Dragon Dance (12 page)

The General did not seem too discouraged by the trial; like most Chinese, he was impressed by noise, and the tank—even without accurate firepower—was satisfyingly noisy. He was in good spirits as they
prepared to remount to ride back to the main camp. It was at this point that Simon noticed a black dot against the snow at the far end of the pass, and drew the General's attention to it. It soon resolved itself into a mounted figure. A man on horseback must be of the gentry, and a solitary rider was unusual. They reined in their horses and waited.

As he got nearer, Simon recognized the horseman as a young officer who was second in command of the courier's troop. His horse looked dead beat, and so did he. His face was grey with more than just exhaustion.

The General spoke calmly, but with an underlying grimness: “What news, from the Court of Heaven?”

The man was trembling. “Nothing good, Lord General. Disaster. Death. Destruction.”

•  •  •

A second messenger, travelling at a more leisurely pace and accompanied by the customary troop of horsemen, arrived some days later. He presented the General with a silk scroll, yellow-edged to certify it as emanating from the Son of Heaven.

The message it brought was concise and clear.
The Emperor Yuan Chu sent greetings to his loyal general. A new age had dawned which would bring peace, happiness, and prosperity to the Middle Kingdom. The Son of Heaven commanded his loyal servant to return to Li Nan, where he would receive due reward for his exploits against the northern barbarians, and advice as to future conduct. There should be no delay in the performance of this duty.

So the Lord Chancellor had finally pulled off a coup, Simon thought. Taking tea with the General, he said: “What will you do, sire?”

“The faintest breath from the Son of Heaven is a tempest no ordinary mortal can withstand or should wish to.”

“Yes, but . . .”

“A humble servant such as I must do his master's bidding, even though he may suspect that the reward he is promised will be that the axeman rather than the torturer should end his life. I command the army of the north, the most powerful army of the Middle Kingdom. No emperor dare risk its loyalty.”

Simon was silent. He knew about Chinese fatalism, but this was ridiculous.

The General went on: “But a wise servant makes
sure he knows who his master is. The message is written on yellow-bordered silk and carries the imperial seal. But silks and seals have fallen into unworthy hands before now. For Yuan Chu to have become the Son of Heaven, Cho-tsing must first have gone to join his ancestors.”

“Do you think he
is
dead?”

“Those who brought the scroll say he is. But there is an ancient proverb which says that loudly crying the tiger's death does not kill the tiger.”

Simon thought of the boy lying in the sun beside the jade-rimmed swimming pool, playing with the chattering monkeys. What had become of them, he wondered? He asked, hoping for reassurance: “He might have escaped?”

“All I know is that I do not know that he is dead. And unless Yuan Chu sends me his head, I shall not choose to believe it. And even if the head is sent, perhaps I shall not recognize it. I swore loyalty to Cho-tsing, and in the spring I shall take my army south, to find him. Or perhaps avenge him.”

•  •  •

During the winter, recruiting parties were sent out, and reinforcements arrived in numbers which
surprised Simon until he realized the newcomers were collecting substantial enlistment bonuses. It appeared that for years the General had been building up a contingency fund out of military budget surpluses, and Simon wondered if he had perhaps all along been contemplating the possibility of some independent action. He did not think it wise to put the question, but the General provided the hint of an answer one day when they were watching the recruits being drilled.

“They are clumsy,” he said, “but they will learn. My officers, who have been well trained for this, will teach them. An army requires three things, Si Mun: good food, good boots, good discipline. With them, we shall win our battle in the spring.”

He paused for some moments before continuing.

“And then, if we do not find Cho-tsing living, I shall of necessity be the new Son of Heaven. That is not of my seeking. I would have been content to grow old in the Emperor's service and retire at last to some small mansion with a garden, a fish pond, views of lake and mountain. Instead I shall live in the great palace at Li Nan, surrounded by courtiers and slaves, by concubines and eunuchs, by liars and
flatterers. Will you stay with me there, Si Mun, so that I may have one honest man at my side?”

