Barry Hughart - Eight Skilled Gentlemen

When I finally staggered up from my pile of bodies and looked around I saw Master Li apparently unhurt, but the hosteler had been battling the bulk of them and now he had his arms around the last, the officer, crushing him in a bear hug. The officer was stabbing the hosteler in the back with his dagger, again and again, and then the two of them toppled to the ground beside the water, wrapped in their final bloody embrace. There was a gasp and a sickening snapping sound, and the officer twitched and lay still. Master Li knelt beside the hosteler and examined him.

“I’ll be damned. He’s still alive.”

The hosteler’s eyes opened.

“Hosteler Tu, I wanted to ask you something very important,” Master Li said, speaking slowly and carefully. “I have reason to believe that Number Ten Ox has been receiving a message, again and again, but the meaning has been disguised because to impart it is taboo.”

Me? A taboo message?

“I also have reason to believe that the disguise is formed from slang of the first Dragon Boat Race, slang which your people may still preserve,” Master Li said. “The first slang term is ‘mother.’ “

Hosteler Tu’s eyes were partially focused on this world and partially on the next. “Mother? Boat race?” he whispered. “The mother is the same as t’ou, the head, meaning the boss of the boat. Mother stands on the high prow and sends commands with long flowing scarves, but what you must understand is that the Merchants’ Guild of Canton offers all degrees an additional course of fo siu u, ‘roast pork fish,’ which actually does taste a little like pork but is poisonous if cooked with broccoli.”

“Hosteler Tu, the next word is ‘grass,’ “ Master Li said urgently.

“Grass is slang for k’i, the scarves used by mother to send commands. They’re green with white tips and look like tall grass waving in the wind, and in Shanghai the guild adds herrings called ‘little father’s eldest sisters,’ and—”

“ ‘Brothers,’ Hosteler Tu, the word is ‘brothers,’ “ Master Li said.

“Brothers, yes, oh yes. Eight of them. Four in front of the wall and four behind. Lead oarsmen who set the stroke, and they wear red bandanas and have red ribbons around their oar handles, and in Shanghai they also add a delicious threadfin called ‘horse-friend-gentleman-fish,’ which is—”

“Hosteler Tu, you just mentioned the ‘wall’. What is it?” Master Li asked.

“The wall is the raised platform in the center of a Dragon Boat, where the drummer takes the commands of the mother and transmits them with his beat,” the hosteler whispered.

He was sinking fast. Master Li raised his voice to shout directly in the hosteler’s ear.

“Hosteler, I assume the ancient wu hing system of parallels was in place, so ‘field’ means east and ‘stall’ means west, but I must know about the goat!” the sage yelled. “What… is… the… goat?”

I thought Hosteler Tu was dead. Then his eyes opened, and they were perfectly clear, and his voice was firm.

“The shao, the steering oarsman of a dragon boat, is always called the goat for two reasons,” he said as if lecturing. “First, he butts head with almost the entire stern while wrestling with his oar, and second, he’s an outsider who’s expected to take the blame if the boat loses. A goat is a professional, a hired oar. No amateur can handle a hunk of wood that stretches forty feet and weighs more than a ton, and no amateur can cook for the guild of Nam Viet, where the additional course is lips of hsiang-hsiang, meaning gibbons, seethed in beer made from juice of the areca nut.”

His eyes popped wide, staring up at something invisible to the living. A spasm caused him to jerk backward, and then Sixth Degree Hosteler Tu slid down the bank with the dead officer in his arms. They landed in the water and disappeared. Frothy pink bubbles popped to the surface, and a red stain slowly spread and drifted toward the huge lifting buckets of the wheel.

“Farewell, Hosteler,” Master Li said softly, and the frothing water answered, “Burp… Burp… Burp.”

We met no more soldiers as Master Li directed me toward one of the staircases that led to gardener’s sheds, but when I took the old man on my back and climbed up and out beside a swirling pool where water was being dumped from a wheel we both received a shock, this time from nature. I was sure the day had passed and it must be midnight at least, but it was only early afternoon, and what an afternoon! The Yellow Wind had closed around Peking with a vengeance, and whirlwinds danced and darted through the city and sent clouds of debris spinning up into the air to sail this way and that and then drift back down to earth like dirty snowflakes made from ripped canvas, reed matting, splintered bamboo, garbage, and dead rats. Sand lashed our faces. Wind howled like wolves as gusts ripped between rows of elegant palaces, and a giant hissing noise came from lashed leaves and scraped tiles. The water of the Golden River was covered with a frothy cloud of spray from the impact of a billion tiny yellow grains, and the sun behind the haze seemed grossly swollen and as red as blood. Rows of blackbirds sat motionless upon towers and parapets, silhouetted against a burning sky.

“Sky-flame,” Master Li muttered in my ear. “What happens once can happen twice, even including a Death Birds Ghost Boat Rain Race. Ox, the fastest route to the eunuchs’ courtyard is the Golden River, so find a raft and a pole and let’s go.”

I knocked the shearing blade from the end of a long bamboo tree-trimming pole and ripped the large wooden door from a gardener’s shed and tossed it down into the water. It made a good enough raft, with enough buoyancy for the two of us, and I pushed off with the pole and caught what current there was. I rammed the pole rhythmically, shoving with long smooth strokes, and we picked up respectable speed. Several times we plunged down over falls that were too decorative to be dangerous, and soon I could see ahead to our destination, and my heart felt squeezed as I realized the huge basilica I was looking at was the barracks of the Black Watch, where Hog and Hyena and Jackal had taken Yu Lan. In front of it was a low wall that also formed the back wall of the eunuchs’ courtyard, between their elegant palace and the Palace of Southern Fragrance. All this was slightly downhill from us. The Golden River was taking us to falls that frothed down a low stone cliff that was one of the few natural barriers in the Forbidden City, and formed the front wall of the eunuchs’ courtyard. I want to clearly establish the scene as viewed from that little cliff. One looked down into a large circular courtyard paved with marble, in the center of which was a raised stone platform around an ancient well that had once been used for sacrifice during religious rites. A second raised platform stood at the base of the cliff so the waterfall could form a dramatic background, and there dignitaries perched in their pride during great occasions. Left was the Palace of Southern Fragrance, right was the eunuchs’ palace, and back was the basilica of the Black Watch.

The closer we got, the more clearly I could see that every window and balcony was packed with people gazing down to the courtyard, which was in turn packed with eunuchs and soldiers. When we were close enough to see the river disappear over the cliff Master Li had me pole to shore and lift the raft out. We continued on foot, and when we stuck our heads through some reeds beside the waterfall we were looking almost straight down at the dignitaries’ platform, where chairs were arrayed like thrones. In the center sat Li the Cat, flanked by the two powerful eunuchs whose names had been on the list of corporate officers. Then on each side were the chairs of the remaining mandarins of the tea conspiracy, and Master Li’s fingers tightened on my shoulder as we saw the five ancient cages beside the thrones.