Sons (19 page)

At the foot of the low hill upon which this tall grave and many other graves were, was a little village, the border village of which he had told his men. It stretched out its few furlongs of one street, and Wang the Tiger turned his horse there and he rode through it, with the pair behind him. It was at that time of the morning when farmers return to their own hamlets, and the village tea house was full of farmers drinking tea or supping up bowls of noodles made from wheaten flour or buckwheat. They had their baskets emptied from the markets piled on the ground beside them as they ate, and they looked up in wonder when they heard the clattering of hoofs upon the street and they stared with jaws ajar as Wang the Tiger passed. He looked back at them, too, to see what sort of men they were, and he was very pleased to see how goodly they were, how brawny and brown and hearty and how well fed and he said to himself freshly he had chosen his lands very well if it could breed such men as these. But, save that he looked at them, he went with unusual modesty and as one goes who passes through a place a guest and going on to some other far place.

At the end of the street there was the wine shop he had heard of and he told the pair to wait outside, and he halted his horse and dismounted and he pushed aside the curtain at the door and went into the shop. There was no one there for it was a very small place with but a table or so for guests, and Wang the Tiger sat down and slapped the table with his hand. A lad came running out then and seeing how fierce a man was there he ran back to his father, who was the keeper of the shop, and the man came out and wiped the table with his torn apron and he said, courteously,

“My lord guest, what will you have for wine?”

“What have you?” returned Wang the Tiger.

The shop keeper answered him, “We have the fresh sorghum wine made in these parts. It is the best wine and shipped over the whole earth, I suppose, even to the emperor in the capital.”

At this Wang the Tiger laughed in some scorn and he said,

“Have you not heard in this little village that we have no emperor these days?”

At this a great look of terror came over the man’s face and he said in a whisper,

“No, and I had not heard it! When did he die? Or was his throne taken by violence, and if it was, who is our new emperor?”

And Wang the Tiger marvelled that there could be a man so ignorant as this and he replied with some slight scorn,

“We have no new emperor these days at all.”

“Then who rules us?” said the man in consternation as at some new disaster newly fallen on him unawares.

“It is a time of striving,” said Wang the Tiger. “There are many rulers and it is not known which can seize the highest seat. It is such a time as any man may use to rise to glory.”

This he said, and the ambition that was the greatest part of him soared up suddenly and he cried to his own heart, “And why may not that one be I?” But he said nothing aloud; he only sat and waited for his wine beside the small unpainted table.

Then the man when he had fetched the jug of wine came back and it could be seen from his sober face that he was much troubled and he said to Wang the Tiger,

“It is a very evil thing to have no emperor, for this is to have a body without a head and this means wild movements everywhere and none to guide us all. It is an ill thing you have told me, my lord guest, and I wish you had not told me for now I shall not be able to forget it. Humble as I am, I shall not be able to forget it, and however peaceful our village is I shall be afraid every day for the next.”

And with downcast looks the man poured the warm wine into a bowl. But Wang the Tiger did not answer for he had his thoughts elsewhere than on this humble soul, and as for him he was glad it was such an hour as it was. He poured out the wine and drank it down quickly. It spread through his blood, hot and strong, and he felt it mount to his cheeks and fume through his head. He did not drink above a few bowls of it then, but he paid for it and for a bowl more and this he took out to his trusty harelipped man. The man was very grateful for it, too, and he took the bowl in both his hands and supped as best he could, lapping it somewhat as a dog does to taste it and then throwing his head back and pouring it down his throat because his upper lip was so little use to him, divided as it was.

Then Wang the Tiger went back into the shop and he said to the keeper,

“And who rules you here in this region?”

The man looked east and west at this but there was no one near and so he said in a low voice,

“It is a robber chief who is called the Leopard. He is the cruellest bitter fellow. Every one of us must pay a tax to him or he comes sweeping down on us with all his ne’er-do-wells, he and his men like a flock of evil crows to pick us clean. Well do we all wish we could be rid of him!”

