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  It was late afternoon and he’d spent the day dealing with the manifold repercussions of his father’s death. He didn’t mind but just when he thought he’d finished, there was another regulation to follow, another ritual to observe, another funeral practice to consider: the paper offerings, the models of the furniture, the offerings of food and drink and that was before the arrangements for both the Taoist and the Buddhist monks for the chanting, prayers and incensing.

  He had written letters to his father’s friends and relatives. Park had contacts in the legal profession all over Hebei Province, in Beiping and some in the south and west. There were a few in Mongolia, Korea and some as far afield as India. Thus far, he’d sent out thirty runners. He folded the paper with care and called out, “Qitong.”

  The house boy stumbled into his office.

  “Take this to the runner waiting by the outer gate,” he said. “Here, he’ll need some cash for the journey,” he added, handing him a string of silver.

  While the boy delivered the letter, Feng wrapped his silk robes around himself and stood by the window. He couldn’t see far, because the Yamen was situated near the market and being inside a military fortress, it was surrounded by high, stone walls. Often, he felt hemmed in by them. Sometimes, it felt like a prison.

  His mind flashed back to the interview with the prince. Why had he refused his claim to be the next magistrate? What evil had he committed to be so shamed by him? Feng dreaded to think what lay in store. Perhaps he should see a fortune teller? Like Luli. What would she tell him? That Bao had robbed of him of the magistrate’s post? Yes, well, he knew that already.

  He was distracted by the sound of a boy’s footsteps outside. It was Qitong.

  “Did you deliver the message?” he asked.

  “Yes, master,” Qitong replied, his breath steamy from the cold. Given the little food the boy ate, Feng wondered if he survived on air alone.

  The boy loitered on the threshold. Feng asked, “Is there something else?”

  “Yes, master. It’s the flag, the prince’s flag,” Qitong replied, wringing his hands.

  “What’s the matter with it?”

  “Master, I’ve just noticed; it’s not been changed.” Qitong bowed his head low.

  “What!” He was furious. “I ordered it changed after father’s murder and that was two days ago. Who’s responsible? I’ll beat them black and blue. No wonder the bad omens keep crossing our threshold. It’s shameful. Bring me the white flag of mourning. I’ll change it myself.”

  The boy scuttled off. Feng stormed out of the office, brushing by Precious and Granny Dandan, who were supping tea in the confines of the kitchen and scowling at him.

  Feng climbed the steps of the tower leading to the flagpole. This was for father. The more he thought about it, the more shame he felt. The whole town would have wondered why the flag had remained unchanged. It was his duty as an obedient son to ensure it was done and done on time. He could hear their whispers – the tragic murder of his father and what did his shiftless son do? Nothing. It weighed on him like a heavy cangue. No wonder Precious wore that look of disdain.

  The flagpole was still flying the prince’s yellow and red colours. Qitong arrived clutching the white flag of mourning.

  “Pull it down,” he snapped. Qitong did as he was told and the prince’s flag soon lay at his feet, a crumpled piece of sodden cloth. With quick hands, the boy hauled the plain white flag into place until it fluttered high in the wind, daubing the fortress in mourning.

  “That’s more fitting.” Feng heaved a sigh of relief. At least he had redeemed himself in his father’s eyes and in the eyes of his peers. Perhaps karma would bring him some relief.

  From the platform on top of the Yamen, he grasped the railings and looked down on the hustle and bustle of the town. At eye level, across the way, scores of soldiers marched along the wall road. Others flooded the alleys and by-ways searching for Shun’s conspirators, who had so far proved elusive. To the north, the snow-capped Yanshan Mountains, with the Taoist temple nestling in the foothills, rose into the low cloud. To the east, a light squall of rain was heading towards the Laolongtou. Gliding in the air above it was a large flock of gulls, their black and white markings hard against the sullen sky. They were circling like vultures around a carcass. Something had captured their rapt attention, although the high fortress wall about five hundred paces distant restricted his line of sight. He could only see what was unfolding above it.

