BAF 64 - Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat, page 6
part #64 of Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series
Emperor merely indicated the threadbare walls and Wan’s immemorial garb.
“Formerly, Magnificence, my state was thus and thus, lacking nothing and having slaves to stand before my presence,” admitted Wan. “But of late one in authority has oppressed me for no cause, save that the proverb aptly says, ‘Should you touch a rat upon the tail be assured that he will turn and bite you,’ and in this latter end his malice has prevailed.”
“Ah,” commented the Enlightened with a meaning nod at each of his suite in turn, to which they duly responded an apt glance of cognizance. “What is this corrupt official’s name and the sign of his condition?” And the Justice-loving began to rub his hands enjoyably together.
“He is of the crystal button, lord, and his forbidding name Hin Ching. Furthermore, led on by an insatiable curiosity, he is at this moment standing about this person’s crumbling gate, striving to peer through the prickly hedge toward us.”
“Let him be brought in at once,” was the command, and with no opportunity to prepare an evasive tale Hin Ching was hurried forward.
“Hin Ching,” said the Emperor, who had meanwhile taken up an imposing station, “all your duplicity is known to us and no defense will serve you. How comes it that you have so pursued this meritorious youth who has our royal favour?”
“Tolerance,” pleaded the terror-stricken culprit, seeing no other course before him, and kowtowing so passionately that his words could scarcely be heard above the steady clashing of his head upon the sonorous floor, “be clement in your strength, for it has long been suspected that this person’s heart is touched.”
“In that case,” decided the Sun of Impartiality, “the marks should certainly be visible so that the innocent may be warned thereby.” Then turning to his retinue he continued: “Procure a reasonable abundance of supple bamboo rods, and without disturbing the afflicted Mandarin from the position which he has so conveniently assumed, remove his lower robe.”
At this awful presage of the nature of the correction shortly to be laid upon Hin Ching, a shudder went up from the assembled host and even Wan vacillated in his strict resentment.
“Brother of the peacock,” he pleaded, “suffer justice this once to drowse. He is a man of middle years and obese beyond his age.”
“It has ever been the privilege of the wronged to condone the guilty,” replied Ming Wang, “and to that extent your plea must hold. Yet wherein shall Hin Ching’s penance lie, his case being outside the Code of Yaou and Shun? What, Mandarin, is your strict equivalent?”
“Your entirely humble ranks equal with a district prefect, High Excellence—equal and above.”
“Henceforth you will rank equal and below, thus degrading you appreciably and at the same time enabling you to save a portion of your face. On the unbending line of pure romantic justice all your belongings should divert to Wan, but as this would probably result in your becoming a dangerous criminal, the special requirements will be met by allotting to him half. To prevent any mutual delusion, you will divide all you possess into two equal mounds—and Wan will make his choice.”
“May your life span ten thousand ages and your grandsons rule the world!” exclaimed Wan. “It is enough to have seen this day.” And even Hin Ching contributed an appropriate, though a shorter, blessing from within his teeth.
“It only remains to define your duties,” continued the Ever-thoughtful, addressing himself to Wan. “Your style will be that of ‘Protector of the Tree,’ and the scroll confirming this will follow in due season. Your chief function will, of course, be that of assuring an unfailing supply of the beverage to our royal Palaces at all times. In your spare moments you can transmit offshoots of the trees to every point of our boundless Empire, so that the seed shall never fail. The office, which will be strictly hereditary, will naturally be quite honorary, what you receive from Hin Ching being sufficient to maintain your state. It will, however, carry with it a salute of three trumpets and the emblem of a steaming cup.”
“Majesty,” reported an attending slave, entering at this pause, “a relay of swift horses from the Capital awaits your commanding voice without.”
The All-accomplishing rose and moved toward the door with the well-satisfied smile of a person who has achieved his worthy end.
“Everything has been set right here,” he remarked pleasantly, “and the usual edicts will follow within a moon.” Then to his suite: “Come, let us press forward with all haste to scatter the germs of promiscuous justice elsewhere.”
