A Single Petal Read online

  “I can’t think how Jinjin could help you out. Anyway, I’ve not seen him this morning. Maybe he’ll turn up this evening, maybe not.”

  “This evening? Oh, never mind! As you say, what could an urchin boy do? I’ve got to get to Chang’an, you see.”

  “Chang’an? Whoever heard of such a thing! Has that boy been putting idiotic notions into your head?”

  “No, but he might’ve been some sort of company, however irritating I find him.”

  “Look, I’ve a nice soup on the boil. Just sit down. I’ll get you something to eat, and you and me, we can get a few things straight. Chang’an, my foot! Why, people are being murdered all the time! The emperor would never be able to get on with his work if the imperial city was swamped by the friends of those who’d had their lives taken unlawfully. As for the missing Miao girls, it’s not for us Han folk to interfere!”

  Feng sat at a table and Wenling disappeared off into the kitchen. Of course she wouldn’t understand and perhaps he’d told her too much already. Pity about Jinjin, though; despite the urchin’s cheek enquiring into Feier, there was something endearing about his eagerness to listen and offer solutions. The boy must have taken umbrage at being abruptly cut off the previous night. Feng realised he’d been petty to overreact over Feier. He needed more self-control, but the mere mention of the girl’s name clawed at his insides. How else could he have responded?

  As he awaited Wenling’s return, he wondered what his child would be doing that very moment. Preparing breakfast for Yueloong? Hopefully she’d not disgrace herself with her lack of culinary skills. He regretted he’d not approached one of the village women to teach her the arts of being a good wife, but recalled his fear of losing the girl by handing over that small responsibility. Now it was too late; quite possibly this selfishness had jeopardised her chances of a good match.

  Wenling re-emerged from the kitchen with a bowl of soup, some dried pork and rice cake.

  “Look, I was hard on you just now,” she said. “About Chang’an. It’s just that Yungchin and I care. We care about all our guests. Chang’an’s a dangerous place. Surely one murder’s enough! And you have your daugh-ter to think about. Just tell the new prefectural magistrate. That’s what he’s paid for. Leave it to him. Anyway, he’ll know all about the Miao girls like the rest of us. Perhaps he’s come up with a solution already. In which case you’d be wasting your time. and your life.”

  “I thought your husband didn’t think much of the new guy.”

  “Oh, that’s just Yungchin. Suspicious of all officials. And change. Who can blame him with new taxes being imposed each year? Look, leave it all to the magistrate and get back to your daughter. Believe me, as one who’s had to endure life without a child nothing could be more precious.”

  She must have been reading Feng’s mind. He’d been wondering how Feier would cope as surrogate daughter to a Miao farmer, for this whole exercise was about reuniting Miao parents with missing Miao daughters.

  “You really think the magistrate knows something?”

  “More than the emperor would wish him to know, I’d guess.”

  Feng was reluctant to mention the thousand petals. She’d only accuse him of insanity. She was a good woman, jolly and friendly, but he’d never thought of her as seeing any further than the walls of her own inn. Be-sides, he knew the risk he’d already taken by suggesting to the urchin the emperor’s throne was at stake. With the boy gone, he silently cursed himself. Getting to Chang’an as quickly as possible seemed all the more urgent.

  “A horse? Do you know where I can find a horse?”

  Wenling folded her arms and looked at him quizzically.

  “A horse, huh? Why, I saw a nice pottery horse in the market just yes-terday! Some grave robber at work, no doubt, but if you hurry it might still be there.”

  Noticing him frown, she came up and rested a hand on his shoulder. Her eyes, the eyes of a kind woman but not particularly bright, displayed genuine concern.

  “Any other sort of horse and I fear you may never see that daughter of yours again,” she added.

  Feng finished his breakfast in silence. He settled up with Wenling, for Wong had gone early to market to get in fresh produce for the day. There was no further mention of a horse, of Chang’an or the prefectural magis-trate. Feng asked again whether Jinjin had shown up, but the inn-keeper’s wife only raised her eyebrows and shrugged her shoulders. She filled his water flasks, gave him rice cake wrapped in leaves and for the last time warned him to return home to his daughter.

