The Mandate of Heaven (12 page)

Yun Shu would certainly have gone mad in her tiny chamber except for two diversions. First, she won over a few of the female servants, especially Pink Rose. Hours were spent in the lowly maid’s company, helping with dull chores or gossiping.

The second diversion was precious. With the connivance of her brothers’ aged tutor, who taught her how to read difficult characters when nobody was watching, Yun Shu periodically crept into Father’s library and borrowed books. The library had been abandoned since his departure for the Salt Pans so no one noticed or cared.

But on New Year’s morning when Yun Shu was fourteen, she attracted Golden Lotus’s full attention.

Outside Sitting-and-Whistling Pavilion snow continued to scatter from a burdened sky. Yun Shu held out her hands to the fire-pit. The heat on her palms warmed a memory …

Before her New Year prostration to Golden Lotus, Yun Shu had stopped by the kitchen and held her hands to the stove. It was late morning and the kitchen servants were preparing an extravagant feast in honour of Father’s patron, Jebe Khoja, an intimate feast with Golden Lotus as hostess. The Mongol prince was to be accompanied only by his closest retainers.

The servants fell silent as Yun Shu entered, but she knew what they were saying. What everyone would say. Her gut twisted into a hot, helpless serpent of shame.

By the time she knelt before a bored, pre-occupied Golden Lotus, the serpent had grown limbs and claws to become a dragon. It had developed a tongue.

As was customary, she pressed her forehead to the floor while the young man sat stiffly in Father’s chair. Only this time, the girl looked up and stood upright, her absurdly large feet in full view.

‘Golden Lotus,’ she whispered, in case the servants heard, ‘someone once told me Confucius says we must speak out when even emperors do wrong.’ That someone had been Teng; in a better life it seemed. Golden Lotus watched sulkily, twisting a lock of his silky hair. Yun Shu had realised how young he was, his doll-like face perfect as a lily. She took a deep breath. ‘Can it really be that you will entertain gentlemen
here
, when Father is away?’

Although Yun Shu had no reason to love her father, she could not help defending him. Then she said the worst thing possible, for it rang the concubine’s fears like a gong. ‘What will people
say
? Will Father ever forgive you?’

For a moment Golden Lotus’s white face was blank as porcelain.

‘Stupid girl!’ he said. ‘Did you not realise your Father arranged the invitation to show his gratitude for the favours bestowed upon him by Jebe Khoja this last year.’

‘But …’ began Yun Shu.

His face contorted. ‘Your Father calls me his most precious object! Then why am I to be shared? Do you think I relish being served like a dish of meat?’

A cruel impulse forced Yun Shu to speak, ‘I thought that was why you want feet like deer hooves! To be served! To be admired!’

‘I have every right to be admired!’ he screeched. ‘Disobedient girl! Get out, Little Fox Fairy! We have ways of dealing with witches!’

In a flash she understood. He was afraid what would happen if he failed to please Jebe Khoja. And equally afraid of pleasing him too much.

All night she heard carousing and shouting in the family quarters, followed by a long, frightening silence. Jebe Khoja left at dawn, having been so overcome he could not manage the short journey to his residence on the other side of the palace.

A few weeks later, as long as it took for letters to circulate round the lake, Golden Lotus sent a servant to inform Yun Shu that her marriage had been brought forward. It seemed Father, though far away, had agreed to hasten his worthless daughter’s nuptials to retrieve a scrape of profit from her existence. No loss to him, she thought, tears running silently down her cheeks, a loss soon forgotten amidst his noble affairs.

Tears were back on Yun Shu’s cheeks as she sat before Lord Lao’s image. Though certain the wine in the basket was intended for a sacrifice, she drank deeply. Cheap, coarse wine that burned …

There had been wine on her wedding day, too. One could hardly avoid the Ceremony of Exchanging Cups, even if every other rite was neglected.

Yun Shu had been loaded onto a Salt Bureau barge, her tiny dowry filling a single plain box. Only Pink Rose wept by the gate. Neither Golden Lotus nor her brothers waved farewell. Indeed, she had been allowed to see them just once a year – to kowtow to the little boys in silks before Golden Lotus hurried her out.

Four days of shadowing the lake shore brought her to Chenglingji, a small port with a garrison, government warehouse and little else. It did, however, possess a singular characteristic. All commerce in salt and grain for a hundred
li
was dominated by one clan, the Zhongs. Mutual profit was assured for anyone supplying the Zhongs with tax free salt – anyone like Salt Minister Gui. It followed such a deal must be sealed in a proper manner; and Yun Shu’s body was the sealing wax.

