The Mandate of Heaven (14 page)

‘Your Excellency! How gracious of you to …’ The burly fellow struggled to complete his witticism. His name was Chao.

‘To
grace
us?’ suggested Teng. ‘That might be amusing. Or how about
honour
us?’

Chao’s friend, the wilier of the pair, smiled toothily. His name was Hua.

‘I’m still going to drink your share of the wine,’ he said. ‘For dodging work.’

Teng’s eyebrows raised. ‘You usually do.’

Hua nodded. ‘That’s how I like it.’

‘I’ve noticed.’

For a moment they examined him.

‘How come you always want the last word?’ demanded Chao.

Hua roared approvingly and Teng withdrew, more in disgust than defeat. He joined their other companion, a short, sunburned man, ten years older.

‘Any luck, Shensi?’

The wrinkled man shook his head, but continued to glance round. They were in a narrow ravine showing signs of ancient road-building. Except that the road terminated in a sheer wall of collapsed limestone boulders. Teng, who had grown used to interpreting Shensi’s silences, nodded at the rock fall.

‘Could that hide an entrance?’ he asked.

Shensi spat to deter evil spirits who might be listening. Both raised their eyes to the limestone crag above – the same spot Teng had set up his easel. A few shrubs and saplings clung to the slope, otherwise it was unremarkable.

‘There
is
something odd about this place,’ Teng muttered. ‘Do you feel it, too?’

If Shensi did, he gave no sign.

‘Hey, Teng!’

Chao and Hua had been whispering for a while. Teng could predict their next joke with uncanny accuracy. On this occasion, he chose not to anticipate them.

‘Hear something growl just then?’ asked Chao.

Hua nodded gravely. ‘I heard something. Something creeping. Sounded near.’

Early in their relationship, Teng had made the mistake of admitting to a fear of the man-eating tigers said to roam these hills. He had paid a price ever since.

‘It was near!’ insisted Chao. ‘A sort of growling. Eh, Teng?’

Teng gazed down at Mirror Lake in the valley below. A small, rocky island with a shrine rose a little way from the shore. A plume of smoke snaked up from behind the temple. Then a tiny figure in long robes left the shrine and disappeared round the back. Chao and Hua watched the distant movement closely.

‘Time to go!’ said Hua.

Teng continued to stare. Something about the tear-shaped lake, fed and drained by busy waterfalls, moved him in an obscure way. The lake was a ship of pure, bright water floating on a sea of limestone waves. A ship the imagination might sail upon to wisdom.

They descended the steep, stony road through the hills to Ou-Fang Village. Even there, Chao kept up his favourite joke while Teng washed in the river. Hiding behind a maple tree, he roared and snarled like a tiger. And this, Teng reflected, was
before
the evening’s drinking games.

At twilight a wave of monsoon passed over Ou-Fang Village. The rain did nothing to cool the heat. Robes were loosened in the tavern where Chao and Hua held court and the two young bravos bellowed for refreshments. At their call the innkeeper nearly fell over himself.

Teng took his usual seat beneath a thatched porch outside and watched the rain. He could hear Hua berating the innkeeper, threatening to take his custom elsewhere. Significant custom it was. Teng marvelled that so shallow a fellow as Hua controlled so deep a purse. Further proof of the world’s corruption. Of course his companion’s wealth flowed from their secret employer – whose identity, Teng suspected, was no mystery to Chao and Hua.

Rain continued to fall. The two bravos settled down when food and wine appeared. No one offered Teng any and he was too proud to ask. Besides, Shensi would make sure he received a share.

His mind drifted across Six-hundred-
li
Lake to Hou-ming and back in time. A month ago this dubious expedition had seemed a blessing from Heaven.

Teng had been in Deng Mansions when the merchant had come. He was finishing off a writing class of fifty sweating, itchy, fidgeting boys. The day’s lesson: the character for
duty
. He had yawned as he addressed the rows of faces; trays of sand and practice styluses on their grubby knees. It was too deliciously ironic. After all, duty was his only motive for playing teacher, certainly not
cash
; less than half the boys paid their school fees regularly. Yet when Father was too arthritic to conduct the lessons, an increasingly common occurrence, Teng had no choice but to deputise.

‘Up like this. Down like this,’ he instructed, tracing out this most essential of characters on a large square of the cheapest paper.

Then he noticed the merchant. After the class, Teng bowed, assuming the man wished to have his son tutored by Hou-ming’s most illustrious scholar family. The quality of the man’s silks suggested he, at least, might be a paying prospect.

‘You are Honourable Deng Nan-shi?’ asked the man in a soft voice.

‘No, his son.’

The merchant glanced round the schoolroom – once a well-appointed audience chamber, its frescos faded by damp and regret.

‘May one see the Honourable Deng Nan-shi?’ pressed the man.

‘My father is unwell,’ said Teng. ‘If you wish him to teach your son, I would be honoured …’

An upraised hand silenced him. ‘No teaching and no son. Just an offer.’

‘Then I shall see if he will break his rest,’ replied Teng, intrigued.

Deng Nan-shi insisted on his son’s presence during the interview. These days the hunchbacked scholar seemed to gain confidence when Teng was around.

‘Very well,’ said the merchant, ‘but I insist on silence regarding all I reveal.’

And he had an intriguing tale.

He claimed to represent an important gentleman who wished to remain nameless. Yet this gentleman had chanced upon another gentleman, unfortunately now deceased – no need to mention his name either – who had possessed a trifling document the unnamed gentleman would pay generously to have translated.

‘Very well,’ said Deng Nan-shi.

