Eight Skilled Gentlemen

10

When I passed the tadpole pond again that night I had Master Li riding on my back, and this time I slipped silently behind bushes and then began to climb. Away from us, at the drawbridge, trumpets were blaring and soldiers were standing at attention. The sage had wanted to get the matter of the grand warden’s wife out of the way before we got down to serious business, and the timing couldn’t have been more perfect, because Li the Cat was just entering in a sedan chair decorated with imperial dragons, escorted by the elite Wolf Regiment.

The climb was ridiculously easy. The huge stones that formed the wall were set irregularly, giving all the foot- and handholds I needed, and it was possible to swing back and forth so I could reach the grand warden’s private suite without once leaving the shelter of overhanging parapets and balconies. When I crawled up over the edge of the last balcony we could look through a window into the corridor and outer offices and see just where guards were stationed, and another window let us into the warden’s private sanctuary.

“Why don’t they hang out a sign: ‘Rob Me!’ “ Master Li whispered disgustedly.

It got even better. There was a five-panel decorative screen in a shadowed area away from lamps and moonbeams, but still close to the low jade-covered conference table surrounded by silken sitting pillows, and a cabinet provided Master Li with a jar of excellent wine and me with a jar of the finest pickled seaweed I have ever tasted. We settled down to wait, and we didn’t have to wait long. Within an hour the sounds of guards’ boots clicking together and weapons being grounded announced the arrival of the grand warden, and it was only the warden and Li the Cat who entered, along with two servants, and when the servants had prepared a brazier and placed a pot on it for water to boil they bowed backward from the room and the door shut firmly behind them.

“I can’t wait for the palate of a connoisseur to evaluate this batch,” Li the Cat said unctuously. “To my taste it’s an improvement of fifty percent, at least, but I don’t pretend to be an expert.”

“Neither do I. I’m just facile with experts’ cliches,” the grand warden said with a mock bow, and they both laughed heartily.

Li the Cat opened his money belt and extracted a small round object that seemed to have the imperial seal stamped on it. It was pale green with light purple shadings, and apparently as hard as a hunk of wood. Master Li’s fingers dug into my shoulder.

“Ox, that’s Tribute Tea,” he whispered. “How in hell did that slimy eunuch qualify for Tribute Tea?”

The question was rhetorical, of course, so I said nothing. The eunuch shaved thin pieces from the little hard cake with a silver knife, and the grand warden used a silver pestle to powder the shavings in a silver mortar. With great ceremony they passed the powder three times through a silver sieve, and then poured equal amounts into two wide, shallow chien saucers. The water in the pot (actually it’s not a pot but a “soup bottle”) was boiling, and the grand warden carefully poured it into the chiens. They briskly stirred with bamboo whisks. At first the liquid was white, then it turned bluish gray, and then bluish gold, and the aroma that reached my nostrils was the delicious subtle scent of tea of the very highest quality. They bowed to each other and raised the saucers to their lips and sipped, and then the warden grimaced and spat the stuff into the fire.

“It still tastes like camel piss,” he said petulantly.

“Well, I didn’t claim perfection, and it really does taste better,” the eunuch protested. “Try another sip, and don’t expect miracles.”

The grand warden cautiously tried again, and this time kept it down.

“All right, it is a bit better,” he said grudgingly. “It still wouldn’t fool a baby, however.”

“Who’s in the business of fooling babies? We’re fooling barbarians,” the eunuch said with a chuckle. “Look at the uncompressed leaves and tell me there’s something wrong with them!”

He extended some tiny things from his money belt, which the warden viewed admiringly.

“Buddha, that’s marvelous. You used the same batch?”

“Exactly, and some of the worst of it at that. We have the technique down perfectly, and I’m now guaranteeing a success rate of ninety-five percent. How are things going at your end?” Li the Cat asked.

“Four more barbarian kings have expressed strong interest—two of them are certain customers,” the grand warden said briskly. “The real market would be Rome, of course, but sea routes are very risky and every caravan runs the risk of capture by aspiring princes, who might send the stuff back to China as tribute. Can you imagine?”

