My imagination had been captured by this age of mechanization. In the Grand Inner I had pondered the workings of the âcosmic engine.' Driven by water, this great machine harmonized space and time. This huge clock told the exact hour and related it by celestial globe to the movements of the stars and heavenly bodies. Perched upon its tower it was a moving model of the universe. The sun, the moon, and five planets rotated accurately to provide calendric verifications. By contrast, in the world from which I had come, the earth was still quite flat.
As time passed and the scourge of pox lessened, life returned to this mighty capital. I had always been feared as a life taker, but here my life had changed. For our healing work in the service of this empire, we held a position of respect. I enjoyed my time within the palace walls, but on this late evening my soldier's heart bid me roam the streets and be free. The guards moved briskly aside as I left the inner grounds.
From an outlying gazebo the plucking of strings and the sweet voice of a courtesan were carried to me upon the stillness of the evening air. I heard the boisterous laughter and rowdy applause of the man come quickly and loudly in appreciation of the performance. I knew him even before I saw him, for his gregarious spirit stood out among a court full of serious mandarins. The famous poet waved me over as he called my name. His voice and manner were warm and eloquent, and his large hand pulled me down beside him.
I suspected that he was a man of great appetites, his girth, the many empty wine cups in front of him, and the admiring looks of the beautifully painted courtesan now confirmed it. Instantly, two beakers of hot cinnamon wine were brought for us, and just as quickly the serving girl receded back into the night, but the sweetness of her perfume lingered long after she had gone. The musician began again, this time she chose a softer melody that allowed for friendly conversation.
I saw the brushes scattered before him, and the poems written quickly on wine-splashed pages. His easy manner allayed my fears that I was disturbing his work, and laughing he waved a thick hand toward the thinnest sliver of a moon, the empty cups, and the beautiful musician. I understood that inspiration would remain long after I had left, and that his night was only just beginning.
“Arkthar,” he said softly, “I thank you for the gift you bring my people. A man that gives freely is rare in dangerous times.” I was starting to understand something of the careful way words were chosen within the court. Wrapped within his compliment, the word “dangerous” held a subtle warning. I wanted to protest his gratitude, for I did not act alone and was easily the least important member of our troupe, but he would have none of it. With another easy wave of his hand more wine was brought. By the end of my second cup, I was feeling the effects and enjoying his company and the music thoroughly.
Before long the moon had risen to full height, and he would have to move to observe it further. I decided to continue exploring the city around me, and we gulped more wine in a farewell toast. As I stood and turned, the poet said, “Your deeds here will be remembered long after my verses have turned to dust.” I chose my words with as much precision as my vocabulary would allow, and made strong effort in the accuracy of tone, “I strongly disagree.”
His heavy laughter erupted quickly, and then the serious words that too much wine can bring. “Warrior, on this night the manner of a man has touched me more than the beauty of the waxing moon. Please check on my progress when you return from your excursion.”
With that I was on the move again, leaving the poet Li Bia, and the wine and laughter of the rosewood pavilion to the moonlight.
This was a city that never slept. I crossed the Dragon Ford Bridge on the imperial walkway, which formed the central north-south axis running through the old and new cities. Both sides of the walkway were lined with commoners' quarters and aristocrat mansions, shopping galleries, and merchant stalls of all description. Everywhere the staccato call of the hawkers cried their wares. The resplendent red lanterns of the night market caught my eye, and I quickly disappeared into the bustling vitality of the pulsing urban night.
I crossed the canal that passed through the city and was its life line. It fed the moat around the outer walls and floated barges of goods and food to and from the surrounding warehouses. It joined the city to the Grand Canal in the south and the Yellow River to the north.
This city was tumultuously cosmopolitan, filled with multitudes from every place in every manner of attire. Gymnasts soared and tumbled in the streets while riches also climbed and fell in financial acrobatics. Fortune tellers read the lines etched on outstretched hands. Money flashed auspiciously through countless fingers, fortunes truly held within the palm. I walked on past temple gardens and restaurants, but soon the number of people and the regular grid of the wards stifled me, and I chose instead to follow the quieter wandering banks of the canal with no thoughts in mind of destination or purpose.
They led me gently past the booths that featured everything from shoes and clothing to the shops of traditional healers and their herbal medicine. The dank coolness of the green water flowed on, and I flowed with it. The grunting and squealing of the pigs reached my ears just before the smell of the abattoirs reached my nostrils. Strangely, it was a refreshing respite from the perfumed courtesans of the palace.
I continued to walk, and as the cry of the pigs diminished with the growing distance, the high- pitched sound of female voices grew to take its place. Many comments and proposals came my way as I strode through the neighborhood brothel like any other soldier. However, I was not inclined toward tryst or dalliance and so kept pace with the moving waterway.
Before too long, something of interest did again catch my ear. It was the steady pounding sound of machinery and industry. I had arrived in the fabric district. Once more I left the serenity of the banks, and taking to the narrow laneways, I meandered happily through silk and garment, carpets and weavings, but it was the sound of constant rhythm that drew me onward. I felt the wooden cadence of the engine pull me through the darkness to the open door of the run-down shop.
What I heard with ear was the click clack tempo of unknown machine, but what I heard with heart was the ghostly echo of marching soldiers.
She and many of her people had settled within the protective walls of the very capital that had made them refugees. She worked the great loom by day and by night, driven by survival rather than artistic calling, guided by necessity rather than inspiration. Although she was always vigilant, she could not have heard his approach above the clatter of the loom, and yet she looked toward the open doorway even before his tall frame had filled it.
