Foreign Devils (39 page)

‘What do you want with me?’ I asked.

‘To know you. To see your intentions.’

‘I am here as an emissary to the Autumn Lords.’

He snorted. ‘The Autumn Lords?’ He placed a finger on the barrel of my sawn off and pushed it a little, not hard, so that it wasn’t directed at his stomach. ‘You will learn the nature of our Lords of Autumn.’

‘Why don’t you just tell me their nature?’

‘They are creatures of Qi.’

‘That is what Sun Huáng said, too. I am still not sure I understand what this Qi is. Can you explain it?’

‘I am old and have not the years left in me to make you see, though I can tell I would quite enjoy being your teacher.’ He patted my knee in a grandfatherly way, totally ignoring the Hellfire weapon there. ‘Let me ask you a question, miss.’

‘I am a married woman.’

‘It’s not a proposition,’ the old man said, and then winked and I couldn’t help but laugh. He grinned at me. ‘Everybody wants something. Sun Huáng. Your brother. The emperor Tamberlaine. What do
you
want?’

It was unvarnished and simple yet it was hard to answer. I sat silently for a long while. ‘A healthy son. A return to my loved ones. Safety.’

Sun Wukong looked at me closely. ‘These are all good things.’ He stood. In some way, I could tell from his expression, I had said what he wanted to hear. ‘I am simply a small and aged man. But should you require my help, come here and call for me and I will give you what aid I can.’

‘Why should I trust you?’

‘You shouldn’t, this is true. You should trust no one, in the end.’ He smiled. ‘Or, since you are a good judge of character – this I can tell – you should trust each living thing to act according to their own nature.’

‘I don’t know you well enough to know
your
nature,’ I said.

‘Shame, that. Something we’ll have to rectify.’ He laughed and then scrambled up over a shelf of fallen stone and leaped to the top of a marker, as spry as a goat on the mountainside. ‘It is at this point I must ask you to turn over all of your money.’

I snorted, and pointed the Hellfire directly at his chest.

He looked sheepish. ‘My reputation is that of a man of the people. While I have enjoyed talking with you, you are
most definitely not
of
the people.
And so, that means, I must rob you.’

‘You can try,’ I said.

He cocked an eyebrow at me. ‘What if I was to tell you that if you do not give me all your money, the lovely handmaiden or the boy that rode with you here will die.’

‘You’re bluffing.’

He whistled and shadows began moving through the standing stones and graves. Men and women. Rough and armed. The Monkey-boys. They shifted about and then, almost at once, they blended back amongst the stones.

‘I do not think you would kill an innocent.’

‘How do you know they are innocent?’ Sun Wukong said.

‘How do you know they are not?’

He did a quirky little movement and it took a moment for me to realize he was dancing. ‘No one is innocent, my dear, no one is safe. No one is innocent, my dear, no one is chaste,’ he chanted in a little sing-song voice. ‘No one is pure, my girl, no one is blameless. No one is—’

‘I’ll give you the money if you stop singing.’

‘All of it?’

‘All I have on me,’ I said.

Sun Wukong bowed. As he leaned forward, he dropped into a roll – an outstanding feat for a man of his advanced years – and before I knew it, he stood before me again with his hand outstretched.

‘That is acceptable,’ he said, his eyes glinting merrily.

‘It’s technically not robbing though.’

‘The Monkey-boys of Jiang dip their fingers in extortion, too. Should I start singing again?’

I rummaged in my dress and withdrew my purse. He snatched it from my hand.

‘We thank you, miss,’ he said.

‘Trust people to always follow their own nature,’ I said.

‘Consider this an object lesson.’ He tucked the money away. ‘You have my word. Should you be in need, come here and I will help.’

‘You’ll just rob me again.’

He winked. ‘Technically, it was not a robbery.’ He scrambled up and away from me, stopping in a V caused by the collapse of two standing stones. ‘Remember,’ he said, and disappeared.

It took a short while to find myself back at the palanquins. The guards were there and in a state of high agitation, along with Delia and the boy, Fantasma. Of them all, only Fantasma seemed nonplussed about my absence. The guards bustled me into the litter and drove the bearers home at a brisk trot.