Li the Cat shuddered. “Don’t even think about such things,” he said. “Any change in the basic sales tale?”

The grand warden shrugged. “Why change it? We have to explain how we got the merchandise, and the story of bandits capturing caravans and then discovering the cargo was intended for the emperor can’t really be improved upon. My recent marriage into a bandit clan provides authenticity, and it’s easy to explain that my illustrious father-in-law can’t dispose of his loot inside the boundaries of civilization, and has to turn to me for outside markets. Let’s not gild something that’s glowing.”

That was when matters changed dramatically. The warden had taken out a large map and they were starting to discuss routes and new markets when a high and shrill, but rather pretty sound rang through the room. It was like the rapid tinkling of a small silver bell, and instantly both men were on their feet. The warden ran to the west wall and pulled aside a calligraphy scroll stretched on a bamboo frame, and behind it was the door of a safe. Then his back covered the view and I couldn’t tell how he opened it, but when he turned again I had to suppress a loud exclamation. In his hands was an ancient cage, precisely like the other two, and the sound seemed to come from it. The warden trotted back to the table and set the cage down. Then I could see a tiny flickering light glowing in the center, pulsing to the bell sound, but the warden’s shoulder blocked my view and I couldn’t see what he was doing as he reached out to the front of the cage. The ringing of the bell stopped abruptly. The little glowing light expanded until it filled the cage, and then my eyes nearly popped from their sockets. Human features were forming inside the bars, and they resolved themselves into the face of a senior mandarin I had seen at the funeral of Ma Tuan Lin! Master Li’s fingers were digging into my shoulder like knives, and wrinkles had screwed up so tightly around his eyes I wondered how he could see. Then the mouth of the mandarin opened, and we heard his voice as though he were right there in the room.

“Esteemed colleagues, an incredible development has taken place! Incredible!” he said so excitedly he was spraying spittle, and he made a visible effort to calm down. “All our hopes and dreams, the ultimate goals we have aspired to but despaired of attaining, may be in our grasp! I would never be believed should I explain it myself, and I am honored, I am awed, I am exalted to bring you the message from the source. Further introduction would be gross impertinence.”

His image wavered and dissolved like a cloud breaking apart, and then the pieces began to re-form, and I smothered a yelp as an unmistakable face filled the cage. It was the Celestial Master.

“So you’re the colleagues of this creature, eh?” the saint said softly. His face flushed and his voice raised to a roar. “You doltish donkeys! You emasculated earwigs! You idiotic apes whose sole talent is to make dinners of your own defecation! Stick the turd-stained tips of your fingers into your ears and dig out the dung beetles, because I am about to demonstrate the error of your halfwitted ways!”

The grand warden was transfixed, but unfortunately Li the Cat was not. He was clawing at the warden’s arm and pointing urgently at the door, and the warden grasped the simple fact that palaces breed eavesdroppers the way granaries breed rats, and he picked up the cage and ran with the eunuch to the south wall. They opened a small door and dove through, and the Celestial Master’s furious roars abruptly stopped when the door slammed shut.

Master Li supplied corrosive words of his own as he bolted from behind the screen and ran to the door. It wouldn’t budge, and when I bent down and peered through a tiny crack I could see that lock picks wouldn’t be of any use. There was a heavy bar rammed through slots on the other side, and the only thing that would help would be a battering ram.

“We have to hear what the Celestial Master is up to,” Master Li said grimly. “He’s been too long away from the grimy affairs of the world, and he doesn’t really understand how dangerous it is to try to trick men who stand to suffer the Thousand Cuts if they’re caught. Ox, go back out the window.”

He jumped up on my back and I vaulted out over the balcony and down the wall until we reached the level of the formal reception hall, which was really like a throne room with the grand warden’s high gilded chair raised on a small dais that extended from the central tower. I haven’t mentioned that the castle was constructed in the style called Pine Tree, with a stone tower in the center supporting floor beams that arched like branches to the outer walls.

“Ox, the passage they took seemed to lead in toward the tower, and almost all Pine Tree palaces use the tower for secret conference rooms, as well as the central source of light and air,” the sage said.

