The Concubine's Daughter (49 page)

D
ressed in the clothes
of a Tanka boat boy, with her hair hidden under a bell-shaped wicker hat, Siu-Sing found herself on the cluttered deck of a junk sailing from Tung-Ting Lake to the mouth of the Yangtze and the port of Macao. She could scarcely believe that so much could change so quickly.

After the death of Master To, Ah-Keung had toiled ceaselessly beside her to build a tomb worthy of so great a man, next to his cousin’s grave in the Place of Clear Water. He had wept and fallen to his knees at the tomb, his prayers for forgiveness loud and long. Siu-Sing could find no such tears, only a strange and painful hardening of her senses. A part of her heart closed around his vital memory, sealing all that she had known of him and all that she had learned from him completely and forever. Watching the Forceful One, she did not see the warrior, but the crippled boy who had crossed the lake in search of his salvation. For a few moments they had shared each other’s pain.

Siu-Sing did not know what to do. She had dreamed that she and her
si-fu
would find the man in the faded photograph, that they would enter his house together and remain there in peace and happiness. To stay alone in the hut by the lake would end her quest before it had begun; yet to face a world unknown to her without her master by her side was more than she could imagine.

The night had passed without sleep. Siu-Sing visited the Rock of Great Strength alone for the first time. Under a waning moon, she traveled
with her
si-fu
on the last great flight of his journey, to see him united with his cousin; then rose to meet the sun. For an hour she performed the ritual dance of the Crane and the Tiger with his bright spirit by her side, while Paw-Paw dozed in the Place of Clear Water. She completed every step, leap, and kick, every sweep, block, and strike with the precision and power of perfection only a decade of training under the greatest of all masters could make possible. This would be the memory she would take with her to the other side of the mountains.

As she concluded with a salute to the sun, the sound of slow clapping made her whirl to meet the intruder. Ah-Keung stepped from the cover of the mimosa bush. “Forgive me if I invade your privacy. I see my master found a true disciple when the goat boy failed him.” He bowed, but in the way of challenge, not respect, then changed his tone. “I came to tell you the reed boat will soon be ready to cross the lake, but I could not disturb such an adept.”

The humble boy whose tears had been shed so convincingly in the Place of Clear Water had quickly flown. It was Ah-Keung, the Forceful One, who stood before her. “You cannot remain here alone now that they are gone. I can help to fulfill their promise: I have found you a berth aboard the junk that will take us to the port of Macao.”

He had tossed a bundle of boy’s clothing at her feet. “You must wear these. To be seen as a cherry girl on such a journey is unwise.” He laughed unpleasantly. “You should thank me, Little Star; it is not easy to find passage on a junk already crowded. My place has been booked for many days, but the junk master has agreed to take you as a favor to me.

“Macao is only an hour by boat from the Golden Hill. I am known there and have friends who will give us food and shelter. Trust me, together we will find your father’s house.” He had turned to go back to the hut. “We must take only those things we need; the river has more thieves than fishes.”

She followed him across the slope, unable to ignore the strange swing of his step, as though one foot was a little heavier than the other, creating a slight imbalance. For that fraction of time, she realized, she was looking at him with the eye of a warrior seeking a weakness in an opponent.

Inside the hut, Ah-Keung had tapped the chest of stone beneath the master’s bed with the toe of his boot. “You have been shown the puzzle of the locks. We must open it and take what silver we can find.” When she hesitated, he grinned at her foolishness. “Did you think this journey was a gift, that you did not have to pay the junk master for a week on the river to Shanghai and almost two on the open sea to Macao? You have been cared for for too long, my Little Star; the world beyond the mountains takes everything and gives nothing. You must be prepared.”

“There is no silver in the chest, only books and papers of no value to a junk master.”

Ah-Keung had shown no anger, but gestured helplessly. “Then I must leave without you and work for my passage. The plank boat waits to cross the lake, and the junk will sail at noon.” He had turned to leave.

“Stay here alone and let the reed-cutters take the chest, along with the herbs and everything else they may find. They think this place evil and you a demon. Now that he’s gone, they will burn this hut with you inside it.”

Having no doubt that he was right, Siu-Sing had pulled the chest from beneath the bed, twisting the metal pins until the lock was released, then lifting the lid and removing the beaded sling. “You see … there are some small worthless things belonging to the old one, and the master’s words and images.”

“And in the pretty bag, what is hidden there?”

She showed him the two books tied in silk. “Small things left to me by my mother, of value only to me.”

He rummaged in the bag, finding the bamboo canister and shaking it against his ear. “What is this?”

“Just a case for my brushes and ink blocks.”

Ah-Keung had tossed it back into the bag, lifting out the photograph. “And the picture frame? Is it not made of silver?” She had removed the photograph from its silver frame without complaint; if it could help to begin her journey and take his mind from the scrolls, then this was a good thing. If he could read, he might have guessed their true value.

When he had gone, she lifted the canister, wrapped it well, and hidden it carefully in the bottom of the bag.

Unaccustomed to the closeness of crowds, the unclean habits of too many people in too small a space for too long a time, Siu-Sing sought a place on the deck where curious eyes could not surround her. Among tethered livestock and crates of poultry at the very front of the bow, she made a space large enough to curl up in a coil of mooring rope, and there she stayed, pulling a canvas cover over her head as night closed around her.