  There were scores of gulls, gliding through the steel-grey sky and swooping down on the Laolongtou in a black and white cloud. While gulls were often aggressive, they were never like this and never as a flock. It was as if they were possessed by a harmful spirit. One after another, they rose up to a great height and dived through the turbulent air, their wings taut against their bodies like a flying spear. It was the most bizarre aerial display he’d ever seen. After a while, the squall rolled in and swamped their acrobatics. By the time he turned to leave the tower, the flock had dispersed. From the roof of the Yamen, he glanced down and noticed Luli making her way into his residence. There would only be one reason she was here. He left the roof and went down to meet her.

  Entering the inner court, he saw his mother’s maid and asked her, “Precious, did I see Luli just enter the house?”

  “Yes, master, she’s come to see your mother,” she murmured. Her voice was mellow but sad. That wasn’t surprising since his mother was feeble and Precious was devoted to her.

  He met Luli outside his mother’s bedchamber and she said to him, “I have come to help your mother and your family heal your wounds.”

  “Thank you,” he replied and then asked, “I wonder, did you see the gulls as you arrived? They were swarming above the fortress, flying right above me. They almost scared me.”

  “I did see them, Master Feng,” Luli said, narrowing her eyes. “The lines of ch’i in the air above the fortress are disturbed, fragmented and that’s upset the gulls. I’m afraid these are ominous times.”

  “Indeed, they are,” he replied.

  Feng accompanied Luli as she attended to his mother, who lay propped up in bed, her face drawn and tired. Oozing care and sympathy, Luli held Lan’s wrist and took her three pulses. She asked her some questions, to which Lan replied in a weak, weary fashion. Luli pressed her hand in his mother’s and gave her a parting smile.

  Feng spoke to Luli outside the bed chamber.

  “How is she?” he asked, pressing his hands together.

  “Drained and depleted, I’m afraid,” Luli’s voice was crisp like fresh lavender. “She’s grieving for your father and that’s sucking out her ch’i.”

  “Is there something you can do…? Some herbal remedy…? Anything?” he asked in desperation.

  “A poultice of herbs will only cure physical problems, like a rash or a cut,” Luli said, a tinge of melancholy in her voice. “The Lady Lan is suffering from a spiritual malaise.”

  “You’re an experienced doctor. You must be able to help her,” he complained, although from Luli’s furrowed brow, he could see she too was at her wits’ end.

  “I’ll leave her some herbs for a tisane,” she answered, “but what your mother needs is to be raised up by the medicines of the gods, medicines only she can provide.”

  Before taking her leave, she whispered, “Whatever happens, prepare yourself to make amends with your ancestors – on her behalf.”

  Feng felt a piercing in his heart. Not his mother. He couldn’t face losing her as well. He peered back into the bedchamber. His mother let out a prolonged sigh that seemed to rise up and roam around the house like some malignant spirit.

  Precious was sitting with her head on the bedclothes, comforting his mother. The light was pale through the curtains. He remembered bouncing into this room as a five-year-old, the sun streaming through the windows, his mother and father, happy and smiling. It
was the same sun and the same room, only a little older, a little tawdry.

  He’d lost his father to a terrible murder and his mother was shuffling towards death’s door. His family had offended the spirits of the ancestors. He had to endure. Everything was wrong, incongruous, out of place, like a wooden gate, swollen by the rain, which refused to close. The natural order of things was upset. They could never be restored. Nothing was the same anymore.

  CHAPTER 10

  The Gulls

  Near to rivers, we recognise fish.

  Near to mountains, we recognise the songs of birds.

  It is very important to make on-the-spot investigations.

  CHINESE SAYING

  As he strode along the wall road, Bolin shook his head, still trying to expunge the vestiges of his latest vision. He had not told anyone about it. How could he? Yes, Bao had a reputation as a ladies’ man, but not the cruel viper he’d witnessed in his dream vision. Besides, what would Bolin say? That a length of rope had stimulated his yin-yang eyes? No. On this, he was determined to keep his own counsel. Perhaps the Baku – the dream-eaters – would gobble up his nightmare and everything would return to normal again? He could always pray.

