Secrets Of The Serpent's Heart (The Arkana Archaeology Mystery Series Book 6) (13 page)

Chapter 21—What’s Around The Bend

At eight o’clock the next morning, Cassie entered the hotel dining room where her three colleagues were already seated. She took a chair beside Rou.

The girl eyed her with concern. “Better now?”

“Way better.” The Pythia gave a bright smile. “Rested and ready for action.”

The others relaxed visibly at her words. Her display the previous day must have worried them more than she’d realized.

Cassie was on the point of summoning a waitress when Griffin hastened to pour her a cup of strong black coffee.

“I took the liberty of ordering a pot for the two of us to share. The rest of the clientele seems to favor tea for some odd reason.”

“Ah, java.” She raised the cup gratefully to her lips. “What would I do without you?”

“Were you addressing that last comment to your beverage or to me?” the Scrivener inquired playfully.

“A little bit of both, I guess,” the Pythia retorted slyly as she took another sip.

A few minutes later, a waitress arrived with what had become the group’s standard breakfast order—baozi and congee. This consisted of steamed dumplings stuffed with sweet bean paste accompanied by bowls of rice porridge. Cassie had developed a fondness for both dishes during their stay.

After allowing them all a few moments to start their meal, Cassie broached the topic uppermost in her mind. “Has Griffin told you about my latest theory?”

“I thought I might let you do the honors.” The Scrivener passed her the coffee pot.

“OK then. Here it is.”
 
The Pythia addressed her comments to the Zhangs as she refilled her cup. “Last night when I was scanning a map of China, I got a really strong hunch that the Minoans took a route along the Yangtze River and ended up around a place called Lijiang. Any reason why they might have gone there?”

At her words, Jun stopped chewing. He appeared thunderstruck. “Yes, of course. That makes perfect sense.”

“It does?” Griffin sounded doubtful. “I couldn’t find anything remarkable about the place.”

“It’s at the great bend of the river,” Jun said. “The Yangtze travels for nine hundred miles in a southerly direction from its headwaters in the Himalayas and then turns abruptly east near Lijiang.”

Griffin regarded the trove-keeper blankly, apparently still not convinced of the location’s significance.

Jun gave a slight smile. “Lijiang is very close to the land of the Mosuo. No doubt, you’ve heard of them.”

“Of course I’ve heard of them,” the Scrivener replied. “Maddie has been trying to set up a trove near Lugu Lake for several years now.”

Cassie tentatively raised her hand. “Anybody want to fill me in about these Mosuo characters?”

Rou piped up. “Last matriarchy in China.”

“Really?” The Pythia turned to her with avid interest.
 

The girl withdrew immediately under Cassie’s intense scrutiny and focused on picking apart her steamed dumpling.

Jun took up the explanation. “The Mosuo are a tribe living in a cluster of villages high in the mountains around Lugu Lake. They have managed to resist the influence of Han China and maintained their matriarchal customs to this very day. The eldest female is the supreme authority in the family. As you might expect, lineage is traced through the mothers. Their language has no word for ‘father’ or ‘husband’. Men are responsible for the children of their sisters rather than their own biological sons and daughters since offspring never leave their maternal home. They don’t marry in the sense that we understand marriage.”

“No marriage?” Cassie’s eyebrows shot up. “How do they pair off?”

“They have walking marriage,” Rou said.

“Is that like walking pneumonia?” Cassie asked archly, trying to coax a smile.

The girl rewarded her with a soft giggle. “No. Not a disease.”

The trove-keeper continued. “When a young woman reaches a certain age, she’s given her own bedroom where she can spend the night with a young man she likes. In the morning, the male partner returns to his own mother’s house which is why the custom is called ‘walking marriage’. Nobody frowns on this arrangement. Any children that result from such unions belong to the young woman’s family.”

“From what little I know of Mosuo customs,” Griffin interjected, “these romantic alliances can last for years, sometimes even decades. At the very least, serial monogamy rather than rampant promiscuity seems to be the norm.”

