BAF 64 - Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat, page 9
part #64 of Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series
“He was, he is, but he will not henceforth be. Of late Teh-tang’s eyes have been fixed on a point somewhat above his head. It is as well that he should be removed before his aspiring footsteps seek to follow.”
“That is a detail that concerns your own internal state, nor would this one seek to probe into the routine of your well-conducted band,” declared the liberal-minded official.
Then as he turned to go he gave the courteous farewell: “May your deserving path be smooth, even to the graveside.”
“May your warmth and cold always be correctly balanced,” replied Ho Hung, with no less feeling.
It was at a later date that the keeper of the door of Teen King’s summer-house was roused from a profound meditation by an insistent knocking at the grille. The night being dark and stormy, the menial did not hasten to comply, but a still more urgent summons brought him to his feet.
“Should corrosion reward your acrimonious knuckles, this one will gladly attend your funeral rites,” was the burden of his welcome.
“Is this a time for mere verbal pleasantries?” demanded the one who stood there in the harrying rain. “Behold, the master whom you serve, stricken with an unlooked-for hurt, turns back home from your gate.”
“What is this that you say?” demanded the keeper sourly. “If there is a tale to be told, take hold at the beginning, friend, and not like the knife of some crafty juggler—haphazard as it comes.”
“My tongue and your ear stand on a different footing,” replied the other in a superior tone, “I being employed about the counting house and you a mere bolt-slider. Your offensively honourable name is Wang, door-keeper?”
“That indeed is the mediocre style of my distinguished line.”
“Let it suffice then, Wang, that the merchant has received various scars by the instability of one of his bearers on this misconstructed earth-road. He would have remained here through the night but for this affliction. As it is, he requires the delivery now of the one you guard. Here is the discharge of your answerableness for her.”
The doglike Wang took the paper and held it to the light; then he compared the signature pressed on it with another that he had.
’This is well enough as far as the matter goes, but his memory is here at fault,” was the reply. “Only a while ago he sent an urgent message, saying ‘Accept no thumb-sign that is not made by me before your very eyes, for Dark Forces are about. This is my iron word.’ Yet now you say he waits?”
“This is beyond my office,” declared the stranger frankly, “and you had better make fast your bolts and then come to the gate. It may well be that this is a snare on Teen King’s part to try your firmness in his service.”
“If that is the case, he will find me grounded like a limpet,” was Wang’s crafty boast. “I make no pretence to any range of subtlety, but what is nailed into this head sticks there.”
“Bring your lantern,” said the messenger. “Things hereabout are none too bright.”
When they reached the outer gate, two chairs were to be seen by the custodian’s swinging candle. From the larger one a surfeit of groans and imprecations flowed, indicating, however crudely expressed, both pain and mental anguish. By the side of this a sombre-hearted carrier was still binding up his wounds.
“Commander,” pleaded the supine Wang, thrusting his head through the curtains of the chair, “there has come to me one who bears a certain message, this requiring—”
The grossly outlined person dimly seen within did not cease to roll from side to side and to press a soothing cloth against his disfigured face. When he spoke, it was with difficulty, by reason of a swollen lip.
“Why then does not compliance hasten, thou contumacious keeper of my door?” he demanded with rancour. “Is it not enough that I am to be broken bodily within sight of the lucky symbols hung above my gate, but that my authority should also be denied? Where is she whom I require of you?”
“Yet, master,” entreated the abject Wang, “it may well be that this is but a snare to prove the tenacity of my allegiance. Was not your charge explicit: ‘Accept no sign that is not pressed before your very eyes?’ How then—”
“Enough,” was the reply, and the one who spoke stretched out a requiring hand; “it is not ineptly claimed. After all, you have a sort of stultish justice to protect you, loyal Wang. Now submit the paper for the full requirement.”
With this demand the keeper of the door at once complied, exultant that his stubbornness had been upheld before the others. The one whose. authority he owned turned away for a moment as he searched about his sleeve for his pigment box. Then he pressed the paper and gave it back to Wang who saw against the former signature another, identical in every line and still moist from the attesting thumb.