  Feng led Mimi out into the street and searched the locality for the ur-chin boy. The sun had already risen above Three Monkey Mountain and he resigned himself to journeying alone without the annoying youth. Perhaps not such a bad thing if Jinjin hadn’t already spilt the beans. Also, Feng would have hit the boy were he to make any more remarks about Feier.

  He remembered well the old prefectural magistrate’s house. Their last meeting was when he went to register his intention to sit the civil service examination and, although the old magistrate had been as ugly as a bad-tempered monkey, Feng respected the man. But this new fellow? And why all that palaver at the temple?

  He tied Mimi to a post in the courtyard and made an acceptably short bow to the manservant who’d come to greet him.

  “I’m Teacher Feng,” he introduced himself. “I knew the old magistrate well and wish to speak with his replacement on a matter of urgency and great secrecy.”

  “Ni chile ma?” the man asked.

  Why do we Han always ask whether someone’s eaten ? As if I’d come to the prefectural magistrate’s house only to enjoy a meal!

  “Yes. And the magistrate?”

  “Indeed! Hold your arms apart.”

  The long sleeves of his tunic hung limply as Feng held his arms wide whilst the manservant frisked him for knives. Never before had he gone through anything like that.

  “This way, Teacher Feng. May I ask if it’s about your pay, for these are hard times? We don’t want to be wasting the magistrate’s time.”

  “Like I said. Urgent and secret.”

  Feng always found the minions of minor officials irritating.

  “Only warning you! As you’ll already know, our last magistrate was a forgiving man. Not so the new fellow. I wouldn’t like you to end up with fifty blows of the thin rod for annoying him.”

  What Feng had to say about the murder and the disappearing Miao girls could hardly be construed as time-wasting, but a request for a horse? He followed the servant into a large room at the far end of the courtyard. How changed it was. He remembered the same room hung with scrolls of poems and paintings, for the ugly old magistrate who’d been so sympathet-ic after Meili’s death had been a patron of the arts. The walls of the reception room were now bare, the Tang figurines gone; only a low, empty table of simple design, a large, sturdy chair, and a bamboo mat on the floor. The room even smelled of cleanliness; a total absence of any discernible scent, pleasant or foul, that spoke of human habitation. There was something unnerving about a building devoid of human smells.

  As Feng stood and waited, standing in front of the mat, he practised in his mind the speech he would deliver:

  ‘Magistrate Minsheng, I have a matter of serious concern to report to you... erm...’

  But what if the magistrate were to reply: ‘And I have a thousand matters each a thousand times more serious awaiting my attention!’? A more direct approach?

  ‘Esteemed Magistrate Minsheng, I fear for the emperor’s safety, for the murder of my friend Merchant Chang on the other side of Three Monkey Mountain must surely be linked to the disappearances of girls from the homes of our Miao brothers, and... erm...’

  How was he going to make his theory about the thousand petals sound credible when it was no more than a hunch?

  Most esteemed Magistrate Minshe
ng, there is something I feel I must discuss with you, for no-one else can be trusted on this matter. There’s been a murder. A good friend of mine was killed with a bamboo stake near the lotus lake on the other side of Three Monkey Mountain. I’d enlisted his help to track down evil men who are stealing girls from the Miao villages, and...’

  “Teacher Feng! We meet again!”

  Feng turned. His jaw dropped when he saw the broad-framed figure of Magistrate Minsheng in the doorway. The man looked so very different in a long elegant purple and green silk gown, embroidered with two white cranes, and the tall, forward-curved black hat of office. So changed from the shaven head and simple yellow and brown monk’s gown when he’d last seen the very same man at the monastery near the lotus lake; there were more lines in that inscrutable face, but it was most certainly him.

  “Why, I... I... my friend... um... Miao girls...” Feng stuttered, bowing respectfully. His prepared speech fragmented into isolated syllables that emerged from his lips like meaningless bubbles.

  “And after such a long time! I now see we didn’t pay you enough, for surely otherwise you’d have seen fit to come and offer a little more pittance to us poor monks back then!”

