Chasing the Phoenix, page 18
“How I scolded Dutiful Chrysanthemum! Her own mother could not have spoken so harshly to her. I told her she had not only disobeyed the king’s direct order but brought shame onto me for trusting her and onto the Division of Sappers and Archaeologists for the mere fact that she was included in their number. She was crying long before I was done with her.
“I was angry, but I was also afraid. For the king’s punishments were famously swift and merciless. I feared she would not live out the night.
“Nor did she. Less than an hour later, I was summoned to the presence of the Hidden King once again. This time, his face was completely covered, and there were a dozen of his highest-ranking officers with him.
“At his feet lay the body of Dutiful Chrysanthemum.
“‘She gossiped,’ the Hidden King said. Then, before I could react, he added, ‘But you did not. Her shame therefore is not yours, nor that of the Division of Sappers and Archaeologists.’
“From that day, I have been most careful to obey the Hidden Emperor as scrupulously as I can.”
“It is a mildly distressing story,” Surplus said. “But absolute monarchs all tend to be ruthless, and we have seen worse since this war began.”
“You don’t understand. How did the king know? Dutiful Chrysanthemum and I were alone. The kitchen girl fled immediately. Yet he knew all that had transpired, down to my exact words.”
“Perhaps there were listening tubes in the walls of the kitchen,” Darger said.
“Perhaps there were spies,” Surplus suggested.
“I would have noticed listening tubes—I am a mechanic, after all. Nor were there spies. There was only the kitchen girl, and since I never saw her again, I can only assume she met the same fate as Dutiful Chrysanthemum. Nor was that the only time the emperor displayed his uncanny way of knowing what no one but he could know.
“So, no, I will not betray him in the least way.”
Surplus raised a paw for silence. On the bridge outside, he heard three ascending and three descending notes. Timing his words to begin just as the young woman reappeared with a fresh pot of tea, he said, “Let us double and redouble our efforts. The Hidden Emperor says the phoenix device will be ready in five days—make it three! We have promised to end the joyous plague by the time our enemies are at the city gate—let us accomplish that a week earlier! Indeed, I myself—oh, thank you, young lady. Your timing was excellent, for I had just finished my glass.”
“Will you be wanting anything else, noble sir?”
“No, nothing. We are almost done here.” Turning away from the servitor, Surplus said, “I myself find the idleness imposed by the plague intolerable, and thus I propose a sixteen-point program for increasing the readiness of—” Six notes rose and fell as the young woman recrossed the bridge. “Where were we?”
“We were trying to forge a common understanding,” Darger said. “White Squall, I sense that something is being left unsaid. Otherwise, you would have put this conversation behind you and departed. What is it?”
The palest ghost of a smile flickered briefly on White Squall’s lips. “I would not betray the Hidden Emperor for any amount of power or wealth or glory. The risk is simply too great. However…”
“I am listening.”
“The love I share with Prince First-Born Splendor is necessarily illicit and furtive, a wartime romance. He being a prince and I a mechanic’s daughter, I can hope for no more. Yet I have seen you perform miracles. I want you to arrange for him to propose marriage to me. Further, I would have him renounce his dream of returning to Southern Gate and accept a position in the Hidden Emperor’s court, so that I may continue my work.”
“You ask a great deal of me.”
“In return, I will agree to arrange for you to have at least one day’s warning before the phoenix device is usable.”
“That is not much time.”
“A motivated man can travel a great distance in one day.”
Darger sighed heavily. “You are a ruthless woman, White Squall.”
“I am a woman in love, which is much the same thing. How soon do you think you can arrange this?”
“In my country,” Surplus said, “there is a saying: The difficult we do immediately. The impossible takes a little longer.”
Wonderingly, White Squall said, “You Westerners certainly use a lot of adages.”
“It is our way,” Darger said, standing.
