Master Li let me set the pace—to get it out of my system, I suppose—and I exhilarated in the kind of speed that is only possible for those who ride beneath the flag of the gyrfalcon. The horse stations were positioned every few miles, and I would raise the trumpet and blow “alert,” and then “three horses,” and we would ride up to grooms holding fresh horses and swing from one mount to the other without touching the ground, and then be off again as though the fate of the empire depended upon it. That lasted one day. After that we traveled a good deal slower because my rear end was almost as sore as the insides of my thighs. Master Li could still ride with the best of them, and Grief of Dawn might have been born on a horse, and I was grateful to them for not laughing when I hobbled around our camp at night.
When the route led downstream beside a major river, we would ride our horses onto a postal service barge and let the current do the work. Those were the best times. I had a chance to talk to Grief of Dawn. She was pure peasant, just as I thought, and we learned that she had no memory of her life until she was about eighteen. She had been found by an old lady she called Tai-tai (“great-great”), unconscious and covered with blood, and the old lady had taken her in and treated her as a daughter. It had been early in the morning, so Tai-tai named the girl Grief of Dawn. Master Li examined a deep round indentation in her skull and said that somebody had certainly tried to kill her, and it was a wonder all she had lost was her memory.
He had no objection to my telling her about the case we were on, so long as I made no mention of the tomb, and she was fascinated to hear about Lady Hou, the Thunderballed princess in One-Eyed Wong's, because she knew and loved some of her poems. The bargeman always had musical instruments. At night we would play and Grief of Dawn would sing peasant songs so old that not even Master Li knew them, and one night she adapted one of Lady Hou's poems to our circumstances and sang it for us. I will include it here as a matter of interest for those who may not have encountered the deceptively simple art of Lady Hou.
When we got to land again we galloped through villages where children with huge dreaming eyes gathered to watch us pass (who hasn't imagined himself as a legendary hero of the postal service?), and through narrow mountain passes where bandits with hyena faces snarled at the flag of the gyrfalcon and drew back in fear. That may give the impression that imperial control was total, but such was not the case.
“My children, there are corners of the empire where the emperor is little more than a figurehead, and we're approaching one of them,” Master Li said. “In the Kingdom of Chao there is only one ruler, and his name is Shih Hu.”
Master Li threw out his hands in an admiring gesture so wide he nearly fell from his horse.
“What a man! He's been on the throne for twenty-eight years without making a major mistake, which approaches the supernatural. He stands six feet seven and weighs more than four hundred pounds, and enemies who assume his bulk is blubber soon decorate pikes on his walls with their severed heads. He's loved by his people, feared by his rivals, adored by his women, and Grief of Dawn will have something to think about when she sees his bodyguards.”
He winked at her. “They're beautiful young women who wear uniforms of sable and carry golden bows,” he explained. “I'd rather go up against a pack of panthers than the Golden Girls. They worship their king, and perhaps he deserves it. Chao is the best-governed state in the civilized world, but you must never forget that the king himself is not civilized. Shih Hu was born a barbarian, and his soul remains barbarian. His violence can be sudden and extreme, and his palace is hard to get into and even harder to get out of.”
He rode on in silence for a few minutes.
“So far as I know, the king has only one weakness,” Master Li said thoughtfully. “He avidly collects people with unusual talents, and I rather think he might open his gates to a living legend. Somebody like the world's greatest master of the Wen-Wu lute.”
Grief of Dawn and I looked at each other. The Wen-Wu is the hardest instrument in the world to play properly, and we shrugged our shoulders.
“Venerable Sir, can you play the thing?” I inquired.
He looked at us in surprise. “What does playing it have to do with being the world's greatest master?” he said.
10
The great banquet hall of King Shih Hu was hushed and expectant. Minutes passed. Then the doors flew open and flunkies in sumptuous attire marched inside and blew mighty blasts on trumpets. They were followed by a parade of priests chanting hymns in praise of a master whose genius had surely been bestowed by the hand of Heaven itself. Then an army of acolytes pranced prettily through the doors, strewing rose petals hither and yon. Then came two senior apprentices: a fabulously wealthy young man who had abandoned all worldly goods to sit at the feet of the master, and a princess of the royal blood who had abandoned a throne. The princess carried a small ivory stool, and the young man carried a simple unadorned lute upon a silken pillow.
Priests and acolytes continued their hymns. Minutes passed slowly. Just when the suspense had become unbearable, there was a soft shuffle of sandals, and several distinguished guests swooned when the world's greatest master of the Wen-Wu lute tottered through the doors.
He was at least a thousand years old and semi divine. A thick beard whiter than snow fell down and brushed his ankles, and his enormous white eyebrows lifted like the fierce tufts of a horned owl. His coarse peasant robe was woven from the cheapest cloth, and his sandals had been patched at least fifty times. Green leaves still sprouted from his freshly cut oak staff. Disdain for worldly matters was written all over him, and he was matted with mud from a hillside where he had slept beneath the stars.
The great man slowly shuffled across the floor to the ivory stool, and the princess reverently lowered him to a sitting position. The young man knelt and placed the lute upon the master's lap. For what appeared to be an eternity the saint gazed down, silently communing with the instrument, and then his head slowly lifted. Piercing black eyes burned holes through the audience. A wrinkled finger lifted, and the wrinkled voice that emerged from the beard was like the drone of a pedagogical bee, yet vibrant with authority.
“The Wen-Wu lute,” the great man said, “was invented by Fu-hsi, who saw a meteor land in a tung tree. Soon afterward a phoenix landed beside the meteor, and when the meteor fizzled out with a melodic hiss and the phoenix flew away with a contrapuntal cry, Fu-hsi realized that he had been granted a sign from Heaven. He felled the tree, which was precisely thirty-three feet long, and cut it into three eleven-foot pieces. These pieces he soaked in running water for seventy-three days, one fifth of a year. He tapped the top piece, but the pitch was too high. He tapped the bottom piece, but the pitch was too low. He tapped the middle piece, and the pitch was just right.”