The Story of the Stone mlanto-2 Read online

  “So much for premonitions,” I said to myself.

  Master Li was turning purple. “What a world we live in,” he said, breathing heavily through his nose. “Ox, that exquisite girl is Lady Hou, who happens to be one of the three finest poets in the empire. In any civilized age she would be honored and decorated and praised to the skies, but ours is the age of the Neo-Confucians.”

  He smashed the table so hard that his wine jar bounced up in the air, and I caught it before the contents could spill on his robe and burn holes in it.

  “Fraud, Ox!” he said furiously. “We live in a land so debased that its most valued art forms are fraud and forgery. The Neo-Confucians cannot accept the fact that a mere woman could be so gifted, and they, of course, control the Imperial Censors, who control publication. They graciously consented to publish the lady's poems, and to her amazement she saw the author's credit: „Attributed to Yang Wan-li.“ That is really quite clever. The implication being that somebody was faking a masculine classical style, and by officially classifying genuine work as fraudulent, they have, in effect, deprived Lady Hou of her identity. She's been destroying her mind with Thunderballs and slitting Neo-Confucian throats ever since, but there are simply too many of them. They'll win in the end. Eventually she'll be convinced that she really doesn't exist, and is actually a teapot or something in that general price range, and then they'll lock her up and the head Neo-Confucian will suavely appropriate her poetry as his own.

  He downed his wine at a gulp, and signaled Fat Fu for some more.

  „My boy,“ he said gloomily, „we live in the last days of a once great civilization. Dry rot has set in, so we paint it with lies and gild it with fool's gold, and one of these days the whole works will blow away in a high wind and where an empire once flourished there'll be nothing but a bunch of bats flying in and out of a bunghole.“

  He was depressed but I was cheered. I knew with a certainty I couldn't explain that my premonition had been correct after all, and I had simply focused on the wrong person. I suppose it had to do with the terror in the voice I heard—I couldn't see who it was, but somebody was working his way through the crowd, and he was chanting the same incomprehensible words over and over again. Even Master Li looked up from his wine jar and took notice.

  „Interesting,“ he said, with a faint sign of animation. „One doesn't often hear ancient Sanskrit. The Great Prayer of the Heart Sutra, to be precise: Gyate, gyate, haras, yate, harosogyate, bochi, sowaka! which means „Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond, what an awakening, hail!“ Nobody can explain why it should be, but the prayer has an extraordinarily soothing effect when one repeats it over and over.“

  Then we saw him, and I was disappointed. I had expected a wild-eyed barbarian, but he was only a bonze. He was small and pale and appeared to be frightened half to death, and he was looking desperately around the room. His eyes fastened upon Master Li like a pair of limpets, and he scuttled up and fell to his knees and began kowtowing energetically.

  „Bl-bl-blpp-blppt,“ he said, or something like that.

  „If you stopped trying to bang a hole in the floor with your chin, you might be more comprehensible,“ Master Li said, not unkindly. „Why not stand up and try it again?“

  The monk jumped up and bowed as jerkily as a kou-tou beetle. „Have I the honor of addressing the great and mighty Master Li, foremost among the scholars and truth seekers of China?“ he squealed.

  Master Li brushed away the compliments with a modest wave of a hand. „My surname is Li and my personal name is Kao, and there is a slight flaw in my character,“ he said. This is my esteemed former client and current assistant, Number Ten Ox. You got a problem?”

  The monk struggled for some semblance of self-control. “Venerable Sir, I am the humble abbot of the insignificant monastery in the Valley of Sorrows. You have heard of our valley?”

  “Who hasn't?” said Master Li.

  I hadn't.

  “We have lived in peace for centuries, but now one of my monks has been murdered in a terrible and impossible manner,” the abbot said with a shudder. “Our library has been broken into, and something has happened to trees and plants that must be seen to be believed.”

  He had a fit of trembling, and it took him some time to get more words out.

  “O Master Li, the Laughing Prince has arisen from the grave,” he whispered.

  “Well, he always said he'd return, although he seems to have taken his time about it,” Master Li said calmly. “How long has the aristocratic son of a sow been in his tomb?”

  “Seven hundred and fifty years,” the abbot whispered.

  Master Li poured himself another cup of wine. “Punctuality is not a priority of princes,” he observed. “What makes you think this one has returned to his old playpen?”