White Squall stood also and, loudly addressing the general world, said, “I should mention that it is obvious to me that the Hidden Emperor will not rush into his union with the Phoenix Bride impulsively. Thus, in making this agreement, we are none of us in any way betraying him.” In a normal voice, she added, “Oh, and I’ll take that component you slipped into your pocket when you were kneeling beside me.” Then, turning to Surplus, “Yours also, sir dog.”
* * *
DARGER AND Surplus emerged from the pavilion to discover that it was evening and the Summer Moon Festival had begun. This was a feast of great antiquity, celebrating the ancient Chinese taikonauts who had walked upon that august body. There were fireworks in the western sky and, below them, street vendors selling sticky rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves. Paper lanterns lined the streets. Music spilled from every tavern and teahouse.
“Those were two very strange conversations,” Surplus commented. “And, Lord knows, we have had more than our share of strange conversations.”
“Strange and unfortunate as well. In the course of them we seem to have promised to get a prince to propose marriage to a commoner, albeit a beautiful one, to defeat Shrewd Fox, and to end the joyous plague. None of which we have the slightest inkling of how to accomplish.”
“It is the plague that worries me most,” Surplus said. “All matters dependent upon human decision making are vulnerable to cozening. But how does one flimflam a microorganism? I confess that I—”
At that instant, there was a rippling in the crowd as a familiar figure ran up to them.
“Sir!” Capable Servant said. “Good news, sir!”
“Everything is exciting to you, isn’t it, Capable Servant?” Darger said. “I envy you your naïveté.”
“Thank you, sir. But the news, sir.”
“Surely it can wait for morning.”
“No, sir! It cannot wait, sir! The Infallible Physician has arrived!”
11.
The Spider Hero lived his life by this maxim: He who possesses great power is burdened also with great responsibility.
—THE SAYINGS OF THE PERFECT STRATEGIST
THE CITY gates of Crossroads were not opened the next morning. At the command of the Hidden Emperor, nobody, however important, was allowed to enter the city, and nobody, however insignificant, was permitted to leave. Guards were spaced regularly along the city walls to enforce this quarantine, with orders to shoot anyone attempting to violate it. Scouts and spies came regularly to Harmonious Intercourse Gate to place messages and reports in buckets that were lowered by rope from the watchtowers, and instructions were similarly passed down forbidding them from making any mention whatsoever of the plague ravaging the invading army. Otherwise, there was no communication with the outside world.
All this was done to make it look as if the Hidden Emperor’s forces had been rendered helpless by the joyous plague and those few left unstricken were trying to keep this knowledge from the ears of Ceo Shrewd Fox, whose forces were reported to be converging on Crossroads from every direction.
Darger was busy emptying out all the buildings facing Free Trade Square and pondering where mounted troops should be placed when enough of them emerged in fighting condition from the archipelago of field hospitals dotting the city. At his instruction, Surplus was overseeing the reconstruction of the walls between the inner and outer gates, the scrubbing of the paving blocks of the square just beyond it, and the creation of barricades behind the House of Joyous Governance, where the two main avenues leading around it from the square merged and then drove into the heart of the city. Suddenly, a swarm of rosy-cheeked children bearing silk banners, paper lanterns, and flowers larger than themselves flooded the square. In their wake came several joyous ones to direct the placement of blossoms, lanterns, and flags.
Briefly, all was cheerful chaos. Then, in a twinkling, the work was done and the children and their supervisors had scampered and stalked away, leaving the square vacant save for Surplus, the street cleaners, and one lone woman who stood at its center, looking amused.
Abandoning the stonemasons to their work, Surplus hurried to greet his old friend. “I am delighted to see you again, Bright Pearl,” he said. “Or should I address you as the Infallible Physician?”
“Call me what you will, you scoundrel. Thanks to you and your companion, my life has been transformed.”