  He and Cui trudged past the commandant’s centre of operations in Ninghai City Fortress.

  He was still preoccupied. Yesterday’s anxiety had leeched into today. Bao was not the forgiving sort and Bolin expected to see a knot of troops storming up the ramp with orders to arrest Cui. None came, but it didn’t stop him looking with suspicion over his shoulder as the two of them approached the Laolongtou. It was guarded by the famous Stone Guardian, a large rectangular tablet. Back there again, his head was already pounding like a pestle grinding on mortar.

  As Cui issued his unit of twenty soldiers with their orders for the day, the bottom rim of the winter sun rose above the line of the horizon. Wuzhou, Cui’s eagle-eyed younger brother, was the first to spot a dark smudge on the southern horizon, an inauspicious direction according to the almanac of the day.

  “What’s that?” Wuzhou cried, squinting into the low-lying sun.

  “A rain squall?” Cui suggested.

  “No, it’s moving too fast,” Wuzhou said.

  “Whatever it is, it’s coming our way,” Cui said.

  The dark smudge resolved into a screech of gulls, moving inexorably towards them through the metallic-grey sky. Like everyone else, Bolin expected the mobile cloud to fly over them. The flock slowed and circled the Laolongtou – right above them.

  The fascinated troops pointed up at the swarm. With a vociferous cry, a gull swooped down towards them and dived at Wuzhou like he was a prearranged target. Ducking to avoid a collision with the bird, his cap fell on the ground.

  “Well, I never. That was close,” he murmured.

  Then the entire aerial swarm swept down on them like avatars of the wrathful Yama, the king of the demons. Battling to fight them off, Cui and Bolin waved their hands about their heads. Wuzhou prodded his halberd at the marauding birds.

  Not all the troop was as brave. The gulls knocked one soldier’s lance out of his hands and harassed him off the Laolongtou altogether. He ran off with a knot of gulls squawking and pecking at his head. The others, feckless brood to a man, followed him, hands gesticulating in the air.

  Bolin was left alone with the two brothers and the belligerent flock.

  Wuzhou was adamant, “I refuse to move for a few unruly birds!” he said.

  The gulls seemed to think otherwise. That was when the guano started. At first, there was only one drop that splattered in the middle of Wuzhou’s cap, which still lay forlorn on the ground. That was met with raucous protestations of defiance.

  The next ariel deposit soiled Wuzhou’s uniform. He shook his fist, adding a few choice expletives. Another drop landed fair and square on Cui’s shoulder, dribbling down his upper arm. That earned some more ripe curses.

  Then it rained guano as about thirty gulls, with dark grey mantles and black wingtips, dropped their sticky white excrement on the valiant three. They sheltered in the lee of the Stone Guardian, watching helplessly as blobs of guano splattered around them. It smelled – and looked – foul!

  By the time the flock pulled away to conduct some sort of damage assessment, the three of them were covered in guano, their robes and even their faces and hair.

  Bolin tried wiping it from his robes with a ’kerchief, muttering, “This is gruesome.”

  The brothers were plotting revenge. “I’ve had enough of this,” Wuzhou grimaced, wielding his halberd above his head.

  “Me too. Let’s take some of them out.” Cui unsheathed his bow and arrow.

  The birds were strutting up and down the battlements, cronking and snorting with a degree of arrogance normally only witnessed in the highest grade of mandarin. Cui nocked his arrow and was about to unleash it, when a woman’s voice rang out, “Stop! Don’t shoot!”

  Luli strode towards them, breathing fire. She planted herself right in front of Cui and pressed down on the bow until the arrow pointed to the ground.

  “Luli,” Wuzhou snarled. “Don’t interfere. They’ve soiled us.”

