We wound through the streets, avoiding puddles where we could, eventually reaching a large square. In it stood a most peculiar construction. It was a large platform set high on bamboo stilts, and it was open on three sides. To the rear was a tented structure with a canopy that stuck out covering the whole platform. Large flags flew on the front corners. As our little cavalcade stopped before it, I was aware of a flurry of activity to one side of the platform. A shape flew towards me, and I instinctively reached for my dagger. Lin, who was by now standing up in his carriage to get a better view, leaned over and restrained me from making a grave error.
I saw that the figure was someone in female garb who had sprung on to the platform by performing a long, acrobatic somersault. As her feet slapped down on the front of the staging only feet away from me, I had to restrain my pony from rearing and throwing me. Her painted face stared dejectedly at me, and her long sleeves hung down to the ground. Then she began staggering uncertainly round the platform, and I thought her drunk. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lin was enraptured. He was staring at the woman with a look of awe on his face. Her gait changed from her drunken lurch, and she suddenly resembled a lion pacing round a cage too small for it. Her breath quickened and her shoulders jerked. Finally she fell exhausted on to the floor.
Behind me, I heard the sound of clapping hands. It was Lin expressing his approval of the acrobat. I was puzzled. The leap of the saltatrice had been spectacular, but what had all the other mugging been about?
‘What did that all mean, Lin?’
He looked at me, his eyes wide in astonishment.
‘Do you not know?’ He then raised his hand in acknowledgement of my expression of ignorance. ‘Silly of me, why should you? That was as perfect an enactment of the passion of Empress Tu as I have ever seen. We call it tso-yi – a stylized way of expressing feelings and thoughts through actions.’
I looked back at the woman, who was now grinning impudently at me, and then bowing to Lin. She was a slender-waisted woman with a rounded but pleasing face that shone through the make-up. As I stared at her, she turned and slinked offstage, gyrating her hips in a way quite as pleasing as Gurbesu’s own gait. Thinking of her, and then of my admiration of the acrobatic saltatrice, I glanced across. Gurbesu was dismounting from her steed, and it shielded her from me. She hadn’t seen my keen interest in the young woman. I leaned down towards Lin, a sly thought in my mind.
‘I should like to meet this Empress Tu. She is clearly very… supple.’
Lin looked a little surprised at my salacious comment, but then winked, and grinned broadly.
‘I will arrange an assignation for you, Nick.’
I patted his shoulder in a man-to-man sort of complicity. Even though he had no balls, Lin knew what I liked. I whispered in his ear.
‘Gurbesu doesn’t need to learn of it, of course.’
‘Of course not. Leave it all to me.’
I, too, then dismounted, along with the weary Alberoni and Tadeusz Pyka, both of whom had lagged far behind on the last leg of the journey. Following Lin’s carriage on foot, we led our horses to where we would stay for the night. It was just off the square, and was as comfortable a hostelry as we had experienced on our long journey. Thinking of the little empress, I left Gurbesu to her own devices, and walked across the inner courtyard of the hostelry to Lin’s rooms. As ever, he had already surrounded himself with tranquillity and calm. Po Ku was a quick learner in how to please his master, and busied himself in the shadows arranging his master’s travelling possessions. Lin was seated on a low bench with a silk cushion on it. I noticed the unicorn shape embroidered on the cushion that protruded from under his buttocks. It was the emblem of the Censorate, the government department of his deadly enemy – and mine too – Ko Su-Tsung. He grinned when he saw where I was looking.
‘Forgive me my little petty triumph. I like the idea of sitting on Ko, and arranged for his emblem to be sewn into the fabric of this cushion. He saw it soon after I obtained it, and I think it puzzled and pleased him at the same time. He does not know how I employ the cushion.’
I laughed.
‘You can fart on it for all I care, Chu-Tsai.’
Lin grimaced at my Western coarseness, and motioned for me to sit opposite him. I dropped inelegantly down on to the other bench. I still could not get used to the lowness of all the furniture in Cathay. Benches and tables had legs no taller than the little dwarf dogs they were fond of breeding here. I yearned for a good, long-legged hunting hound, and a similarly shaped Venetian chair to lounge in. Grovelling on the floor was not conducive to action, if a swift exit or an attack was required. Lin reached across the table and picked up the stack of documents that had accompanied him in the carriage.
‘We must go on looking for a way of extricating ourselves from our dilemma. I have studied the paperwork associated with the case of Jianxu time and time again, but I cannot see where the chink in the armour is located.’
I held up a finger to emphasize what I was about to say, and he looked at me expectantly.
‘Then we must turn our examination away from the case, and towards the magistrate and his Mongol overlord.’
‘In what way?’
‘They have to be corruptible in some way or other. All officials are.’ I was suddenly aware of a red flush covering Lin’s face, and hastened to correct my error. ‘Except for you, old friend. You are the exception that proves the rule. And it is why you are lucky to have me.’
‘Why is that, my little demon?’
‘Because I am as corruptible as any official, so I can guess what their actions might be before they have even thought of them themselves.’
It came to mind that the last time I pulled a fast one on a Mongol – Mongotai – in the bar in Khan-balik, I had needed to flee pretty quickly afterwards. I decided I would not like to try and outwit the Mongol governor who ran the district in which we were travelling. I might not live to tell the tale. But the prefect was another matter. I decided the Chinee magistrate was the best bet for leaning on.
‘Do we know anything about him? The judge in this case?’
Lin rifled through the papers, extracting a paper roll. He unfurled it.
‘He is called Li Wen-Tao. And I do have some information on him.’ He read in silence for a few moments. ‘This is interesting. He is a man of middle years, who should by now be in a higher position, I would say.’
‘Good. Then he has got a secret vice that holds him back, and even if he hasn’t, we can seduce him into one. Then turn it round against him.’
I rubbed my hands together, eager for the challenge.
‘I am beginning to like this case already.’
‘Good. And tonight by way of relaxation you will enjoy a play onstage in the square.’
I grimaced, thinking of the simple miracle plays with their religious and moralizing themes I had seen in Venice. They did not appeal at all. Lin, on the other hand, seemed quite excited by the prospect.
‘You will enjoy it, Nick. The theatre is very popular in Cathay, and the plays tell all sorts of stirring tales, including what we call strip and fight thrillers. Sword against sword, or mace against mace. But tonight it is a different sort, and an appropriate play for us – kung-an.’
‘Kung-an?’
He winked knowingly.
‘It means a crime case tale. How appropriate is that? But I have business in mind too, as one of the men who framed the petition to Kubilai is here.’
‘Our case?’
‘Yes. He is a writer of plays too – a young man beginning to make a name for himself. Though it may not help him that he has a young man’s thirst to see justice done for his race.’ Lin’s face had a solemn look about it. ‘Arguing the case of a Chin woman against the decision of a Mongol governor is not how to become famous. Notorious, perhaps.’