Jun nodded. “One might think that such an arrangement results in chaos but the Mosuo family structure is remarkably stable—far more so than the patriarchal nuclear family. Without divorce, there is no property division when a relationship ends. As for the children, their lives are not disrupted if their mother changes partners since Mosuo households contain large numbers of aunts and uncles. Children always have multiple adults looking after them. No one is ever an orphan. Aside from stability within the family, the culture as a whole is quite durable because there is no violence. The matriarchs manage to resolve conflicts without resorting to fistfights. There is no vicious competition for resources because nobody hordes wealth. All the members of each family receive a fair share. In local politics, the role of mayor is played by a man but nobody pays him much attention. Everyone knows the real power is in the hands of the grandmothers.”

Rou cleared her throat, a sure sign that she intended to complete an entire sentence. “Letting the grandmothers decide things is good for everyone in the clan.”

The other three nodded their agreement with the wisdom of that phrase.

“So how did they manage to pull it off?” Cassie asked. “This Mosuo tribe must be surrounded on all sides by patriarchal Chinese.”

“I imagine the same way the Basques did,” Griffin speculated.

“You mean mountains,” the Pythia inferred.

“Yes, the area which the Mosuo inhabit is relatively inaccessible. It offers no resources which overlord armies might covet.”

“There is no overlord genetic footprint around Lugu Lake,” Jun said. “To this day, Mosuo DNA is distinct. The tribe is closely related to Tibetans with hardly any admixture from the ethnic majority Han DNA.”

“It sure sounds like an interesting place to visit,” Cassie ventured. “In terms of a likely hiding spot for a bunch of goddess-worshipping Minoans, it seems ideal.” Eyeing Griffin, she asked, “So why don’t you think this is where we should be looking?”

The Scrivener gave an exasperated sigh. “Because it’s nowhere near a major river.”

“About one hundred and fifty miles from the Yangtze,” the trove-keeper corrected.

“The riddle explicitly mentions a river pointing to the whereabouts of our next artifact,” Griffin insisted. “I’m sorry but I don’t see the connection.”

“Tributaries,” Rou whispered.

The Scrivener looked startled. He stared at the girl. “I beg your pardon?”

Sensing that she was about to withdraw again, her grandfather intercepted the question. “All the Mosuo villages are built on the shores of Lugu Lake and the lake itself is fed by small rivers which are tributaries of the Yangtze.”

“So you’re saying that if the Minoans followed the Yangtze to the big bend, they would have been able to branch off along another river that would lead them to Lugu Lake?” Cassie clarified.

“Yes,” Rou confirmed simply.

“Here is another fact which might be relevant to your search,” Jun added. “Lugu Lake nestles close to Gemu Goddess Mountain.”

“A goddess mountain?” Cassie repeated slowly. “That’s practically a red flag for us! The Minoans love hiding stuff in mountains, especially if they’re sacred to some goddess or other.” She stared pointedly at Griffin, daring him to offer another objection.

Apparently conceding the argument, the Scrivener threw his hands up. “What are we waiting for? Sichuan Province is a long way from here and we have travel arrangements to make.”

“How does this one look?” Hannah emerged nervously to stand before Faye. The old woman had taken a seat in front of the fitting room doors and waited patiently as the girl tried on a dozen different prom dresses. They were shopping in a pricey boutique at the mall that catered to teenage girls whose parents had money. Considering that this was to be Hannah’s first formal dance, Faye was determined to spare no expense.

“I think this one might be OK,” the girl suggested diffidently, searching Faye’s eyes for a confirmation.

The old woman smiled. She rose and walked over. Spinning the teenager around so she faced the triple mirror next to the fitting room, Faye answered her question with a question. “What do you think?”

Hannah gasped at the multiple images of herself reflecting the finery of a princess. The outfit was a pink skater dress. Its fitted bodice was spangled with rhinestones. The short skirt was made of ruffled chiffon and billowed around Hannah’s legs as she spun around to get a better look. When she stopped spinning, she studied herself with a critical eye. “I think I look pretty.” She uttered the statement with a note of shock in her voice.

“And that surprises you?” Faye asked gently.

The girl frowned. “It was a sin among the Nephilim to pay too much attention to appearance. We were told that vanity was the devil’s favorite method to ensnare the female. Everybody knew that women who admired themselves were bound to go to hell.”

The old woman chuckled mirthlessly. “A very effective strategy if one wishes to induce self-doubt in the fair sex.”

