He scowled at her. “That is no compliment.”
His smooth skin was the colour of hazelnuts. His mouth, though stern, had a pleasant shape. The small scar that cut through his right eyebrow was the only imperfection. The Emperor looked into her eyes and Ping’s smile faded. His dark eyes were as cold as stones in winter.
Ping had hoped that once he saw her, Liu Che would remember their friendship and forgive her. There was no hint of warmth in him, only anger.
“So where is my dragon?” the Emperor demanded.
Dong Fang Suo came puffing up the path and stood panting behind the Emperor.
“Danzi flew across Ocean to the Isle of the Blest with Hua,” Ping replied. “I don’t know if he survived the journey.”
“Your rat went to the Isle of the Blest?” the Imperial Magician asked.
The Emperor was about to reprove the Imperial Magician for interrupting, but then he stopped and turned back to Ping.
“Did he?”
“Yes, Your Imperial Majesty.”
“This is the same rat that we have now?” the Imperial Magician continued. “The one with the blue eyes?”
Ping nodded.
Everyone knew about the Isle of the Blest, the magical place that was supposed to lie over Ocean. Stories told of trees that bore giant peaches of immortality and the fungus of everlasting life. There was also a stream of jade water—the water of life. Some people had set out in flimsy boats to find the magical island. No one had ever returned. This was Ping’s only hope now. As long as the Emperor thought she had knowledge of the Isle of the Blest, he might keep her alive.
“Unfortunately the rat escaped while the Longevity Council were examining it, Your Imperial Majesty,” the Imperial Magician confessed.
Ping’s heart leapt. Hua was free.
“Do you know where it is?” the Emperor asked Ping.
She could honestly say that she had no idea where Hua was.
“I want the rat found,” the Emperor commanded.
Dong Fang Suo bowed. “Whatever Your Imperial Majesty commands,” he said.
One of the other ministers stepped forward and kneeled before the Emperor.
“The punishment for stealing an imperial dragon is death, Your Imperial Majesty,” he said. “Is it your wish that the prisoner be executed?”
The Emperor’s face turned hard again.
“Not yet.”
He turned and walked away.
The guards prodded Ping with their spears and marched her back to her prison.
Kai popped back into his dragon shape as soon as the guards left. She gave him the few snails and slugs that she had collected for him. He ate them, but continued to make low, sad sounds. She sat down in the straw and let him drink a little more of her blood.
Ping had saved a sharp piece of bone that she’d found in her gruel. She stayed up most of the night trying to saw through one of the bamboo canes of her prison with it. If she could remove just one cane they could escape and she and Kai could take their chances in the Tiger Forest. The only other choice was to reveal Kai to the Emperor. Once that was done, there would be no turning back. The little dragon would be kept in captivity for the rest of his life. That wasn’t what Danzi had wanted. Though he had been in captivity at Huangling for many years, he had spent many hundreds of years free.
The next morning, Ping was allowed to walk in the garden again, but the same pair of imperial guards were always a few steps behind her, spears at the ready in case she attempted any sorcery. She didn’t want to go to the Garden of Secluded Harmony again. The looming tower spoiled the design of the walled garden. She was too weak to walk that far anyway.
Dong Fang Suo appeared suddenly from behind a tree just as she was squashing a large slug. He was the only person who didn’t seem to be afraid of her. Before he had a chance to say anything, Ping asked a question of her own.
“Who is the woman imprisoned in the bamboo grove?” she asked.
“That is the Emperor’s sister, Princess Yangxin,” Dong Fang Suo replied. “But she is not imprisoned.”
“Then why is she so unhappy?”
The Imperial Magician looked around to make sure the guards couldn’t hear.
“Her father arranged a marriage for her with the Duke of Yan. Politically it was an excellent marriage. In the past, disputes with the State of Yan cost the lives of many imperial soldiers. There were rumours that the Duke might even join with the barbarians on the other side of the Great Wall. That would be a great threat to the Empire. The marriage brought peace with Yan.”
The Imperial Magician continued to smile even though the story was very serious.
