Dragonkeeper 2: Garden of the Purple Dragon (20 page)

“Heaven has not blessed us,” the elder said. “Our crop has been poor for three years in a row. Our trees have been struck by disease. The leaves turn yellow, and brown spots appear on them. The silkworms won’t eat them.”

“I am sorry to hear of your misfortune,” Dong Fang Suo replied.

Ping impatiently fiddled with the cuff of her coat while the elder told the Imperial Magician all the remedies they had tried. It was more than an hour before Dong was able to ask after the Yu family.

“Yes, they live here,” the elder said, “as they have done for many generations.”

Ping could hear nothing but the hammering of her heart. This was the moment she had waited for ever since they had left the Garden of the Purple Dragon.

The elder led them to a particularly dilapidated house. Before Dong Fang Suo had a chance to knock, the door was flung open. A man and a woman stood at the door. They were thin and, judging from their worn clothes, very poor, but both were smiling.

“Welcome, welcome!” They spoke as if they were greeting old friends, but they stood in the doorway, so that it was impossible to get into the house. “We have waited for this moment for so long.”

They were taking no notice of Ping. Their smiles were all for Dong Fang Suo. She couldn’t understand their excitement.

Mr Yu was a small man who once might have been as fat as Dong. The fat had disappeared, though, and the skin on his face hung like bags that had been full of grain, but were now empty. Mrs Yu was taller, but had a stooped back which brought her down to her husband’s
size. Three small children, all girls, hid behind their mother’s gown. Ping stared at Mr and Mrs Yu, searching for a resemblance—in their eyes, in their smiles, in the way that they moved.

From somewhere inside the folds of his gown, Dong Fang Suo produced three jujubes. The little girls’ eyes lit up, but they wouldn’t take the fruit.

“Will you permit your daughters to accept this small gift?” Dong Fang Suo asked.

Mrs Yu pushed the little girls forward. They took the fruit, ate them hungrily, and then were sent off to feed the chickens. Dong Fang Suo tried to move inside the house.

“My home is too humble for such honoured guests,” said Mr Yu, standing bowing and smiling in the doorway.

“A humble home is a palace in the eyes of Heaven,” said Dong Fang Suo, pushing past him. The Imperial Magician was determined to get out of the wind.

Four older girls were working inside the house. They were bent over a large bowl of steaming water. In the dim light, Ping couldn’t make out what they were doing. They stood up, bowed and started to leave.

“Please don’t let us interrupt you,” Dong Fang Suo said.

The girls glanced at their parents and went back to their work. Ping stared at them. Were these girls her elder sisters?

Mrs Yu didn’t say a word. She just smiled and smiled. Ping couldn’t understand how such poor people could be so happy.

The house was indeed very humble. It consisted of a single room with a floor of trampled earth, and no furniture, just one ancient mattress and an unlit stove. The wind found its way through holes in the walls. The grey sky showed through the roof. The blankets looked old and worn. Ping had grown used to the comforts and luxuries of the imperial lodge. Even the shepherd’s hut on Tai Shan seemed luxurious compared to the Yu family’s house. Mr Yu invited them to sit on a worn and smelly water buffalo skin on the floor. They were offered more wine. The Yus’ wine was rather sour millet wine that hadn’t been strained properly.

“You have fine daughters,” Dong Fang Suo said.

“Yes,” said Mr Yu, dismissing his seven daughters with a wave of his hand. “That is my misfortune.”

“They must be a great help to their mother,” the Imperial Magician said politely.

“They are hardworking, I suppose, but unfortunately only one of them is betrothed.”

Now that her eyes were used to the dim light, Ping could see what the girls were doing. Each one had a pile of white balls in her lap. Silkworm cocoons. A small charcoal fire beneath the large bowl kept the water hot. In fact, it looked close to boiling. The girls soaked the balls in the hot water and then turned them over and
over until they found the end of the silk thread. Then they unravelled the thread and wound it onto reels. Ping watched in amazement. Each silkworm cocoon unravelled in one long, unbroken thread. Each thread must have been more than a
li
long. The girls’ fingers were white and wrinkled from being in the hot water.

Ping wondered if the Yus had another daughter—a daughter they had been forced to sell because of the burden of so many girls.