Indeed, the features of the Infallible Physician were greatly changed from when Surplus had seen her last. Gone was the poverty-born air of worry and dejection, replaced by the confident mien of one who does not lack for money and anticipates never experiencing that lack again. There was also, admittedly, an avaricious glint in her eye that had not been there before; but as Surplus did not necessarily consider greed a fault, that did not bother him. “Tell me,” she said, with a sweep of her hand encompassing the square, gatehouses, and indeed the city in its entirety, “what is all this fuss about?”
“Ceo Shrewd Fox is on her way. We are preparing a welcome for her.”
“Please tell me that you are not planning to employ the Empty City stratagem. That’s the oldest trick in all of China! It wouldn’t fool a kitten.”
“I am, of course, not permitted to speculate on the Perfect Strategist’s plans. But if he does indeed intend what you speculate, then perhaps, the trick being so old, Shrewd Fox will not be expecting it. However, enough of that. I have heard that literally overnight you came up with a means of putting an end to the joyous plague. Can this happy rumor be true?”
“It is—and you are fortunate I answered your call, for there is no one else who could have done it. I was up late into the night with your exasperating bureaucracy. I told the joyous ones I needed genetic engineers, and they said there were none in all of Crossroads. So I said I would make do with skilled chefs. Those they could supply. I asked for incubators and medical-grade glass piping and settled for pressure cookers and plumbing fixtures. Step by step, every instrument, material, or specialist I required was unavailable. Step by step, I came up with substitutes. How I wish you were a doctor, so you could properly admire my ingenuity! Finally, when everything was in place, the medicines were being produced, and all that was lacking were my detailed instructions on how the medicines were to be employed, I told the joyous ones what my fee would be.”
“They, in turn, informed you they would happily pay, but not for thirty days.”
“Exactly. Luckily, your friend’s resurrection from the dead and the yak of Shiliin Bogd have already made me wealthy—so much so that for the two of you, I would have been tempted to do the work for free. However, in Brocade I learned that my clients valued me largely by how much I charged. When I lowered my fees, I was treated with familiarity. If I dispensed medical advice for free, it was ignored. By demanding outrageous sums for miracles of healing no other living human could have performed, I elevated myself to one of the great ladies of the city in no time at all. Indeed, they would not have let me go had I not left the sacred yak behind to guarantee my return. So from the joyous ones I demanded ownership of a certain conversation garden—perhaps you have seen it?—with quite a lovely pond and pavilion. Also a mansion to be built on its grounds. When the mansion is finished, the thirty days will be long past, and I will move into it.”
“You are not returning to Brocade, then?”
The Infallible Physician snorted. “For what? That stupid yak? When it is seen that I can cure a plague overnight—and by tomorrow morning there will not be a sick soldier in all of Crossroads—my reputation here will be made. Then I will open a medical school and a printing press. At the school I shall teach the very best students able to raise the extortionate fees I intend to charge and make them doctors almost the equal of me. The press will duplicate my grandfather’s books and sell them at prices that will make grown men and women turn pale. Thus, as my fame grows, so too will the number of physicians able to fill the demand for my services. Cities will compete for my pupils, and some of them will in turn open their own medical schools, a modest percentage of whose profits will go to me.
“In this way, I shall grow astonishingly wealthy in my lifetime and be revered as a benefactor to the world after my death.”
“It is a dazzling plan and one that could scarce be improved upon,” Surplus said with frank admiration. “And your father—how fares he?”
All joy fled the physician’s face. “He is the same as ever—critical, senile, combative, and impossible to please. Yet he is still my father, and I profoundly wish I could make him happy. I would give anything for a solution to this problem.”
Surplus’s ears pricked up. “Anything?”
“Yes! You have a solution! I see it in your stance and hear it in your voice, and if such a thing could be conveyed by scent, the air would reek of it. Tell me immediately, and you shall have whatever you desire!”