Chapter Three
THE FURTHER CONTINUANCE OF KAI LUNG’S QUEST AND HIS OPPORTUNE ENCOUNTER WITH AN OUTCAST BAND, ALL IGNORANT OF THE CLASSICAL EXAMPLES OF THE PAST
The next day, as soon as it was light, Kai Lung resumed his toilsome way, sustained by the cordial leave-takings of the villagers to whom his unassuming qualities as a relater of events had proved of interest, and no less encouraged by the tactful bestowal of such gifts as they had no further use for.
“Even a meatless bone should be tendered with both hands,” apologized one bereft of reason, as he indicated all that he could offer—a pipe containing only ashes, and in the same harmonious spirit Kai Lung placed the stem between his lips for a few moments with the equally polite assurance, “It is not necessary to pluck the fruit in order to admire the tree.” At the parting of the roads a patriarchal figure was seated on the earth. As the one with whom this narration is essentially concerned approached, the inopportune person indicated that the other should retard his footsteps so that they might converse at leisure and with ease. Unwelcome as the delay would prove, Kai Lung had no alternative but to defer to the wishes of a venerable whose long white moustaches almost touched the ground. He stopped and saluted him with deference.
“What is passing through your mind is by no means so hidden as you may think,” remarked the stranger, with a penetrating glance; “nor, considering the mission upon which you are embarked, is your reluctance to be wondered at.”
“Your insight is both clear and deep,” confessed Kai Lung. “What you infer is all the more surprising, as no word of this has so far escaped my docile tongue.”
The ancient smiled slightly in a self-approving manner a^id caressed the more accessible portions of his virtuous moustache.
“It is not necessary for a philosopher to light a torch to catch glow-worms by at midday,” he replied profoundly. “The one before you, in spite of his admittedly quite ordinary appearance, is really an experienced wizard. Last night, in return for the gratifying entertainment afforded by your story of the vicissitudinous Wan, he spent the horn’s of darkness in drawing up the fundamentals of your lucky system. From these it would appear that the numbers 4 and 14 are inimical to your prospects, while 7 and 41 point directly to success. The mango is a tree to be avoided, but a golden bud set on a leafless stem leads to your achievement. Finally, should you encounter two hyenas and an infirm tiger disputing for the possession of a sick cow’s bones, do not hesitate.”
“It is well expressed,” replied Kai Lung gratefully. “Yet in what precise direction should the recommended lack of indecision tend?”
The gifted necromancer raised his inspired eyebrows somewhat, as though this stress of detail did not altogether merit his approval.
“It is one thing to forecast contingencies,” was his reply; “it is another branch of the occupation to explain what takes place thereafter. If you have led a consistent life, doubtless some benignant Influence will be told off to direct you in the crisis.”
“I can make no particular claim to anything excessive,” admitted Kai Lung with due humility. “My usual practice has been to avoid treading on bees, ants, silkworms, and industrious creatures generally, and there is a suitable hole cut in my outer door and a bowl of rice always set within so that any passing homeless ghost need not go hungry through the night. The care of ancestral spirits of course need not be specified.”
The aged made a gesture expressive of some doubt.
“It may be deemed sufficient in your hour of trial,” he conceded, “but a few authentic charms, written with perfumed ink and worn at the more vulnerable angles of the body, might well be added.”
With this warning in his ears, the story-teller passed forward on his way, for the pious anchorite had immediately fallen into a deep introspective haze from which it would have been unseemly to recall him. Profiting by the directions readily disclosed to him by dwellers in those parts, Kai Lung steadily followed in Ming-shu’s offensive wake, not forming any very clear perception of how to act when the moment of their meeting should arrive, but content meanwhile to leave the matter to the all-directing wisdom of the forerunners of his Line.