“Heaven has blessed us though,” said Mr Yu proudly. “We have one son.”

A young boy stepped out of the shadows. Ping thought he looked about two years younger than her. He was very skinny.

“Here he is!” said Mr Yu indicating the boy as if he were a prize ox or a rare jewel.

Actually he was a most unremarkable boy. Ping thought that if he’d stood among twice-ten boys of the same age, she wouldn’t have been able to pick him out. Except for one thing. His hair was very short, too short to plait or tie in a knot. It hung about his ears and in a fringe over his forehead. He stood with his head bowed and fiddled with the belt tied around his frayed jacket.

Mrs Yu beamed at the boy and held out her hand for him to take. Her fingers were stiff and bony like birds’ claws. They were wrinkled like her daughters’, but in places the skin was peeling off to reveal red raw patches beneath—no doubt the result of spending years
immersed in hot water. Mrs Yu couldn’t keep silent any longer.

“We have guessed the reason for your visit,” she said happily. “You have come for Jun!”

She smiled proudly at her son, while Mr Yu poured more wine, spilling some on Dong Fang Suo’s gown in his excitement. He poured a cup for the boy and handed it to him. The boy took the cup with his left hand. Mrs Yu glanced at the Imperial Magician to make sure that he had noticed. It was strange to see parents so pleased to have a left-handed child. Master Lan had told Ping what a curse it was to be left-handed and how she brought him nothing but bad luck because of it.

“You are aware that members of your family have held imperial office?” Dong Fang Suo asked.

“Yes, of course,” Mr Yu replied. “My grandfather held the position about thirty years ago. He was one of a long line of Yu men who had the job. He died unexpectedly while in office. I was only a small boy, but I remember the imperial minister coming to tell us that he’d had an accident. He tested my father and me to see if we had the right characteristics. Neither of us did. We have lived in poverty ever since.”

“Jun has the characteristics though,” Mrs Yu continued. “He uses his left hand—and he can predict things that are going to happen.”

Dong Fang Suo sat up straight. “He has second sight?”

Ping studied the boy’s face. She had thought she would know if she met a fellow Dragonkeeper. She had expected her second sight would leave her in no doubt, but she felt no connection to the boy at all.

“Yes,” said Mrs Yu proudly. “He knows when storms are coming. And he can tell whether an unborn baby will be a boy or a girl.”

Dong Fang Suo looked at the boy with interest.

“I’ve never heard of a Dragonkeeper having second sight before they come into contact with a dragon. Have you, Ping?”

Ping didn’t get a chance to answer.

“That’s how we knew you were coming to offer him the position of Imperial Dragonkeeper!” exclaimed Mr Yu.

“We have not come to offer him a position, I’m afraid,” the Imperial Magician said. “The position is already filled.”

Mr and Mrs Yu’s happiness melted like ice in hot water.

“Ping is the Imperial Dragonkeeper,” Dong Fang Suo said.

The couple looked at Ping for the first time.

“A girl?” Mr Yu sneered. “How can the Imperial Dragonkeeper be a girl?”

“Who can explain the ways of Heaven?” said Dong Fang Suo.

“But we were depending on it,” Mrs Yu said. “We
paid the village elder a lot of money to teach Jun how to read and write. It kept him from his work in the orchard.”

“We were looking forward to him earning an imperial salary,” Mr Yu said. “My grandfather earned six sacks of grain and five rolls of cash every year.”

Mr Yu spoke as if this were a fortune, but it wasn’t a large sum. The gold coin in Ping’s pocket was worth more than that.

“Can’t you reconsider? Surely the Emperor would prefer a male Dragonkeeper,” pleaded Mrs Yu.

“Just a few years of this salary would save us,” Mr Yu continued. “It wouldn’t matter that we have no dowries for our other daughters. It wouldn’t matter if the mulberry leaves withered and died.”

Ping had been waiting for the right time to ask the question that was burning in her mind. She couldn’t wait any longer. Dong Fang Suo opened his mouth to say something else, but Ping spoke first.

“Have you seen this before?” she said and she pulled out the bamboo square that was hanging around her neck. Mr Yu held the character upside down as he stared at it. Ping knew it meant nothing to him.

He shook his head. “I have never seen it.”

