“You aren’t supposed to—feet are the big taboo. But if you could see them you’d understand about the walk. It’s called the lily walk and comes from having their feet tightly bound when they’re small. They turn into little hooves.”
“I’ve seen Madam Butterfly’s feet. They’re normal—a bit big, actually.”
“It doesn’t apply to the lower classes. A serving woman, like a man, needs feet she can use. A noble lady doesn’t need to do anything, or even walk far—there’s always someone to carry her. Did you notice the long fingernails, too? In our world, some Chinese ladies had nails so long they couldn’t do anything, even feed themselves.”
“But why? To prove they were ladies?”
“And because the men found it attractive.”
“Attractive?” Simon pulled a face.
“It’s all relative. Beauty’s an illusion, isn’t it?”
• • •
There was a banquet that evening, at which the Emperor sat surrounded by the ladies of the court. The only male near was the Lord Chancellor, seated at his left hand. The Lady Lu T’Sa was on his right. Simon and Brad were at the far end of the long table, which suited Simon: whatever might be going on between the Lord Chancellor and the Dowager Empress, he was happy to be away from the scene of the action.
The food was good, though Simon still found chopsticks difficult, and the succession of tiny cups of tea became boring. He guessed there would be entertainment later and wondered what kind—dancers, jugglers, musicians? Musicians did appear and took up positions near the head of the table, but what followed was more surprising. Serving girls went round extinguishing the lamps, leaving just two burning on bronze pillars in the centre of the room. The ladies’ chatter subsided into an expectant silence; and into the remaining pool of light came neither dancers nor jugglers, but the priest, Bei Tsu.
Solemnly he intoned prayers to the Great Spirit, first of all first minds. He made rapid complicated twirling motions with his wand. Then he put out the remaining lamps.
In total darkness, the musicians struck up jangling music: there were strings and some wind instrument playing wailing half-tones, irregularly punctuated by a drum. After some time, to Simon’s relief, it ceased, leaving a silence that seemed deeper and more absolute than before. He wondered what came next, and went on wondering as moments ticked into minutes. Suddenly there was a scratch of flint on metal, a spark, the glow of a taper. The priest relit the lamps. Turning back to face the top of the banqueting table, he said: “The manifestations of first mind are thwarted by hostile thoughts. This accords with the law of suggestion, as pronounced by the sage, Bei-Kun.”
The serving girls were relighting the other lamps. The priest turned to the other end of the table and fixed his eyes accusingly on Brad and Simon.
“The spirits of wind and fire turn away from the earthbound ones and absent themselves.”
A further silence followed. Simon wasn’t sure whether to feel embarrassed or apprehensive: since he had no idea what he might have done wrong, he could think of no way of putting it right. He glanced along the table. Yuan Chu was impassive, but Cho-tsing looked worried. It was the Dowager Empress, though, who spoke.
“The earthbound ones will leave the room,” the Lady Lu T’Sa said. “Begone, Lomani!”
• • •
Brad was as baffled as Simon by what had happened. They agreed the only thing they could do was wait and see what came next. In the morning, as usual, they were summoned into the presence of the Son of Heaven.
Cho-tsing behaved as though the incident hadn’t occurred. They accompanied him to his favourite pool, where Brad had been teaching him the crawl stroke. It was made of pink and white marble with a green jade rim, set in a small forest of miniature trees and starlike flowers. When they were lying in the sun after swimming, Brad asked about the previous evening: in what way had they offended?
Cho-tsing smiled, and shook his head.
“You do not understand the Laws of Bei-Kun, B’lad.”
“So explain them.”
“It is too difficult, I think.” He paused. “Tell me about your land, the country of the Lomani.”
“Tell you what?”
“Everything.”
Brad shook his head, in turn. “There’s too much.”
“That is the problem. Our beginnings lie very far apart and cannot be brought together. It is enough that you have come here, over many thousands of leagues. Of that I am glad.”