“Nothing now remains but to execute your will,” he freely admitted; “my own part in the matter being amply hedged. Say on, chieftain.”
“In that I cannot stay, with my deep cuts unseen-to, Fragrant Petal must accompany me back, the affair having taken a prosperous turn,” replied the other. “Bring her out now, not staying for adornment, for my condition does not brook delay, but at the same time hastily put together all that she may have so that her face is not clouded among women.”
“It shall be done, O rewarder of great zeal,” exclaimed Wang, preparing to comply. “How does this blossom among peach trees journey?”
’There is a chair at hand”—indicating the second that stood ready. “My underling, who rode thus far, must make his way as may be.”
“Everything shall fall into its place like a well-oiled mill at work,” chanted the subservient Wang. “I hasten to merit your extremely liberal bounty, princelet.”
“And this one,” murmured the underling, he who had first summoned the custodian to the grille, as he prepared to follow, “will meet the Embodiment of Beauty on the way and break to her ear the signification of the issue.”
“Unless,” came a guarded voice from behind the curtains, “unless your father should have been an elderly baboon and your mother a standing reproach among she-asses, you will, on the contrary, withhold your egregious face until we are well clear of this stronghold of oppression.”
“Your strategy has been consummate throughout, great excellence,” replied the other, “and this one bends an acquiescent knee to whatever you direct.” So that he faded into the imperceptible, nor was there anything to reassure the grief of Fragrant Petal when she was presently led forth.
“A thousand felicities, fountain of all largesse!” invoked the thirsty-handed Wang, as he stood at the opening of the first chair expectantly. “May the vigour of a leopard sustain your high endeavour.”
“Ten thousand echoes to your gracefully phrased parting,” was courteously wafted back from between the curtains, as the bearers raised their burden. “The moment is not propitious, but when next we meet do not fail to recall to me that the extent of my indebtedness cannot honourably be put to less than a full-weight piece of silver.”
Nothing could have been more in keeping than the greetings of Wong Tsoi and the merchant Teen King when they again encountered beneath the burnished roof of the “Abode of Harmony.” If the latter person had suffered a reverse in an unexpected quarter, he had the memorable satisfaction of having bent the mandarin to do his will in the matter of the unconscionable outlaw who had reproduced his thumb; if Wong Tsoi could not fail to recognize that in this affair the fullness of his countenance had suffered partial eclipse before the eyes of the superficial, he had the tangible offset that he had thereby been able to free his future of the Keu Chun obligation, and even yet he cherished an image that the one whose gravity would be the last to be removed might not prove to be Teen King.
Without waiting for any gracious intimation that his uninviting presence would be suffered, the mentally ill-nurtured huckster on this occasion thrust himself into the forefront of Wong Tsoi’s notice by sinking incapably into a chair at that one’s table. To cover his grotesque behaviour, the deficient-minded pedlar at once plunged into the subject of their late contention with the absence of refinement that stamped his uncouth footsteps whenever he appeared.
“It nourished my heart to think that vice no longer triumphs about our city,” he remarked with annoying freedom. “The two bodies now displayed in the Hoo-yang Public Relaxation Space prove that you have at length bowed your stubborn neck to the justice of this one’s claim.”
“It is recorded of the enlightened Emperor Yu that on one occasion he rose from his bath and bound up his hair thrice uncomplainingly to listen to the doubtless unreasonable demands of quite negligible persons,” duly replied Wong Tsoi. “Why then should not I, who am in every way so inferior to the imperishable Yu, inconvenience myself to that slight extent to satisfy one in whom the parallelism is brought to an apt conclusion?”
At this well-guarded admission, the preposterous Teen King bowed several times, his wholly illiterate mind leading him to assume that he was being favorably compared to the great First Ruler.
