Wen Ch'ang, God of Literature, received the next stream of saliva.
“Ox, at an early age a Chinese genius gazes at the path that lies ahead and reaches for a wine jar,” Master Li said. “Is it any wonder that our greatest men have lurched rather than walked across the landscape as they hiccuped their way into history?”
“Sir, that's the best autobiography I ever heard!” I said enthusiastically.
Master Li's reputation was still considerable, although tainted with a questionable aroma, and our soil and plant samples were given priority at the Academy of Divination and Alchemic Research. Then he set out again, climbing to Imperial City and the great palaces of the bureaucrats. Again I was overawed as I gazed to the top of the hill and Palace City, where the imperial family lived, and then the Gate of the Cinnabar Phoenix, which led to the Great Luminous Palace of Emperor T'ang T'ai-tsung. Master Li wasn't going that high, however. He turned toward a building that made my blood turn cold: the Gate of the Beautiful Vista, which is the headquarters of the Secret Service and which was surrounded by straw mannequins with the flayed hides of corrupt officials wrapped around them. (The emperor had been busy cleaning house since he took over, and Master Li thoroughly approved of T'ang.) Fortunately Master Li was heading toward a smaller palace next door, and I looked forward to meeting a legendary lady.
The Captain of Prostitutes is the most powerful woman in China, except when an Empress sits upon the throne. Her guild is the heart and soul of espionage, and almost entirely responsible for probing the mysterious minds of barbarians. Couriers constantly gallop from her palace with coded messages for the Bower of Brilliant Companions in Hangchow, or the Sun-Bright Residence in Loyang, or the Pavilion of Increasing Perfection in Peking, and many a powerful official has shared his bed and secrets with a young lady and awakened to find the lady gone, and in her place an official pouch containing the yellow scarf.
I expected a long wait for an audience, but Master Li presented his business card, and in a matter of minutes we were ushered into the presence of the great lady herself. She was tall and middle-aged and very beautiful, and her voice was an exquisite musical instrument.
“Most exalted and venerable of sages,” she said, bowing to the floor.
“Most lovely of earthbound goddesses,” Master Li purred, matching her bow.
That sort of thing lasted several minutes, and then we were served tea, and I sat like a turd in a truffle shop while they played the game of social shuttlecock. I have never been able to understand why perfectly sensible people waste time being wittily obscure instead of just saying what they want and going on about their business. The Captain of Prostitutes began the game by strewing a few flower petals over the golden surface of the tea.
“Dear friend, these flowers will die from loneliness, since I appear to be out of butterflies,” she said ruefully.
Master Li caught the shuttlecock in midair.
“Alas! No flower can be complete unless accompanied by butterflies. Just as hills must have springs, and rocks must have moss,” he said.
“What is a stream without cress in it? What are tall trees without creepers? What are men without the mind of Li Kao?” she said musically.
Master Li bowed at the compliment. “Women,” he said, delicately brushing her wrist with a fingertip, “cannot be complete without the expression of a flower, the voice of a bird, the posture of the willow, the bones of jade, the skin of snow, the charm of an autumn lake, the heart of poetry, and the soul of my lovely hostess.”
“Invincible charmer,” she said with a sigh. Her eyes lowered to the old wrinkled finger upon her delicate wrist. “Passion, dear friend, displays but the bottom end of the universe,” she chided.
“Then it is the job of the poet to give it a new dress!” cried Master Li. “Shall I sing of mountains clothed in clouds, or pines dressed in wind, or willows adorned in rain, or terraces attired in moonbeams?”
The captain served more tea and flower petals. “One must be careful in one's attire,” she said. “Sometimes it is too easily removed, and at other times it cannot be removed at all. Green hills are reflected in water which borrows its color from the hills. Good wine produces poetry which borrows its beauty from the wine.”
“And a beautiful woman,” Master Li cooed, “is like a poem in that she is best seen when she is slightly drunk. If a mere man may appropriate a lovely lady's train of thought, pale clouds become multicolored when they reflect the sun, and placid currents become falls when they pass over a cliff. Things acquire the characteristics of associates, and that is why friendship is so valued, and why one's friends must be carefully chosen.”
She caressed his wrinkled hand. “Then I shall choose as my friend an ancient unyielding rock,” she said.
“And if the rock is but a dream?”
“Then I shall be a shadow in the dream,” she said softly.
Master Li swallowed his tea and leaned back and did some mental addition. “Ten points each?”
The Captain of Prostitutes fined herself a slap on a cheek. “No, I misquoted,” she said. “Chang Chou wrote that passion ‘holds up’ the bottom end of the universe, and I said ‘displays.’ Eight points at most.”
“That means I only owe you sixty-six,” Master Li said.
“Sixty-seven,” she said firmly. “Well, Kao, what can I do for you?”
“Direct me to a sound-master,” he said. “I hear that you play host to the best when he's in town.”
She nodded. “Moon Boy,” she said matter-of-factly. “Ever hear him?”
“No, but I'm told he's a phenomenon the likes of which are seen once in a thousand years,” Master Li said.
“Frankly, I doubt that there has ever been a sound-master to match Moon Boy,” she said. “How badly do you need him?”
“Very badly. I've run up against something that has me baffled.”
She leaned back and regarded him with narrowed eyes. “Moon Boy isn't here at the moment,” she said. “Nobody in his right mind would accept an invitation to perform for the King of Chao, but Moon Boy went off with a song on his lips.”
Master Li whistled. The captain was all business now. “The king isn't the problem. You can handle that twelve-chinned wonder if anyone can, but handling Moon Boy is another matter.”
“I've heard he's a bit difficult to control,” Master Li murmured.
“Multiply what you've heard by a thousand,” she said. “However, I can loan you the one person in the world who can lead him around like a little lamb.”
She rang a bell and whispered to the servant who appeared, and he trotted away.
“What would you want in return?” Master Li asked.
“Your influence and writing brush,” she said, and she stood up and began pacing the floor like a man, smacking a fist into the palm of the other hand.
“Li Kao, impatience is not pleasing to Heaven, but it's been nearly two thousand years since our guild received celestial signs indicating that our patron deity had been replaced, and we're getting impatient. We lost the protection of Golden Lotus, the greatest whore the world has ever known, and not one of the substitute deities we've been saddled with could lift a customer's purse if he was dead drunk and stuck headfirst in a barrel of molasses,” the captain said angrily. “Now nothing is going right! The court keeps us tied up with Secret Service work that pays practically nothing, and there have been eight outbreaks of pox in the last five months, and now the palace eunuchs are trying to divert the emperor's attention from their activities by starting another morality campaign. Golden Lotus wouldn't have stood for it!” the captain said passionately. “She'd have marched from star to star across the Great River and demanded an audience with the August Personage of Jade! We need a patron with her kind of guts, not an obsequious blob of suet.”