After enduring many hardships and suffering occasional inconvenience through the really flattering but too excessively persistent attentions of brigands, outlaws, underling officials, wild beasts of various kinds, snakes and scorpions, swollen rivers, broken paths, and thunder-stones, Kai Lung came on the seventh day at evening to the outskirt of a trackless morass that barred his further progress. The scanty dwellers in that sterile waste were persons of a low standard of intelligence whose sole means of livelihood consisted of the occasional wayfarer who sought their aid. These it was their custom, by immemorial use, to rob and then fatally dispose of, or to guide along the secret morass paths for an agreed reward—according to the arrangement which they found the more convenient. The appearance of Kai Lung was disconcerting to a tribe of so regular a habit.
“For here is one who has nothing in his sleeve and whose apparel is inferior to the worst among ourselves,” they said. “Thus he is secure from our extracting thumbs, and having no complaint to carry hence against us there is no reason why we should put ourselves to the trouble of disposing of him fatally,” x and they continued to look at one another askance.
“That is a matter very easily arranged,” interposed Kai Lung. “In accordance with a certain vow, it is necessary that I should cross these voracious swamps in pursuit of Ming-shu’s host. By guiding me among the secret ways, you will fulfil one of your essential purposes, and by supplying me with such meagre food as will enable me to justify my oath, and you will acquire merit of a very special kind.”
To this solution of their difficulty, the better-class murderers at once agreed, but some of the more sordid-minded, who by reason of their deficient literary attainments could not follow the balance of the synthesis, began to murmur from behind their fanlike hands.
“It is all very well,” they implied, “but Ming-shu, who began by putting us to death to exact our service, was forced in the end to succumb to our terms. Why, then, should we guide this alien wayfarer, who is plainly banded with Ming-shu, merely to gain some hypothetical distinction in a future state?”
“The reply to that is easy and concise,” was Kai Lung’s ready answer. “This being the seventh day of my pursuit, it falls within my lucky zone, and thereby I cannot fail. Should you neglect to profit by my auspicious presence here, another will snatch this godsend from your grasp, for in the circumstances a powerful friend will certainly arise to foster me, even as that high official the Mandarin Wong Tsoi came to the aid of Keu Chun, the needy actor.”
“We who are men of the bog land of Ying-tze pay allegiance to the Mandarin Ho Hung alone,” the ill-contents replied. “What is this new official with whom you threaten us?”
“The word is inexact,” maintained Kai Lung, “nor would a throat so obsequious as mine bend to the line of menace. The Mandarin Wong Tsoi is one who had no actual existence in this world, he being but a fictitious creation of an imagined tale.”
At this the tribesmen conferred together apart and it was plain that even the boldest were shaken. Then the spokesman stood forth again.
“If the Mandarin Wong Tsoi was such as you affirm, how is it possible to say what words he used or the manner of his behaviour in any contingency of life?”
“That constitutes the story-teller’s art,” replied the one before them, “and therein lie the essentials of his craft. But is it possible,” he added, scarcely daring to voice so incredible a thought, “that you are unacquainted with the crystalline scintillation and many-petalled efflorescence of a well-related legendary occurrence?”
“We are but the untutored brigands of this lonely waste, whose immature ideas have hitherto been bounded by the arrival of inoffensive travellers from the east and the manner of their passing out toward the west,” confessed the tribe. ’The form of entertainment to which you allude lies quite beyond our sphere.”
“Yet it would seem incredible,” lamented Kai Lung sadly, “that within the furthest confines of our classic-loving Empire there should be tribes so barbarous and deficient in the rudiments of a literary veneer as not to be acquainted with the ‘Romance of Three Kingdoms’ or the more austere ‘Wilderness of Pearls,’ and to whom the graceful apophthegm-spangled masterpieces of the sublime period of Tang are a never-opened book.”
“We certainly begin to become conscious of a hitherto-unsuspected void,” agreed the leaders. “But how can a community living so remote aspire to correct our fault?”
“As to that,” replied Kai Lung modestly, “the one before you is himself a very third-rate relater of fabricated legends. On the understanding that you will guide him through the hidden byways of your prepossessing swamp and will supply his present need, he will, to the best of his quite unsatisfactory ability, endeavour to waste your priceless time with the narrative entitled The Story of Wong Tsoi and the Merchant Teen King’s Thumb.’”