As she entered the Zhong compound a sly-faced man in gaudy silks looked her up and down. He chewed roast melon seeds continuously, resulting in a permanent sneer and narrowed eyes. His name, she soon learned, was First Son Zhong. ‘But you must call me
Dear Uncle
,’ he said, leading her to the woman who would determine her entire happiness: Honoured Mother-in-law.

Madame Zhong possessed three grown-up sons but no living husband. Although her eldest –
Dear Uncle
to Yun Shu – nominally led the Zhongs, it soon became apparent he deferred constantly to his mother.

The old lady dabbed her nose with a handkerchief as she examined the kneeling bride. An exceptionally bony woman, she wore layer upon layer of padded, scented clothes to fend off unwholesome breaths. The quantity of amulets hanging from her belt, sleeves, head-dress and flat bodice exceeded normal precautions.

‘No closer!’ she squeaked at her son. ‘I’ve heard bad things about this one!’

Dear Uncle examined Yun Shu with new interest.

‘Now,’ said Madame Zhong, briskly, ‘let us understand one another. I have only allowed you to marry my youngest son because he is worthless. As, I am assured, you are. Also, of course, to oblige our dear friend, the Excellent Gui. Do not ever approach me unless summoned. Even then, never if you are menstruating.’

The wedding ceremony, such as it was, commenced that same afternoon. Dozens of Zhongs gathered to honour the custom of Disrupting the Wedding Chamber. Yun Shu was ordered to lie down and Dear Uncle commenced the jovial games. ‘The more fun, the more prosperity!’ he cried, citing the ancient proverb. Her feet were poked, pinched and measured by dozens of hands – and declared peasant feet, so that Yun Shu must be treated like a peasant. She was ordered to walk across a ‘paddy field’ of upside down wine cups and Dear Uncle took it upon himself to spank her behind each time one broke or moved, all the while grinning and chewing. A horde of female relatives yanked at her limbs and whispered in Yun Shu’s ear about places of the body she had never dreamt one might mention. In short, everyone was hugely disappointed when Madame Zhong, who had taken no part in the ceremony for fear of noxious breaths, decreed it time to consummate the match.

For the first time Yun Shu met her future lord. He was eased into the room by two brothers, one on either side. Initially she thought he must be very sick – or deranged. His bloodshot eyes rolled slowly as he mumbled incoherent words, suddenly bursting into hysterical laughter.

Yun Shu, still quivering from her recent ordeal, managed to gain Dear Uncle’s attention. ‘Does Honoured Bridegroom need a doctor?’ she whispered.

Dear Uncle’s revolving jaw paused.

‘Can’t you
smell
the problem?’ he asked.

Then she did. Quite unmistakeably. The groom was dead drunk. But that which laid him low also lent him the necessary strength for the Ceremony of Cups. Custom decreed the groom should drink four cups of lucky wine and she only two, to denote her frailty. Evidently he considered her very frail, for he gulped down her portion of good fortune as well as his own.

For a long moment the assembled Zhongs went quiet. Perhaps a few pitied the poor girl; perhaps they felt ashamed to see a member of their clan behave without a trace of decorum. Dear Uncle smiled blandly.

‘If he manages the next bit I’ll drink twenty cups myself.’

His brothers and the other male relatives applauded this vow, offering rival bets. Yun Shu was hustled into a chamber containing a large bed with its covers pulled back. Her husband followed, pursued by a lascivious roar.

Now she had a chance to examine him. He shared his mother’s gauntness and sallow complexion. Twice her age, he looked far older. Although they had dressed him in scraps of silk, he wore his usual clothes underneath and stank of soiling. Pity pierced Yun Shu’s disgust: with it came power.

‘Sit on the bed,’ she murmured, aware of ears pressed to door and walls.

They sat side by side. He was looking at her through glassy eyes: yet she sensed he understood far more than his family assumed.

‘We must satisfy them,’ she whispered. ‘We must appear to consummate the marriage or they will give us no peace. Do you understand?’

He nodded slowly.

At her insistence, he jumped up and down on the bed, its creak and groan provoking amusement and applause outside. The effort so exhausted him that he fell into a deep sleep. Yun Shu hesitated only a moment. Remembering Pink Rose’s lewd stories about wedding nights, she took a pin from her head-dress and opened a wound in her palm, staining the sheet with blood. Finally she loosened both their clothes and pretended to sleep.

