The Willow Pattern

II

Judge Dee stared sombrely at the starless sky. The mass of low, threatening clouds seemed to weigh down on the black silhouettes of the curved roofs and crenelated ram­parts all around. His broad shoulders sagged under his gold-embroidered robe as he leaned with both hands on the monumental balustrade of the marble terrace, lit by a single standard-lamp. No sound came up from the city below.

'The Emperor and the Court have left,' he spoke in a harsh voice. 'Now the Spirit of Death rules over the Imperial city. A city of fear.'

The tall man in battledress standing by his side listened silently, a worried expression on his handsome, regular face. The golden badge of two entwined dragons on the breast of his coat of mail indicated that he was a colonel of the guards. He took his right hand from the hilt of the broadsword that was hanging from his belt, and pushed the spiked helmet away from his sweating brow. Even here on the terrace, high up on the fourth storey of the palace, it was stifling hot.

The judge righted himself and folded his arms in his wide sleeves. His eyes still on the dark city, he resumed:

'In the daytime the only people one sees about are the hooded scavengers, dragging along the carts of the dead. And now, at night, there are only shadows. A city of shadows, died out.' He half turned to the other and went on: 'Yet, deep down below, Chiao Tai, in the slums and cellars of the old city, something is stirring, in the brooding darkness. Can't you feel the mounting miasma of death and decay? It seems to spread over the city like a suffo­cating shroud.'

Chiao Tai nodded slowly. 'Yes, the silence is uncanny, sir. People went about less, of course, even during the first week. But every day the statue of the Dragon King was carried in procession through the streets to make the rain come, and there was the din of the gongs and drums of the Buddhist Temple, sounded during the prayers to the Goddess of Mercy, every morning and every night. But now they have given up all that. To think that we haven't even heard the cry of a street hawker, these last two weeks.'

Judge Dee shook his head. He walked over to the arm­chair beside the large marble table, littered with files and document rolls. In the rear rose the heavy red pillars of the private office he had installed here, on the top storey of the Governor's palace. It was a point of vantage from which one could overlook the entire capital. As he sat down, the golden insignia of rank attached to the quivering wings of his high cap made a faint tinkling sound. He pulled at the stiff embroidered collar of his ceremonial robe and muttered: 'One can hardly breathe in this foul, stagnant air.' Then he looked up and asked wearily: 'Has Tao Gan worked out the reports of the city wardens tonight, Chiao Tai?'

The colonel bent over the table and consulted a half-unrolled document. Frowning, he said:

'The number of deaths is still on the increase, sir. Especially men and grown-up children. The figures for women and infants are considerably lower.'

The judge raised his hands in a helpless gesture.

'We know next to nothing about how it spreads,' he said. 'Some think it is the polluted air, others blame the water, others again say that rats have something to do with it. It is already three weeks since I was appointed Emergency Governor of the Imperial Capital. And I haven't been able to do anything, anything at all.' He tugged angrily at his greying moustache. Then he resumed:

JUDGE DEE AND CHIAO TAI

'The warden of the central market complained this afternoon that he can't keep the food distribution going properly. I told him that he'll have to manage, somehow or other. For there is no one to replace Merchant Mei. The few notables who haven't left do not have the confidence of the people. Merchant Mei's fatal accident is nothing short of a calamity, Chiao Tai.'

'Yes, Mr Mei had the rice distribution organized very well indeed, sir. He was on his feet from morning till night, despite his advanced age. And, being enormously rich, he often purchased for the needy cartloads of meat and vege­tables, at blackmarket rates. Too bad that the old man should fall down the stairs, and that in his own house!'

'He must have got a seizure when about to descend,' the judge remarked, 'or perhaps a dizzy spell. He can't have missed a step, for I often noticed that his eyesight was still remarkably good. Through that unfortunate accident we lost a good man at the time we needed him most.' He took a sip from the tea Chiao Tai had poured for him and con­tinued: 'That fashionable doctor, Lew his name is, I think, was present. He was the family physician, it seems. Find out where he lives, Chiao Tai, and tell him I want to see him. I had a very high opinion of Merchant Mei, and I would like to ask that doctor whether I can do anything for his widow.'

'Mei's death means that one of the three oldest families of the city has become extinct,' a dry voice spoke up behind them.

A thin, lanky man with a slight stoop had come out on the terrace, noiseless in his felt shoes. He wore the brown robe with the broad, gold-embroidered rims and collar of a Chief Secretary, and a high cap of black gauze. He had a long, sardonic face, adorned by a thin moustache and a wispy goatee. Pulling at the three long hairs that sprouted from a wart on his left cheek, he went on:

'Since Mei's two sons died young, and since his second marriage remained childless, the next in line is a distant cousin.'

'Have you managed to read up his file already, Tao Gan?' the judge asked, astonished. 'It became known only this morning that Mei had died last night!'

'I studied the dossier of the Mei family one month ago, sir,' the thin man replied placidly. 'I have been reading the files of all the prominent families, one every night, for the last six weeks or so.'

'I have seen those files in the archives of the Chancery,' Chiao Tai put in. 'Most of them fill several big document boxes! One of those will last you from midnight till morning, I wager!'

'They do, sometimes. But I sleep very little, anyway, and those files make soothing reading. Amusing too, sometimes.'

Judge Dee gave his thin lieutenant a curious look. This quiet man with his laconic wit had been in his service many years, but he kept discovering new traits in him. 'Now that the house of Mei has died out, only those of Yee and Hoo are left of the old aristocracy,' he said.

Tao Gan nodded. 'Between the three of them, they ruled this part of the Empire with an iron hand a hundred years ago, that was in the turbulent period of civil war and barbarian invasions that preceded the founding of our present dynasty, long before this city was chosen as the new Imperial capital.'

The judge smoothed his long beard.

'Curious set, that so-called "old world". They consider all who don't belong to their group as newcomers. Even our Emperor, I believe! I heard that among themselves they still use obsolete noble titles, and still speak a dialect of their own.'

'They purposely ignore the present, sir,' Tao Gan said. 'They keep themselves very much to themselves, and never appear at any official function. There's a lot of inbreeding among them, and a regrettable amount of promiscuity, among masters and servants — a remnant of the old, dis­orderly feudal life. In the midst of this colossal, bustling metropolis they live in a small world of their own, a world apart.'

'Merchant Mei was an exception,' Judge Dee said pen­sively. 'He took his civic duties very seriously indeed. As to Yee and Hoo, I haven't even met them!’

Chiao Tai, who had been listening quietly, now spoke up:

'The people downtown take Mei's death as a bad omen, sir. They firmly believe that the destinies of those old local families are bound up in some mysterious way with those of the city they used to rule. There's a jingle that passes from mouth to mouth that seems to predict that all three families will perish. The man in the street sets great store by it and says it means the end of this city. Pure nonsense, of course!’

'Those street jingles are quaint things,' the judge com­mented. 'No one knows where or when they originate. They suddenly spring up, and spread like wildfire. How does this particular street song go, Chiao Tai?'

'Oh, it's just a silly little rhyme, sir, of five lines:

Since Mr Mei died from a crushed skull, the clerks in the Chancery maintain that the last line refers to his accident.'

'In a time like this,' Judge Dee said worriedly, 'the people will give credit to the strangest rumours. What do your guardsmen report on the general situation?'

'It could be worse, sir,' Chiao Tai answered. 'There has been no plundering of foodstores, and no large-scale rob­bery or violence thus far. Ma Joong and I had been prepared for serious disturbances, for miscreants have ideal oppor­tunities now: since many men are needed at the communal pyre seeing to the burning of the corpses, we have had to cut down the patrols of the nightwatch. And most of the wealthy families were in such a hurry to leave the city that they didn't take measures for having the empty premises properly guarded.'

Tao Gan pursed his lips. He said:

'Moreover, those who remained have sent most of their servants away, retaining only a skeleton staff. A thief's paradise, this city is! Yet no robbers seem to take advantage of the situation, fortunately.'

'Let's not be deceived by the present quiet, my friends!' the judge said gravely. 'Now the people are in the paralys­ing grip of fear, but this fear may change into a frenzied panic at any moment. And then violence and bloodshed will break out all over this city.'

'Brother Ma and I have set up a fairly good alarm-system, sir,' Chiao Tai said quickly. 'Our guardsmen occupy strategic points in the old and new city. Small posts, but the officers are all hand-picked men. We'll be able to nip disturbances in the bud, I trust. And, since martial law allows summary justice, we——'

Judge Dee had raised his hand.

'Listen!' he exclaimed. 'Are there still street singers about?'

A thin, eerie girl's voice came drifting up out of the street down below, accompanied by the strumming of a stringed instrument. They could faintly hear the words:

It ended abruptly in a shrill scream of terror.

The judge gave Chiao Tai a peremptory sign. He hurriedly made for the stairs.