A Single Petal Read online

  The trader led his horse towards the market place. He was in no hurry and Jinjin kept a safe distance. It was then that the boy spotted two other figures half-hidden in a doorway, one shaven-headed and wearing a monk’s robes. The trader left his horse at the roadside and walked over to them. An empty cart stood between the boy and the three men. Edging his way alongside the wall, Jinjin reached the cart, climbed in unnoticed and waited. The men, thinking they were alone, made no attempt to speak softly and Jinjin caught every word:

  “None of the other monks knows a thing!”

  “How can you be sure? You’ve seen who we’ve got as new prefectural magistrate!”

  “Minsheng? Oh, we can buy him off if necessary. Besides, he’ll go with the flow of the river, so to speak. I know the man!”

  “Hmmm! Pity about Chang! Mind you, we could use his murder to our advantage.”

  “How come?”

  “You’ll see! So, Jiabiao, has the time come? Are there enough to satisfy him? One a day for the next three years, ay?” “One a night, more like!”

  Jinjin heard laughter.

  “We’ve three more to pick up on the way back. With those girls, there’ll be a thousand of them. A thousand pretty petals, eh? Oh, to be an emperor! Then I’d only have to put up with my wife once every three years, the cantankerous old bitch. In the new court I’ll have the pick of the harem.

  They’ll all be going free because of the new man’s thing about Miao girls. Good luck to him, I say! So long as we all get our just rewards.”

  “Girls? Not interested myself! The cart’s ready. Over there. Just shackle it to your horse. The soldiers will be waiting at the edge of the Miao village in case of trouble. You know, this is going to be almost too easy. Nearly half the imperial guards have already defected to the new emperor.”

  Jinjin, in panic, found sacks intended for the Miao girls. He covered himself with one of these on hearing approaching footsteps.

  “Can’t call him that yet, Jiabiao!” the trader called back from beside the cart. “Could bring bad luck.”

  A heavy bag landed on Jinjin’s back, winding him, but he managed to suppress the urge to cry out. The cart jolted and jerked as the trader hitched it to the horse.

  “Hope the girls are as light as those others, Jiabiao! This bit of junk you call a cart weighs as much as a pile of dragon turd! Don’t want the old nag dropping dead on us.” He chuckled to himself, repeating ‘dragon turd’ several times. “I like it, I like it!” he added.

  The cart swayed forwards. Jinjin’s only option for staying alive was to stay as still as a corpse and jump clear at the first opportunity. He remained crouched underneath the sacks, his face bumping against the wooden floor. The sackcloth, used to restrain struggling pretty young women and girls, smelt of body odour. He’d never imagined girls could smell like that. Surely their adorable bodies should bear the fragrances of heavenly blossoms. Perhaps, he wondered, when overcome with panic they might give off a sickly, musty scent. The only females he’d ever got close enough to for his nostrils to take in their smells were his worn-down hag of a mother, silent slave to his sadistic father, and Wong Wenling at the inn, a whirling bundle of noodle-driven energy. Both stank of sweat right enough, but neither could, in Jinjin’s mind, be represented by those three beautiful calligraphy strokes for nu[12].

  But the teacher’s daughter, Feier, would be different. She would have the fragrance of a flower from heaven.

  ***

  Angwan refused to leave the schoolroom even when all the children were seated cross-legged in a semi-circle on the floor, with Feier on a cushion in front of her father’s sturdy, squat, teacher’s table, the scroll, the ink and calligraphy brushes neatly arranged before her.

  “I have strict instructions from Farmer Li to let neither you nor the children out of my sight!” he informed the girl.

  “But... “ Feier tried to think of something to say that might, within the confines of the schoolroom, hold together two things: her self-respect and Angwan. “But you must be busy now. Have things to do. Return when the sun starts to sink from its highest resting place in the sky. No harm can come to any of us in this village,” the girl said, secretly willing him to stay.

  “Do you know the murderer so well that you can tell?” The word sent a shiver through her body. She stared open-mouthed at the young priest’s smile, for it confused her.

  “No, but... “

  “No buts! Teach! I can think of no greater pleasure than to watch one particular teacher in action. Observe her every movement. Besides, some of our boys are a bit rusty in the Han language. You may need a translator.”

  Blushing scarlet, Feier began her lesson. She’d decided to go over characters with three brush strokes, starting with ‘nu’. Since Angwan was watching, it would need to be the most beautiful calligraphy she’d ever produced. At first, her brush trembled in her small hand, and all eyes, Angwan’s included, were trained on her, but as soon as the tip of her brush touched the scroll, everything baba had her taught her about technique, about control, took over. Her hand, as steady and certain as a farmer’s plough, traced the curved lines of ‘nu’, recreating the mystery of her gender in ink.

  “Bravo!” exclaimed Angwan. “Hold it up so your little charges may see the beauty of their teacher written in her brush strokes!”

  Trembling again, Feier obeyed, holding up the scroll for all to see.

  “Aaah!” gasped the children, taking their cue from the Miao village priest. And in the dusty ground in front of him, each child carefully scratched the character for ‘woman’ with a stick.