  There were three guards outside in the courtyard. Any attempt to make a run for it and the teacher would have been cut down and Feier rendered instantly fatherless as well as motherless. Minsheng stared coldly at him.

  “My daughter. Feier. So upset after her mother’s death. She... well, it was hard for her. And the Temple always reminded her... about... you see, she thought... she always hoped... “

  The ex-monk’s broad-cheeked face slowly contorted into an icy grin.

  “Teacher Feng, you have no need to make excuses! The good work you’re doing is known throughout the province. Indeed, word of it was even sent to the emperor by my predecessor. Educating girls as well as boys? Why did no-one else think of that?”

  Uncertain how to react, Feng gave another bow. He’d never before bowed to a monk and, however much finery adorned that huge frame, the other man would in his mind always be a monk.

  “But this, I understand, is not about pay, right? My servant has already briefed me.”

  Magistrate Minsheng went over to the seat on the other side of the table.

  “Kneel, Teacher Feng. On the mat. My servant will bring us tea. And my ears, for the time being, belong to you.”

  Feng knelt on the rough bamboo mat and looked timidly up at the imposing figure looming behind the table. Minsheng seemed a man liable to flip from one mood to another without the least warning. Predictably unpredictable! As for his remark about the monastery... why? All the teacher could do was to tread cautiously.

  Minsheng laughed.

  “I see you’re wondering what a monk is doing here in a government post. I’ll put you out of your misery, teacher. I was never truly a monk, you see. Buddhist, yes, but monk... well, let’s just say that after the troubles we had under the previous emperor, I was sent to find out what they got up to in our monasteries. Good money ending up in their coffers, land being bought up all over again. Honesty isn’t something that resides comfortably with the monks. They could learn from the master of Shandong... and, it seems, from our honourable and humble Teacher Feng on the other side of Three Monkey Mountain.”

  Feng remained bowed forwards on the mat, wondering where this was leading. He recalled Minsheng as the large monk who never said a word, only stood and stared, and that stare seemed to take in everyone and everything at the same time.

  “So? Why have you come to annoy me?”

  The teacher’s mentally-prepared speech fragmented into disconnected words and phrases: “Miao girls... Feier’s friend, Xiaopeng, disappeared... bamboo pole... half-eaten face... the merchant... his donkey, Mimi.”

  “Ha-ha-ha-ha!” guffawed Minsheng. “Donkey indeed! What a player! They ought to employ you as the emperor’s clown. I’ve no idea what you’re talking about but it’s all very funny.” Suddenly his smile vanished, he leaned forward and fixed Feng with that stare the teacher remembered so well. “Just tell me why I shouldn’t detach your head from your body here and now, clown!”

  Feng, his head still down, looked at the ground beside his knees. His eyes traced patterns in the stone, and he thought how strangely beautiful they were - and how permanent that beauty seemed for, should Mingsheng choose to remove his head, those patterns would remain. No-one could change them or rub them out. A tiny bug crawled into his field of view and meandered across one of the patterns, so fragile against that permanence, and Feng prayed for the bug; prayed Mingsheng wouldn’t stamp on the little creature before slicing through his own neck with a sword, for the ex-monk seemed to be that sort of a man, one who reviled rather than re-spected life. A Buddhist, he’d said? Men like him were no closer to Nirvana than the little bug was to Chang’an. He calmed himself.

  “I believe our emperor to be in danger and...” Feng glanced up and into that stare. “And I’m so relieved it’s you, honourable Magistrate Minsheng, for I remember how careful, how wise you were at the monastery.” Minsheng’s expressionless face told Feng nothing and gave no reassurance. “If it’s true... if there is a plot to kill the emperor, then China may be thrown into chaos,” he continued. “There are hordes of Western Turks and Tibetans waiting to take the lands guarded by the great White Tiger of the west...” Feng looked at the man for a flicker of response and saw nothing. “And to the north, if our armies are weakened in the west, the generals in Dongbei [10] might... well, no-one would be safe!”