“Unfortunately the marriage was not as desirable for the Princess. Her husband is an old man, rather coarse in his eating habits, who already has six wives. Her Imperial Highness has spent several years in lands within arrow range of barbarian invaders.”
“She must have been very lonely,” Ping said. “But she’s here now, so the Duke must have allowed her to visit her brother.”
The Imperial Magician turned in the direction of the pavilion.
“No one has seen her smile for six years.”
His own smile shrank to a small curve like a piece of orange rind. That seemed to be as close as he could get to a frown.
He asked her questions about Danzi. Did she expect him to return? Had he spoken of other dragons? What magical powers did he have? Half an hour later, he hurried off just as unexpectedly, halfway through a sentence.
The rest of the day dragged by as Ping listened to the miserable screeches of the monkeys and the soft padding of the black cat. Then Dong Fang Suo appeared on the other side of her cage and continued their conversation where he had left off as if he had merely paused for thought, rather than disappeared for half a day. Ping tried to answer the Imperial Magician’s questions, but needed all of her concentration just to stay awake.
The next day, Ping knew that she couldn’t bleed herself again without collapsing. The guards came to take her for her daily walk.
“I’m going to take you out into the garden today,” she told Kai. She turned her back on the guards as Kai wrapped his tail around her arm and took on the shape of the soup ladle.
“Why do you want to take that with you?” asked the guard with the thin moustache.
“So that I can drink from a stream,” she said. “If I get thirsty.”
The guards weren’t quite so afraid of their pale, quiet prisoner now. They looked at each other and shrugged.
They led her to a quiet part of the garden. No one else seemed to go there, not even the gardeners, who had neglected the fallen leaves, leaving them to pile in corners. Out of sight of their captain, the guards sat on one of the stone benches and played a game with pebbles.
The breeze carried the faint sound of crying. Ping wanted to get another glimpse of the weeping Princess, but she didn’t have the strength to walk that far. She was just thinking that she would have to reveal Kai to the Emperor, when she noticed one of the piles of leaves shifting. She thought loss of blood was making her see things. A rat’s head appeared among the leaves. Ping clamped her hand over her mouth to stop a cry of pleasure escaping. She glanced at the guards, who were still lounging on the stone bench.
“Hua!” she whispered. “I’ve been so worried about you.”
She picked up the rat and examined him. A patch of fur had been neatly shaved off him and several of his whiskers were missing.
“What have they done to you?”
Dong Fang Suo suddenly popped out from behind a twisted rock. Hua dived back under the pile of leaves.
“And the dragon’s speech?” the Imperial Magician asked.
He carried on his conversation from the previous day as if he’d just paused to order his thoughts. Ping felt so weak, she was worried she might fall into a faint. She focused on the magician’s misshapen slippers.
“Were you the only one who could understand it?”
“I have only me
t one other person who could understand dragon speech,” Ping replied. “That was Wang Cao, the herbalist. Unfortunately a dragon hunter killed him. But he wasn’t a true Dragonkeeper. He didn’t have second sight.”
“Did you always understand Danzi?” he asked.
“No, understanding only seems to come when the Dragonkeeper has been in the company of a dragon for some time.”
Dong Fang Suo nodded his head. “The same as the second sight,” he said.
“Yes.”
The Imperial Magician thought about this for quite a long time. Then he spoke again. “Come with me, Ping. The Longevity Council is waiting.”
The Imperial Magician led Ping to the Chamber of Spreading Clouds. Ping slowly followed him. Two carved chairs with cushions on them had been placed at one end of the chamber. The other four members of the Longevity Council were gathered there. A nervous-looking imperial guard came in carrying a cloth bundle. He placed it on a low table and gingerly opened out the corners. The bundle contained all her belongings—her gold coins, her jade pendant, the dragon-stone shards, the dragon scale, the large leaf folded in half. Her comb, sewing needle and thread were also there. Her cooking things were there, as well as her hand-carved bucket and a soup ladle that was identical to the one hanging over Ping’s arm. The only things that weren’t there were the Dragonkeeper’s mirror, which she kept in a secret pocket sewn inside her gown, and the imperial seal, which was in her pouch.