It was no surprise to Ping. The first moment she had seen Mr and Mrs Yu, she had known deep down that they weren’t her parents. She also had a vague feeling that there was something Mr and Mrs Yu weren’t telling
them. But this sensation was overwhelmed by her sadness. She hadn’t found her family.

“We would still like Jun to be trained,” Dong Fang Suo said, with a quick sideways look at Ping, “in case the position becomes vacant. You will be compensated for your son’s absence.”

The Imperial Magician pulled a gold coin from his pouch and gave it to Mr Yu. The couple brightened.

“Jun will come with us to Ming Yang Lodge …

A scream from outside the house interrupted the Imperial Magician. Ping knew that the little dragon would be the cause of all the fuss. Kai had been alone in the carriage for too long.

Ping followed the noise. It was coming from a tumbledown shed at the back of the Yu house. As she expected, Kai was there. And he was no longer in the shape of a jar. The three younger Yu girls were staring at the purple dragon. The littlest was screaming at the top of her voice. Kai had knocked some small terracotta jars from a shelf.

“Caterpillars,” he said, though the others only heard a sound like a cheerful melody played on a flute. “Kai smell caterpillars.”

“It’s all right,” Ping reassured them. “He won’t hurt you.” She patted the screaming girl on the back, trying to console her.

“I’m sorry he has broken these jars.”

She picked up several pieces of pottery. Kai was
snuffling through the scattered contents—hundreds of tiny black balls.

“Kai, don’t!” Ping said.

She picked him up. Some of the tiny balls were stuck to his wet pink nose.

“I’m afraid he’s ruined your poppy seeds,” she said, brushing the balls off his nose.

“I don’t think they are poppy seeds, Ping,” said Dong Fang Suo. “I suspect they are silkworm eggs, saved for next season’s crop.”

“Oh,” said Ping trying to gather up the tiny eggs. Each egg would grow into a silkworm that would spin a long length of silk to form its cocoon. They were precious. “I’m so sorry.”

The little girl finally stopped screaming and settled into a sniffly cry.

Dong Fang Suo gave Mr Yu another gold coin.

Kai was wriggling in Ping’s arms. He stuck his talons in Ping’s arm. She let go of him with a shout of pain. Jun had just entered. Kai scurried over to him making high and happy flute sounds. The boy stared at Kai, but he wasn’t afraid of him. He reached out and touched the little dragon’s head.

Mr and Mrs Yu beamed with pleasure. Ping tried to smile too.

“It looks like we have found another Dragonkeeper candidate, Ping,” Dong Fang Suo said. “Our journey has been successful.”

“Kai like Boy,” said the little dragon.

Ping’s half-smile shrivelled like an autumn leaf. She felt a sensation she had never felt before. It took a while for her to put a name to it. It was jealousy.

The horse was harnessed to the carriage before dawn. Dong Fang Suo had been anxious to return to Ming Yang Lodge as soon as possible. There were many things he had to attend to before the festival. He had spent an uncomfortable night, even though the village elder had insisted on giving up his own bed to such an important guest. Two of the guards had been despatched the night before with a message for the Emperor telling him of their success. If the Imperial Magician was aware of Ping’s low spirits, he showed no sign.

Despite the early hour, every inhabitant of Lu-lin was at the village gate jostling for a good view. Frightened children clung to their parents’ gowns or cried to be lifted up. They all wanted to catch a glimpse of the amazing creature that had suddenly materialised in their village.

Kai was aware of all the attention on him and growled and blew out clouds of mist.

Jun kissed his mother and sisters goodbye and climbed into the carriage. Mr Yu handed his son a worn silk scroll.

“You must continue your studies,” he said. “We will pray to Heaven that you are successful.” He gave Ping an unfriendly glance. “It’s your birthright.”

The boy nodded.

He waved to his family as they drove off. He leaned out of the carriage, watching them grow smaller and smaller until the miserable village of Lu-lin disappeared from view.

The carriage wasn’t built to carry three people and a fidgety dragon. Dong Fang Suo took up more space than Ping and the boy together. Kai soon grew bored. Unless they were travelling through heavily populated areas, Ping had given up trying to stop him from hanging out of the carriage. He clambered over them, treading on the boy’s scroll and the Imperial Magician’s stomach.

The sky was overcast and Dong Fang Suo predicted snow.