  “I can see,” she replied. Her benign presence seemed to calm the gulls, who perched quietly along the three sides of the battlements. “They mean no harm,” she added.

  “Then why were they attacking us?” Wuzhou replied.

  “They want you to leave the Laolongtou,” Luli pleaded, pulling at Wuzhou’s sleeve.

  “No,” Cui said, a thread of anger in his voice. “They’ve humiliated us.”

  “Harm them and you will bring bad karma on yourselves,” Luli said.

  They knew she spoke the truth.

  “Come, let’s leave,” Luli said, pulling Wuzhou by the sleeve, who reluctantly allowed her to lead him off the Laolongtou. Bolin and Cui followed, the birds staring at them like their exit was the final part of some elaborate theatrical performance.

  Once the Laolongtou was vacated, the rest of the flock flew down and occupied every last morsel of space, jostling each other on the battlements and the ground. Some even settled on top of the Stone Tablet. While Wuzhou growled inconsolably, Bolin heaved a sigh of relief, since his headache had lifted. Not that it helped him explain what he was happening. Luli made an attempt.

  “Birds are messengers from the spirit worlds,” she said, in that soft, lilting voice of hers. “If you’d have maimed or killed one of them, we’d no longer be able to see, or hear, any messages they sent us.”

  “That may be, Mistress Luli,” Wuzhou growled. “It seems to me the birds are possessed of a bad spirit. Look, they’re strutting about the Laolongtou like they own the place.”

  It was true. Scores more had swollen the flock. The once brown-black mud brick promontory was a seething mass of black, white and grey feathers. The gulls owned the Laolongtou.

  Bolin let out a long, slow hiss. This talk of malign spirits and messages from another world played on his already fractured mind. He couldn’t hide from his condition any longer. He had to find out what was afflicting him, because it was maligning the people who were close to his heart.

  CHAPTER 11

  Death Bed Instructions

  Human nature can be improved.

  Use the Chinese way to transform barbarians.

  Immerse captured Mongols in the teachings of our great sages.

  Gradually, they will tread the path of righteousness and follow our ritual.

  THE GREAT MING CODE

  Feng lifted his head from the papers he was reading and brushed away a white moth fluttering precariously close the lantern. A moment later, it returned and headed straight for the naked flame, where it was duly scorched. Life was cheap – at least for moths. His karma might be to return to this world as a moth and perish in a similarly futile way.

  He slumped back in the chair and rubbed his
eyes. He was absorbing the onerous and extensive requirements in the Great Ming Code to fulfil the ritual funeral obligations. He had to satisfy his ancestors. He had spent most of the day discussing the arrangements with Abbot Dong. The prayers, the incantations, the chanting, the incense, everything had to conform to the Great Ming Code.

  He must have dozed off in the chair, because he was abruptly awoken by the second night watch. The sound soon dissipated and a pall of silence descended again on Shanhaiguan. He picked up another document on his desk entitled “Daily Proceedings of the Hebei Provincial Law Court, day three, month one, in the first year of the reign of the glorious Jianwen Emperor.”

  Already it had an archaic feel, as if it originated from an earlier dynasty, when the Jianwen Emperor had grasped the Mandate of Heaven. Yet it was only a little more than a year ago. How quickly his life had changed. He was without a father and was the head of the household. And there were demons around every corner.

  He heard footsteps and low voices in the corridor.

  “Who’s there?” he cried. “Strange, is that you?” Strange was always creeping around at night, mumbling to himself and bewailing the parlous standards of the ‘modern world’ as he called it. Feng was fed up with his moaning and needed a new manservant. That would be Qitong, as soon as the boy was old enough. The shuffling sounds grew louder and from the corridor, his mother emerged in her nightgown, dishevelled and with a wild look in her eye.

  “Mother, why are you wandering around in the middle of the night? You should be asleep.” He chided her gently. Half-asleep, Precious stumbled into the room after her.

  “Why are you still awake then?” His mother wanted to know. “Studying again?” It was clear her acumen was undiminished by her grief.