The strange men of the Longevity Council inspected her belongings. They peered at her simple cooking utensils as if they might hold deep secrets. But they didn’t touch anything. They poked at her belongings with sticks—except for the blind minister who sniffed each item.
Everyone in the room suddenly collapsed to their knees and bowed their heads to the floor. The Emperor entered, sweeping into the room in his formal yellow satin gown woven through with soaring golden dragons. Ping was feeling faint, so she was relieved to sink to her knees. A young woman was with the Emperor, her hand resting lightly on his arm. It was the weeping woman from the pavilion, Princess Yangxin. She was as slender as a sapling and took such tiny steps that she seemed to glide, like a swan on a still pool. Her gown was made of lilac silk gauze, which was so light it floated around her. Her sleeves were so deep they nearly reached the floor.
The Emperor escorted the Princess to one of the carved chairs. He took her hand to lend her support as she lowered herself gracefully onto it. A lady-in-waiting arranged the Princess’s gown around her. The Emperor smiled fondly at the Princess. Ping felt a pang of sadness. Perhaps he would smile at her again if he knew about Kai.
The Emperor gave permission for everyone to get to their feet. Ping stayed on her knees. She could see the Princess’s face for the first time. Her eyes glistened. They were dark and moist as if about to overflow with tears. Her lips were painted red, but her mouth was down-turned. Her face was as pale as moonlight. She was the most beautiful woman Ping had ever seen. But she was also the saddest. It wasn’t just her sorrowful face. A shroud of miserable sadness cloaked her just as the folds of her gorgeous gown did.
The Emperor didn’t sit. Without glancing in Ping’s direction, he went over to the low table and studied the things laid out on it. Ping felt very uncomfortable. Her whole life was spread out on that table, all her hopes and secrets were there in full view for anyone who took the trouble to interpret the items. He reached out to pick up something.
“I advise you not to touch the items, Your Imperial Majesty,” Dong Fang Suo said.
“Why not?” asked the Emperor.
“There is some sort of enchantment on the sorceress’s things.” The Imperial Magician’s smile looked dangerously close to fading. “Two imperial guards who touched her belongings immediately fell to the ground in a faint. One of them woke after a few days, the other is still unconscious. Physicians have been unable to rouse him. Let someone else pick up the items for you, Your Imperial Majesty.”
The Imperial Magician moved to pick up an object for the Emperor, but changed his mind and waved a servant over to do it instead. The terrified servant reached towards Ping’s comb with a trembling hand, but snatched his fingers back before they touched it.
The Emperor let out an impatient sigh. He picked up the comb and the jade pendant. He looked at all the items and then picked up one of the pieces of dragon stone. He held it up to the light.
“Is this a piece of the stone that the dragon hunter tried to take from you on Tai Shan?”
Ping nodded. Liu Che had witnessed her battle with Diao from a distance. He had seen her defeat the dragon hunter, and then watched as she picked up the dragon stone and escaped on the old dragon’s back.
“What happened to it?” he asked.
“I dropped it,” Ping replied. “It broke.”
He put down the shard.
“You no longer have the seal of the Imperial Dragonkeeper,” the Emperor said angrily.
“Yes I do,” Ping said, pulling the white jade seal from her pouch.
Liu Che waved Dong Fang Suo to take it from her. The Imperial Magician wiped off the caterpillar innards and insect legs that were stuck to it and put it in the Emperor’s hand. The Emperor examined the seal, rubbing the chipped corner with his thumb. Ping wished she’d taken greater care of it. He put the seal on the table with the other things and reached towards the folded leaf. He opened it out. Ping’s cheeks burned. Inside was the pressed magnolia petal on which the Emperor had shown her how to use the Dragonkeeper’s seal. Ping had kept it as a souvenir of that happy time. He turned the brittle petal over. It was a fragile thing and would have crumbled if handled roughly, but he put it back between the folds of the leaf undamaged.
The Emperor turned to Ping.
“Your possessions are puzzling,” he said.
He picked up the soup ladle on the table and examined its dragon-head handle. Then he looked at the ladle on Ping’s arm.
