The third day followed much the same. A visit to the Major in the morning, a long ride in the woods in the afternoon. All this time Lung ate nothing – didn’t even stir from his cot while Theodore was in the room, and appeared not to notice when, that evening, two monks brought a large basket of food in and explained in broken Mandarin that it would have to last until the festival was over.
The fourth morning began with the steady beat of a slack-skinned drum, parading through galleries and courtyards, a noise more like the pulse of a large but bloodless creature – Yidam Yamantaka, for instance – than any music. Voices called, feet padded and scurried, and the drum thudded into the distance, returning and fading as it wandered through the maze. As Theodore lay and listened to it, he came face to face with the fact that he was frightened. It was no use saying that he had seen the masks being painted and the dough-giant being constructed, and knew quite well that they were only wood and cloth, flour and water and coloured dyes. He also knew that at times something breathed power into these stupid things, so that their stupidity began to live and became horrible. He did not want to be there when it happened, so he decided that this morning, at any rate, he was going to stay in the cell. Even Lung’s misery would be more tolerable than the things outside.
He rose, lit the primus and started to make his breakfast. To his surprise Lung heaved up on his cot and stared, hollow-eyed, at the purring violet flame beneath the kettle.
‘It is the day,’ he croaked.
‘Yes. Did you hear the drum? I guess that means the Festival is starting.’
‘She will come down from the mountain. She has had three days to consider. All that time she has not seen the soul-stealer.’
‘Honest, I don’t think . . .’
‘No. If he had not been sure of her he would not have left her so. I must eat.’
Lung seemed to have lost all his fastidious neatness. He slurped his tea so hot that it must have burnt him, spilling much of it but instantly gulping again. Crumbs of the dark, sour bread strewed his cot, but the moment he’d finished eating he threw himself back on the mess and lay staring at the ceiling. Theodore started to tidy the food away.
‘Leave me, Theo,’ whispered Lung.
‘I’d sooner . . .’
‘I must be alone. Now. Alone.’
Lung seemed to sense Theodore’s intention to refuse, because now he half-rose from the cot, glaring at Theodore with a suddenly focused madness, as though Theodore were the cause of all his misery.
‘Go!’
The word was like the grunt of a wounded animal. Lung was still rising when Theodore picked up his rough Tibetan coat and backed through the door. For a moment he stood hesitating, wondering what to do, how to get help. It was as though one of the horrible powers of Dong Pe had come and instead of giving weird life to a masked dancer had actually invaded the body of his friend. He moved a pace along the gallery and standing on tip-toe peeped over the sill of the small window into the cell. Lung was lying on his cot, face down now, apparently exhausted with the effort of driving Theodore from the room. Perhaps he was right, and all he needed was to be alone. The fact that he had eaten was encouraging . . . Theodore moved away, shaking his head. He decided to go and check that the old groom hadn’t forgotten to feed and water the horses in the morning’s excitement. Then he could weed Mrs Jones’s garden for a while – a dreary and disconsolate task without her – and then come back in an hour or so and see whether Lung was all right.
The quiet courtyard where they lived was full of sudden life, as monks thronged through the arch that led towards the temples. Theodore turned against the flow of men hurrying in the same direction along the gallery and made his way to a stair that would bring him out in the courtyard by the monastery gate, but reaching the gallery above it he saw that he would not get out that way. The crowd at the entrance was like hunched waters pressing to pass a sluice; anyone trying to move against it would be in for a battering, and might even get trampled underfoot. So he turned back and, moving with the stream now, made his way through the maze of galleries towards the little side-gate; he had meant to avoid the gallery that ran along the east side of the main courtyard, but a door that would have let him through by a back way was for some reason closed and bolted, so he had to retrace his steps. To his surprise the gallery was almost empty. Monks were lined up along the balustrade, but there was plenty of room to pass behind them, and gaps through which it was possible to see the scene below. This was so amazing that despite his intentions Theodore stopped at one of the gaps to watch for a moment.
When the people of the valley had gathered in that courtyard for the ceremony of the oracle, Theodore had thought it an immense crowd, but compared to the crush he saw now it was little more than a sprinkling. It seemed impossible that there could be room for more, but still men and women, monks and peasants, were jostling in through several archways, setting up pressures in the mass below which made it move in ponderous eddies.
‘You have come to watch?’ said a voice in Mandarin beside him. ‘To be part of the ceremony you must be down there.’
Theodore turned and saw the oracle-priest. He answered with a grunt – he was only watching. He was not part, and never would be. His eye was caught by a rush of movement on the staging at the temple steps to his right – a monstrous figure, surrounded by demons, was swaggering about while a dancer all in black and riding a black hobby-horse, came tittupping on. The dancer abandoned his horse, took a bow from his shoulders and began to perform his dance, moving in wide swoops, with arms stretched so that his black robes fluttered round him. The monstrous figure, who wore a green mask and a towering crown, came nearer to the dancer, who suddenly stopped his fluttering swoops, stood straight and mimed with the bow. Imaginary arrows sped towards the monster. At this point Theodore recognized the story, which Major Price-Evans had told him – it was about a King of Tibet a thousand years ago who had tried to suppress the Buddhists; and how a Buddhist hermit had appeared in front of the palace riding a black horse and wearing the dress of a black magician, and there had performed a magical dance, which the King had come out on to his balcony to watch; then the hermit had taken his ritual bow, shot the King dead and galloped off towards the river; the King’s guard had rushed in pursuit, but no-one on either bank had seen a black rider on a black horse because the hermit had turned his cloak inside out as he rode through the river, which had washed the black paint off his horse, so all any witness had seen was a white magician suitably mounted on a milk-white steed.
Theodore was inquisitive to see whether the dancer would change colour, and if so how, so he stayed, telling himself he was only watching. The monster-king danced his death; a line of men in blue-green robes, waving a long blue cloth to make the waves, appeared on the other side of the stage; the hermit picked up his hobby-horse and sped towards them, pursued by demons; the dancers in blue closed round him for a moment, hiding him completely, then opened out and there he was all in white on the far side, beginning to dance his triumph while the demons prowled for their prey, unable to see him. It was cleverly managed, but Theodore was surprised to notice that the crowd below scarcely responded – indeed many were not even looking in that direction.
‘Why don’t they watch?’ he asked. ‘Isn’t that why they’ve come?’
‘They are waiting for the Lama Amchi to appear,’ said the oracle-priest.
‘Is that more important than the dances?’
‘To these simple people, yes. It was he who found the Lama Tojing Rimpoche, and now it is he who has found the Mother of the Tulku. He was already a great one in their minds, and now he is greater still.’