Jade Dragon Mountain (16 page)

The skin of Tulishen's knuckles stretched over the bones of his hands as he clutched the railing. He was silent.

“The Khampa did not give Brother Pieter the poisoned tea,” said Li Du. Someone here in Dayan stole the purse from the market, and used it to implicate the Khampa.”

“No,” Tulishen said. “This is nonsense. I will not hear it.”

“It is the truth.”

“You are a fool. The festival—the Emperor's arrival—that is all that exists. You have no idea of what must be accomplished in these final days—of the delicate situations, the decisions, the responsibilities, the cost. Accommodation, food, entertainment, security. The traders arriving in the city must be monitored, the caravans searched, strangers interviewed. Hundreds, thousands of people. Weapons, captive beasts, diplomats who must all be welcomed with appropriate ceremony. The festival field still being prepared. And all the time the Emperor coming ever closer. Three days, Cousin.
Three days
. There cannot be a murderer in the city. Not now. When this is over—when the festival is behind us—then, perhaps, I will look into this further. Before that time, it is out of the question.”

“But you must see that Pieter's death is related to the arrival of the Emperor. It is too much of a coincidence—”

“A single cutthroat is no danger to the Emperor of China. The matter can wait.”

There was a small cough from the edge of the pavilion. Li Du and Tulishen turned to see that, unnoticed by them, Jia Huan had crossed the bridge and was waiting to address the magistrate. His presence seemed to calm Tulishen, who looked at the composed young official with a kind of desperate reliance.

“Is the courier still waiting?” asked Tulishen.

“He is, but that is not why I have come.”

“Then what?”

“I am sorry, Magistrate, but I had to inform you at once. There is some very strange talk in the city.”

“What talk?”

“Everyone is saying that the Khampa did not murder the Jesuit. They are saying that there is to be an investigation to find out who the murderer was. And—” He glanced at Li Du.

“And what?” Tulishen demanded.

“They are saying that the magistrate's exiled cousin is going to solve the case, so that he may present the truth to the Emperor and be forgiven for his own crimes.”

Both Li Du and Tulishen stared. Then Tulishen turned on his cousin. “Was this your doing?”

At that moment Li Du realized exactly whose doing it had been. He had a sudden urge to laugh, but checked the impulse and said, gravely, “I know nothing of this. But as you said to me before, Cousin—rumors can appear without warning, and they can be powerful. Clearly someone had a romantic notion of an exile redeeming himself. And, equally clear, people enjoy the idea.”

“But this is not to be tolerated. Jia Huan—you must be exaggerating. Who told you that this gossip is in the city?”

Jia Huan was apologetic. “It was Hoh's niece, Bao. She came to me immediately when she heard. I did not believe her, so I went to the inn myself. What she says is true. The entire place is afire with the news. The merchants and nobles—all of the guests are speaking of it.”

Li Du almost pitied his cousin. Tulishen's face was drained of color. “What should be done? My career—my legacy—everything depends on the success of the festival.” He faltered.

Li Du silently thanked Hamza for his help, and understood that the time had come for him to do what he had returned to Dayan to do. “Cousin,” he said firmly, “you cannot ignore this. I am sorry, but the situation has gone beyond your power to control. The Emperor will hear, one way or another, of what has happened. I take this responsibility willingly. I will help you—”

Tulishen held up his hand in a signal for Li Du to stop. Li Du looked at his older, successful cousin, striped with shadows, the rings on his fingers clicking softly against the cold marble rail as he leaned on it.

“I am not a stupid man,” said Tulishen, wearily. “I see that this farce cannot now be avoided.”

Li Du began to answer, but Tulishen interrupted. “You will report your findings to me. You will provide an answer on the evening before the Emperor's arrival. If you do not, I do whatever I deem necessary to reduce the harm you have caused.”

“Whatever you deem—”

“By coming here, by bringing me this”—Tulishen held up the purse that he had crushed in his hand—“you say to me that you want to have this burden. I am giving it to you. Perhaps you have been outside of the bureaucracy too long to remember the risks that come with a choice like yours. But now it is too late.”