The words were spoken quietly, but with conviction. It was a remark that Simon, accustomed to the unsentimental and unemotional nature of his association with Brad, would have expected to find embarrassing, but he did not. He felt instead a wave of affection for this thin boy, ruler—so-called—of the farflung empire of the East. And felt pity also. Being emperor meant, inevitably, being used by others. He had nothing, including the companionship he had found with them, which was not at risk.
• • •
They were again at the pool, three days later, when they were visited by the priest. They had tired of swimming and were amusing themselves in the shallower part, trying to catch the fish which darted round their feet. Bei Tsu called them, and they left the pool reluctantly. The visit was probably, Simon thought, aimed at Brad and him—probably another lecture on the Laws of Bei-Kun was in prospect.
He was right in the first part of the surmise, wrong in the second. Bei Tsu informed them that a decision had been taken. The Lomani were to go to the Bonzery of Grace, where they would receive instruction from the priests of Bei-Kun.
“No,” Cho-tsing said. “I do not wish this.”
He looked very young, with a yellow drying robe over his narrow shoulders, twisting his hands together.
“It is necessary.”
“But at least not yet!”
“They are to go today, Celestial One.”
“I will speak with the Lord Chancellor.”
Bei Tsu looked at him impassively.
“It is the Lady Lu T’Sa’s command.”
Cho-tsing’s shoulders drooped, and he said no more.
5
THE CANAL STARTED NOT FAR from the imperial city of Li Nan and ran northwest across the broad Kiangsu plain. Green paddy fields, dotted with labouring coolies of both sexes, stretched away on either side. It was a very wide canal: their barge, which was itself large, fitted with a lugsail and also manned by oarsmen, ten to a side, rocked in the wake of a passing steam-driven freight barge at least forty yards long.
Simon said: “I still don’t understand why she was so determined to get us away. Just because Bei Tsu thought we mucked up the stunts at the banquet?”
“I doubt it. She wanted us away from the Son of Heaven, more likely.”
“Why? She didn’t think we were a danger to him, surely?”
“She may have thought we might give him ideas.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know,” Brad said. “Yes, I do. About anything. As it is, he’s surrounded by guards and eunuchs and aunts—no one near his own age. It all helps keep him under control, and keeping the Son of Heaven under control is the name of the game.”
The day was overcast, grey but not cold. The oarsmen were sweating. Simon said: “She didn’t need to send us to the Bonzery of Grace. She could have had us killed. I’d think she’s capable of it.”
“Very capable,” Brad agreed. “But she knew he liked us. It could have been risking trouble, even with someone as docile as Cho-tsing. Whereas he couldn’t object to something done in the name of Bei-Kun. Mind you, out of sight is out of mind.”
Simon looked alarmed. “You don’t think? . . .”
“No.” Brad nodded towards one of the guards who were accompanying them, along with Bei Tsu. “They wouldn’t have bothered putting us on board—we could have been killed just outside the city wall. We’re heading for the bonzery, all right.”
“And religious instruction? That doesn’t exactly turn me on.”
&nb
sp; “Better than death by torture for being bad influences on the Son of Heaven. It might be interesting in a way. We might even discover what the Laws of Bei-Kun are about.”
Simon shook his head. “I can get by without that.”
• • •
The barge travelled slowly north. Their canal met and crossed the turbulent waters of the Yangtse and debouched eventually into the Yellow River. Their course was westwards now, and on a bright morning they left the barge at a village on the river’s north bank and struck inland. Brad and Simon and the priest were supplied with mules; the guards travelled on foot. The road was reasonably good at first, with a fair amount of horse and ox traffic; but gradually they advanced into the foothills of a mountain range, and the road dwindled into a track. There were fewer travellers, then none.
They spent a chilly night by the side of the trail and in the morning were surrounded by mist which showed no signs of lifting. After breakfasting on cold rice and dried fish, they resumed their journey on a path which climbed steadily higher. It was impossible to see more than a yard or two on either side. Progress was tedious, and Simon found himself nodding off from time to time. In the middle of the day, a pale disk of sun briefly offered glimpses of mountain spurs, twisted trees, the gleam of a tumbling waterfall. They refilled water bottles there and rested the animals.