Because the culture of Far Tchinee is so different and unexpected, I did not tell Sun Huáng of the events of the day for two reasons: the first was I feared the guards might be put to death for their inadvertent transgression, or at least seriously reprimanded, physically or financially, and I could not see as it was their fault; the second was because I worried about his reaction to my discovery about his relation to Sun Wukong. At some point I would broach that question with him, but not now. That did not mean I wouldn’t ask some questions.

That night, at dinner, Sun Huáng had returned and seemed in a good mood. We dined on fried bits of fish covered in a spicy brown sauce with vegetables, on rice, and a delectable soup made from the grasses found on the high-plains far to the north and stewed in some sort of creature’s stomach over a fire. Carnelia, Secundus, and Tenebrae chattered on about the events of the day’s training and asking Huáng questions regarding armatura or mastering their art of martial exercise and movement and Huáng gave them instruction, yet his eyes continued to return to me.

‘Today, Sun Huáng, we stopped at a necropolis in the western part of Jiang,’ said I, watching his face for some reaction. ‘It was a beautiful place, yet solemn and a little lonely. Afterwards, I recalled you mentioning that the robber Sun Wukong lives in a place like that. I am fascinated. Can you tell me more of this Sun Wukong?’

Huáng’s eyes narrowed, and he cleared his throat nosily. ‘What would you know?’

‘Surely, like an August One, no one becomes a famous robber overnight.’ I took a drink from the water in my glass. ‘What can you tell us of his origins and his history?’

‘Nothing,’ Sun Huáng said. ‘His story is a fabrication, full of half-truths and lies. He claims to be for the people, yet he lives in a city of the dead.’

‘This necropolis had many standing stones with offerings at their bases. What is the story behind those?’

Sun Huáng drank some rice wine, wiped his mouth with a napkin, and then slowly considered his words. ‘The
Sicheng
, or city of revered dead, is a place of great Qi, where we remember and honour the great energies cast into the world by our ancestors.’

Secundus said, ‘Sifu, does this mean you worship your dead?’

‘No,’ he said after a long moment, his eyes never leaving mine. ‘We revere the energy they passed into the world. Each person’s Qi rises and mixes with the ebb and flow of the world’s. Only those of exceptional Qi are remembered in
Sicheng
. The fathers of families, the matrons that gave birth to many notable children. Accomplished men and women. Warriors and poets.’

‘And August Ones?’ I asked.

‘Of course. The August Ones are the first among men and women. But they are so far below the Autumn Lords as to be mere …’ He thought. ‘Animals.’

For a moment I had to consider if Huáng was struggling with our language or if he was being guarded. Or both.

‘When will we be brought before them?’ Secundus asked. ‘I have been enjoying your hospitality and training so much, I fear I’ve been lax in expiation of my familial and national duties.’

Huáng turned to look at Secundus, letting a shallow smile touch his face. ‘I am sorry, it will be a bit longer. Ting-thiam Huáng, the August One Who Administers Trade, had a problem with the Manchus and needed Tsing Huáng’s assistance and so he was called away. You must wait a bit more before you can go before the Lords of Autumn.’

Secundus shrugged and Tenebrae seemed to relax. Carnelia looked at me and then back to Huáng, as if she was caught between two extremes. And maybe she was. Finally, she said to me, ‘It won’t be long, sissy.’

‘And how was the reason for your trip? Did you take part in the
t
ŭ
mù –
the ingestion of the pure?’

I laughed. ‘If you meant, did I eat the white dirt? Yes, I did.’

Carnelia made a curious sound in her throat and said, ‘Sissy, why didn’t you take me with you?’ And then after a beat, ‘You ate
dirt?
’

Secundus said, ‘I say, Livia, are you going native or something? Performing Tchinee rituals and the like?’

‘I have seen you bowing to Huáng, brother.’ I said, ‘Going native? No, I think not. Of all of us here, I am the one most eager to complete our task and re-board the
Malphas
and put this place behind us. I would bear my child with my husband, or at least knowing I would soon be with him.’

‘Then what’s this
t
ŭ
mù
business our host is referring to?’ Secundus said.

‘From what I could tell, it’s something pregnant women do. They go to this quarry, I think, and eat the white dirt there. For the health of the baby.’

‘Preposterous. How could earth help an unborn infant?’

Huáng raised a hand. ‘Secundus, every day you train to learn to channel and express your Qi, yet you cannot believe that the earth itself might do the same?’

Secundus looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘I guess it is reasonable, expressed like that.’