Hope reared up with the memory of her husband, and in the less time than the beat of a bird's wing, reality had banished it. It could not be him. At a glance she knew the stranger that entered was not a drunken castoff from the brothel region, but a warrior from a far distant land, and she froze before the threads. He was embarrassed and apologetic for his clumsy interruption, and in an accent bordering on incomprehensible, he managed to make it clear that his interest lay in the wonders of the machine before her and implored her to “Work on.”
This she did, and although initially self-conscious, she soon relaxed back into the symphony of color and strand. The noisy beat and measure marched within the room once more, as the warrior sat with sword on back. While he quietly watched and listened, her powerful legs worked the treadles as her fingers moved like lightning over and between the delicate fibers of her craft.
In the cold comfort of this hovel, he marveled at how she controlled the loom. The cosmic engine of the palatial courtyard harmonized time and space, but she transcended it. He looked at the finished rugs hung haphazardly upon the walls, and his eye was drawn to the room's shadowed corner. There he saw her two small boys safely covered by warm layers of wool and silk. They lay in the deep and peaceful sleep of childhood, entwined together like an animal's litter. Both were red-faced and plump, healthy, and happily alive.
The shadow of her husband's memory returned now with every glimpse of the man before her. She knew who he must be, for in the crowded quarters of the poor, stories are told and retold flowing downward from palatial heights. She worked steadily on, beckoning him closer to catch a subtle movement of her hand or finger, or showing without words the intricate movement and design of her instrument, and time flew by for both.
Unwelcomed came the sound of distant drumming that marked the end of commerce and revelry, and signaled that it was now his time to return to his family within the palace. He stood and strode to the children's corner and without thought placed all his paper money down beside them. He saw the look of protest on her face, and she saw the resolve on his.
By lamps soft light she had seen the color shimmer through his armor and searched briefly among the shadowed piles that sat upon the floor. Like her movements at the loom, her actions were deliberate, and she soon stood before him, now holding the woad blue weaving from her former life. She did not question the course she chose, but pressed the woven fragment into the strong hands of this warrior. He humbly accepted her gift. He saw clearly the skill of its weaver locked within its fabric, and knew that its small size and single color spoke that this was not a carpet.
She explained gently that, “this is the last and unfinished work of a master weaver from the northlands. I thought I would keep it forever, but now I see its purpose. It will fit perfectly between your saddle and your charger. It is the color within your armor and will show you well upon your stallion.”
Arkthar looked from it to her and understood that real beauty is woven on the looms of strength and forbearance. She released her hold upon the textile and felt a great weight lift from her tired shoulders. In that instant she knew that life would go on.
Her hands reached up and pulled him quickly down to her. Their lips met in the impassioned kiss of encounter and farewell. In this embrace time ceased, and began anew only after they had released their hold. He looked briefly to her resting cubs, and then stared deeply into eyes that overflowed with the waters of deep emotion. In a heartbeat he had turned and disappeared into the growing brightness of the coming dawn, as though he had never been at all.
She would never wonder why she had handed her loving husband's last work to a foreign stranger on a slim moon's night, for like the man she loved; she could now read well the changing patterns of the threads.
I moved quickly back along the way that I had come. The city of night folded swiftly with practiced precision. Revelers and merchants alike evaporated in the rays of the coming day. To be caught out after the drumming had ended brought retribution, for here order was the law.
As I approached the palace, the growing light revealed details hidden by the veil of night. I stopped at the poet's nest and saw that it lay within a garden of great tranquility. Water flowed over rock, while leaf and blossoms of a solitary tree lent shelter to the empty bench beneath it. The singing and music long ended, the echoed smell of perfume, wine, and rosewood still danced beneath its roof. Li Bia slumped and snored where I had left him. The pretty courtesan had covered him from the morning dampness, and gathered carefully his papered verses, all but one. “This verse,” she said, “he called âCrows Calling at Night,'” and added softly, “For you.”
Looking down I saw the flowing splendor of his script and read the fluid beauty of his words.
Yellow clouds beside the walls; crows near the tower.
Flying back, they caw, caw; calling in the boughs.
In the loom she weaves brocade, the Qin river girl,
made of sapphire yarn like mist.
The window hides her words.
She stops the shuttle, sorrowful, and thinks of the distant
man.
She stays alone in the lonely room, her tears just like the
rain.
The movement of time does not flow like the straight and level roads of the empire, but revolves like a great wheel that turns upon them. More than a thousand years have passed since the First Emperor held the throne, and yet his power is still felt throughout this realm. It is reflected in the very infrastructure of this kingdom, monetary and military, financial and filial, and all had nearly come crashing down. Under the watchful eye of his trusted minister, the current ruler stared out at the Sacred Peaks of Longevity in the distance, then swallowed his potent and bitter elixir of immortality. Standing tall and still, he paused for introspection. He pondered his legacy and wondered how history would portray him.
He held his arms straight out to the sides as his minions dressed him in the imperial robes of yellow. His mind settled as his thoughts fell into their process. The meaning of his title is “celestial magnificence,” the mediator between heaven and his people. The Mandate of Heaven was slipping, and the signs of its impending loss were everywhere. The disorder and destruction that marks the end of every dynasty had certainly begun. He knew that when an emperor's power is rescinded by heaven, it is seized by men. As he thought about the northern battle and the plague that followed it, he realized that the siege had not ended with the insurgent's death, it had escalated.
The speech he had been handed had been reviewed, but he would not use it, choosing instead to speak from his heart. Words for him came easily when spoken to those that had to listen, a short two hours would be enough for him to express his gratitude and say goodbye.
The First Emperor's great wall had done its work well. The Middle Kingdom had existed in isolation for a millennium, and yet a warrior from a world away now graced his court. This wild one had a power that came from within, all the makings of a great King. If the scars he carried were honest, this man had survived where many others had perished. Arkthar had given freely to a people not even his own, and the emperor knew that all this great warrior had offered was driven by a force called love.