Barry Hughart - Eight Skilled Gentlemen

I have no intention of setting down the disgusting details concerning Sixth Degree Hosteler Tu. I will only say that I was half dead by the time we caught him, and Master Li had been so sorely pressed that he actually volunteered to serve as imperial witness to the execution. This was unprecedented because the old man hates to dress up in formal First Rank attire, even though he’s still entitled to wear it, and he cannot tolerate the noise.

Executions in Peking are public occasions, held at the Vegetable Market that forms the western boundary of Heaven’s Bridge, the criminal area of the city. A large audience always attends, and this particular Execution Day was certain to draw a larger and louder crowd than ever because Devil’s Hand was going for the record. “Devil’s Hand” is a generic name passed from one Chief Executioner of Peking to the other, and several centuries ago the executioner managed 1,070 consecutive clean decapitations without needing a second swipe of his great sword. Our current Devil’s Hand had 1,044 consecutive clean kills, and since thirty condemned criminals were scheduled for execution the old record could fall before the day was done.

It was the first day of the fourth moon in the Year of the Horse 3338 (A.D. 640) and every gambler in the city was packed into the square, besieging the bookmakers’ booths, and Master Li said he hadn’t seen so much money tossed around since Emperor Yang bet the city of Soochow on a cricket fight. (The bookmakers were facing ruin since they had originally offered astronomical odds against the record being broken. I had a small wager myself, but against Devil’s Hand. The pressure on him was tremendous and would get worse with every falling head, and all it would take to miss would be a bite of a bug or a slip in a puddle of blood, and anyone who thinks it’s easy to hit a stationary target in the exact same spot again and again with a heavy blade is advised to try chopping down a tree.) That meant every pickpocket and confidence man in Peking was on hand, and with the audience in an unusually festive mood it was to be expected that every vender who could cram his wares into the square would do so, and the result was the shattering of uncounted eardrums. Like this:

“Sha la jen la!”

“Hao! Hao! Hao!”

“Hao tao!”

“Boinngg-boinngg-boinngg-boinngg-boinngg!”

“My purse! Where is my silver necklace!”

Meaning Devil’s Hand roared the ritual, “I’ve got my man!” and the mob howled, “Good! Good! Good!” and connoisseurs spread credit where it was due by screaming “Good sword!” and a dealer in household sundries crept up behind me and took aim at my left ear and unleashed the traditional sound that advertised his wares: wooden balls at the ends of strings smacking viciously against brass gongs. The last agonized wail speaks for itself, and it was really very interesting to look down from my vantage point and see the victim being divested of his valuables by Fu-po the Ferret.

I was seated beside Master Li on the dignitaries’ platform, sweating in the uncomfortable junior nobleman’s uniform he makes me wear on such occasions and which will land me in boiling oil one of these days since I am scarcely entitled to the badges of rank. Master Li was letting an underling handle the honors until it came time for Sixth Degree Hosteler Tu to receive the sword, and was passing the time by catching up on his correspondence. He leaned over and yelled in my ear, trying to shout above the ghastly din.

“Something for you, Ox!”

He was waving a missive that seemed to consist of tracks made by a chicken after gobbling fermented mash.

“A literate barbarian!” Master Li yelled. “Fellow named Quintus Flaccus the Fourth, writing from a place called the Sabine Hills! Somehow or other he got his hands on one of your memoirs!” He swiftly scanned the chicken tracks. “Usual critical comments!” he yelled. “Clotted construction, inept imagery, mangled metaphors, and so on!”

“Nice of him to write!” I shouted back.

“Sha la jen la!”

“Hao! Hao! Hao!”

“Hao tao!”

“Who has taken my bronze belt buckle and my python skin belt!”

“Whangity-whangity-whangity-whang!”

That was a cobbler who had taken aim at my right ear and was advertising by smashing his metal foot-frame with a hammer. The head just chopped off by Devil’s Hand, I noticed, was rolling like a ball across the cobblestones toward two little girls who were seated facing each other, playing the handclap game: clap opposing hands, clap left hands, clap right hands, clap own hands, and so on, while singing an ancient nonsense rhyme. They watched the severed head approach with large eyes, lifted their stubby legs in unison to let it roll past, and resumed clapping. Shrill happy voices reached through a momentary pause in the din:

Did barbarian children in the Sabine Hills chant something like that while clapping hands?

Master Li leaned over and began yelling again. “Ox, this barbarian is a remarkably sound critic! Listen to this. ‘Inceptis gravibus plerumque et magna professis purpureus, late qui splendeat, unus et alter adsuitur pannus, ut proicit ampullus! Parturient mantes, nascetur ridiculus mus’ A bit prolix, but beautifully phrased, isn’t it?”

I have no idea why he asks questions like that. I continued to sit with my mouth slackly ajar in flycatching position while another prisoner received last words from the junior official and was dragged to the chopping block. Master Li placed his lips back against my ear.

“A rough translation might be: ‘Often on a work of grave purpose and high promise is tacked a purple patch or two to give it color, but throw away the paintpot! Your mountains labor to give birth to a laughable little mouse.’ “

“Very nicely phrased,” I said.

“That’s not all,” said Master Li. “He gets better, except he still uses more words than he should and like all uncivilized writers his prose is strangled by unnecessary punctuation. I’m half tempted to send friend Placcus a manual on Chinese Poetic Shorthand. Do you know Li Po’s ‘Short Song’?

“Think, my boy, of the benefit to the barbarian’s style if he studied Li Po’s technique and altered his missive accordingly.

“A vast improvement,” I said.

I forgot to mention the venders of soft drinks. These fellows are almost alone in advertising their wares with their own voices, and the reason is that each and every one is convinced he’s but a temporarily undiscovered star of Peking opera, and one of the bastards had crept up behind me and was pointing his gaping maw at both my ears. Along with the rest of it, the result was like this:

“Sha la jen la!”

“Hao! Hao! Hao!”

“Hao tao!”

“Who has made off with my costly silk trousers! My pure velvet loin-cloth!”