The Mandate of Heaven (73 page)

The wings of the goose beat rhythmically and lands passed below. He skimmed the topmost peaks of snow-capped mountains and silent bamboo forests. Deer leapt for shelter, disturbed by his shadow. Paddy fields of muddy water and untended rice reflected the clouds.

At last he chanced upon a long, winding valley in the midst of the mountains: Wei Valley, named after its principal river. His eye followed the silver ribbon of water to a large lake and marsh where the valley began. Directing his steed, the Heavenly Official headed for Mallow Flower Marsh, for he sensed it was a centre of flowing dragon lines.

On solid earth, he folded up his goose like a piece of paper, tucking it safely into his writing case. Motionless as a heron, he studied the muddy depths of the lake. Then noises other than hooting waterfowl and rustling reeds disturbed him.

Armed horsemen were approaching. They escorted mule-drawn wagons of various kinds on which servants perched. One of the carriages was fit for a wealthy merchant or gentleman, its carved wooden panels and roof preventing vulgar eyes from peering inside. Other wagons carried wooden crates branded with the seal:
Property of Salt Minister Gui
.

The Heavenly Official watched as the procession, led by a local guide, left the Western Highway at Mallow Flower Marsh and took a little-used dirt track into the mountains, a track leading nowhere but Wei Valley and its one settlement of note, Wei Village.

Intrigued by so strange a caravan in a remote corner of the Empire, he unpacked his magical goose, turned himself invisible, then flew over the marsh, taking the same route as the wagons.

The road climbed past hillsides clad with pine and bamboo. Early summer had inspired blossom; obliging insects flitted from bloom to bloom. A clan of silver-backed monkeys groomed one another in an ancient wild plum grove. As he flew by, the Heavenly Official became aware of people travelling in family groups toward Wei Village. Evidently a festival was gathering, for the peasants carried food baskets and wore their best clothes.

Circling a boulder-strewn peak, he spied dozens of buildings clustered round a river fed by glinting streams. Wei Village was neither small nor large. In its central square a busy festival-market had commenced – pyramids of vegetables and fruit; barrels of salt fish and pens for bleating, barking, clucking meat of every kind; a dozen wine-sellers and as many fortune tellers; a troupe of acrobats performing to an audience of gawping peasants and their children.

On one side of the valley, above the village, stood an ancient gentleman’s residence. Three-Step-House ascended the hillside exactly as its name suggested – in three distinct stages. The lower buildings contained the servants’ quarters, the middle an audience hall, and the topmost housed the Lord of Wei’s family apartments.

On the opposite side of the valley, directly facing Three-Step-House, a group of new buildings rose. Labourers swarmed over ladders and scaffolds. Others pushed wheelbarrows. Remaining invisible, the Heavenly Official guided his goose to earth and packed it away. Then he transformed his appearance to resemble a travelling holy man.

Suitably disguised, he strode over to a group of Daoist and Buddhist priests, monks, geomancers and magicians who were inspecting the construction of a small gatehouse. Clearly a rite of benefit to the entire district was taking place. Proof, perhaps, that someone – on however small a scale – deserved the Mandate of Heaven. Chatting politely with a monk, the Heavenly Official learned the new building’s name: Cloud Abode Monastery.

The rite was scheduled for noon exactly, the central hour of the day. Abbess Lu Si was to lead the Nuns of Serene Perfection into their new home. Never mind that it lacked a roof. The wisest astrologers and geomancers in Chunming agreed any other day threatened misfortune. Given the disasters that had befallen the Nuns in Hou-ming Province, Abbess Lu Si and her confidante, Lady Yun Shu, were taking no chances.

At the prescribed hour, chimes sounded in the village and, stall by stall, the noisy market hushed into silence. The only sounds: wind in trees, wailing infants, birdsong, the bleat of sheep and goats.

Abbess Lu Si bowed low to the Provincial Daoist Officials from Chunming and received a scroll confirming Cloud Abode Monastery’s status as a registered holy place. It had seemed sensible to alter the dates on the registration certificate so that, on paper at least, Cloud Abode Monastery had been officially inaugurated during the Tang Dynasty, five or more centuries earlier. Purchasing such a distinguished pedigree had involved many formal presents and negotiations carried out by Lady Yun Shu’s husband, the Lord of Wei.

This latter gentleman, though blessed by a grand title, wore a scholar’s modest blue robes in the style of the previous dynasty. He stood to one side as his wife followed the Abbess and her Serene Ones up a steep path that led towards Cloud Abode Monastery. Then he turned to thirty boys of various ages lined up in pairs behind him and gestured they should follow.

Chants drifted through the hushed valley. As the Lord of Wei hastened to catch up with his wife, he noticed she wept while reciting the familiar sutra:
The Dao that is bright seems dull … The great square has no corners … The Dao conceals itself in namelessness … The Dao breeds one; breeds two; breeds three; three breeds the Ten Thousand Creatures …

Rubbing impatiently at her tears, she glanced his way. Understanding passed between them. A joyful sorrow too layered for simple words. Stifling his own emotion, he led the long dragon of boys up the flinty path, all dressed in the dark blue of students preparing for the Imperial Examinations.

At the half-constructed gatehouse, the Nuns of Serene Perfection formed the shape of the Great Dipper constellation to please Xi-wang-nu, Queen Mother of the West. Nearby, a travelling holy man watched, sipping a bowl of ‘green wine’ that miraculously appeared in his hands when no one was watching. The rite and those conducting it interested him enough to ask how the Nuns came to set up a new holy place in this obscure valley.