“I understand.”

“Then I will inform Lady Chen that you are to have what help you require. You may come and go freely from the mansion. How will you begin?”

“I wish to look again at Pieter's belongings. But before I do that, I have several questions for you.”

“What questions?”

“I wish to know what Brother Pieter said during your formal introduction. You said that he came from Agra. What else did he tell you of himself?”

“Nothing of importance that I recall.”

“You complained that he spoke too much. Surely you remember something of what he said?”

Tulishen made a show of thinking. “I did not think at the time that it was necessary to pay close attention. I do not remember all the details.”

“But something…”

“Yes, yes,” said Tulishen, impatiently. “He went on at length about his fascination with China.”

“He told me that he was in Beijing forty years ago,” said Li Du.

“Yes. He wanted to come to China, but was still a student, a novice. Apparently it is not usual to send the inexperienced brothers far from their homes, unless they are going to their holy sites. That is why he spoke Chinese so passably, for a foreigner.”

“So that they would allow him to come to China?”

“Yes. As you said, forty years ago. He boasted to me of his work on the Observatory. He told me he built one of its instruments. Jia Huan—you remember. He spoke to you as much as to me. Of course he was not aware of the rudeness of addressing a secretary when a magistrate is present. But tell my cousin what the old man said.”

Jia Huan was clear and succinct. “Because I came last month from Beijing, and had some knowledge of the Bureau of Astronomy, he wished for me to tell him which of his brothers are still in that city, and what new instruments have been added since his time.”

“But none of this is relevant,” said Tulishen. “His speech had no substance.”

Ignoring Tulishen's obvious desire to end the conversation, Li Du said, “When Pieter spoke of his decision to travel to Dayan for the festival, he said that he had not seen
these
mountains in many years. Do you know what he meant by that?”

Tulishen raised his eyebrows. “Ah,” he said, “I did not realize that you did not know. The old Jesuit had been to Dayan before.”

Li Du had asked the question without any certainty of the answer. He concealed his surprise. “Why have you not mentioned this before?”

“What reason was there to mention it? It was a long time ago. Thirty years. The Mu were still in power here.”

“But what was he doing in this far part of the empire?”

“He told me that he traveled here to explore a part of the empire that he had not seen. He stayed for two years in a village near Dayan. Then his superiors ordered him to travel to Tibet. That is all I know.”

“But isn't it possible that he made an enemy here? Someone who has held a grudge all this time?”

Tulishen sniffed. “I do not think it is likely. This place is very different than it was thirty years ago. The Qing have a presence here now. The old families are gone.”

“Not all of them.”

Tulishen's patience was exhausted. “If you want to know about that time, then I suggest you ask Mu Gao or his cousin, Old Mu, at the clerk's office. But I doubt they will be able to help you. The local people, as you know, do not possess any great wit. I have no more time to spend here. Jia Huan will take you to where the dead man's possessions were stored.”

He began to walk away, then stopped and turned back to Li Du. “In my opinion, Cousin, if you have any chance of finding your supposed murderer, which I still think is unlikely, you had better look among the foreigners.”

“Why do you think that?”

Tulishen frowned. “The dead man was arrogant and indiscrete. His dithering and his insinuations were often troubling, and on occasion, deeply offensive. But that is not motive for murder. Whatever secrets he brought with him to my home came from foreign cities. The foreigners all have their agendas. Probably it was the young Jesuit—he didn't want the old man stealing the Emperor's attention.”

“And the merchant, Sir Gray?”

The frown deepened on Tulishen's face. “I want you to be cautious with Sir Gray. Do not ask him impertinent questions. These treaties and matters of trade are beyond my jurisdiction. If the Emperor plans to make an agreement with the Company, we must not be accused of hindering it. Question him with tact. Tomorrow you will find him on the festival field. Certain objects in his tribute have given him some authority there.”

And with that, Tulishen turned his back on his cousin.