Hannah whirled around to stare at her. “Why would somebody want to do that?”

“My dear, in the age-old battle between the sexes, women’s trump card has always been physical attractiveness. In cultures where men make the rules, the irksome fact remains that the wealthiest and strongest man can easily be mastered by a pretty woman. I suspect the Nephilim brotherhood knows and deeply resents its vulnerability to female charms.”

Hannah continued to stare at her uncomprehendingly.

Faye elaborated. “For women, beauty is power.”

“So a woman who knows she’s beautiful...” Hannah trailed off.

“If she were unscrupulous enough, she could use it to her advantage and wreak havoc among the brotherhood. Possibly even destroy it.”

“Do you suppose that’s why we all wore grey dresses? And why our hair was bound around our heads?” Hannah asked the questions as if realizing the implication for the first time.

“Most assuredly,” Faye agreed, returning to the cushioned seat before the mirrors.

The girl followed her and sat down, an anxious look still on her face. “So you think this dress looks alright? That I look alright in it?”

Face reached over and patted her hand. “Hannah, I’ve lived a very long time and over the course of my life I’ve learned a few things that have helped carry me through. The most useful lesson of all is never to place one’s self-esteem in the hands of other people.”

The girl still looked puzzled.

“How do YOU think you look?” Faye asked.

Glancing briefly at her reflection in the mirror, the girl replied hesitantly. “I think I actually look...” She faltered. “Beautiful.”

Faye squeezed her arm encouragingly. “That’s my girl. In the long run, your opinion of yourself is the only one that counts.”

“There I said it,” the teenager continued, gaining confidence. “I look beautiful. I am beautiful.”

“I imagine that felt rather liberating,” Faye observed.

Hannah’s face appeared flushed, exhilarated. “A little scary actually,” she admitted. “I never allowed myself to believe that before, much less say it out loud.”

“No doubt, that’s only one of many new concepts you’ve learned since you left the compound.”

The girl gazed down at the floor pensively. “Living among the Nephilim seems like a bad dream to me now. The things they believe. The way they treat each other. Now that I can look at it from the outside, their ways are topsy-turvy. They stood the world on its head and tried to make everybody believe things were right-side-up.”

“So you’re happy in this Fallen World, as the brotherhood calls it?”

“Happy?” Hannah repeated the word with incredulity in her voice. “There’s no comparison. I never want to go back there. I’d die before I’d do that.”

“Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Faye said dryly.

The girl scarcely heard her. She remained lost in her own past. “Even when I was at the compound in Missouri and my parents were there and my brothers and sisters, I don’t think any of us were really happy. My parents always worried about whether they were doing the right things to please God. And then, when I was taken away from my family and brought to Illinois, everybody around me wasn’t simply worried. They were all scared.” She paused to consider. “Except Father Abraham. He never seemed to be afraid. I guess because he was too busy scaring everybody else.”

“Oh, I think he was terrified too,” Faye remarked quietly.

“You do?” Hannah turned to peer at the old woman.

Faye nodded. “Men who bluster and posture are trying to keep their own fears at bay and to keep everyone else from suspecting the truth. That they’re the most frightened of all.”

“But what could he have to be afraid of?” Hannah protested. “He made all the rules. He was in charge of everything.”

The Memory Guardian paused to consider the question. “If he really believed the tenets of the Nephilim then he was accountable for everyone else. And if everything wasn’t going well, who do you think God would blame? Mr. Metcalf must have lived in constant dread of divine retribution.”

“Oh, my.” Hannah’s hand flew to her mouth as recognition dawned.

Faye continued. “I can’t imagine a worse burden than holding oneself accountable for hundreds, if not thousands, of other souls. I find being accountable for my own is quite enough to manage.”

“No wonder he was so crabby all the time,” Hannah said.

Faye chuckled and stood up. “Enough gloom and doom. Why don’t you change and we’ll take your lovely new dress up to the counter and pay for it.”

Hannah scurried to the fitting room door and returned five minutes later with the dress over her arm.

As the two walked toward the cashier, Faye said, “Now we’ll have to find you some shoes to match.”

“Glass slippers?” Hannah suggested with a grin on her face.