“In one detail an element of ambiguity prevails,” resumed the aggressive merchant, unable even at that moment to subdue his natural canker. “Admittedly the real offender in this case has suffered, for the thumb of one of the two bandits corresponds to the most rigid test against my own. Yet that extremity bears every sign of having been cut away and subsequently restored. Why—”
“It is, as you, merchant, must surely be aware, an essential of our pure code of justice that the offending member of any convicted felon should be summarily struck off,” replied Wong Tsoi dispassionately. “Later, to satisfy the ignoble curiosity of the vile—those who are notoriously drawn to gloat upon the accessories of low-class crimes—the parts were crudely united.”
“Be that as it may,” persisted Teen King stubbornly, as he began to regard the mandarin’s well-rounded form with an awakening interest; “someone has in the meanwhile counterfeited this person’s exact figure—”
“Forbear!” exclaimed Wong Tsoi, raising his face-cloth as though to shut out the vision of iniquity. “Such an atrocity is not possible among our chaste and graceful nation.”
“Yet, nevertheless, the fact exists,” continued the obtuse-witted condiment-blender, “and it is this one’s intention now that you, mandarin, shall obtain a swift redress. Not only was that which has been stated done, but under the cloak of this deception the sanctity of an inner chamber has been usurped, a trusty henchman baffled, an unopened bud torn from the protecting branch—”
“Doubtless,” interposed Wong Tsoi firmly, “but, as you would be the first to advance, merchant, in matters affecting purely domestic culture, it is hardly necessary for a really well-set and vigorous tree to disturb the soil that should conceal its roots.”
“Public action need not inevitably ensue,” maintained Teen King feebly, as he recognized the snare that he had contrived for his own misshapen feet. “You, as high official of the district, stand in the position of a salutary despot who can administer justice in discreet obscurity.”
“Assuredly,” agreed Wong Tsoi, “but the truly humane ruler turns a lethargic eye toward a great deal that might be actually pernicious in a cherished people’s conduct. Should you be so ill-advised as to press your grievance further, it would be as well first to recall the special application of the proverb, ‘It is better to lose nine changes of raiment than to win a lawsuit.’”
“Yet what remains?” pleaded the ineffectual merchant. “Shall these poverty-stricken hands be idly folded while an unending vista of spurious Teen Kings draws away my substance?”
“Suffer no apprehension on that score,” replied Wong Tsoi with meaning. “Not again shall your notorious mould be counterparted in Hoo-yang.”
“Can that be definitely assured?” asked Teen King cautiously.
“Subject to the usual clause against demoniac intervention, it can,” replied the mandarin. “For the rest, remember, ’Even dragons know better than to appear too often.’”
“If this is actually the case, the prospect might have been worse,” admitted Teen King. “Indeed,” he added, with an unworthy impulse to ingratiate himself in the other’s regard without incurring the customary outlay, “had it been allowable, a substantial token of esteem would have been forthcoming to mark appreciation of your prolific efforts.”
“What is this barrier that stands in the way of so laudable a craving, amiable Teen King?” inquired Wong Tsoi in a very agreeable voice.
“Surely it is not unknown to your pure excellence that in order to discourage venality an official of your degree is strictly forbidden to receive any gift whatever, save only—not to exclude mere courtesy—an offering of fruit. But as an earnest of this one’s thwarted yearning, a basket of the choicest Hoo-yang hedge-berries shall reach your hand tomorrow.”
“Nothing could be more delicately flavoured than the compliment,” murmured the engaging voice. “Yet had not a wise provision set a check upon your open-handed spirit, what form would the tribute to which an explicit reference has just been made, have taken?”
“In that case,” replied Teen King, seeing no reason why he should restrict himself in a matter that could involve him in no outlay, “there would have been no limit to this one’s profusion. Throwing open the door of his needy hovel, he would have bidden you enter and accept what pleased you most, saying, ‘Put forth your hand on the right and on the left, and whatsoever it closes on is yours.’”