Simon said warily: “I'm not sure I'd be of much use.”

“An honest man no use?” The General smiled. “But you are wise to hesitate. A tyrant may think he wants honest advice, but he lies to himself in thinking it. And the Son of Heaven, providing he rules at all, must be a tyrant whether he wills it or not. Celebrate my victory with me in the Crimson Palace; then take your booty back to your Lomani land. Or else one day it may be you who begs the favour of an axeman rather than a torturer.”

He smiled again, but the smile was as wintry as the frozen landscape about them. Although he had grown quite to like him, Simon decided that he had just been given very good advice.

•  •  •

Bei W'ih rejoined them a few days before the army began its march south. He said to Simon: “The general ill sometimes confers benefit on the individual—we meet again much sooner than expected. And I hear good report of you and your ironclad steam wagons which crawl like serpents. It
is strange, though. Had I been asked which might prove an inventor, it would not have been you I proposed but your friend, B'lad.”

“Is there any news of him?”

“No news of B'lad. But Bei Pen sends you greetings.”

As he said that, Simon was aware of a tingling warmth, a small exploding shock inside his head, greetings not spoken but communicated, mind to mind. It gave him a feeling of exhilaration, mixed with fear. The possibility of Bei Pen making mental contact, at this distance and after such a time, had never occurred to him. He jerked his head, shaking it from him, and asked: “Are your dragons prepared to fly?”

Bei W'ih smiled comfortably; he had put on weight during the winter.

“They will fly when the time is ripe.”

•  •  •

They travelled south as the year brightened, going by easy stages, with the three tanks which had been completed hissing and clanking in the van. They broke down from time to time, but the Chinese manning them were skilled at getting them back into
working order. The aiming problem had not been solved, so they had been fitted with catapults which would hurl grenades ahead of them, scattering indiscriminate destruction. In any case, Simon thought, it was the psychological effect of their appearance—as in the case of the elephants Hannibal put into the fighting line against the Romans—which would be most important. They certainly aroused wonder and admiration in the villages and towns through which the army passed.

The populace seemed to be firmly on the General's side, greeting the army with cheers and flowers. They were fortunate with the weather, too; apart from a couple of days of squally rain, it stayed fine. And with recruits continuing to flock in, their progress came to resemble a victory tour. When they pitched camp fifteen miles from Li Nan without having encountered any opposition, Simon speculated on the possibility of Yuan Chu abandoning the capital and fleeing south. But the General dismissed it.

“To yield the Crimson Palace would be to yield all. He must fight. But he has left it too late. Now he must come to us here, in a valley where we hold
the western ground and where the wind, at this time of year, is from the west. The dragons will fly strongly above us.”

“But in that case might he not just wait in Li Nan? We couldn't stay here indefinitely.”

“With an enemy so close to the city, he cannot wait. He would lose dignity beyond endurance. And more and more would abandon him and come to us. He will march soon. Within ten days.”

Over the next few days, having time on his hands, Simon explored the area surrounding the camp. In particular, he returned to a village they had just passed through, where they had been greeted with even more enthusiasm than usual. He was recognized as the foreigner who had ridden at the General's side, and made much of. The headman of the village invited him to dinner in his house, and dainties were pressed on him. This was especially pleasant since a lot of the pressing was done by the headman's three teenage daughters.

Simon found himself particularly attracted by the middle one, a tall slender girl called Ki Ti. She was the least pretty and the most reserved, but she had a look at once grave and warm, and haunting
eyes. On his third visit to the house, with her sisters temporarily out of earshot, her reserve melted a little. She asked him if he would live in Li Nan after the battle, at the court of the new emperor. He said: “For a time, perhaps. Will you come and visit me there?”

She smiled, shaking her head. She had never travelled farther than another village, three miles away. And no village girl would dare enter the precinct of the Son of Heaven.

