways at Feng. “What do you think, friend?” he asked.

  “I’m only a teacher,” Feng replied. “I have no opinions on such matters.”

  “A head full off calligraphy characters and poems about clouds and pretty flowers, eh? Well, teacher, things are happening outside that head of yours, and it’s not good, I can tell you.”