Afterwards the mist settled down thicker than before. Nor did its occasional thinnings provide any reassuring outlook: one sudden view into a ravine plunging within feet of the track prickled the hairs at the back of Simon’s head. It was very quiet. The guards, who had earlier talked cheerfully among themselves, fell silent. The only sounds were footfalls and the padding of the mules, both eerily muffled by the mist.
Simon started wondering about the next night stop. He was not sure whether the mist was deepening or dusk was coming on. The thought of another night in the open was daunting: it would be a lot colder at the height they must have reached by now.
But almost on that instant there was an extraordinary change. A doubtful brightening ahead swiftly turned to gold, and then to full visibility as his mule lurched into the clarity of late afternoon. He saw deep blue sky and the sun’s orb seemingly poised on a mountain peak ahead.
The path in front continued to rise, but through cropped grass; white goats grazed among bushes and small trees. Brad came up from behind to bring his mule alongside Simon’s.
“There’s a sight for sore eyes,” he said.
Looking at the sun, Simon said: “I’d almost given up hope of seeing it again.”
“No, there.” Brad pointed to the left, up beyond the goats and trees.
“Shangri-La, wouldn’t you say?”
• • •
Simon could remember a holiday he had spent with an aunt in a small dreary north-country town when he was nine or ten. The first couple of days, when rain kept him indoors, had been terribly dull; but at last the weather cleared, and he was able to go for a walk. The nearby countryside was as drab as the town—fields of potatoes and beet—but then he turned a corner in a lane and saw coming towards him, incredibly, a man with an elephant.
His aunt, when he told her, was unimpressed: the farm belonged to a circus family, who sometimes sent animals down there for convalescence. It wasn’t remarkable that he had seen an elephant being exercised.
For him, though, it was and remained one of the most astonishing and thrilling encounters of his life. He felt the same way about the building that now confronted him. Behind was the mist through which they had plodded for so many weary hours; ahead, clear and sunlit, lay a mountain landscape whose jagged wildness seemed totally divorced from and alien to human activities. But also there, nestling beneath the mountain peak, was an elaborate and extensive complex of buildings, which must have taken decades, perhaps centuries, to erect.
They were red and white against the grey of rock. On closer view, he could see that the white was granite, the red timber. He marvelled again at its existence here. The granite might have been quarried somewhere nearby, though he saw no evidence of that, but the wood must have been carried all the way up from the plains.
The massive gates were open, revealing a long drive of stone flags flanked by blossoming gardens. He saw irises and peonies, lilies and lupins, and low-lying gold-cupped flowers that looked like oversized celandines. Except that, obviously, they weren’t. Celandines were marsh plants which could not survive at such an altitude.
An archway led to a courtyard, where they parted from the guards. Bei Tsu conducted them to a patio with a pool where fat fish floated in the shade of water lilies. At the far side, two snarling porcelain dogs, oversized Technicolor Pekingese, guarded a doorway. They went through to a hall whose floor and ceiling were black, walls a deep rose-gold, furnished only with two low tables on which lamps stood. The hall gave on to a corridor, with more lamps in niches. At the end of it, before a second doorway, Bei Tsu stood to one side, put his hands together, and bowed his head in farewell.
His departing footsteps echoed as they went in. This room was smaller and not so bare. A frieze about a yard in depth ran round the walls, depicting a continuous landscape: mountains and valleys, rivers and lakes and waterfalls, deer-parks and villages succeeded one another. It was a living landscape, with birds and fish and small animals, peasants working, mandarins contemplating nature. The ceiling here was creamy white, and the walls blue above a polished azure floor. Lamps glowed behind blue glass. A smell of something like incense came from enamelled bronze urns set at intervals along the walls. There was furniture: tables and chairs.