  “He has been seen. I myself have seen him dancing and laughing in the moonlight with his murderous companions, and when we found the body of poor Brother Squint-Eyes, the expression on his face bore witness to the presence of the Laughing Prince. We found this clutched in his hand, and a search of the library revealed that the manuscript had been stolen.”

  The abbot timidly offered a fragment of ancient parchment. Master Li gazed at it casually, and then he froze. Not a muscle twitched in his face, but my heart skipped a beat. I knew what it meant when his body was as still as a boulder and his eyes were almost hidden by wrinkles that could have formed a relief map of all China.

  “Anything else?” Master Li asked calmly.

  “The little monk was close to fainting. He was being squeezed by a memory that made his eyes bulge from his head, and his voice was strangled.

  „There was a sound,“ he whispered. „I cannot describe that sound. It turned half the monks to jelly, yet the other half couldn't hear it at all. Those who heard were forced to follow the sound. We had no will of our own. It led us to a scene of destruction that cannot be described in words. It was a sound that seemed to come from Heaven yet had the effect of the worst fires of Hell, and I knew at once that I must come to the greatest resolver of riddles in all the empire.“

  Master Li turned the fragment over and examined the back of it. „What do you know about the stolen manuscript?“ he asked.

  The abbot blushed. „I am no scholar. I couldn't read a word of it,“ he said humbly. „Brother Squint-Eyes, the murdered monk, was our librarian, and he said it was ancient but not valuable. A curiosity that was probably intended to be a footnote to a history.“

  „How large was it?“

  The abbot formed the shape of a scroll with his hands, about a foot high and a fifth of an inch thick.

  „What has happened to the body of Brother Squint-Eyes?“

  „There is some ice left in our cold room, so I had the body placed upon it,“ the abbot said. „Venerable Sir, ours is a poor order, but you will have heard of Prince Liu Pao. I have written him, and he is on his way, and I assure you he will pay whatever—”

  Master Li held up a hand. “That may not be necessary,” he said. “Suppose I were to offer my services, including all expenses, in return for this fragment of the manuscript?”

  “Done!” the abbot cried.

  The thought of having Master Li take over did wonders, and the little fellow was instantly twenty years younger. It was settled in a matter of minutes. The abbot had to return to his monastery at once, and Master Li promised to set forth toward the Valley of Sorrows the following day. The abbot got a bad nosebleed from banging his chin against the floor as he crawled backward from the table, but his face was joyful when he hopped up and ran out to bring the good news to his monks. Master Li watched him go like a fond grandfather.

  “Well, Ox, what do you make of this?” he said.

  He meant the fragment, and he knew very well I couldn't make anything of it. I can read only the simplest script, and this was scholar's shorthand, and ancient shorthand at that. I answered by shrugging my shoulders.

  “It's a forgery,” Master Li said happily.
His eyes were almost reverent as he gazed at it. “That's the understatement of the millennium. It's a forgery so great it should have a temple built around it and be worshipped with prayers and gongs and incense, and the monk who discovered it has been murdered, which is precisely as it should be, artistically speaking. Blessings on that ice!” Master Li exclaimed. “If this is any guide, the left lung of Brother Squint-Eyes is sure to be packed with yak manure, and his right lung will contain volcanic ash, and the sheared pigtails of novice nuns will be wrapped around his lower intestine, and engraved upon his liver will be the Seven Sacrileges of Tsao Tsao. My boy, we're going to perform the most delightful autopsy in history.”

  I wasn't sure that any autopsy could be delightful, but I didn't care. The old fire had returned to Master Li's eyes, and I felt like a war-horse who was being called back to battle. In fact, I very nearly whinnied and pawed the floor.

  2

  The rain had almost stopped and the sky was clearing rapidly. It was going to be a beautiful afternoon with enough clouds left over for a glorious sunset, and I reveled in fresh air after inhaling the reek of raw alcohol in Wong's. The rain had left the streets slippery, so I carried the old man on my back as we came back up the Alley of Flies, as I always do when the going is difficult. His tiny feet fit comfortably into my tunic pockets, and he weighs no more than a schoolboy.