At dawn, still hidden as far forward in the bow as she could get, she watched the green and yellow eddies of the passing river with a clean wind upon her face. Orange and cherry orchards reached the water’s edge, the neat green tiers of rice terraces sliding by with the steady roll of the junk. From a precarious towpath hacked from the cliff face, strings of trackers shouldered the heavy towrope with echoing chants, hauling loaded sampans through the gorges.

There was little for the crew to do while the junk was under tow. They found entertainments of their own on deck—playing cards, rolling dice, drinking cheap wine, and smoking green tobacco. Ah-Keung had made his place among them; she was glad he seldom bothered her but also glad to be under his protection. She was not afraid of the crew, but saw no sense in wasting her chi on those who could not clean themselves and behaved like monkeys in a breadfruit tree.

The second evening, Ah-Keung was heading a group of men who found him to be lively company. There was the hollow rattle of dice and much beseeching of the gods of fortune, much drinking of wine and many whoops and curses. Siu-Sing could hear the Forceful One commanding those about him with reckless confidence.

She lifted the canvas enough to see the group, squatting in a circle around a pressure lamp, its stark glare lighting the ring of faces. A large wine jar was passed around; tobacco smoke drifted about them. The raised voices were coarse and the language crude, the voice of an older man rising among them like the snarl of a wolf.

“You are lucky for a lame dog, good only to lick the feet of monks and follow goats.” For a moment, there was no response, but the voice persisted, becoming more belligerent as others fell quiet. “Are you not the dog boy, whose cur of a mother dropped him among unwanted whelps who sniffed the gutters for food?”

When Ah-Keung finally spoke, it was as though he addressed a passing shadow, cocking a hand to his ear.

“I think I hear a voice … or was it the fart of a donkey that so befouls the air? Let him stand, that we can see if his balls are as big as his mouth.”

“If I stand, dog boy, it will be to teach a yapping pup to know its place. My name is Xiang the tracker; a name you will not forget if you cause me to find my feet.” The drunken voice continued. “I hear you also slept outside the hut of Old To with the chickens and the goats, because he found you unworthy to be his disciple.” The tracker was goaded further by a ripple of laughter that spread across the lamp-lit deck. “He found more promise in an infant child … a
jarp-jung
girl taken from its cradle. It was she and the Tanka hag who shared your place in his house and enjoyed the protection of his ghostly powers.”

The ripple broke in a crescendo of raucous laughter. The tracker stood up, a short man with the thick neck and short arms of brute strength, beaming with the victory of clumsy wit. “But Old To is sent to hell like the witch who went before him. Did the hungry dog have a hand in this—did it bite the hand of its master? Is it money from the chest of silver beneath the hermit’s bed that brings such good fortune to the hand of a worthless cripple?”

“Old To had passed the time of his power, more than ninety years. He drank too much ginseng tea … it stopped his heart.” Ah-Keung’s reply was calm, its underlying menace lost in the rowdy crowd. Xiang the tracker was not satisfied.

“And the old witch who drowned in the marsh? They say she had no mark upon her, that she was a Tanka elder with the heart of a tiger defending its young. Women of the boat people do not die easily. What do you know of
that
, dog boy?

Again, Ah-Keung answered without a sign of concern. “She was his cousin, perhaps as old as he. She fished the reed beds every day and prayed to all gods with every breath. Perhaps it was her time to meet them. There are worse ways to die than chasing shrimp in shallow water.”

It was still not enough for the tracker, who stepped into the circle. “And the demon
jarp-jung
—” He paused to hawk loudly, spitting at Ah-Keung’s feet. “The one with the eyes of death that you have brought aboard the junk hiding under a Tanka’s hat …” He folded his corded forearms across the breadth of his chest. “Did you think we did not know?”

Xiang hitched up his belt in a drunken gesture of bravado, aware of his audience. “I will find the bitch and fuck her before I throw her over the side. We will not have the company of demons aboard this boat.”

The deck crew cheered him on. No one saw the foot of the dog boy strike the tracker’s chest with a side kick that split his sternum with a meaty click; the big man was lifted from the deck to fly over the wooden taffrail, his legs buckling as he disappeared into darkness.

The splash of his bulk hitting the water was lost in a roar of approval. No one moved to raise the alarm. The tracker was a bully, best left to battle the river alone … but they feared Ah-Keung, the Forceful One, even more.

“Donkey-fart was right, the one who travels with me is Red Lotus, disciple of To-Tze, grand master of White Crane
wu-shu.
She is under my protection.” He grinned around the ring of faces. “But perhaps I protect
you
from
her
… there is not a man aboard that she would not make a fool of.”

Ah-Keung’s shock of coal-black hair seemed to bristle like the hackles on the neck of a dog aroused to action. “If she is touched, this twisted foot will find you and you will swim to Wuhan with the tracker.” He looked around at the silent faces, grinning. “Now, let us throw the dice and see where they fall.”

In the days along the coast and through the Formosa Strait, Siu-Sing pondered the question of Ah-Keung. That night the men had gambled
until the first signs of sunrise, and slept where they lay. The junk had left the gorges and their treacherous waters, and hoisted the huge, mud-colored sails. She stood upright in the prow as daylight swept the river with watery sunshine, to see the white dolphins of the Yangtze spearing the bow wave, and breathe the breeze across the choppy yellow waters.