“Is this the guest room?” Brad asked. “Those mats over there look as though they’re meant for sleeping on.”
Simon felt unsettled. “Is it all right to talk?”
“Who’s to stop us? Who’s here, anyway? They maybe don’t need guards on top of a mountain—but no servants? No hellos?”
“Perhaps we’re meant to wait here till someone comes.”
Brad went over to a table on which there were various bowls and dishes.
“A waiting room, laid for supper?” He examined the display more closely. “Rice, of course, and rice cakes. But this looks like fish in some kind of sauce. And that is cold lobster. And look here.”
He picked something from a bowl and held it up: an apple.
Simon said: “I suppose it could have been brought up from the valley.”
“The apples in Li Nan were still tiny. This is ripe.”
“An early variety?”
“And we’re a couple of hundred miles farther north. And what about this?”
There was a twig attached to the fruit, and the twig had a leaf. Brad plucked and smelled it.
“Fresh.”
“So how do you account for it?”
“I wish I knew,” Brad said. “It’s all crazy. Those flowers blooming outside. . . . None of it makes sense.”
Simon had followed him to the table. In the bowls he saw cherries and pomegranates, yellow berries he did not recognize, purple plums. With a feeling of recklessness, he took a plum and bit into it: juice ran down his chin.
“Tastes great,” he said.
Brad was staring at the apple. “It just can’t be real. There’s no way you can have cherries and apples ripe at the same time.”
Simon finished eating the plum and tucked the stone away behind the bowl. He felt more hungry rather than less. He took a small bowl and filled it with the food on display. Brad, after some hesitation, followed suit. There were chopsticks and a flask containing wine. They ate and drank, and Simon refilled his empty bowl.
Brad had put his down and was staring round the room with a puzzled, almost angry look.
“It’s not some kind of illusion,” he said. “You can’t eat illusions. So what is it?”
“Does it matter? We didn’t eat better even in Cho-tsing’s palace.”
Suddenly, though, Simon felt a chill of apprehension. It was like being in a fairy story—the vast mansion at the mo
untain top, no one in evidence, tables laid for a feast. . . . That was the kind of scene, he remembered, which usually ended badly, when the giant returned, or the troll, or the wicked witch.
“There has to be an explanation,” Brad said.
He told himself it was a long time since he had believed in fairy stories; at the same time, he wished Brad would stop fussing about it. He said brusquely: “It can wait till morning. I’m dead beat.”
He unrolled one of the mats and lay on it. Something else was odd, he realized; although there was no sign of heating, it did not feel cold. He decided against mentioning that to Brad, in case it brought on another fit of speculation. Anyway, he was very tired. Weariness soon dragged him down into sleep.
• • •
In this dream, Simon was once more back in the time before the fireball, resting on a river bank on a drowsy summer’s day. The voice crept into the dream. It was low, lulling, scarcely distinguishable from the sound of the breeze in the willows. Gradually it grew closer and louder. He could tell it was a man’s voice, though he could not make out what it was saying. He became aware of something else, too—hands on his wrists, gentle but firm, holding him.
He was in some twilight state between sleep and waking. He heard tinkling music, a pattern of notes rising, then falling. The voice began to take on meaning.
“There is nothing to fear. Be at peace. Bid second mind be still. Be at peace. There is nothing to fear. Be at peace, be at peace. . . .”
He had a sense of time having stopped; or perhaps of it being caught up in a loop, with notes and words repeating, forever and ever. He felt he was slipping into something unknown and unknowable, like a rudderless boat drifting downstream. Towards what—an open lock, a weir? Uncertainty became doubt, suspicion, fear. His mind shut tight against the voice.
“Be at peace. There is nothing to fear.”
He resisted still, on the edge of panic but refusing to surrender. He had an image of a small animal caught in a trap, wire tightening round it as it struggled. He would not give in. Then somehow the image changed: the small animal was being lifted from its confinement by strong but gentle hands.