  The streets were nearly empty. That suited me very well because we were in the part of the city called Heaven's Bridge, where every alley is usually filled with scar-faced gentlemen who converse in the silent language of the Secret Societies: fingers wriggling rapidly inside the sleeves of their robes. Heaven's Bridge is also the place for public executions, and it is said that at the third watch one can see rows of ghosts perched like vultures on top of the Wailing Wall behind the chopping blocks. (Decapitation has not improved their dispositions. Kindly strangers who hear the sobs of a child or the pleas of a woman and step into the shadows will never be seen again.) Heaven's Bridge makes me nervous, and I was pleased that the only person we encountered was a bonze who was dutifully banging his wooden fish even though it wasn't subscription day.

  “The double hour of the goat!” he bellowed. “The Governor's Banquet has been canceled, but there will still be a recital of the stone bells in the Temple of Confucius! West Bridge is closed to traffic, and drivers will be fined! A new storm is approaching from the east, but the western horizon is clear!”

  I looked around. “He's crazy,” I said. “The east is clear, and the clouds are in the west.”

  Master Li nudged my ribs and pointed. A patrol of the City Guard was approaching from the east. He pointed up, and I spied some gentlemen who were perched on top of Meng's Money Exchange. The burglars waved to the bonze and slipped out of sight, over the western ridgepole.

  “Heaven's Bridge,” I sighed.

  Master Li was gazing at the bonze as we passed him. “Alibi Ah Sung, from Chao-ch'ing,” he said thoughtfully. “That's the Purple Flower, and what are they doing…”

  His voice trailed off. Then he began to chuckle.

  “Ox, what do you smell in the air?” he asked.

  “Wet earth, pine needles, pork fat, donkey manure, and perfume from Mother Ho's House of Joy,” I said.

  “Wrong. You smell destiny,” Master Li said happily. “Destiny that appears to be approaching with the delicate tread of an overweight elephant. Do you recall what I was talking about in Wong's before we were interrupted?”

  “Fraud and forgery, Venerable Sir, and something about our decadent civilization blowing away with the wind.”

  “And last night I was impelled to assassinate a fellow and examine the body, which led to the fact that he had a peculiar pattern of metallic acids on his fingers and a tube of Devil's Umbrella in his pocket. Then somebody slipped a few Thunderballs to Lady Hou, and the darling girl decided to slit a mandarin's throat, and then a monk popped up with a forgery to end all forgeries, and now some crooks from Chao-ch'ing are burglarizing Meng's Money Exchange. Add it up and it totals destiny,” Master Li said confidently, if somewhat enigmatically. “Let's make a detour.”

  Peking is not beautiful the way big cities like Ch'ang-an or Loyang or Hangchow can be beautiful, but Fire Horse Park is very lovely, particularly after a rain, when the air is filled with the scents of pine and poplars and willows and locust trees. Master Li told me to head for the Eye of Tranquility, which is not my favorite place. It's a small round lake set aside for old sinners who are grabbing for salvation at the last moment, and the conversation is not exactly inspiring. For some reason the codgers confuse sanctity with senility, and the dialogue consists of “goo-goo-goo,” accompanied by drooling and coy little glances toward Heaven. I think they're trying to prove how harmless they are. They also follow the example of saintly Chiang Taikung and sit on the banks with fishing poles, carefully keeping the hooks three feet above the water. (Chiang Taikung loved to fish but refused to take life, and he said that if a fish wanted to leap up and commit suicide, it was the fish's business.) Venders do a brisk business with worms. The old rogues buy bucketfuls and cast more coy glances toward Heaven as they ostentatiously set them free. Frankly, the place gives me goose bumps.

  Master Li had me circle the lake until he found what he wanted, and then he slid from my back and walked up beside an apprentice saint who strongly resembled a toad. The fellow had two small leather cups over his ears, secured by a headband, and Master Li removed the headband. I took one of the cups and held it to my own ear and listened to the lovely linn-linn-linn sound of Golden Bells, the little insects from Suzhou who sing so sweetly that dowagers keep them in cages beside their pillows to soothe them to sleep.

  Golden Bells are also said to induce pure thoughts, and the toad looked like he could use some. I politely picked up and moved a couple of codgers so Master Li and I could sit down flanking the toad.

  “Goo-goo-goo?” said the codgers.

  “Goo-goo-goo,” I replied.

  The toad's pale bulging eyes slowly moved toward Master Li.