  “Remember, boys, the character you write is the most important you’ll ever learn,” continued Angwan. “One day that same character will either bear you on dragon clouds to paradise or down, down below the earth to a place of demons.”

  Feier looked away from Angwan, for his smile had left him.

  ***

  Feng tried to compare Farmer Li’s loss, should he fail to find Xiaopeng, with his own: the death of Meili. Although neither man had control over events that caused his loss, with Meili it seemed different. He’d not left her side as her body drained from her in a flux that reeked of death more than shit. Before him, that lovely face turned from a soft, smooth-skinned luscious fruit to a coarsely-wrinkled, salted prune, but her eyes, the eyes of his daughter, stayed beautiful as they pleaded for help. Somehow this magnified the loss when it happened.

  “I’m so frightened... please do something,” she’d begged before she lost her voice. The doctor gave her dried ginger root, sheng jiang, and green tea; a monk from the monastery, for a fee, turned the prayer wheel to send a message of her plight to the Buddha, and little Feier, herself weakened by the flux, could not stop crying. When Meili had become too weak to drink the tea and ginger root, Feng soaked the sleeve of his shirt in the fluid, prized her lips apart and squeezed drops into her mouth, for although she was as dry as a dead animal bone, fluid leaking from her back end still soaked the bed. But the thing that had haunted Feng ever since her death was the thought that he wasn’t there for his wife at the very end.

  For two days he’d remained awake. Every time Meili’s breathing slowed in her sleep, he would shake her back to wakefulness. He felt that if he were to do this until the flux subsided he should be able to keep her alive. The horror of discovering he’d dropped off to sleep, his head resting sideways on his wife’s shrivelled breasts, before raising himself to see her vacant, lifeless eyes, was too much to bear. He screamed out as he’d never screamed before or since, and little Feier, who’d been awake all the time, afraid to wake up her baba, stared questioningly at him, as if patiently waiting for him to stop screaming and explain it all to her. That he’d not been able to help the child come to terms with the loss of her mother turned Meili’s death into a double failure. Now, spending every waking hour trying to make
amends for his daughter seemed to focus the guilt and soften the anger. Without Feier, this might have been turned against the world, but as it was the blame faced inwards.

  Yueloong’s loss was as nothing compared with his own, and this was some consolation as he struggled with a further bout of self-blame. Nevertheless, there was also more guilt and Xiaopeng had to be found. Maybe Jinjin was right about the mysterious White Tiger League but wrong about Merchant Chang. More likely, Feng reckoned, it was like this:

  A member of a group of merchants, known as the White Tigers because of their trade with the west, had been approached by rebels to assist in some crazy plan to kidnap a thousand Miao girls for a usurper who had a fixation about Miao females renowned for their embroidery skills, and who, on completing his collection of girls, would march on Chang’an to depose the poet emperor. Crazy, but of late China had become a crazy place. Anything was now possible. Merchant Chang had uncovered part of the truth, because of Feng’s entreaties, had spoken to the wrong person and forfeited his life. That Minsheng knew more than he was letting on was obvious, and Feng could see the man was using him as a pawn in a game of Chinese chess, giving nothing away so no accusations could be levelled against him whichever way the imperial tide should turn. One or more monks might be involved, or Chen Jiabiao... or both.

  What about the old magistrate? The teacher had been given no reason for Minsheng’s sudden rise to power. And Wong? How dare that boy implicate the innkeeper and his wife! Meili’s spirit would tremble in her new-found life at the very thought of it. She’d adored the jolly innkeeper and his wife.

  The road to Chang’an was long and winding, passing over rough mountainous terrain and through towns of little significance. The first night, Feng boarded with a farmer whose small house was packed with six children, four of them sons, and the farmer’s aging, rambling mother. The young boys again brought back memories of Meili, who’d always chided herself for not bearing him a son.

  “A son? Who on earth would want a son in exchange for our beautiful little daughter?” he would continually reassure his wife, although at the very next opportunity she would say “But how can you ever forgive me for not giving you a son?”

  There’d been problems at Feier’s birth and the doctor had told them she’d never be able to have another child. He was right about that but not about the dried ginger. It did nothing for a dying Meili.

  “So you’re a teacher, huh? Give me one good reason why I should send my sons to sit on their backsides all day long so they can learn how to make pretty characters with a brush and ink rather than learn how to feed hungry mouths!” challenged the farmer.

  They were seated around a long, low table on which had been placed dishes laden with vegetables, rice and pork. All eyes were glued on Feng as he struggled to think of a sensible reply. Of course there was no reason whatsoever for farmers to become men of learning. In fact, the more he thought about it, the less convinced he felt about his own ambition to have all children in the province educated in the wisdom of sages and poets. He said nothing.

  “I guessed so. No answer, ay? But what’s a village teacher like you do-ing going to Chang’an? A hotbed of corrupt officials, prostitutes, money lenders and murderers! No-one in their right mind would go anywhere near the place. Why, they say it’s now teeming with foreign devils desper-ate to seek out the soft underbelly of our motherland, learn where best to strike when the time comes.”

  “When the time comes?”