 

Chapter 10

Li Du stared down at the worn books he had arranged on the desk like a mosaic. He and Jia Huan were in an unused study reserved for the magistrate's son when he visited. In one corner of the room was a bed with green curtains embroidered with flowers and insects. The bookshelf was bare except for several thin volumes of essays and a pile of albums by famous calligraphers. Jia Huan had pushed to the edges of the marble-topped desk a white jade musical stone and a forest of clean brushes arranged in five separate jars.

The books were as Li Du had seen them on the morning after the banquet. He picked up the
Flora Sinensis
, remembering Pieter's intention to offer it to Brother Martin. It was, Li Du had learned years ago, a book with a strange history. Its author, the Jesuit missionary Father Boym, had been a guest of the Ming court for many years when the Manchu invasion began. He had watched the fall of the Ming, and, devastated by what he feared would be an end to the intellectual and spiritual development of China, he had rushed to Europe to plead for help on behalf of the failing dynasty. He had published the
Flora Sinensis
to persuade his king to defend the fragile delights of the dying empire, but his efforts had failed to convince.

Li Du admired an illustration of a mango, depicted with care both whole and in cross section. A brown-inked tree trunk climbed up the left side of the page, its high branches bending with the weight of the fruit.

“What is it you hope to find?” asked Jia Huan.

“When I looked at these books before, I did not know that Brother Pieter had been murdered. I think it is necessary to look at everything again, from our new perspective.”

Jia Huan looked down at the illustration on the page. “It is poorly rendered,” he said. “The balance is incorrect.”

Li Du reexamined the drawing. It had certainly not been done in the Chinese style. In addition, the weight of the ink in the words Boym had copied in Chinese suggested improper stroke order. But the depiction of the plant itself was marvelously realistic.

“There is a Jesuit painter in the capital,” said Jia Huan, “who paints portraits. Our court painters have begun to imitate his style. They say that the lines of perspective are essential to create a convincing copy of the subject.”

“You disagree?”

“The Jesuit painter would do better to learn from us. Our artists are more subtle. A painting should be more than a crude replica of reality.”

“You speak as an artist. Painting and calligraphy are near relations.”

“Yes.”

“Do you really dislike the foreigners so much?” asked Li Du, mildly.

If Jia Huan was aware of the significance of the question, it did not deter him. “You served in the Emperor's own library,” he said. “So you must see the situation as I do. Their ugly languages corrupt our poetry. Their brushes will never do honor to our mountains. They try to replicate our porcelain by studying the heat of our kilns and our methods of grinding minerals. But they have no understanding of our art.” Jia Huan's expression became more intense. His quiet voice was sharp with conviction. “One of the Jesuits said that we Chinese see the Western priests as geniuses fallen from heaven, that we have put off our
peacock tails
and recognized their superiority. Does that not anger you?”

Li Du tried to put himself in the place of the proud young official who stood beside him, so devoted to the idea of the empire. Had Li Du ever shared that resolute faith? Or had it always rung false, as it did for him now? He said, “The author of those words had a tendency to exaggerate. Not all the Jesuits share Father Kircher's sense of superiority. But do you truly have no interest in learning what they have to teach?”

Jia Huan had recovered his composure. “The scholar Zheng Dai,” he said calmly, “reminds us that an entire year of study is not enough to learn a single word.”

Li Du nodded, remembering. “But after a decade has passed, the student who studied the word for a year will see it suddenly in the arc of a sword or the fall of a blossom, and will know its meaning.”

“The foreigners are a burden on the progress of the empire. They distract our scholars with cheap entertainment.”

Li Du looked down at the books on the table. “I must ask you,” he said quietly, “about your movements on the night of the murder.”

Jia Huan seemed taken aback. “I do not care for the foreigners, but I assure you, it was not I who killed the Jesuit.”

“I am not accusing you. But on the night of the murder, you did not remain in the courtyard during the performance. I saw you come and go. Did you see anyone close to Brother Pieter's room, or notice anything out of the ordinary in the mansion?”