‘So that would mean,’ Carnelia said, ‘Livia was consuming the earth’s Qi! Like some vorduluk?’

Sun Huáng shook his head. ‘All of life possesses Qi. The pure earth Livia ingested is known as the white jing of the earth. Its essence.’

‘Its “pearly” essence?’ Carnelia said, arching her eyebrow. ‘Oh, Livia.’

‘Stop it, Carnelia.’ I said, not interested in her silliness. I shrugged. ‘When I found myself at this wall, smelling the earth, I felt a twinge almost like a craving. I cannot explain it, but I took it up and ate the dirt. From what I could tell, the women of Kithai have been doing it for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. It should not hurt me.’

‘No,’ Huáng said. ‘It will not hurt you. And Delia is a trusted servant of my house. But you must remain wary.’

‘I am always wary,’ I said. ‘I trust only that everyone will act according to their nature.’

Standing, I excused myself. Huáng watched me as I walked from the room.

Fantasma continues to puzzle me. He’s a lean, rangy thing, with sharp calloused hands, the likes of which you see on street urchins or prostitutes. But his skin is flawless and his features almost girlish. When you look at him, the immediate appearance is of youth, but should you sit at a table with the lad nearby and close enough, flooded with morning sunlight, he seems older. He has very little pigment to his skin. He would seem an idiot, but he is tight lipped and never speaks – I have never heard him utter so much as a word – so he has not the slack-jawed appearance of the addle-brained. Though his eyes do have the cast that most people from Kithai possess, it is far less pronounced than his countrymen. And his mess of black hair, sometimes curly, sometimes straight when wet, gives him a constantly shifting appearance.

But more than all this, he seems dislocated, like his mind is not here. I have never seen him eat – though I know he must. Once, when I sat with Carnelia in the garden, taking a strong cup of the dark tea they serve us here in the afternoon, he wandered up to us, face blank, with a rather large blue feather caught on his lower lip.

‘Look, Livia, the cat has caught the canary,’ Carnelia said.

I considered the lad. On this afternoon, his hair was lying straight on his head, shaggy and wild. With his blank features and placid demeanour, he did seem more feline than I would have liked and he turned those blank eyes toward me. Carnelia reached out and plucked the feather from his lip, yet he did not flinch or blink. A strange lad, altogether, I thought then, like those soldiers who come back from whatever front they fought and laboured on to discover their enthusiasm for the world they fought for has withered away within them in its absence and everything in life is monotony at its best and, at its worst, a thing of dread.

On the day after meeting Sun Wukong in the Jiang necropolis, I was asked to take lunch with Sun Huáng and was quite surprised to find Min with him. We met in Sun Huáng’s study, the walls crisscrossed with shelves that looked like wine racks, and where each bottle might have sat was a heavy scroll with wooden spindle. Incense burned on a small statue of what looked to be a bear and a man standing together, there were flowers filling the air with their luxurious scent and mixing with the smoke, and the afternoon sun spilled in great luminous geometrical shapes on the wide expanse of stone floor.

Huáng greeted me as warmly as his reserve allowed, took my hand, and by my leave lightly touched my stomach, almost as genuflection to the child growing there – or maybe the Qi swelling it within me. The distance of the night before, when I was prodding him with the proverbial stick, was gone.

‘I have allowed Min to re-join us,’ Huáng said. ‘For I cannot bear to be gone from her too long, and …’ He thought for a moment. ‘She has convinced me of her regret in her treatment of you.’

Min emerged from a side room, having been waiting for this moment.

Dressed in a simple and straight gown, Imperial blue with yellow and pink flowers embroidered into the fabric, a high collar that showed off her slender neck, and her hair freed from its normal severe style, she looked very much sincere as she bowed to me and presented a formal apology: ‘Livia of the Cornelians, please allow me to apologize for my previous words and actions. I was acting not only out of childishness, but a foolish and slavish devotion to Kithai, not recognizing that the rising tide raises all boats. It is only through mutual respect for our countries that we can come to some accord.’

I considered the girl. Her eyes were wide and clear, the pupils very dark, and I could not discern any disingenuousness nor dissembling. However, I did not trust her words. Sun Huáng watched her with a blank expression worthy of Fantasma, and he remained very still as only Huáng can remain, seemingly at total rest yet with an expectant air about him.