“But is there no one to contend with him?” asked Wang the Tiger, and he sat down as though it were a small careless thing he said and of no importance to him. And to seem more careless he said, “Bring me a pot of mild green tea. The wine stays like fire in my throat.”

And as the man fetched the tea he answered Wang the Tiger, “Not one to contend, my lord guest. We would complain of him to those above if it were of use so to do. Once we did go to our county court and the highest magistrate in our region lives there. We told him our case and we asked him to send his soldiers out and to borrow soldiers from the one yet above him and see if together they could not drive out this fellow who oppresses us. But, sir, when those soldiers came they were such cruel men and they so lived in our houses and took our daughters and so ate their fill of what they would and did not pay us that they grew to be a burden we could not bear. No, and besides this they were such cowards that they ran at the very smell of a battle and the robbers grew all the more arrogant. So we went then and begged the magistrate to take his soldiers off from us again and he did at last. But it was a very bitter thing at best, for many of the soldiers went and took service under the robbers, giving as excuse that they had not been paid for long and they must eat, and we were worse off than before for a soldier has a gun to take with him where he goes. And as if it were not enough, that magistrate of ours who lives in the county seat there sent out his tax gatherers and put a heavy tax upon us all, on men on the lands and on keepers of shops, too, because he said the state had been put to such a cost to protect us that we must pay them for it. Well enough we knew he and his opium pipe were the state, and so since that time we have never asked for any help, choosing rather to pay so much and so much to the Leopard every feast day and so keep him in bounds. It is well enough while we have no famine and we have had so many good years now that heaven will surely send us a bad year soon, and there must be many bad years in store for us. Then I do not know how we shall do.”

To all of this long tale Wang the Tiger listened carefully as he drank his tea. Then he asked again,

“Where does this Leopard live?”

Then the wine shop keeper took Wang the Tiger by the sleeve and he led him to a small window at the east of the shop and he pointed with his crooked forefinger, stained with wines, and he said,

“There is a mountain yonder with two crests and it is called the Double Dragon Mountain. Between the two crests is a valley and in that valley is the robbers’ lair.”

Now this was what Wang the Tiger waited to hear and so he affected the more negligence of it and he said carelessly, smoothing his hard mouth with his hand,

“Well, I shall stay away from that mountain then. And now I must be on the way to my home northward. Here is the silver I owe you. As for the wine, it is as you say it is, a very good bright heady wine.”

Then Wang the Tiger went out and he mounted his horse again and with the two behind him he rode round about so as not to pass any more villages. He rode over the tops of circling hills and through lonely places although he was never far from men either, because that place was so well tilled and so full of hamlets and villages. But he kept his eyes fixed on that double-crested mountain and he guided his horse to the south of it to a certain other lower mountain he saw that was partly wooded with pine trees.

All through that day they rode in silence, for no one spoke to Wang the Tiger if he did not speak first, unless there were some very pressing thing to be said. Once the lad began to sing a little under his breath, because he was such an one as found silence wearisome, but Wang the Tiger hushed him sternly, for he was in no mood for any merry noise.

At the end of the afternoon but before the sun was set they came to the foot of that wooded mountain toward which they had been many hours riding, and Wang the Tiger dismounted from his weary horse and began to climb some rude stone steps that led upward. These he followed and the pair behind him also, their beasts stumbling over the stones, and as they went the mountain grew wilder and there were cliffs over which the road led and streams burst forth here and there between the rocks and the trees, and the grasses grew thick and deep. The mosses upon the stones also were soft and showed but little sign of the passage of human feet except in the very center, as though only one or two persons ever passed this way. When the sun was set they had reached the end of this mountain road and it ended at a temple built of rough stone and set with its back to the cliff so that indeed this cliff was its innermost wall. The temple was very nearly hidden by trees but it could be seen because its faded red walls gleamed out in the setting sun. It was but a small temple, old and ruinous, and its gates were closed.

