The Willow Pattern

XV

Ma Joong and Chiao Tai stared sourly at the two Taoist monks that were again making a low bow, their long yellow sleeves sweeping the floor. The four men were standing at the head of the broad stone steps leading up to the high gatehouse of the Taoist temple.

Two hooded men came walking down the street. One of them lifted the rim of his black hood and shouted up at the monks in a raucous voice:

'Our amulets sell better than yours, stupid quacks!’

The other guffawed. It echoed loudly in the empty street.

'Of those insolent rogues we have enough and to spare, in this quarter,' the eldest monk told Chiao Tai. 'But we have never seen a puppeteer around here.'

'Nobody has visited our temple anyway, these last ten days,' the other monk remarked. 'We just pray for rain, all day and all night.'

'Keep on praying!' Ma Joong said ungraciously. 'Good­bye!'

He gave a sign to his friend and they went down into the street.

Chiao Tai cast a dejected look at the row of shops opposite. All the shutters were closed.

'Apparently they open up for only one hour in the early morning,' he remarked, 'just like those uptown. Sell out the little foodstuffs they have, and close again. Who the hell is there to ask about that puppeteer and that girl of yours? We can't knock on every damned door in this quarter, can we?'

'It won't be easy,' Ma Joong admitted gloomily. 'There isn't even a single street urchin about. They would know, of course, for they are fond of puppet shows. In normal times.'

Chiao Tai had been plucking at his small black moustache. Suddenly he asked:

'What did that small monkey of Yuan's look like exactly? The light in the tavern was so bad that I couldn't see it well.'

'Yuan's monkey? What do you want with that?'

'Did it have a tail?'

'It did. Long, furry affair. Curled it round Yuan's neck.'

'Good! That means it's a tree monkey!' Chiao Tai exclaimed.

'So it's a tree monkey. What is so good about that?' Ma Joong asked peevishly.

Chiao Tai was looking up at the temple with a speculative eye.

'I think, brother,' he said pensively, 'that we'd better go and climb that pagoda over there.'

'What for? You need exercise?'

'To look for trees, brother. There can't be many around, for in this poor quarter people can't afford the luxury of a garden. Now itinerant artists who keep monkeys that go round among the audience with the collection-plate always treat them well, for those trained monkeys are worth a lot to them. So that fellow Yuan will have tried to find a lodging where there's a tree of some sort, to keep his monkey fit and happy, you see. If it had been a ground monkey, Yuan wouldn't need a tree. You can keep a ground monkey quite happy by letting him jump about the furniture, and creep under cupboards and beds, for that's what a ground monkey likes.'

Ma Joong nodded slowly. He knew from their years together in the 'green woods' that Chiao Tai had a way with animals. He loved to make them tame and to study all their habits.

'All right,' he said, 'let's climb the damned pagoda. From up there we should be able to see in what section of this quarter there grow trees. It isn't much of a lead, but it's better than nothing.'

They went up the stone stairs again. A novice took them across the central courtyard, then to the entrance of the nine-storeyed pagoda behind the main hall. Sweating and cursing the two friends climbed the steep, narrow staircase. Arrived on the platform of the ninth storey, however, they found that the hot haze hanging over the sea of roofs had thinned out a little, so that the entire quarter was spread out below them like a pictorial map. They saw only one patch of green, away behind the temple, where there were nothing but slums. Beyond it a lonely banner hung limply from a high stake. It indicated the local military post.

'We shall head for that green patch, brother,' Chiao Tai said. 'Look, the roofs around it form a square and they are higher than those of the other houses. I think it's one of those very old mansions, dating from the time when this quarter was still the centre of the city. Now a dozen or so poor families have found shelter in most of them.'

'Good. That's the kind of place Yuan would stay in. Let's try to work out how we get there.' Ma Joong leaned over the balustrade and peered at the maze of narrow streets and alleys deep down below. 'Yes, we must first make for that small square behind the temple, you see. Then take the winding road down there, and afterwards the straight alley to the left. If we follow that, we can't go far wrong.'

They began the long journey down, in a cheerful mood.

After half an hour of tramping up and down dirty streets, however, their spirits had sunk again. The farther they penetrated into the back streets, the poorer the houses became, and they met no one who they could ask for the way. At last they found, on a corner, an old hag, clad in rags. She was searching the smelly gutter for eatable offal.

She had not seen any travelling puppeteers or acrobats about, but she told them that three streets ahead there stood indeed a large old house. 'It's a big affair,' she added, 'and squatters live in the back. There are no trees, though. The front yard is in a bad state; we put our dead there, till the scavengers come to collect them.' She pushed an untidy grey strand away from her sweating face and added: 'We are lucky, many scavengers gather here. They are good men, they can call up the souls of the dead, and they have amu­lets that protect you against all sickness.'

Chiao Tai thanked her, and they walked on. In the next street they met a group of about a dozen scavengers. Among them was a spare man, clad in a long robe of costly brocade and wearing a high cap of black gauze.

'Hey there, Doctor!' Ma Joong called out. 'What are you doing here?'

Doctor Lew said something to the tall hooded man by his side. Then he stepped up to the two friends and replied politely:

'I just went to see two young women, colonel, in the large old house over there. Couldn't do a thing, unfortunately. They had got the sickness, and died before my eyes.'

Ma Joong went pale. A sick feeling contracted his stomach.

'The two daughters of Yuan, you mean?' he asked.

'Yuan? Were they called Yuan?' Lew asked the tall hooded man. The other shrugged his shoulders, covered by the long black cloak.

'Show us the place, Doctor,' Chiao Tai ordered. 'I didn't know you looked so well after the poor.'

'I take my profession seriously,' the doctor said coldly. 'Follow me, if you insist on verifying my statement.'

They went on, the group of scavengers on their heels. After a while the tall hooded man came to walk by Chiao Tai's side. He said, his words muffled by the hood:

'I know you, Mister Colonel. You are the one who had four oЈ us beheaded. In the square.'

'I'll have your head chopped off too,' Chiao Tai told him. 'For an even smaller offence! Watch your step, my friend.'

The other fell behind. Chiao Tai heard him whisper to the other scavengers.

In the next street a dozen more hooded men joined them. They began to talk busily amongst each other in their muffled voices. Ma Joong looked round at them. Through the slits of the hoods their eyes fixed him with a malevolent glitter. He nudged his friend. Chiao Tai had his hand on the hilt of his sword. He too had noticed their threatening attitude.

'Here we are,' Doctor Lew spoke. He had halted in front of a dilapidated gate. The weather-beaten bricks showed through the burst plaster, but the door studded with nails seemed quite new. Lew pointed at the wooden crossbar. Two scavengers lifted it from its hinges and pushed the door open. The doctor went inside, followed by Ma Joong and Chiao Tai. The scavengers stayed outside, the narrow street was crammed by black hoods.

Ma Joong stepped up to the two still figures lying on a heap of refuse, at the entrance of the high, semi-dark vesti­bule. He heaved a deep sigh of relief. The dead women were completely unknown to him.

'The air is polluted here,' Chiao Tai told the doctor gruffly. 'The squatters must evacuate this compound.'

'You go and tell them, colonel! I'll say good-bye here. I also have my duties.'

'Not nice to have met you,' Ma Joong said sourly.

'You'd better be careful, Colonel,' Dr Lew told him veno­mously. 'You might need me, one of these days.'

'When we get sick,' Chiao Tai put in cheerfully, 'we'll call our coroner. He'll be overjoyed at having a squint at a live body, for a change!'

Doctor Lew turned round and went outside without another word.

The two friends walked down the long, narrow corridor. A little farther along the roof had caved in, leaving a large gap high above them through which they could see the sultry sky. The corridor had no windows, and the walls, though covered with mould, looked very solid. At the end was another door. Chiao Tai tried to push it open, but it would not budge. He put his ear to the wood. On the other side was the murmur of many voices. Suddenly there came a coarse voice from above:

'You are caught, dirty dogs!'

A hooded head was peering down at them through the gap in the roof. There was a swishing sound. An arrow missed Ma Joong's head by the fraction of an inch.

'Back to the gate!' Chiao Tai hissed.

They ran down the corridor as fast as they could. Ma Joong stepped over the two dead women and pulled at the door. It didn't move.

'They got us!' Chiao Tai whispered. 'The bastards have bows, and they can pick us off through the gap as if we were sitting ducks. Let's break the other door down, and fight our way through the crowd at the back.'

'Heaven knows what weapons they carry under those damned cloaks,' Ma Joong said hurriedly. 'And it's forty to two. That calls for strategy rather than force, brother. Help me to take off my coat of mail, quick!' He whispered a few instructions into Chiao Tai's ear, then shouted through the door: 'What do you think you are doing, bastards? Our soldiers will make mincemeat out of you!'

The scavengers outside jeered.

'We'll deliver the two of you neatly rolled up in canvas,' someone shouted. 'Nobody'll know, and nobody'll care!'

'Let's talk this over!' Ma Joong called back. He was help­ing Chiao Tai to put his own jacket of mail on one of the dead women. After Chiao Tai had put Ma Joong's helmet on her head, Ma Joong lifted her up, his hands under her arms. Chiao Tai stuck the point of his sword into the nape of her neck, just under the backflap of the helmet. 'Sorry, old girl,' he muttered. Then he walked up to the gap, hold­ing the limp body up in front of him on his sword, both hands on the hilt. Ma Joong, clad only in his leather trousers and an under-shirt, quickly inspected the bolt on the door. It was still in working order. When he looked around he saw two arrows hit the dead woman. Chiao Tai let her sink to the floor, then stepped forward and bent over her, keep­ing his face well down. An arrow struck his back, a second glanced off his helmet. He screamed, and let himself fall on top of the prostrate woman, then lay quite still.

MA JOONG AND CHIAO TAI VIEW TWO BODIES

'Got them both!' a voice shouted high above, on the roof.

Ma Joong who had pressed his back against the wall beside the door, now heard the sound of the crossbar being removed. The door opened, and a hooded man stepped in­side. Ma Joong clasped his left arm round his head from behind and stuck his sword deep into his right flank. In practically the same moment he kicked the door shut. Letting the writhing body drop on to the floor, he shot the bolt.

'What's wrong?' a voice sounded from outside.

Ma Joong had draped the black cloak of his victim around his shoulders and stuck the dagger the man had been carry­ing in his own belt. Putting the hood over his head he ran over to Chiao Tai who was lying motionless over the dead woman.

'Give me a hand!' he shouted up.

Two hooded heads appeared in the gap above him. A light bamboo ladder was lowered and Ma Joong quickly climbed up. The hooded men, both carrying a bow and arrows, were precariously perched on the narrow ridge of the roof. Ma Joong saw to his satisfaction that the ridge ran straight to the roof's rear.

'What's——' the tallest black man began.

Ma Joong gave him a vigorous push that sent him tumb­ling head over heels through the gap. He opened his cloak and buried the dagger he had taken from the man down in the corridor into the stomach of the other scavenger with all the force he could summon. He let go of the hilt, and threw him down into the corridor too. Gathering the cloak closely round him, he walked gingerly along the ridge to the small flat roof that marked the back entrance of the corridor. Looking down at the two dozen hooded men that were crowding the small garden below, he shouted:

'Run for it! The soldiers are at the main gate!'

The men hesitated only a moment. When they heard the loud pounding on the iron-bound front gate, they scurried to the garden door.

Ma Joong walked back along the ridge as quickly as he dared. Surefooted as he was, he sighed with relief when he had safely reached the roof of the gatehouse.

'The soldiers are at the back gate!' he called out. 'Can't see anyone in the next street yet. If we hurry we can make it!'

A confused murmur of exclamations and curses came up to him. He quickly surveyed the black crowd. Doctor Lew was not among them.

He went to the gap and let himself slide down the bamboo ladder. Chiao Tai had already taken Ma Joong's jacket of mail off the dead woman, and wrapped it up in his neckcloth, together with the helmet. Now he was don­ning the black cloak of the tall scavenger Ma Joong had thrown down into the corridor first. The man's head was lying at an unnatural angle.

'Put the hood over your head and come along!' Ma Joong told his friend.

They climbed up the ladder, and surveyed the neighbour­hood. All the black men had melted away.

Following the ridge to the rear end of the corridor, they jumped into the garden. The gate proved to give access to a narrow alley.

'On to the military post!' Ma Joong gasped.

In the next street they suddenly met four scavengers.

'What side are the soldiers, brothers?' Chiao Tai asked.

'Everywhere! Run!' The four scavengers pushed them aside and scurried into a side street.

It took them quite some time before they had located the military post. They met only one ordinary citizen on the way. He quickly stood aside when he saw the two tall hooded figures approach.

They discarded their cloaks and hoods only when they were in the yard of the small inn where the guardsmen had established their headquarters. Chiao Tai and Ma Joong stripped naked and squatted on the stone floor. While two soldiers were sluicing them with cold water, two others fumigated their clothes and armour over the brazier with aromatic herbs they kept burning in the yard's corner.

Chiao Tai learned to his satisfaction from the lieutenant in charge that a horse was standing ready. That was part of the alarm system he and Ma Joong had devised: during daytime every post should have always a horse ready for carrying a message, and at night a few signal rockets that exploded into many coloured lights. He ordered the lieutenant to dispatch a soldier on horseback to all the other posts in the vicinity, collect a hundred men and round up the scavengers in the quarter. 'Those who carry arms you arrest,' he added, 'and everyone who tries to put up resis­tance you cut down on the spot. Escort the lot to Military Police Headquarters.'

He winced as Ma Joong pasted an oil plaster on the wound in his back. The iron rings of the coat of mail had of course prevented the arrow from entering his body, but they had penetrated deep into the flesh.

'Lucky it was only an ordinary wooden arrow,' Ma Joong remarked. 'If it had been one of those new-type iron-shafted ones, its sheer force would've pushed in your carcass. Told Supply a hundred times that now that those new crossbows are used the coats of mail should have iron breast and back-plates. But they say you can't sacrifice mobility to safety, the stubborn bastards!'

All dressed up again, they ate a quick noonmeal with the lieutenant. Then they left the inn, and went back into the slums. Apparently the word had got round that there had been trouble. Here and there people had opened their windows, and were anxiously looking up and down the sordid street. By dint of much asking, they finally found their way to a large house in a narrow but fairly clean alley. The rickety front door was standing ajar.

The front hall was completely bare, and the plaster hung down in large patches. But the floor had been swept clean of rubbish and dust. They surveyed the door openings of the small rooms on the left and right. The doors had apparently been taken down long ago to serve as firewood.

'No one about!' Chiao Tai muttered.

'Hush!' Ma Joong had raised his hand. In the rear of the compound someone was playing a flute.

They crossed the hall and threw the double doors at the end wide open. They gave access to a spacious but ill-kept garden. Peach and orange trees stood among the tall grass. An open corridor ran all along on the right and the left, leading to a higher building in the back. This was indeed the square compound they had seen from the top of the pagoda. Now they could hear the flute better. It was played by an expert, a lively tune with a marked rhythm and an attractive lilt.

'Found them!' Chiao Tai said. He pointed up at the small brown monkey that was hanging by its tail from a branch overhead, keenly observing them with its round brown eyes. Chiao Tai made a purring sound, trying to coax it down. Ma Joong had run straight to the corridor on the left. The red lacquer was peeling off the low balustrades. Evidently the place had stood empty for a long time.

When Chiao Tai had overtaken him, he said dryly:

'I hope that wench of yours is at home. I am prepared to keep her father and sister busy, so that you can cuddle her in a corner. You deserve it. For once!’

Ma Joong grinned broadly. Coming from his taciturn blood brother, this was high praise indeed.

Arrived at the high building, they halted in their steps. Through the arched door opening a charming scene met their eyes. Yuan was playing a long flute, on a tabouret in the centre of a spacious, high-ceilinged hall, empty but for a rustic wooden bench and a bamboo tea table in the corner. Coral, dressed in a long, flowing robe, was dancing on the tips of her diminutive embroidered shoes, gracefully waving her long sleeves. In the wall behind her was a moon door that gave onto an attractive miniature garden, where slender bamboos grew among a few quaintly shaped rocks. After the brutal violence of the encounter they had behind them, this peaceful scene seemed out of another world. They watched it, spellbound.

Finally Ma Joong stepped inside and cleared his throat. Yuan took the flute from his lips. He looked his two visitors up and down with raised eyebrows. Then he rose and came to meet them. Making a slight bow, he asked in his deep voice:

'What gives us the honour of this unexpected visit?'

'Is your daughter Bluewhite here?' Ma Joong asked quickly.

Yuan bestowed a thoughtful glance on him.

'No,' he replied, 'she went out half an hour ago. Take a seat.' He pointed at the bench and said over his shoulder to his daughter: 'Fetch the tea-basket from the side room, Coral'

CORAL'S DANCE

Ma Joong was at a loss how to phrase their message. He tugged at his moustache, decided that it would be rude to come to the point abruptly, and temporized by remarking casually:

'We met a bunch of scavengers who seemed out for trouble, you know. Did you hear something about an incident?'

'No. The fellows are becoming a real nuisance, though. They have organized a kind of brotherhood, and force people to buy their faked amulets, pretending that they will make the wearer invulnerable. They add a lot of nonsense about the plague being a sure sign that Heaven has withdrawn its mandate from the Emperor, and that a new era is about to begin.' He shrugged. 'What if it were? There'll always be the rulers and the ruled, and the ruled will always come off losers!’

'Amen,' said Chiao Tai. Seeing Ma Joong's embarrassed look, he decided to take the initiative himself and resumed: 'We have come here with a message from our boss, the Lord Chief Justice. He wants to see you at once, Mr Yuan. And also your daughter Coral.'

'He does, does he?' Yuan said slowly. Coral came back, a tea-basket in her hand. She carried the small tea table over to them and poured two cups. Ma Joong thought she was a sweet-looking girl; but she lacked the proud, clean-cut beauty of her sister.

'These two gentlemen want to escort us to the Governor's palace,' her father told her.

In a frightened gesture, she covered her mouth with her sleeve.

'Our boss just wants to ask you a few questions,' Ma Joong told them hurriedly.

'What about the monkey?' Coral asked her father.

'He won't run away,' Yuan reassured her. 'He hasn't explored the neighbourhood yet, and he won't dare to leave this garden. Bluewhite will look after him when she comes back. Let's go!'

While they were walking down the corridor, Yuan made a sweeping gesture and said:

'You can see that this was quite a nice residence, formerly. But the owner moved uptown, many years ago. Some squatters settled down here, but they left because the house was haunted, they said.' He shrugged his narrow shoulders. 'Never met a ghost here myself yet. The hall is fine for Coral's dancing, and her sister practises sword fighting in the garden.'

When they were stepping out into the street, a military police patrol passed by, armed to the teeth. The rounding up of the scavengers had begun.