Sandalwood Death (40 page)

Recalling the poverty of his youth and the hardships of endless studies, he was reminded of the joys of passing the Imperial Civil Service Examination and the marriage alliance formed between him and Zeng Guofan’s maternal granddaughter, for which he received the good wishes of his fellow candidates, including those of his classmate Liu Guangdi, known then as Liu Peicun. Even at that age, Liu was a fine calligrapher, his writing as bold and sturdy as he himself. Having also mastered the art of poetry in its many forms, he inscribed a pair of scrolls for the wedding: “Strings of pearls, girdles of jade” on one, “Talented scholar and beautiful girl” on the other. At the time, a bright road of unlimited potential seemed to open up before him. But as they say, “Better a live rat than a dead prefect.” He spent six years in the Board of Public Works, mired in such debilitating poverty that he had no choice but to take advantage of his wife’s family connections to secure an assignment in the provinces, where he moved around for several years before landing on the relatively fertile ground of Gaomi County. Soon after his arrival, he vowed to put his talents in the service of notable achievements, which would ensure his slow climb up the official ladder. But he soon learned that Gaomi, a place coveted by foreigners, was a fancy title but a poor launching site for official promotion. Managing to survive in office until his term ended was the best he could hope for. Sigh! The last days of the Imperial House were approaching; the death knell for sage men had sounded; the earthly doings of base men resounded like thunder. He could only follow the currents and try to maintain his integrity . . .

The Magistrate was startled out of his reveries by a series of frantic equine snorts, and when he looked, he saw four emerald-green eyes glimmering in the bushes close ahead. “Wolves!” he shouted as he dug his stiff legs into the horse’s sides and pulled back on the reins. With a whinny that shattered the silence, the horse reared up and threw its rider out of the saddle.

It all happened so fast that Chunsheng and Liu Pu, who had been riding close behind the Magistrate, their teeth chattering from the freezing cold, were dumbstruck. They remained in a sort of daze until they saw two wolves moving to run down the Magistrate’s white stallion, and their dulled brains began to work again. Shouting to their horses, they drew their swords, awkwardly, and drove off the predators, sending them scurrying into the underbrush, where they vanished from view.

“Laoye!” both Chunsheng and Liu Pu shouted as they jumped off their horses and half ran, half stumbled over to the County Magistrate. “Laoye!”

The Magistrate was hanging upside down, his foot caught in the stirrup. Spooked by Chunsheng and Liu Pu’s shouts, the stallion bolted and began dragging the shrieking Magistrate after him; had it not been for the dry grass, the hard ground would have turned his head into a bloody gourd. The more experienced Liu Pu told Chunsheng to stop yelling and, like him, call out to the horse gently: “Good horse, be good, white horse, don’t be afraid . . .” Aided by the bright starlight, they cautiously approached the animal, and when he was near enough, Liu Pu rushed up and threw his arms around its neck. Chunsheng seemed to have fallen into a trance. “Idiot!” Liu Pu shouted, “get over here and free the Magistrate’s foot!”

Chunsheng tried, but made a mess of his rescue effort, causing the Magistrate even worse discomfort. “Can’t you do anything right?” Liu Pu complained. “Come up here and keep the horse from moving.”

Liu Pu managed to free the stiff leg from the stirrup and then wrapped his arms around the Magistrate’s waist to right him. His leg buckled the minute it touched the ground, wrenching a painful scream from him as he sat down hard on the ground.

Feeling numb all over, the Magistrate could not get his body to do his bidding. His head and foot throbbed unbearably; he was nearly bursting with indignation, but did not know how to vent it.

“Are you all right, Laoye?” Chunsheng and Liu Pu asked tentatively as they bent down close to him.

The men’s faces were blurred; the Magistrate could only sigh.

“It’s damned hard trying to be an upright official,” he said.

“Someone up there is always watching, Laoye,” Liu Pu said. “Your good deeds are not going unnoticed by the old man in the sky.”

“The old man in the sky will see to it that Laoye receives the promotions and riches he deserves,” Chunsheng added.

“Is there really an old man in the sky?” the Magistrate wondered aloud. “I guess the fact that my horse did not pull me to my death proves something. Don’t you agree? Now, take a look at my leg and see if it’s broken.”