  “Oh teacher, it does you no good to stare at patterns on scrolls all day long. Open up your eyes to the real world!”

  “I know more than you think. What do you mean by ‘when the time comes’?”

  “Time for a change. Pah! It makes no difference to us farmers. Whoever they send to kick our arses, the merchants and stall vendors will always pay as little as they can get away with for our hard-earned produce. The government steals the rest for taxes. More wealth for the powerful rich!”

  “You’ve a very nice house here, farmer,” observed Feng, changing the subject. His own humble dwelling could have fitted three times over into the farm house, with room to spare. Farmers had far more money than they owned up to, he thought; they got away with tax evasion on a massive scale; but how to nail them, for they always had ways of rendering assets invisible?

  “So! Why Chang’an?”

  “Missing Miao girls. Maybe a thousand. From their villages near Three Monkey Mountain and others along the Chang’an road and out to the west. There was a murder. I think it’s linked to the missing girls. I have the blessing of our local magistrate to report to the emperor himself. Warn him. And find one girl in particular.”

  “Why on earth should the emperor be the least bothered about a few missing Miao girls? Or yet another murder? And why should a magistrate send a teacher unless he wanted to get rid of him.”

  Damn it, I hadn’t even thought about that!

  “Some more wine, friend!” chuckled the farmer, offering the wine jug. Feng nodded.

  “Tell me, have you heard of the White Tiger League?” he asked. “Group of traders with links to the west, I believe.”

  A frown changed the farmer’s jovial, weathered features. He filled Feng’s cup and put down the jug. He glanced briefly at his wife who, perhaps from past promptings, stood and ushered the children from the room.

  “Tiger tattoo on the back of the right hand? Like it’s about to pounce?” the farmer queried. Feng nodded affirmation. “Nothing to do with trade!” the other man added hastily. “But why do you ask?” Suspicion lingered in his frown.

  “The murdered man. He was a White Tiger. A merchant too, and a good friend.”

  “So a teacher of our youth puts two and two together and makes five,

  huh?”

  “You know about them? The White Tigers?”

  “Know about them? What farmer doesn’t? I’ll tell you one thing. They’re better dead than alive. Look, I’m not wanting to interfere in your business, but please see common sense. Don’t go anywhere near the capital. If you do, just keep quiet about having a friend who was a White Tiger. Besides, there are White Tigers and White Tigers.”

  “Which means?”

  “Which means either way you’ll get your throat cut in Chang’an.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “A group of brigands that demand money, jade, jewels, gold... anything, from farmers and genuine merchants, even from government officials. Odd thing is, whenever they capture one they make a big thing of his punishment in the capital - usually a public beheading as a lesson to others. But some of us believe the true White Tigers are the emperor’s own hit-men.

  Out there, pretending to be rebels, turning in anyone they think loyal to the empress’s little nephew. The poor unfortunate then gets dragged back to the capital, tattooed with a White Tiger and beheaded with all that ceremony. That’s one rumour going around. Mind you, wouldn’t make sense them getting involved in kidnapping Miao girls, if they are the emperor’s men. Look, teacher, just forget the whole business.”

  There was no further mention of White Tigers and Miao girls. Feng and the farmer became steadily merrier as the evening wore on, talking about the iniquity of the new tax laws, the mysteries of the fair sex and the problems of bringing up children.

  “A man with a daughter and no wife to guide him? Bad news, Teacher Feng!” announced the farmer on learning the teacher was both widower and proud father of a beautiful daughter. “Sounds like you’re in serious need of another woman!”

  Another woman?

  The idea of removing Meili from his mind and replacing her with another woman, however young and beautiful, was abhorrent. As long as Feier lived, Meili was still with him. His only wish was to do her no more harm by making their daughter unhappy in marriage. Quite how this particular adventure was supposed to bring happiness to the girl
had so far eluded him. Perhaps, in his wildest dreams, a reward for saving the emperor’s throne from an imposter? This simple farmer had mentioned the empress’s nephew. Feng now wished he hadn’t, as the man implied, wasted so much of his life bent over scrolls, admiring the calligraphy of the mas-ters, otherwise he’d surely know more about these things.

  “No, friend farmer. I don’t need another woman. I just need to do the best for the woman I still love even if she’s dead. Through my daughter!”

  “Her hair is still long although she has the bosom of a woman? Pah! Fourteen, you say?”

  “That marriage maker! I tell you, she’s evil. I’d rather put Feier at the mercy of the restless gui [13] than allow the bitch to condemn the child to a life of misery and servitude.”

  “Now you’re making sense! This trip of yours is all about finding a husband for the girl. What a pity my boys are too young.”

  Feng chuckled.

  “Too young and, well, as you say, what use is a farmer’s wife who can only recite our Tang poems and the writings of the master from Qu Fu?”

  “Seriously, my learned teacher friend, your daughter would be a lot worse off if you were dead. Then truly she’d be forced to join those women of pleasure in Chang’an to earn enough to fill her belly with food - whilst rich men fill her belly from the other end.”

  Implying Feier could end up on the streets of Chang’an ? Feng’s eyes nar-rowed. He realised the farmer meant well but the man had overstepped the mark.