After fleeing Hou-ming the party led by Teng and Yun Shu had joined hundreds of refugees heading west. Despite the wealth they carried, Shensi advised a show of poverty on the road, in order to avoid being robbed. His wise counsel took them as far as a port on the Yangtze where it was easy to purchase passage on a large merchant vessel sailing upstream to the Western Provinces.

Yet here, at the borders of Hou-ming Province, tragedy occurred. The Honourable Deng Nan-shi passed from this life as he was pushed along the road in a wheelbarrow covered by blankets. It showed much character in Teng that he restricted his father’s funeral to hiring an undertaker. This craftsman reduced the corpse to bones and ash in a large brick kiln. Afterwards the Nuns hurried west, concealing the venerable scholar’s remains in a sealed jar amidst the baggage.

Day by day, Hou-ming Province fell behind until, after six months of intermittent travel and sojourns in humble shrines or temples, they neared their destination: Chunming. It was late spring and that ugly, ill-aligned city appeared at its best: blossom on the fruit trees and gaudy, bee-haunted flowers in every garden. Here the balance of the Dao asserted itself. After excessive misfortune came great luck – with a little help from the courteous, gentlemanly Teng.

Aware the outer defines most people’s assessment of the inner, he had ordered an assembly of the entire party a day before their arrival in Chunming. At his insistence, the refugees reversed their whole policy of avoiding attention. Travel-stained clothes were packed away and fine garments donned. Deng Teng looked splendid in silks stolen from the short-lived Minister Chao, except they were far too large. The Nuns created a pious impression in their ritual robes, especially the Abbess Yun Shu. Even Shensi, Ts’u and Ts’an polished their weapons.

In this guise they entered Chunming and collected, as Teng had intended, a curious and admiring crowd. What could be more natural than leading such notable travellers to the foremost Daoist shrine in the city, Golden Lotus Monastery? Its abbot, Wang Daguang, head of the Provincial Daoist Council, greeted the Serene Ones with garlands of flowers.

Well he might. The Daoist cause in Chunming had suffered under Mongol rule and the arrival of so many blessed Nuns stirred immediate excitement among respectable wives and ladies. Although women were unimportant in nearly every respect, the Abbot understood their power when it came to household devotion.

At last the Nuns of Serene Perfection were treated with honour, especially after it became known a descendent of Chunming Province’s most famous son, the illustrious poet Yun Cai, led the Holy Ladies. Hundreds gathered to stare and make offerings at Golden Lotus Monastery, prompting Abbot Wang Daguang to establish an impromptu temple market.

All that summer Teng went back and forth between Chunming and Wei Valley, accompanied by Wang Daguang and the faithful Shensi. He found it an uncultivated place in every respect, its population halved by war, banditry and the incompetence of a Mongol lord – a descendent of a certain Khan Bayke, now thoroughly Chinese in outlook and as poor as those he ruled. Hence, Teng bought a large estate for a trifle. With it came a noble title that once belonged to his ancestor, Yueh Fei:
Lord of Wei
.

When he returned to Chunming expecting praise and gratitude, Yun Shu turned away, her eyelids fluttering dangerously.

‘I see you are angry with me,’ he said, taking her aside.

‘Of course.’

‘I do not understand.’

‘Because Wei Valley belonged to the Yuns! It belonged to my family! Did not Yueh Fei state in the scroll you gave me that it should be ours forever? And now it is lost to us forever!’

He smiled. ‘Forever is a long time,’ he said, ‘perhaps it need not be so long.’

‘Oh, do not provoke me!’

Teng maintained his faint smile. ‘I want to. I have always wanted to. Besides,
forever
could be as short as a week if … but I must do this properly.’

The next day Wang Daguang called upon Yun Shu with gifts and a proposal on behalf of his new friend, Deng Teng. The Abbot played the role of matchmaker with gusto, outlining the numerous advantages of such a match for one and all, not least the continuation of the noble line of Yun Cai. ‘Think what a blessing
that
would be for our Province!’ declared the Abbot.

Afterwards Yun Shu sought out Teng’s company.

‘It seems everyone thinks I should resign my position as Abbess and breed like the Ten Thousand Creatures,’ she said. ‘Is that why you asked for my hand?’

Both stared at different corners of the room.

‘We do owe it to our ancestors to produce heirs,’ conceded Teng, cautiously. ‘You know that as well as I. It was Father’s dearest hope. You were the daughter-in-law he always sought for me. His face lit up when you entered the room. But that is not why I ask. It is because I owe it to my heart. Perhaps you feel the same, dearest Yun Shu? Do you owe it to your heart?’

If she did, no immediate sign was given, for she bowed and left in evident agitation. Teng cursed himself for approaching such a delicate matter too bluntly. He feared Yun Shu believed he did not honour her. That she would never surrender her position as Abbess.

When Teng reported their conversation to Wang Daguang, the wily old priest smiled without revealing his teeth.

The refugees moved into Three-Step-House in autumn, nearly a year after leaving Hou-ming. They found it half ruined by neglect. Teng felt instantly at home amidst decaying roofs and walls, mildew and cobwebs, ghosts of former greatness.

During the bitter winter that followed Yun Shu agreed to become his wife, resigning her position as Abbess in favour of Lady Lu Si. A change widely anticipated, for people are neither fools nor easily fooled. Having fulfilled her duty to save the Nuns of Serene Perfection, it was clear Yun Shu felt no desire for the long, arduous task of re-building the holy order. And to be the Lord of Wei’s wife offered great honour in a small world. Most importantly, she did owe her heart to Teng. To their longing for happiness in this world not the next.