Barry Hughart - Bridge of Birds

One day we climbed down the last mountainside to a green valley, and Li Kao pointed ahead to a low hill.

“The summer estate of the Ancestress should be on the other side,” he said. “To tell the truth, I'm rather looking forward to seeing her again.”

He smiled at a memory of fifty years ago.

“Ox, I hear that she's put on a great deal of weight, but the Ancestress was the most beautiful girl that I have ever seen in my life, and the most charming when she felt like it,” he said. “Still, there was something about her that rang warning bells in my mind, and I was quite fond of old Wen. I was in high favor after the affair of Procopius and the other barbarians—I was even allowed to approach the throne on an east-west axis, instead of groveling up on my knees from the south—and one day I sidled up to the emperor and said with a sly wink that I had arranged for us to spy upon some newlyweds who were about to consummate the happy union. Wen was something of a voyeur, so we tiptoed to my suite and I opened a small curtain and pointed a pedantic finger.

“ ‘O Son of Heaven,’ I said, ‘it would appear that marriage to a certain kind of female can have unfortunate side effects.’

“The newlyweds happened to be praying mantises,” said Master Li. “The groom was happily engrossed in copulation, and right on cue his blushing bride craned her pretty neck and casually decapitated him. The groom's hindquarters continued to pump away while the bride devoured his head, which says something about the location of his brains, and for a moment the emperor had second thoughts about wedding bells. But the Ancestress got to him and I was exiled to Serendip, which was quite fortunate because I wasn't around when she poisoned poor Wen and began massacring everyone in sight.”

We reached the top of the hill and I stared down in horror at an estate that resembled a vast military fort. It covered almost an entire valley, and it was surrounded by high parallel walls. The corridors between them were patrolled by guards and savage dogs, and everywhere I looked I saw soldiers.

“I understand that her winter palace is really something,” Master Li said calmly.

“Can we really get into her treasure chambers and steal the Root of Power?” I asked in a tiny frightened voice.

“I have no intention of attempting such a thing,” he said. “We'll persuade the dear lady to bring the root to us. Unfortunately that means that we will have to murder somebody, and I have never truly enjoyed slitting the throats of innocent bystanders. We must pray that we will find somebody who thoroughly deserves it.”

He started down the hill.

“Of course, if she recognizes me, the funeral will be ours, and for once she will abandon the axe in favor of boiling oil,” he said.

In the last town of consequence Li Kao made certain arrangements, such as purchasing an elegant carriage and renting the largest suite in the inn, and then he went to the town square and tacked one of Miser Shen's gold coins to the message board. I assumed that it would be stolen as soon as we turned our backs, but he drew mysterious symbols around it, and the townspeople who approached the message board turned pale and backed away hurriedly, muttering spells to protect themselves from evil. I had no idea what was going on.

That evening the most alarming bunch of thugs that I had ever seen in my life paused at the message board, studied the coin and the symbols, and began trickling by twos and threes into the inn. Li Kao had set out jars of the strongest wine, which they swilled like hogs, growling and snarling and glaring at me with their hands on the hilts of their daggers. The animal noises stopped abruptly when Li Kao entered and climbed up upon a table.

It was as if hands had been clapped over their filthy mouths. Their eyes bulged, and sweat poured down their greasy faces. The leader of the thugs turned quite gray with terror, and I thought that he was going to faint.

Master Li was wearing a red robe that was covered with cosmological symbols, and a red headband with five loops. His right trouser leg was rolled up, and his left trouser leg was rolled down, and he wore a shoe on his right foot and a sandal on his left. He laid his left hand across his chest with the little and middle fingers extended, and he slid his right hand back inside the sleeve of his robe. The sleeve began to flutter in peculiar patterns as he wriggled the concealed fingers.

Four of the thugs grabbed their leader and forced him forward. Cut-Off-Their-Balls Wang was shaking so hard that he could barely stand, but he managed to slide his own right hand inside his sleeve, and the sleeve began to flutter in response. Master Li's sleeve moved faster and faster, Cut-Off-Their-Balls Wang replied in the same silent fashion, and so it went for many minutes. At last Li Kao extracted his hand from the sleeve and gestured dismissal, and to my astonishment the thugs and their leader backed out of the room on their knees, humbly banging their heads against the floor.

Li Kao smiled and opened a jar of better wine and motioned for me to join him at a table.

“The lower the criminal, the more impressed he is with the childlike mumbo-jumbo of the Secret Societies,” he said complacently. “For some reason Cut-Off-Their-Balls Wang is under the impression that I am a great grand master of the Triads, and that I intend to cut his gang in for a share of the loot when I make my move against the Ancestress. In the latter respect,” said Master Li, “he is absolutely right.”

Two days later some aristocratic ladies who were returning to the estate of the Ancestress were ambushed by villains whose appearance was so terrifying that the guards fled and left the ladies to their fate. Things were looking very bad for them until two intrepid noblemen rode to the rescue.

“On your knees, dogs, for you face the rage of Lord Li of Kao!” Master Li yelled.

“Cower, knaves, before the fury of Lord Lu of Yu!” I shouted.

Unfortunately, our lead horse slipped in some mud, and our carriage crashed into the ladies’ carriage, and we were pitched on top of half-naked females who were screaming their heads off. We gazed groggily at a pretty jade pendant that was dangling between a pair of pretty pink-tipped breasts, and it took a moment for us to remember what we were doing there. Then we jumped down to engage the ruffians.

Li Kao stabbed right and left with his sword, and I swung away with both hands—he was missing, of course, and I was pulling my punches short—and the thugs remembered that they weren't actually supposed to rob and rape anybody and began to do a very good job of acting. Once, when my foot slipped in the mud, a punch accidentally landed and sent the leader of the bandits sprawling. I forgot about the accident, and soon the bandits fled in terror and we turned to accept the gratitude of the rescued ladies.

Cut-Off-Their-Balls Wang had already lost his nose and both of his ears in back-alley battles, and he did not appreciate losing several teeth as well. He crept up behind me with a log in his hands.

“A present for Lord Lu of Yu!” he yelled, and he swung with all his might, and I saw a glorious burst of orange and purple stars, and then everything turned black.

I awoke in a very expensive bed surrounded by very expensive women who were battling for the honor of bathing the bump on my skull.

“He wakes!” they shrieked at the tops of their lungs. “Lord Lu of Yu opens his divine eyes!”

I had been brought up to be courteous, but there are limits.

“If you don't stop that infernal racket, Lord Lu of Yu will strangle you with his divine hands,” I groaned.

They paid no attention to me, and the ear-splitting babble continued, and gradually I began to make some sense out of it. Our miraculous intervention had saved them all from rape and ruin, and the esteem in which we were held was not diminished by our fine tasseled hats, green silk tunics, jade-bordered silver girdles, Szech'uen fans, and money belts that bulged with Miser Shen's gold coins. This was all according to plan, but I was rather puzzled by repeated references to “the bridegroom,” and I was trying to get up enough strength to ask a few questions when I began to realize that my wounds were far more serious than I had thought.