When Dear Uncle and the others peeked in, they exclaimed at the bloody sheet, regarding her with new respect.

‘That’s the way,’ he said. ‘Give Mother a male heir and she might decide you’re family.’

Once they had gone, Yun Shu realised no one had mentioned her husband’s name, other than calling him
Third Son
. Later she learned it was Xuanlu, or ‘melody’, and laughed bitterly, for she had never met anyone so out of tune with himself.

A draught of cold wind entered Sitting-and-Whistling Pavilion. Yun Shu snuggled deeper into her blanket and stared at the fire-pit. Beyond this room the entire world was dark. She took up the wine flask, drank again …

Years merged. She and her husband lived in a hut at the rear of the compound, far from the family quarters, allowed a basic allowance of food and enough wine to keep Xuanlu pacified.

At first Yun Shu tried to be a dutiful daughter-in-law; perhaps to disprove her parents’ low opinion of her, perhaps even to dredge a little good from her husband’s nature. But he was beyond cure. In the years of their marriage he hardly spoke to her, and never intimately. The one relief was that he made no demands on her body, his
yang
having shrivelled to a worm.

Winter, summer, spring, from a distance seasons merged. Soon she was a tall girl of fifteen, her puppy fat gone. Though she longed to make friends none of the female Zhongs could be trusted, nor their sharp-tongued servants. Yun Shu kept to her miserable hut whenever possible, discovering a secluded corner beside the compound wall that she turned into a garden. Xuanlu was mostly with his brothers, always the butt of their bored, cruel jokes.

Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, the years of her youth passed meaninglessly. Her dearest companions were a few cheap woodcut printed books stolen from Father’s library before her banishment:
The Book of Songs
; a history of the Empire; most precious of all, a copy of Yun Cai’s poems given to her by Dear Mother before she died; an almanac; and a Daoist text,
The Way and Its Power
. This she came to learn by heart:

Painful to know
we will always be outsiders –
endlessly rolling ocean,
aimlessly blowing wind …

Though the wise book urged passivity, she grew angrier and angrier, until one afternoon when she was barely nineteen years old, Dear Uncle appeared in the doorway of their hut and caught her reading. Xuanlu was elsewhere, getting drunk. She hid the book guiltily but it was too late.

‘What is that?’ he asked, incredulously. ‘A book!’

The Zhong clan were indifferent readers, preferring, like Mongol grandees, to hire scribes. She bowed her head and he sensed advantage.

‘Ah! So we have a little secret! Unless you make Dear Uncle happy he might have to take away your little book. He’s been watching you.’

This last revelation turned Yun Shu cold. Still she did not raise her head. Dear Uncle’s favourite concubine had died recently. She had noticed his eyes following her.

‘You want me to be happy? I thought so.’

She looked up sharply.

‘I will tell my husband about this.’

Dear Uncle popped melon seeds into his mouth.

‘He’d sell you for a jar of wine.’

‘Then I will tell Honoured Mother-in-law!’ she cried. ‘Leave me alone.’

Now he looked less secure.

‘She would not believe you,’ he said. ‘Enough!’

He advanced into the hut, shutting the door behind him.

Afterwards Yun Shu wept on the bed, her clothes torn. In this position Xuanlu found her. For all his drunken idiocy, he guessed at once what had happened – and who was to blame, so that Yun Shu wondered if this was the first time Dear Uncle had taken advantage of the household women.

‘Ah,’ said her husband, settling heavily on the feeble bed. It creaked beneath his weight.

Unexpectedly, he reached out and stroked her hair until her tears ceased and she stared blindly at the wall.

‘You mus’ go!’ he muttered.

She continued to stare at the wall.

‘He won’ ever stop now! Go back to y’parents!’

He fumbled at his belt. ‘Look! I too’ this!’

Reluctantly, Yun Shu turned. He was offering a small purse of coins.

‘Go!’ he said. ‘When it’s dark.’

Yun Shu had taken his mottled, bony hand and clutched it. He continued to stroke her hair clumsily with the other, watching the doorway fearfully.

Yun Shu paced up and down before Lord Lao’s statue. Did not Lao Tzu teach inaction always overcomes action? That water, apparently meek and compliant, wears away the hardest stone? In Chenglingji she had not been passive. She had tried to shape her destiny. She had fled, deep into the night …