Surplus could not help but strike a modest pose. “The resolution is obvious. You must hire young women who look much as you did when you were their age and dress them as you dressed then. Let them take turns playing the part of his daughter. Instruct them to tremble at his every frown and weep copiously when he scolds them. Make certain that one is always present when you look in on him, and in the way of old men in their dotage, he will assume you are a visiting doctor being shown insufficient respect by his daughter. In this way he will know contentment and you will finally experience his respect.”
The Infallible Physician shook her head in wonder. “So brilliant a plan—and so simple, too.” Then, briskly, she said, “Name your reward. You have earned it.”
“I require only one thing, which for you will be easily accomplished and for me will be a tremendous weight taken off my mind. Ceo Powerful Locomotive, the man you were originally summoned to…”
“It is already done,” the Infallible Physician said proudly. “I revived him this morning, with his memory perfectly intact. In fact, that is why I am here. I have just returned from his bedside, where he asked me to tell you that he wished to see you and the Perfect Strategist immediately.”
* * *
TO HIS alarm, when Surplus located Darger in the parade grounds, where he was overseeing the greatly diminished (but steadily growing, as soldiers were released from the hospitals and returned to their units) cavalry, his comrade was being harangued by Prince First-Born Splendor. Adopting a genial tone, Surplus strolled into the confrontation, saying, “Friends! Friends! How is it possible that we should be at odds?”
“How is it not?” Prince First-Born Splendor retorted. There was a grim set to his handsome features. “White Squall has told me all about you two.”
“Has she? That is too kind of her.”
“Not all of it is to your credit.”
“I am sorry to hear that,” Darger said. “Also greatly surprised. I have always handled White Squall with the utmost gentleness and respect.”
Surplus, who knew something of the history between White Squall and Darger, put the back of a paw to his mouth to hide a smile. “Please do remember,” he said however, “that we are in public, where we can be overheard.”
Lowering his voice to a furious whisper, the prince said, “She tells me you are masters of deceit. Men who will stoop to any falsehood in order to get your own way.”
“Sir, we are at war!” Darger replied, equally softly, equally intensely. “Did not the Goateed Uncle of the Beautiful Country once say that loose truths sink ships? Deceit is the very essence of the noble profession of war. That and wholesale slaughter.” All three were now standing so close that Surplus could have embraced the other two with ease.
“How cannily you play with words. But I will not be distracted. When first we met, we made a compact. One it now seems clear to me you never meant to honor.”
“Sir, you were in a terrible fix. Out of compassion, I helped you out of it.”
“You talked me into betraying my country.”
“Your country is now as it was then—its cities not leveled, its fields unsalted, its citizens productive, alive, and not enslaved. I fail to see how this is a betrayal.”
“I was in desperate straits, and you sold me a fantasy. Now that I understand you to be cozeners, its blatant unlikeliness stands revealed.”
Darger placed a hand on his breast. “Sir, your accusations wound me grievously. However, as a gentleman, I forgive you.”
Prince First-Born Splendor’s hand clenched the hilt of the short sword he carried at his side so tightly that his fingers were white. “We shall know the truth. I hear that Powerful Locomotive is awake at last. We three will go to him—now!—and see how his understanding conforms with yours.”
“It is time wasted that properly should be spent making military preparations,” Surplus observed with feigned nonchalance. “However, if we must, we must.”
Inside, however, he reflected that when events swept one toward the abyss, there was nothing to do but trust in providence to provide an unexpected rescue. Unlikelier things had happened with surprising frequency in his life. Anyway, if worse came to worst, Surplus still had his cane and, more importantly, the prince had no inkling that it concealed a sword.
* * *
WHERE MOST sick soldiers had to make do with wooden cots in crowded tenements or canvas tents, Ceo Powerful Locomotive had for weeks been invalided upon the softest bed and finest sheets in all the city, within a room whose lavish appointments would have pleased him tremendously, had he not for all that time been hanging midway between life and death. On awakening, it seemed, he had decided to keep the room and the house, for it was there he greeted Darger and Surplus and led them into a room set aside for conversation.