“It is no more than what would have been expected of your untarnishable father’s nimble-minded son,” replied Wong Tsoi, with a suitable display of appropriate emotion. “And now let your generous heart expand in gladness, Teen King. You would appear to have misread—though only slightly—a single character in the official prohibition. Not ‘save fruit’ but ‘save in the shape of fruit’ is the carefully thought-out exception.”
“Yet wherein does the variation lie?” asked the merchant, in a deeply agitated voice.
“Embellishing your high-born serving board there stands a lordly silver dish, its cover in the likeness of a cluster of rich fruit, its base befittingly adorned with nuts,” replied Wong Tsoi pleasantly. “Nothing could be more applicable or in severer keeping with the pronouncement of authority.”
At this disclosure Teen King rose up from his chair and then illogically sank down again until he was no longer capable of the exertion. His unbecoming mouth opened and closed repeatedly, but it was not until Wong Tsoi had charitably begun to fan him that he disclosed his power of speech.
“What was spoken in the light of a graceful compliment is too delicate to be translated into the grosser terms of commercial equivalent,” he stammered effetely. “The dish in question weighs not less than ten score standard taels, and its value in fine silver must be put at twice that indication. Why, then, should this almost bankrupt outcast tamely surrender it?”
“Nothing but the untrammelled purity of your upright nature could suggest so great a sacrifice,” replied Wong Tsoi.
“If that were all,” replied the other frankly, “I could sleep to-night in peace. But the extreme moderation of your manner prepares me for the worst. What remains behind, Wong Tsoi?”
“Alas, merchant,” admitted the compassionate official, “I had hoped to shield this latest menace from you. Know then how it is whispered in the Ways that the irredeemable Thang-I spent the last hours of his solitude thumb-signing countless sheets of unwritten parchment, which the dissolute hope to use from time to time as the occasions offer.”
“If,” considered Teen King, after a lengthy pause, “if one from my house should in due course appear about your door bearing a weighty gift and crave your acceptance of it, what would be the nature of his reception?”
“That one so charitably employed should return empty-handed would put a barbarian of the Outer Lands to shame,” replied Wong Tsoi. “The least that this person could do would be to send out into the Ways and beseech his many criminal friends, as a personal kindness to himself, to bring in all the offensive Thang-I’s fabrications.”
“Could a favourable response be relied on?” asked Teen King.
“It has already been successfully accomplished, and the package now merely awaits your accommodating slave’s arrival.”
“Would the third gong-stroke of the afternoon suit your distinguished leisure?” inquired Teen King, in very solicitous accents.
“Nothing could be more in harmony,” was the genial reply.
“Thus and thus,” remarked the merchant, rising. “The hour approaches when this one displays his shutters. Walk slowly.”
“May your profitable commerce spread like a banyan tree and take root on every side,” pronounced Wong Tsoi courteously.
“May swift promotion overtake your righteous footsteps and lead you to a more worthy sphere of usefulness,” replied Teen King, in a voice equally devoid of added meaning.
Chapter Four
AT THE EXTREMITY OF HIS RESOURCE, THE CONTINENT KAI LUNG ENCOUNTERS ONE WHO LEADS THE UNAFFECTED LIFE
At a later period Kai Lung emerged safely from the waste marshes of Ying-tze and set his face hopefully toward the mountain range beyond, confident that somewhere about those barren heights he would overtake Ming-shu and (aided by the ever-protecting spirits of his approving ancestors) settle a final and exacting balance with that detested upstart.
But in the meanwhile an arid and unproductive tract of country lay between him and the valleys of Ki-che, and the cake of dried paste that had nourished him so far had shrunk to a state of no-existence. For a lengthy day he had sustained a precarious life on a scanty cup of disconcerting water extracted from a laborious dug-hole, when, at evening, he espied one who wandered to and fro with a burden on his shoulders.
’This, doubtless,” considered Kai Lung, “is the forerunner of others, who may, by an expedient, be assembled as a crowd, and surely to that, on one pretext or another, an applicable story should not prove fruitless.”