“My spies tell me you have been living on Tai Shan in a cave.”
He moved over to stand in front of her as he spoke.
“Why did you find the need to have two such expensive bronze soup ladles?”
With the Emperor standing so close, Ping couldn’t think of an answer. He reached out to take the ladle from her arm.
“Don’t touch it, Liu Che!” Ping cried, jumping to her feet and holding back the Emperor’s hand.
There was a sound like a brief, sharp wind, as every single person in the hall gasped in astonishment. Ping had dared to touch the Emperor … and to call him by his personal name. Most people weren’t even allowed to hear the imperial name, let alone speak it. But before the guards had a chance to drag her away, the soup ladle on Ping’s arm started to shimmer. Its colour began to change from dull bronze to purple. The gasps turned to cries of real fear. There before the eyes of twice-ten or more witnesses the soup ladle turned into a small dragon.
The ladies-in-waiting screamed. A servant dropped a wine jar. The ministers and guards jumped back in astonishment—except for Dong Fang Suo who chuckled heartily to himself, as if he’d just solved a puzzle that had been eluding him. The servants stared at the baby dragon. The Princess leaned forward in her chair to get a closer look. The Emperor stood with his mouth open, looking more like a startled boy than an Emperor.
Kai blinked and made a high sound like a single shrill note on a flute repeated again and again. He was terrified. He’d never had so many people staring at him before. He turned into a bucket, then a pot plant, then back into a dragon again. There were groans of discomfort from those who had continued to watch the shape-changing. One of the Princess’s maids was sick.
Then Ping heard different sounds, high-pitched but tuneful. It took a moment for Ping to realise that the sounds weren’t the dragon’s. They were coming from Princess Yangxin. When the small dragon reappeared, the melody broke out again. The Princess was laughing. The guards and servants stared from the dragon to the Princess, not sure which was the most miraculous. Not
only had a dragon materialised in front of them, but also the Princess, who hadn’t smiled in years, was laughing. Dong Fang Suo laughed with her. It was infectious. The ministers and servants began to chuckle. Ping smiled too.
Kai saw the Emperor’s smiling face. His sounds changed to happy flute notes.
“His name is Kai, Your Imperial Majesty. Long Kai Duan,” Ping explained. “I didn’t know it the last time I was here at Ming Yang, but the dragon stone was an egg. When we reached Ocean, Kai hatched out of it.”
The little dragon ran over to the Emperor making excited noises, like someone blowing the highest possible notes on a flute. The Emperor looked down at the purple creature at his feet. He shook his head in amazement.
“Hello, Kai,” the Emperor said. “My name is Liu Che.”
“Lu … Lu,” said the dragon voice inside Ping’s head, trying to pronounce the unfamiliar name. “Lu-lu!”
Ping was very glad no one else could hear.
The Emperor laughed as Kai sat on his gold-embroidered shoes.
“This is a most auspicious day,” he announced. “Heaven has chosen to deliver a gift to me. Where is the scribe? Let him record that on the ninth day of the ninth month of the first year of my reign, a new imperial dragon appeared at Ming Yang Lodge.”
• chapter twelve •
THE AUSPICIOUS SPARROW
“You didn’t trust me to care for the dragon, Ping?”
It was the Emperor who spoke this time. Ping felt
her cheeks burn.
Ping and Kai were moved out of the animal cage and into a chamber in Ming Yang Lodge. It was just as lovely as the one that Ping had stayed in the last time she was at Ming Yang, but this time it was Kai who slept in the comfortable bed. Ping was expected to sleep on a straw mattress on the floor.
A cook came to ask what the dragon ate. Ping gave him a long list of insects. The cook went away with a perplexed look, never having been asked to serve such things before. Not long after, a servant arrived and presented Kai with a platter of worms, snails and caterpillars, artfully arranged and decorated with butterfly wings. There was also a large bowl of milk. It was three times the size of the meals he’d had on Tai Shan, but he ate it all, including the decorations. Ping thought that for the first time in his short life he had enough to eat. When Kai had finished eating, the servant brought Ping a small bowl of gruel.