Wang the Tiger went up to it and for a while he stood with his ear pressed against the closed gate. But he heard nothing and so he beat upon it with the handle of his leathern whip. No one came for a long time and then he beat very furiously and with anger. At last the door opened a little and the face of a shorn and shaven priest looked out, a very old and shriveled face. And Wang the Tiger said,

“We seek for shelter here tonight,” and as he spoke his voice rang out hard and sharp and clear in that quiet place.

But the priest opened the door a very little more and he answered in a little piping voice,

“Are there no inns and tea houses in the villages? We be but a scant handful of men who have left the world and have but the poorest of food without any meat and we drink only water.” And his old knees shook in his robes when he looked at Wang the Tiger.

But Wang the Tiger pushed his way in through the gates and past that old priest and he called to his lad and the trusty man,

“Here is the very place for which we seek!”

He went in then without any heed at all to the priests. He went into the temple through the main hall where the gods were, and they were like the temple, very aged and their gilt peeling from their clay bodies. But Wang the Tiger did not even look at them. He passed them and went into the inner side houses where the priests lived, and he chose out a small room for himself better than the others and cleaned not too many days ago. Here he ungirdled his sword, and the trusty man went hither and thither and found food and drink for him, although it was only a little rice and cabbage.

But that night as Wang the Tiger laid himself down upon the bed in the room he had chosen he heard a deep, low wailing come out of the hall where the gods were and he rose and went out to see what it was. There the five old priests of the temple were and the two little acolytes they had who were farmers’ sons left there for some prayer answered. They all knelt and wailed to the Buddha who sat leaning on his fat belly in the center of the hall and as they wailed they prayed the god to save them. A torch burned there and the flame flew this way and that in the night winds and in the light of the flying flame these knelt and prayed aloud.

Now Wang the Tiger stood and looked at them and listened to them and he found that they prayed to be protected against him and they cried,

“Save us—save us from the robber!”

When he heard this Wang the Tiger shouted out heartily and the priests leaped to hear his sudden voice and they stumbled to their feet entangled in their robes with their haste, all except one old priest who was the abbot of that temple and he fell flat on his face, thinking his last hour was come. But Wang the Tiger shouted,

“I shall not hurt you, you old baldheads! Look, I have silver to spare, and why should you be afraid of me?” And as he spoke he opened his girdle purse and he showed them the silver he carried there and it was true there was more silver in it than they had ever seen and he said on, “Beyond this I have more silver and I want nothing of you except shelter for a little while such as any man may claim in his need from a temple.”

The sight of this silver did comfort the priests very much and they looked at one another and they said among themselves,

“He is some military captain or other who has killed a man he should not have killed, or who has lost his general’s favor and so he must hide for a little time. We have heard of such.”

As for Wang the Tiger he let them think what they would and he smiled his slight and mirthless smile, and he went back to his bed.

The next day at dawn Wang the Tiger rose and he went out to the gate of the temple. It was a morning of mists and the clouds filled the valleys and covered this mountain top from every other and he was alone and hid from the world. Nevertheless, the chill in the air reminded him that winter must soon come and he had much to do before snows set in, for his men depended on him for food and shelter and for clothing against the cold. So he went into the temple again and he went into a kitchen where his trusty man and the lad slept. They had covered themselves with straw and they still slept and the breath whistled through the man’s split lip. They slept fast enough, although already an acolyte was feeding straw carefully into the mouth of the brick oven and from under the wooden lid of the iron cauldron on the bricks a bubble of steam leaked out. When the acolyte saw Wang the Tiger he shrank back and hid himself.

But Wang the Tiger paid no heed to him. He shouted to his trusty man and seized him and shook him, and bade him rise and eat and get gone to the inn, lest some of the men pass that morning. Then did the trusty man stagger up out of his sleep rubbing his two hands over his face and yawning hideously. But he shuffled into his clothes and he dipped a bowl into the simmering cauldron and supped some of the scalding sorghum gruel the acolyte brewed there. Away he went down the mountain, then, a goodly enough man if one saw only his back and not his face, and Wang the Tiger watched him go and valued him for his faithfulness.