Liu Pu untied the band around the Magistrate’s leg, reached up inside, and felt around.

“You can breathe easy, Laoye,” he said, “it’s not broken.”

“Are you sure?”

“My father taught me the basics of therapeutic massage and bone-setting when I was a boy.”

“Who’d have thought that Peicun could be a bone expert, too?” the Magistrate said with a sigh. “While we were riding a while ago, I was recalling the days when your father and I passed the examination. We were filled with such youthful energy and high spirits, eager to shoulder heavy responsibilities and help the country be strong and prosperous. But now . . .” Momentarily overcome with emotion, he said, “I guess there must be someone up there, since my leg is not broken. Help me to my feet, men.”

The two aides picked him up by his arms and supported him as he tried to walk. But his legs failed him—they had a mind of their own, or no mind at all—and produced stabbing pains that shot from the soles of his feet all the way up to the top of his head.

“Gather some dry grass, men, and light a fire to warm us. I can’t ride a horse like this.”

The Magistrate sat on the ground rubbing his hands and watching Chunsheng and Liu Pu gather grass by the side of the path. Up and down their bodies moved, a bit of a blur in the starlight, like large creatures building a nest on the ground. The sound of their labored breathing and the snapping of broken stalks of grass were heavy in the surrounding darkness; the Milky Way shimmered in a shower of shooting stars that lit up the faces—dark and purple from the cold—of his trusted aides and the overgrown gray wilderness behind them. Those faces gave him an indication of what he must look like: in the cold air, weariness had erased the self-assured looks they had started out with. He was suddenly reminded of his hat, the official symbol of his position and status.

“Chunsheng,” he called out anxiously, “forget that for now. I’ve lost my hat.”

“Wait till we get a fire going,” Chunsheng replied. “We’ll need the light to find it.”

With this simple statement, Chunsheng not only had disobeyed an order but, for the first time, had actually offered an opinion of his own, which the Magistrate found quite touching. On that dark night out in the wilds, all standards and norms were subject to modification.

They piled up layers of grass until they had a small stack. The Magistrate reached out to feel the grass, which was damp with dew.

“Chunsheng, did you bring something to start a fire?”

“Damn!” Chunsheng replied. “I forgot.”

“I have what we need in my pack,” Liu Pu volunteered.

The Magistrate breathed a sigh of relief.

“You think of everything, Liu Pu. Start a fire, I’m freezing.”

The young man took a steel, a flint, and a tinder from his backpack, crouched down beside the pile of grass, and began striking steel and flint together. Weak polygonal sparks flew from his hands onto the grass, making faint sizzles as they landed. He blew on the tinder with each spark, and as it slowly turned red, a tiny popping sound produced the first actual flames. The County Magistrate’s mood lightened considerably, the flames temporarily driving away the physical aches and pains and the mental anguish. Liu Pu touched the tinder to the grass, which reluctantly caught fire, the weak flames barely able to stay burning. So he picked up a handful of grass and twirled it in the air to make the fire burn stronger and brighter, until it was a blazing torch, which he then touched to the stack. White smoke began to rise skyward, filling the air with an acrid fragrance and the County Magistrate’s heart with emotion. The smoke was soon so thick that a man could almost reach out and grab a handful; and then, seemingly without warning, golden flames licked through the darkness with a roar. The smoke thinned out as dazzling bursts of light turned a swath of wilderness into daytime. The three animals snorted, swished their tails, and edged closer to the warmth of the fire. What looked like smiles adorned their long faces; their eyes shone like crystal, and their heads seemed unnaturally large. The County Magistrate spotted his hat nestling in the grass like a black hen hatching an egg. He had Chunsheng retrieve the hat, which was mud-spotted and grass-stained. The crystal ornament that represented his rank hung to one side, and one of the pheasant feathers, which had the same significance, had snapped in two. All inauspicious signs, he was thinking. But so what, damn it! How lucky would I have been if I’d been dragged to my death a moment ago? So he put on his hat, not to reclaim his dignity, but to help ward off the cold. The bonfire quickly heated up his chest, but his back felt like a slab of cold steel. As it warmed up, his nearly frozen skin turned prickly and painful. He scooted backward, and the heat moved with him, so he stood up and turned his back to the fire; but that no sooner warmed up than the front had cooled off. He turned back to face the fire. And so it went, front and back, over and over, until his body could once more move freely, although his leg still hurt. Knowing that he had not sustained a serious injury helped his mood, so he turned his attention to the three animals, which, as he saw by the light of the fire, were hungrily grazing, the bits in their mouths making crisp metallic sounds. The white horse’s tail seemed made of silvery threads as it swished back and forth. The flames got shorter as the crackle of dried grass being consumed was less frequent and not nearly as loud. The flames moved outward in all directions, much as water seeks lower ground, and spread with great speed. The wind began to pick up. Furry things were visible in the light from the fire, jumping and leaping—rabbits or foxes, probably. Birds flew into the dark sky with shrill cries, skylarks or turtledoves. The fire directly in front of the three men slowly died out, leaving only scattered red cinders. The wildfire, on the other hand, was rapidly gaining in intensity. The Magistrate, excited by the sight, his eyes lighting up, called out happily:

“This is something we might see once in a lifetime, if that! Chunsheng, Liu Pu, this alone was worth the trip.”

They climbed back on their horses and set out once more for Laizhou. By then the wildfire had spread far into the distance, like an illuminated riptide. The redolence of fire suffused the cold night air.

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3

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The County Magistrate and his traveling companions arrived at the Laizhou outskirts as dawn was breaking. The city gate was shut tight, the drawbridge was raised, and no gate guards were at their posts. The trees and groundcover were blanketed with frost as roosters crowed in a new day. Frost even decorated Chunsheng and Liu Pu’s eyebrows, in contrast to the soot that covered their faces. One glance made it clear to the Magistrate what his face must look like, and he hoped that look—frosty white beard and hair and a road-dusted face—would not disappear before he met the prefectural officials, for that would impress his superiors. In the past, he recalled, there had been a stone bridge leading to the city gate. But that had been replaced by a pine drawbridge, an emergency measure to defend against a surge in attacks across the city moat by Righteous Harmony Boxers. The Magistrate disagreed with the policy, refusing to believe that farmers would rise up in rebellion unless they were starving.

The city gate swung open as the sun rose red above the horizon, and the drawbridge made a creaky descent. After reporting their purpose in entering the city, they crossed the moat, the shod hooves of their mounts clattering on cobblestone streets that were deserted except for a few early-rising residents who were fetching water at a well, as mist rose off the frosted wooden frame. The red rays of the sun fell on the travelers’ skin, creating a painful itch, which was partially eased by the comforting sound of metal bucket handles scraping against the hooks of carrying poles. People shouldering those poles watched the passage of the visitors with surprise.

A cook pot had been set up outside a small diner specializing in tripe on a narrow street fronting the prefectural yamen. A fair-skinned woman was stirring something with a long-handled ladle. Steam rose from the boiling liquid, suffusing the air around it with the fragrance of viscera and coriander. When the three travelers dismounted, the Magistrate’s legs could barely support him; Chunsheng and Liu Pu also had trouble standing, although they managed to help the Magistrate over to a bench beside the pot. Unhappily, his broad backside was too much for the narrow seat, and he wound up on the ground, his arms and legs pointing skyward. His official hat, which seemed unwilling to stay put, rolled off into a muddy ditch. Chunsheng and Liu Pu rushed to his aid, looking sheepish over failing to properly attend to their superior, whose back and queue showed the effects of landing on dirty ground. Taking a fall early in the morning and losing his official hat in the process were bad omens. Frustrated and angry, he felt like lashing out at his attendants, but a glance at the downcast looks on their faces sent the words back down his throat.

Chunsheng and Liu helped the Magistrate up, steadying themselves on legs that were still bowed from the long ride. The woman hurriedly laid down her ladle and ran over to retrieve the Magistrate’s miserable-looking hat, cleaning it off as best she could with the lapel of her jacket before handing it to him.

“My apologies, Laoye,” she said as she handed over the hat.

She had a clear voice, filled with such fervor that the Magistrate felt warm all over. As he took the hat from her and put it on, he spotted a pea-sized mole at the corner of her mouth. Meanwhile, Liu Pu did his best to clean the Magistrate’s queue, which was as filthy as a cow’s excrement-coated tail, with the wrapping cloth from his bundle. With fire in his eyes, Chunsheng railed at the woman: