Gunpowder Alchemy (21 page)

Without further delay, we were released from the prison and led into the main fortress.

The functionary introduced himself to us as Zuo Zongtang, the governor's chief adviser.

“We wondered why the crown prince would send someone from the Ministry of Science here, but then we started hearing about the march of the ghost army.”

“Ghost army?” It was the first I had heard of it.

“Yes, miss.” Zuo turned to address me directly. He had a manner that was efficient without appearing abrupt. “The rebels have taken several walled cities in the region, but we cannot figure out how. Reports from any survivors of the attacks have been confused. There are stories of storms and floods, thunder and lightning and the earth splitting. One moment they're facing a hundred men. In the next, there's suddenly a thousand. All we know is that cities with formidable defenses have fallen after brief and brutal battles.”

“We heard nothing of this in Shanghai,” Chang-wei replied, frowning.

“It's all happened very quickly. Faster than the relay stations can send the news.”

“And what news there is has been very confused,” I remarked.

I glanced over at Chang-wei, who gave me a knowing look. Had the imperial government been trying to hide reports of their defeat from the rest of the empire?

We reached a set of stone steps and began to climb high up into the fortifications. A war council had assembled atop a tower overlooking the surrounding landscape. From all four directions, the area looked clear.

A group of distinguished-looking men was gathered around a table. High-ranking officials and generals, from the look of them. The two of us were still in rumpled clothing and covered by a layer of dust from the road.

Zuo made the necessary introductions, and I undertook a round of bowing and greeting that left me dizzy.

“We apologize for our mistake.” The Governor addressed Chang-wei as he spoke. “If any offense was taken, please know that it was not intentional. When the message spoke of an imperial engineer, we thought your arrival would be more . . . auspicious.”

“My arrival here is a matter of coincidence,” Chang-wei admitted. “I had informed His Imperial Highness of my intentions to travel to this region. But now that it appears your city is in danger, I swear to provide as much service as I can.”

They went on to relay what they knew. The rebels had been steadily sweeping northward, ravaging villages and cities like a swarm of locusts. Their numbers were growing, and they had gathered an ample supply of gunpowder and weaponry.

“Upon taking a city, all officials are promptly executed and citizenry conscripted into their army or into work camps,” one of the head generals reported. He looked about the table. “We know that defeat means death.”

I paled at the grim report. “Excuse me, sirs. But if this humble servant may ask if the village of Linhua has survived?”

The men looked at me as if I were a horse that had started talking. I immediately felt foolish and small for worrying about my family.

Chang-wei came to my aid. “Forgive us. We have come far searching for my companion's family. They may be one of the many refugees sheltered within your walls. If I may trouble you to assist her?”

“I can do so.” Zuo once again stepped forward. “If you will come with me, miss.”

Chang-wei gave me a reassuring nod as the governor's assistant directed me back toward the stairs. As I turned to go, I could hear the discussion resuming behind me. Despite the warnings that they would soon be under attack, the scouts had only seen small bands of rebels. There was no sign of a massive army that would be required to defeat the city militia and breach the walls.

As Chang-wei's voice faded, I felt hollow, as if something vital had been taken away from me. We had been side by side for a long time now. Long enough for me to feel a sharp tug in my chest as I was led away.

He'd fallen in so quickly with the city authorities. Chang-wei was loyal to the empire, without question. From the moment he had spoken to the war council, his fate had become tied with theirs and also to the fate of this city.

I would find my family, and we could flee or hide or be forgotten among the sea of refugees from the countryside. For Chang-wei, from here out, to fail was also to die.

***

“We kept record of all the arrivals,” Zuo explained to me once he'd led me down to the administrative offices. “But the process became less orderly as time went by and more refugees poured in. There was the matter of the approaching army as well as unrest within the city that needed immediate attention.”

He lifted a heavy book from the shelf and set it onto a desk. Flipping to the last recorded page, he traced the columns with a finger.

“Linhua village. We took in twenty-four from Linhua—that is all it says here. They were resettled in the northwestern section of the city.”

Relief flooded into me. There was some hope my family was among them, or if not, the villagers would at least know where they had gone. Everyone knew everyone in our village.

I thanked him graciously. Zuo took note of the exact ward where the refugees had been placed before directing me out into the yamen courtyard.

A mechanized sedan chair awaited us there. I looked around for a driver, but Zuo helped me onto the seat before climbing up beside me.

“The northwest section,” he murmured to himself.

In one hand, he held a slip of paper on which he'd written several coordinates. The control board looked like an abacus with wooden beads that slid along thin copper wires. But rather than forming columns like they did on a counting abacus, the paths crisscrossed over the board like a maze.

Zuo moved one of the beads into a position near the upper left corner of the board. The rotors beneath the sedan whirred to life, and we sailed through the streets, passing pedestrians and horse-drawn carts to our left and right.

I noticed more yellow strips of paper plastered onto the walls and street corners than I had seen the last time I was in the city. Motorized cleaners hopped along the street tearing them down.

“Filthy propaganda,” Zuo muttered. “The automatons remove them and the next morning those scoundrels put them up again.”

“Scoundrels?”

“There are citizens within these walls who support the rebel cause. Those are the enemies we must watch, Miss Jin. The ones from within.”

“Is there a large enough contingent for them to launch an attack from inside?”

“That is certainly a threat we have considered,” Zuo admitted. “We don't have enough constables to scour the city and have had to recruit volunteers.”

I was surprised by Zuo's openness. Bureaucrats were known to paint a pretty picture when caught in dire circumstances. It was bad luck to bear unfortunate news.

Zuo seemed a capable administrator, and I felt bad for taking him away from his duties. When I suggested he allow me to search for my family on my own, he wouldn't hear of it.

“I can't leave a proper lady to wander the streets without an escort. The increase in population has caused several problems to emerge. Temporary shelters were erected along the main streets, but our clerks could not keep track of every name nor where they're squatting. These conditions have bred a certain degree of lawlessness in the refugee wards.”

Zuo took over the control knobs now that the sedan had reached its prescribed destination.

“We'll go to one of the local teahouses. Many have been converted to temporary shelters.”

We passed by a house with a red strip plastered over the front gate. At first I thought it might be more anti-imperial propaganda, but then we passed another one. This one appeared as if it had been boarded up.

“What are those?” I asked.

“Sick houses. Infection spreads easily with so many living in close quarters; an unfortunate consequence of taking in so many from the countryside.”

He spoke without condemnation. It was yet another detail to be handled. I was about to ask Zuo what sort of sickness they were suffering from when the sedan stopped across the street from a three-story building.

The upper floors were packed with people. Clothing hung from the balconies, and even the entranceway was crowded with squatters.

I dreaded having to disturb so many people to search for my family, but to my good fortune, a familiar face emerged from the teahouse.

“Old Man Lo!”

I climbed down from the sedan and raced toward him. The elderly physician started when he saw me.

“Soling, child!”

I reached out to clasp his arm. “I'm so happy to have found you. Do you know where my family is?”

My directness could have been seen as impolite. Physician Lo was my mentor, but it had always been a quiet, formal association.

Lo took no issue with it. “All here,” he said, waving in a general direction with one hand. “They will be happy to see you.”

I took his medicine bag from him, much as I always had, and brought him back to the sedan.

“Merchant Hu came back and said you had disappeared,” Lo recounted. “Then a week later, a message arrived—an imperial message!”

He inspected the automated sedan as well as Zuo in his official's cap and robe. The two men exchanged perfunctory bows.

“I suppose it was all true, then,” Lo murmured.

I helped him up into the transport. It managed to carry the three of us, but the churning of the gears was markedly more labored.

“Is my family well? They knew I would come back for them, didn't they?”

Lo told of how the entire village had packed up at once to flee from the approaching army. Those with branches of family in other areas went to rejoin their kin while the rest came to Changsha.

“It hasn't been easy here,” he admitted.

I could see where families had camped out in alleyways and alongside the street on bamboo mats. According to Secretary Zuo, the city was large enough to accommodate them, but supplies of fresh water and food were low.

“Able-bodied men were immediately conscripted into the militia. Some of them no more than boys,” Lo said.

“Tian?”

“Heavens, no. Your brother was too young. But there were fourteen-, fifteen-year-olds conscripted.”

“A necessary measure,” Zuo said defensively. “There are many civil tasks that require manpower. Policing the streets, for one. The youngest won't be sent to battle unless there is no other way.”

There was another door plastered with a red strip. I squinted at the writing on it but couldn't make it out.

“It's worse in the neighboring ward.” Zuo tilted his head toward the blocked gate. “We believe it started with stray dogs scavenging in the alleyways.”

“Dogs?”

“Mad dog sickness,” Physician Lo explained.

I was confused. I knew that particular sickness could be spread to people, but why would entire residences need to be condemned?

Ahead of us, a lone boy stood at the street corner with his shoulders slouched, seemingly absorbed by some pattern in the road. Even from afar, I recognized the slight slouch in this stance. My heart swelled.

“Tian!”

I begged Zuo to stop the sedan. By the time my brother turned to us, I was already running toward him. I caught him up in my arms and squeezed tight.

“
Soling
,” he squeaked out.

It was a long time before I let him go, and when I did, it was only so I could take a good look at him.

“You've gotten thinner. What are you doing out alone on the street?”

He was full of questions himself. “What took you so long? Were you really on a special assignment for the Emperor?”

There was a smudge on his cheek. Absently I wiped at it only to have him squirm away in protest.

“How is Mother?” I asked.

I saw how his expression blanked. He gave a shrug and nodded toward a nearby alleyway. “We have been staying down there.”

I knew immediately why Tian was loitering in the street. It was the same reason he spent so much time wandering around the fish pond before trudging home from school. The same reason I had been dreading my return home even as I longed for it.

For the last month, a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Now my heart was heavy with guilt because part of me had enjoyed the freedom of not watching, day by day, as the supply of rice and opium dwindled down to nothing. I had enjoyed the freedom of being responsible for no one but myself.

Physician Lo asked if I needed his assistance, but I declined. In Linhua, he had only a vague notion of Mother's situation. He knew I secretly purchased opium but never questioned it. I had asked him once about methods of treating the symptoms of opium withdrawal.

“There is nothing to be done but to keep the patient comfortable and wait it out,” he had told me.

He was right, except there was no such thing as comfort. And I had never had the courage to let the withdrawal run its course.

With a mournful sort of silence, Tian led me down the alley where our family and many of the other families of Linhua had taken shelter. Mother's shameful secret was no longer a secret. From the moment I entered the narrow space, I could hear her moans of anguish echoing against walls.

I saw Nan first, huddled over a figure on the ground. The loyal maidservant was speaking soothing words, pressing a wet cloth to Mother's forehead. A makeshift shelter had been constructed around them, fashioned out of bamboo and wooden scraps over which a curtain could be hung.

“Your work?” I asked Tian.

He nodded wordlessly.

“It's very well made.”

This is what we did. Talk of inconsequential things to reassure one another. As a distraction.

It never worked.

Nan looked up and her face brightened with relief when she saw me. Worry lines had carved deep grooves around her eyes and mouth, telling the story of all she had endured since I was gone.

“How long?” I asked.

She didn't need to ask what I meant. “Two days.”

Two days since my mother had last had any opium. She lay curled into a tight ball now, her hands clenched into fists while she writhed in agony. Her clothes were soiled and her hair ragged about her face.

Suddenly, she lurched forward and Nan hurried to place a pot beneath her, holding her head while she was sick. I looked away. All around us, the other squatters from our village huddled silently in their corners, averting their eyes, out of respect, out of revulsion, out of pity. Perhaps all three.

When Nan laid Mother back onto the bamboo mat, I went to her, brushing back her matted hair with a shaking hand.

“It's me, Mother. It's Soling.”

She shook her head back and forth, whimpering like a wounded animal. I hated feeling so helpless. Despite my study of healing and acupuncture and treating the symptoms of sickness, there was nothing I could do for her. The same thing had happened before when Mother had tried to wean herself off of opium. I had run to Cui's den to get the next dose myself.

But I'd been a child then. Sixteen and unsure of myself.

Out on the street, Zuo waited beside Physician Lo. For now the governor and his functionaries assumed I had the crown prince's favor. I could take my family away from this forsaken alleyway and provide comfort and warmth and a small measure of security. Yet, I hesitated. Even now, while Mother lay on the ground surrounded by refuse.

Though my eyes filled with tears at the thought, I wanted to send Zuo away. I would stay here with Mother. This was our burden to bear, not anyone else's.

Mother had once been the wife of a high-ranking official, a well-respected lady. She wouldn't want anyone to see her like this. Opium was her escape and her private shame. It was mine as well.

It had always been easier to scrape the coins together and buy the opium than face the reality of how low our family had fallen, but there was no hiding anymore. I was awake.

“Mother.”

My voice caught in my throat. I didn't know if she could hear me or if she was too far gone.

“I'm going to take you somewhere. A safe place.”

“I can't stand it,” she moaned. For the first time, her eyes opened. They were swollen and glassy. “Please, Soling—”

Please bring more opium. Please ease the pain.

“No, Mother. No more.” I took her hand firmly. Her fingers were cold in my palm. “It's going to get better, I promise.”

But first it was going to get a lot worse.

***

Within hours, Zuo had us situated in the governor's mansion. He arranged for a carriage and stood by respectfully as we helped Mother onto it with me beneath one arm and Nan on the other. When we arrived at the front gate, the governor's servants stood ready to receive us. Rooms had been prepared and tea set out. The efficiency of how everything was managed convinced me that Zuo wouldn't merely be a governor's assistant for long.

We brought Mother into the inner women's quarters and took to her care ourselves. The servants were of the proper and discreet sort, holding their tongues as they helped draw bathwater and bring fresh clothing. They saw to our needs while not interfering.

I was grateful. It still shamed me deeply to have to put ourselves in the hands of others.

Tian remained quiet in the courtyard, picking through the contents of his writing box. I went to him once Mother had settled down enough to sleep.

“What is that?” I asked, looking over the contraption he had set on the ground.

“Nothing,” he murmured.

“Nothing?”

He had tied together several thin bamboo rods to create a frame and was attempting to attach one of his writing brushes onto it with a length of string.

“I don't want to say until I know the design is worthy,” he amended.

“Is there anything you need, then?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Something to act as a counterweight.”

My heart swelled for my brother, this quiet, thoughtful boy.

“I met someone during my trip,” I told him. “Someone you might find interesting.”

I wondered where Chen Chang-wei could be. Was he still in the war council, discussing the city's defenses? By now he would have told them of our encounter with Lady Su's faction along the river. Any day now, we would be under siege. Everyone was waiting for the inevitable, I could sense it in the air.

One would think that I would feel safe now behind the thick stone walls of Changsha, with the city guard and Banner army to protect us. But I didn't feel any more secure. The approaching army was one of thousands, and they were no longer afraid of imperial authority.

Nan was calling me back inside. I took one final look at Tian's invention—the writing brush was now dangling like a pendulum—and told him I looked forward to seeing it when it was finished.

Then I returned to Mother's vigil.

***

It had been a long time, I believed, since my mother had gotten any pleasure from opium's murky embrace. There were times when she seemed to hate it. There were times when she seemed to hate herself for wanting it. It had broken her down and stripped her of everything; this relentless hunger for a substance that would never leave her satisfied.

I was so tempted to believe, as Yang did, that someone else had done this to her. Or that even the opium itself was a monster, a malevolent and greedy thing.

But it was really just a vapor. A gas, formless and accommodating, flowing in to fill an empty space and taking on the shape of its container. Sometimes when I saw her in the midst of an opium stupor, her eyes vacant, I thought of her as an empty container that once held my mother.

As I sat beside Mother now, listening to her cry, watching her writhe and tremble, holding her head while she was sick, I forced myself to believe that this was a necessary phase and she would get better. There would be an end to this.

I hated to see Mother suffer, but she at least she wasn't empty anymore.

As the day wore on into evening, we tied her hands down to the bed. She had started clawing at herself as if she wanted to tear off her own skin.

“It itches, it itches,” she wailed when we told her to stop.

After she'd torn a gash across her cheek, I had called for the servants to fetch rope. Then I held Mother's wrists while Nan bound her. Our old maidservant and I took turns sleeping beside her in fits and starts while Mother tossed about.

I wished that I had been selfish and asked Physician Lo to stay with us. I would have asked him whether it was possible to die from opium withdrawal.

We had an adjoining room where Tian slept. Whenever I slumped onto the bed beside him, he would ask me softly how Mother was. That's how I knew he could hear everything that happened in the next room. He slept no better than we did.

The next morning, Mother seemed a little better. I was able to coax her to take some water and broth, but she refused even the thinnest of rice congee.

When I sat with her, she was able to prop her back up against the wall and face me. There was a gray pallor to her complexion and her lips were pale. Her hair had been pinned into a bun, but the coils were now tangled like a spider's web on her head.

“While I was away, I met an old acquaintance of the family,” I told her.

“Oh?” Her voice was strained and her hands remained clenched in her lap.

“Engineer Liu Yentai. From Peking,” I added when there was no sign of recognition in her eyes.

Mother wasn't being deliberately dismissive. She was trying hard to take her mind away from the cravings. Every muscle in her must have ached to the bone.

“Old Liu,” she conceded finally.

She didn't inquire about him, so I went on. “Liu Yentai told me stories of how you came to the Ministry disguised as a candidate for the science exams. He said you had a talent for mathematics. I never knew that, Mother.”

Silence.

I cast my eyes downward. “I also saw Yang Hanzhu.”

“Yang,” she echoed, her tone flat.

“Yang the alchemist,” I prompted. “He worked with Father on the gunpowder experiments. Father always spoke of how brilliant—”

“I don't want to hear about these people,” she cut in irritably. Her hands curled so tight that the knuckles whitened. “I don't want to hear about anything having to do with your father or our past life.”

“But what if we could return to the capital?”

“There's nothing for us in Peking,” she retorted. “Why would we go back?”

Agitated, Mother lay back down and curled her knees up toward her chest. She looked so childishly small; my own mother.

When she didn't say anything for a long time, I came to touch her lightly on the shoulder. Any touch was an irritant in her condition.

“It pains me, Soling.”

“The tea I brewed should dull the ache in your joints.”

“No.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “The memories. They hurt inside. Once they start, I can't stop them.”

Though she didn't want any, I gave her more tea, spooning the brew into her mouth.

“The worst is over, Mother.” I promised.

“I need time to pass by,” she moaned softly. “For it to go by faster. Why won't it go by?”

Mother tried hard to fall asleep, and I said nothing more that might dredge up painful memories.

When she finally did sleep, I continued to watch over her fearfully. Mother looked much better now than the day before, but she looked far from well. Though opium had broken her down, she would take the drug in a heartbeat if it were offered to her. She would inhale it into her lungs more dearly than she did oxygen.