  Mingsheng turned and left the room, leaving Feng kneeling, trembling. He returned with a wide-bladed sword and the same blankly grim expression, halting in the doorway almost filled by the man’s bulk. Feng knew his time was up, his life reduced to the distance between the doorway and his neck. Six Mimi’s should have fitted into that distance, nose to tail. He prayed Minsheng would cover the distance slowly, as would Mimi. How Mimi loved Feier. Everyone loved Feier. Minsheng had covered half the distance already... three Mimis. level with the table... three Mimis left. A life of three Mimis... oh, forgive me, little Feier...

  “Stand up!”

  Feng stood, shaking. Why kill me standing - and here? What about the mess?

  Minsheng erupted into laughter, prodding Feng’s belly with the point of his sword.

  “Too much rice, huh? That lovely daughter of yours feeds you too well.”

  How did Minsheng know he was widowed? Meili died after the man had departed from the monastery. But what did it matter... his head would soon be a bloodied ball rolling on the floor, his body useless like that of Chang. His mind danced with images of Feier finding the merchant’s corpse, of her with Yueloong, in the fields, preparing his meals, and teach-ing. He prayed to Buddha his trust in his friend had not been misguided and that she’d be well looked after, given happiness through marriage to someone strong and wise and gentle. He’d been let down so often he hardly knew what to think as further images floated and danced and teased a mind about to be extinguished like a flickering lamp: the inn, Wenling then Jinjin. Had that boy betrayed his confidence to this monster? If so, why?

  But Minsheng did not slice off his head. Instead, he slapped him on the back as if he were a long-lost friend and laughed again.

  “Don’t look so worried, teacher. You might need this - not that you’ll know how to use one.”

  He took Feng’s hand, prised open the clenched fingers and placed the sword hilt into Feng’s grasp. The sword hung limp at Feng’s side as he stood feet apart, staring at the ground. Strange how he’d positioned himself like that, preparing himself for the cut of the blade as if it mattered that he shouldn’t fall until his body was headless.

  “And a horse!”

  Feng looked up.

  “With a horse you should make Chang’an within ten settings of the sun - only ten flights of the sun-b
ird of Di Jun, huh?”

  And he laughed again.

  Feng had never believed in the story of the ten sun-carrying birds being shot down by archer Yi to save the world from being turned into a fireball, leaving behind just one. In fact there were many ancient tales he did not believe were true. He only thought of these as pointers for souls on earth. A moment earlier he was standing legs astride, preparing and wondering; wondering about Heaven. Was there truly a paradise of unearthly beauty where the Jade Emperor ruled supreme, and where he and Meili might again find happiness together? Professing to believe in the Buddhist path to Nirva-na through the endless samsara of rebirth and death, he and Meili would probably never meet up again. And little Feier? His heart ached for both Meili and for Feier, but his mind, full of the words of the master of Shandong, was telling him nothing could be that easy. Heaven surely belonged only to those tales. Without further pain and suffering, truth could only mean emptiness of spirit and a space devoid of paths that led to happiness.

  “A horse?” Feng queried, his voice hushed.

  “Your donkey for a horse! To inform our emperor about the missing Miao girls and the death of your friend... and save China perhaps? Should you return successful, then I shall order new school buildings for both villages. The emperor himself will sanction it, of that I’m sure.”

  “Emperor? You’ve met him?”

  Minsheng’s smile vanished. The wrong damned question! But he was now the one with a weapon, and he gripped the sword firmly.

  “I know him well enough to warn you that if you put a foot wrong your pretty daughter will end up a slave in the palace. But you won’t, will you? I see how you stood feet apart when you thought you were about to lose your head. Most men would have crumpled to the ground, pleaded for mercy, grovelling like a woman. Succeed, and that daughter of yours may even find a place in my bed.”

  In a flash of anger, Feng took a step forwards, sword raised, but he halted. He saw mirth in Minsheng’s eyes. The man was playing with him. Besides, he was no more than a lowly prefectural magistrate. He had no power to take Feier by force. Succeed or not, it would be the emperor himself who would decide the girl’s fate.