“Then I will come back here to visit you.”

She shook her head at that, too. He would have insisted, but her sisters returned, giggling, and the moment passed. In a way, he was glad of it. He liked her, but he doubted the reliability of his promise. There would be too many other things to do for him to be serious about coming back here. Finding Brad, for one.

•  •  •

Next day, the General's scouts reported an army leaving Li Nan, and the following morning it was encamped at the valley's eastern end. Simon still found it difficult to believe that the enemy was preparing to launch an attack; they knew even better
than the barbarians the power of the dragons of Bei-Kun. But in early afternoon, they came on.

There was the ritual exchange of artillery fire, in which honours seemed fairly even and casualties relatively light. In the succeeding lull, the General said: “Now, Si Mun, we will have your crawling wagons.”

The tanks advanced through gaps purposely left in the advance ranks of the army. They looked very impressive, the din of their progress accentuated by the silence which had fallen on the field of battle. It must be quite alarming, Simon thought, to encounter them for the first time. He felt a swell of pride in his own achievement.

At that point, one of the tanks gasped to a halt as it reached the edge of no-man's-land. Halfway across, a second followed suit. That one at least began hurling its grenades at the enemy lines, but the spectacle of two monsters out of the three immobilized clearly extinguished any fear that might have been building up in the ranks of Yuan Chu's men and replaced it with quickly burgeoning confidence. They advanced with a roar, swarming over and bringing to a halt the last tank, and coming on to charge the General's front line.

The reversal had taken place with stunning speed. Simon said: “I'm sorry.”

He and the general were standing on a rise of ground which gave a good view of the field. The General shrugged. “It is not important. The dragons are ready to fly.”

The kites were low in the sky, but climbed rapidly. The General's luck was holding, Simon thought with relief: although there was a prevailing wind, it might have failed them today, but in fact seemed stronger than usual. He heard a great shout of satisfaction from their own ranks, cries of what sounded like dismay from the others. Now, for both sides, the kites would be starting to turn into dragons—dragons sweeping in disdainful flight above the puny earthbound creatures below. The miracle was happening again; Simon felt he was almost on the verge of seeing it himself. Relentlessly the dragons came on, soaring and swooping in their dance of pomp and power.

This was the moment for the command which would turn the faltering awestruck enemy into a scattering rabble. Simon looked to the General for confirmation but as he did so heard a noise: a
faraway grumbling buzz, like the hum of a distant bee. No, two bees—more. The General also heard it and asked: “What sound is that?”

As he spoke, and before they came into view at the end of the valley, Simon recognized it. And, recognizing it, he knew at last where Brad had been these past months, and what he had been up to.

Five of them flew along the valley in ragged formation. As aeroplanes, they were nothing much—small and crude, single-engined. But the point was that they flew and, smashing through the dancing dragons, shattered illusion and left a pathetic reality in their wake. Paper and bamboo strips showered from the sky like confetti as the dragon squadrons collapsed and died. The roar of engines faded as the planes flew on. For a second or two, there was a hush before, with a howl of exultation that rose like a storm, the enemy charged the demoralized lines of the General's forces.

•  •  •

The General did not speak as his army disintegrated before their eyes. Simon said: “I'll get the horses.” They were tethered to a tree close by. His, disturbed by the noise of the planes and battle generally,
whinnied and reared, and it took him a little time to soothe it. When he had done so, he looked back to see the General with his sword drawn from its sheath.

Simon's immediate thought was that if the General were planning a suicidal counterattack, riding into the ranks of the charging enemy, he was opting out. But that was not the General's intention. He lifted his sword and stared briefly at its gleaming point; Simon saw his lips move, but no sound came out. They were still moving as, without looking down, he pressed the point against his chest and drove it home. He fell forward, slumping across the sword.

There was small doubt that he was dead, and no time anyway for doing anything except getting away; already the tide of the retreating rabble was getting close. Simon quickly mounted and spurred his horse on.