He had me climb inside and race to the dais and pull tapestries aside on the wall behind the warden’s chair. I found what he expected behind the third tapestry: a small lacquered door that opened to reveal a staircase winding up inside the circular walls. I took the steps two at a time, trusting that the Celestial Master would still be roaring loud enough to drown out the sound of sandals clattering over stone, but when we reached the level of the warden’s office we found not one secret room, but two, and to reach the second we had to pass through the first. I sensed disaster the moment Master Li slipped down from my back and opened a gold-embossed door. He pointed ahead at a second gold-embossed door across from us and whispered, “If my orientation is right, they should be in there.” I thought I could hear a faint voice that might belong to the Celestial Master, but I was more interested in the territory we would have to cross to reach it.

We had stepped upon an ermine carpet about four inches thick. The walls of the room were covered with velvet, and the centerpiece was an immense bed draped in satin, and all over the place were flattering portraits of the same creature. They were portraits of the Snake, and I was not in a mood to compliment the warden on his cleverness at placing both conference room and catamite within easy reach of his office. I gulped noisily and tried to pretend I was invisible as I tiptoed over that carpet behind Master Li, but it didn’t do me any good.

I stepped past a dragon screen and was instantly hit by a flying tree trunk, or something that felt like it. I think I may have still been sailing through the air when the Snake picked up Master Li and neatly stuffed him down inside an immense malachite urn. The velvet on the wall cushioned the crash as I hit it, and I picked myself up from ermine and dove toward a reptile who was making happy hissing sounds. Since I was being kind enough to lead with my head he kicked my chin from his left sandal to his right sandal and back to the left again, rather like playing with a child’s bouncing ball, and as I hit the carpet I saw a strange rictus tug at his face. The Snake was smiling at good little Number Ten Ox who had come to entertain him by dying very slowly. The chop of the side of his hand was almost friendly, not hard enough to snap my neck in half. I managed to roll over and kick feebly, and it was clearer than ever that the Snake was playing with me when he let me regain my feet.

Behind him a wrinkled old hand had lifted from the mouth of the urn, holding a throwing knife. Master Li could move his arm only a few inches, so a throw was out of the question, but he could try to give it to me. The problem was getting past the Snake to reach it. All I could do was charge and pray, and I almost managed to lift him and spin him around. Unfortunately I was making him angry, and he hissed at me and stopped playing. The Snake’s arms whipped up inside mine and broke my grip effortlessly, and then it was his turn. He wrapped me in a constrictor’s embrace, squeezing with power that would turn my bones to jelly, and while I still had breath I gasped, “Throw! Throw!”

I’d hoped for a distraction, and I got it. Master Li flipped the knife as well as he could, and it made one slow revolution in the air before it reached the Snake’s back. It must have felt like the bite of an ant. He glanced behind him and saw the extended hand, and he was not pleased. Hissing rather loudly, he tried to get his balance to aim a full-force kick and see which would break into more pieces, the urn or the old man, and in the process he lessened pressure on me. I jerked back with everything I had and broke free, and then I grabbed his waist and almost snapped my spine as I lifted. His feet were clear of the carpet. I only had enough strength for one desperate move, and all I could do was try to bring his spine down on the sharp edge of a large marble table. I gave it all I had, but it wasn’t enough. I knew I’d missed the moment I started the downward toss, and his back missed the edge and landed on the smooth flat surface. His cold reptilian eyes were staring straight at me, and there was no force left in my arm as I tried to chop his neck. The eyes didn’t even bother to blink. My legs were numb, and I helplessly held to him as I began sliding backward, and the eyes moved with me, cold, hard, without any emotion whatsoever, and then I fell to the floor and the Snake fell beside me.

He was lying on his side with his motionless reptile eyes still fixed on mine, and I finally realized I was staring at a minor miracle. Master Li’s knife had stuck to him by no more than a fold of cloth and a tiny pinch of flesh, flopping harmlessly back and forth, but somehow it had flopped into exactly the right position as he descended to the tabletop. It had been driven into his back right up to the top of the handle, directly into his heart, and the Snake was stone-cold dead.