  “I didn't do it,” he said.

  “Ten witnesses,” said Master Li.

  “Liars. You can't prove a thing.”

  The toad turned back to his dangling fish hook. His mouth was set stubbornly, and I doubted that even Master Li could get another word out of him.

  “Hsiang, I envy you,” Master Li said rather sadly. “Such is your seraphic vision of the life hereafter that you can turn your back on this one, and forgo such worldly pleasures as watching your family flourish. Your nephew, for example. What's his name? Cheng? Chou Cheng of Chao-ch'ing, and what a promising lad he is. I hear he's risen right to the top of the ling-chih trade, and has practically cornered the market on Devil's Umbrellas and Thunderballs.”

  The toad continued to stare straight ahead.

  “I also hear he's put up part of the profits to buy a full seat on the Purple Flower council. Such precocity!” Master Li said admiringly. “I predict the lad will go far, not least because he knows what to do with his assets. Last night, for example, I met a delightful fellow who had a full tube of Devil's Umbrella, and it just occurred to me that the odd stains on his fingers might come from the coiner's trade, and that I had seen him slipping in and out of Meng's Money Exchange. A fellow like that might know all sorts of valuable secrets—what's in the basement, for example—and do you know what we saw on our way here? The Purple Flower Gang, opening up Meng's Money Exchange, and I rather suspect they don't intend to steal anything. They intend to draw the attention of the magistrates to some rather peculiar paraphernalia.”

  The fishing pole was beginning to tremble.

  “Everybody knows that Meng's Money Exchange is merely a front for the counterfeiting business,” Master Li said thoughtfully. “It is said that the ringleader is the Second Deputy Minister of Finance, and can you guess what we saw at One-Eyed Wong's? Some bright young man who had access to every kind of ling-chih presented a few choice Thunderballs to Lady Hou, and the
n he whispered something into her lovely ears, and—well, you know Lady Hou. Guess who she approached with her little dagger? Right! The Second Deputy Minister of Finance, that's who, and I rather suspect that his position as king of counterfeiters is temporary. I wouldn't be at all surprised if your precocious nephew and his friends take over, unless somebody decapitates them first.”

  The toad dropped his pole into the water. “Li Kao, you wouldn't do that, would you?” he said pleadingly. “He's only a boy.”

  “And a delightful one, so I'm told,” Master Li said warmly.

  “A trifle wild, perhaps, but that's the way of the young,” the toad said. “You have to allow for a little excess in boyish ambition.”

  “Youth will be served,” Master Li said sententiously. “Sometimes after having been stuffed with truffles and basted in bean curd sauce,” he added.

  “Li Kao, if you're working for the Secret Service, I can give you a few tips,” the toad said hopefully.

  “No need,” Master Li said. “All I want is an expert opinion, and no evasions.” He pulled out the manuscript fragment and passed it over. “Do you know anyone capable of doing this?”

  The toad looked at the fragment for no more than five seconds before his eyes bulged even farther and his jaw dropped.

  “Great Buddha!” he gasped. “Do I know somebody who could do this? Nobody but the gods could do this!”

  He held it up to the light, oblivious to anything else, and Master Li took the opportunity to continue my education.

  “Ox, there are no more than ten great men in history whose calligraphy was so prized that kings would go to war to get a sample,” he said. “Such calligraphy is unmistakable, and no connoisseur could look at that fragment without crying, „Ssu-ma Ch'ien!“ Surely you studied some of his texts in school?”

  Surely I had, and surely I was not going to give Master Li a frank opinion. I used to love history class. I can still quote whole passages by heart: “When the emperor entered the Hall of Balming Virtue, a violent wind came from a dark corner, and out of it slithered a giant serpent that coiled around the throne. The emperor fainted, and that night earthquakes struck Loyang, and waves swept the shores, and cranes shrieked in the marshes. One the fifth day of the sixth moon a long trail of black mist floated into the Hall of Concubines, and hot and cold became confused, and a hen turned into a rooster, and a woman turned into a man, and flesh fell from the skies.” Now, that is grand stuff, just the thing to give to growing boys, and then we were old enough to read the greatest of all historians. This is what Ssu-ma Ch'ien had to say about the exact same subject: “The Chou Dynasty was nearing collapse.” Bah.