‘How do you define
generously
?’ asked Teng.

The man laid hundreds of
cash
coins on the table.

After withdrawing to the library and conferring over the document, which was written in an archaic mode, father and son returned to their guest.

‘The characters are obscure in places,’ said Deng Nan-shi. ‘We believe it is a copy of a much more ancient document, itself derived from one older still. It refers to the Kingdom of Chu in the age of Shang. It laments that all the royal family’s tombs have been robbed, save those in the
Holy Region
. This being near, let’s see,
Eye-look-heaven
, almost certainly a place name. Do you agree, Teng?’

His son nodded. ‘It also complains the remaining tombs merely belong to lesser sons, possibly princes. We aren’t sure. The author concludes by mourning the fragility of dignity and fame.’

The merchant listened avidly. ‘Does it say where this
Eye-look-heaven
place might be?’

Deng Nan-shi had smiled.

‘I discern you do not have a historian’s interest in tombs,’ he said.

The man had huffed and puffed but finally conceded the old scholar was right. He then came to the other part of his proposition. That Deng Nan-shi, or his learned son, sail down the lake to seek these undiscovered tombs. All expenses for the journey would be paid, as well as a tenth share of any profits, and he would hold an honoured position with the other explorers.

‘For they lack someone who can read the ancient characters,’ explained the merchant.

Deng Nan-shi’s negative had been courteous but cold.

‘Still, I will give you a few days to consider,’ said the man, glancing round at the shabby state of Deng Mansions.

After he had gone, Teng asked excitedly why he, at least, could not go. Here was a chance for easy wealth. Every year one heard tales of tombs being opened and huge fortunes being made. The Mongols paid extravagantly for ancient treasures. With the profits the Dengs could restore the ancestral home, buy a gentleman’s wardrobe of silks. If nothing else, eat meat for a change.

Teng dared not mention his real motive: to escape the schoolroom forever. Then he would paint and dally with singing girls and banter with his friends and applaud in the theatre and contemplate the Ten Thousand Creatures to his heart’s content. The vehemence of Deng Nan-shi’s response surprised him.

‘Are we to become grave robbers? Just because we are poor? Do not take me for a fool. You hope to evade your duty!’

The argument went back and forth until Teng finally gained his way. Deng Nan-shi, for all his ideals had to concede their desperation. Especially since a brace of orphans had taken residence in Deng Mansions after the recent famine, an act of charity they could ill afford.

‘Do nothing dishonourable,’ cautioned Deng Nan-shi. ‘Remember, our family’s reputation extends all round the lake and far beyond.’

Teng had sailed down to Yulan Port where he found Chao, Hua and Shensi waiting. Evidently the merchant, or his secret sponsor, had ways of passing messages swiftly. For weeks they had been scouring the lands round Changshan, the Holy Mountain and the district capital Lingling, until Teng heard a rumour of ancient tombs near Ou-Fang Village.

His thoughts were interrupted by a crashing sound from the inn. This was followed by shouting and the thud of a blow. Inside, Teng found Shensi struggling to separate Chao from a villager with blue tattoos on his cheeks – one of the Yulai people.

‘You damn savage!’ bellowed Chao. ‘How dare you bring your blue face in here?’

Teng squeezed in front of Chao, who was hopelessly drunk. Meanwhile Hua roared encouragement to all sides at once. Teng and Shensi urged the villager to leave. This the man did with baleful dignity, and only just in time, for Chao threw Teng aside like a paper warrior and reached for the knife he kept in his boot.

After the villager had gone, large cups of wine were required to subdue Chao. Amidst curses and threats, Teng learned the reason for the quarrel. People were complaining that Chao and Hua bought up all the spare wine, grain, eggs and chickens in the village, pricing out its poorer inhabitants.

‘Don’t you think,’ said Teng, ‘it would be better not to offend our hosts? We are unarmed and there are only four of us. Besides, their case is not unreasonable. They have children and elderly relatives to feed.’

Hua snorted. ‘They won’t trouble us.’

‘How can you be certain?’

Now Chao joined in. ‘Because they know what’s good for ‘em.’

‘And bad,’ added Hua. ‘Or, let’s just say,
who
is bad for them. Eh, Chao!’

Though Teng pressed, neither would reveal the name of this bad
who
. As for Shensi, the tomb-finder concentrated on tilting his bowl.

At noon the next day, Chao and Hua were breakfasting when tramping feet could be heard entering the village. They stuck their heads through the ground floor window in time to see a procession coming up the muddy road. Teng, who was reading a woodcut volume of poetry beneath the thatched porch, rose for a better view.

Forty guardsmen bearing halberds and fire-lances headed the column. Their faces shone with sweat from the hot climb. Then came four palanquins, each carrying an official. In the midst was an ironbound box on painted wheels, hauled back and front by lightly armed soldiers. Another few dozen guardsmen brought up the rear.

Hua whistled between his teeth. ‘Tax farmers,’ he said, softly. ‘Going to Lingling.’

‘They’ll be back through here in a few days,’ muttered Chao.

‘Unless the rain holds them up,’ said Hua.

Before the column drew parallel to the inn, they ducked inside. When the road was clear again, Teng found they had left in a hurry by the back door, though no one knew why. Tomb hunting was off for the day.

Mirror Lake drew him. Perhaps as an antidote to the vulgarity of his companions. Perhaps he sought clarity because he was considering whether to return to Hou-ming. It was not an easy decision. He had almost no money and must either beg a passage home or earn one in too undignified a way for a Deng to contemplate. Then again, he was loath to return empty handed, thereby confirming Father’s judgement about the whole crazy venture.