“Is that a noteworthy example of your inimitable style?” asked the chieftain of the band politely.
“It is neither better nor worse than any other threadbare makeshift of my superannuated stock,” replied Kai Lung no less reciprocally. “It maintains, however, a certain harmonious parallelity to our existing state in that a discreditable outcast finds a beneficent protector in his hour of need, and the one who thus upheld his cause is himself rewarded for his virtuous action.”
“If that is the case, we will constitute your circle,” agreed the others, “and when you have honourably fulfilled your word you will find no disposition on our part to recede from ours.” Kai Lung accordingly unrolled his well-worn mat and indicated that his simple preparation was complete.
THE STORY OF WONG TSOI AND THE MERCHANT TEEN KING’S THUMB
It was the custom of the Mandarin Wong Tsoi to move about the streets of Hoo-Yang at night unattended and by stealth. Sometimes he chanced upon an encounter of a kind that was not strictly within his province as a magistrate, at others he heard a whisper that enabled him to influence justice toward those whom he distrusted without the necessity of invoking the more elaborate forms of law, and upon one occasion-But having thus first brought to the notice of a select and proverbially open-handed band of listeners the most distinguished person of this very ordinary recital (according to the dictates of the refined models of the past), it is now permissible to begin in a more convenient manner.
When Chun, the son of Keu, returning to his father’s house from a lengthy absence, made his first inquiry, after the protestations of regard and filial devotion, it was of Fragrant Petal that he spoke. Recalling little of what had gone before, they told him freely, with, perchance, an added jest that one so old and unwieldy in his bunk as Teen King, the rich produce merchant, should seek to possess a butterfly. When he knew all, Chun reached for his hat and his staff and unlatched the door.
“I would look again upon the Ways and well-remembered quarters of the city,” he remarked evasively.
“Yet it is now dark,” they reminded him, “and you are but just restored to us. To-morrow—”
“There is still light enough to show me what I seek,” was his reply.
As Chun turned later into a convenient byway that led down to one of the deep places of the river, he met two men running and heard a cry from the darkness of the water. The great sky lantern at that moment directing a propitious beam, he discovered one struggling vainly to regain the shore, and thrusting a long pole toward him, Keu Chun succeeded at length in bringing him to safety.
“Your aid was timely,” remarked the stranger when he was somewhat recovered, “and the measure of this one’s gratitude will not be stinted. In what particular direction does your necessity lie?”
“This is in the nature of things, seeing that the origin of our meeting is your desire to avoid drowning and my determination to encounter it,” replied Keu Chun sombrely. “Thus the foreshore of the river on which we stand becomes, as it were, a common ground to both. If you will but continue your footsteps to the north and leave me equally to press forward to the south, our various purposes will thereby be effected.”
“What you say is sufficiently surprising, and I would gladly learn something more of your condition,” exclaimed the other. “The dilapidated hut that shelters me stands but a short li distant from this spot. Even if your mind is set on drowning, courtesy demands that I who am concerned shall at least provide you with a change of dry apparel in which to do so more agreeably. Should you still be in the same mood after this slight civility, there will be nothing lost, for, as the proverb says, ’Felicity slips quickly by, but affliction walks side by side along our path.’”
“If you feel that the omission would leave you under an intolerable obligation, I cannot reasonably deny you what you ask,” admitted Chun with an emotion of no-enthusiasm toward any arisement. “Therefore, lead on.”
With this encouragement the stranger professed himself content, and together they sought the higher ground. Presently the more noisome district of the city, where beggars, criminals, and the literary classes had their quarter, was left behind, the better-reputed parts frequented by the industrious and sincere were likewise passed, and soon the spacious ways and well-spread gardens of successful merchants and officials marked their further progress.
“Admittedly the path that seems long to a person when fleeing from justice appears incredibly short when he is led down it to execution,” remarked Keu Chun at length.
