China by Edward Rutherfurd (historical books to read TXT) 📕

moment. “The Eastern King rebelled against him a while ago. That’s all over now,” he added with finality. He was silent for a few moments. “Where is your husband?” he suddenly asked.

And now it was her turn to be silent. She didn’t want to tell him what had happened, how bad things were. Was her husband dead? he demanded. She shook her head. “I’ll ask your mother-in-law,” he suggested.

So there was nothing for it but to tell him the truth. When she had finished, he did not look shocked, but only sad. “It’s the opium,” he said with a sigh. “It ruins every man who touches it.”

“It’s the British barbarians—” she began, but he cut her off.

“They sold it. They are to blame, without a doubt. And we bought it. I smuggled it myself.” He nodded grimly. “Black gold. Though the poppy flower is white—the color of death.”

“Do the Taiping also use it?”

“Some do. It’s everywhere.” He gazed at her. “You have used all the money I gave you, I’m sure.”

“I am ashamed. But I had to.”

“I know. I will give you more before I leave. But you must keep it hidden. Your husband’s brother will never stop smoking now. Never let him find your money. Otherwise there will be nothing left. Nothing at all.”

“I cannot take from you again…”

“I have money.”

—

It was night. Mei-Ling and Mother had hidden the money in a safe place where the head of the family would never find it. And the full moon was in the sky to light him on his way when Nio led his horse out from the little barn. Mei-Ling walked beside him.

She was wondering if she would ever see him again, but she did not say so. Before he mounted, she looked down at the still water of the pond, in which she could see the gleaming reflection of the moon. “Stand on the bridge and let’s look at the moon before you go,” she said.

“Like when we were young and I was still Little Brother.”

“Something like that.”

She thinks she may never see me again, he thought, and she wants to remember me as I used to be. “Why not?” He smiled and nodded. There was nobody about. They wouldn’t be seen.

—

It was dusk when Shi-Rong and his men reached the hamlet. Though their approach had been rapid, the headman was already out in the village street awaiting them. The villagers they passed had looked at them a bit apprehensively, but that was normal enough. As he gazed at the wizened old headman, however, Shi-Rong thought that even in the falling light, he detected something shifty in the fellow’s manner.

He wasted no time. “I am looking for Taiping. Have any come this way?”

“Taiping?” Unless the headman was a consummate actor, he was genuinely astonished. “No Taiping came here.”

“Any other rebels? Triads? Hakka? Troublemakers?”

“No, Lord. None at all. We don’t see those people here. Not for many years.”

He was telling the truth. Shi-Rong was certain of it. But the headman was also looking relieved. Did that mean there had been something else he’d been afraid this magistrate might ask?

“Have you seen any strangers at all?”

The old fellow frowned, as if trying to remember. That was absurd. He must be hiding something. The other villagers were standing around, listening.

Shi-Rong cursed his own stupidity. He’d been too eager. He should have talked to the man alone, then cross-questioned the others one by one. As it was, they were all going to take their cue from the headman and give him the same story.

“What sort of strangers, Lord?”

“Missionaries!” Shi-Rong cried angrily, darting a sharp look around the other men to see if there was any reaction. But there was none.

“No missionaries, Lord.”

“British soldiers?” A shaking of heads. “Opium sellers?” They, after all, were everywhere.

“None recently, Lord. Not in the last month.”

There really wasn’t any other kind of stranger the authorities would have been interested in, so Shi-Rong gave up.

“We’ll stop here the night. We shall need food, fodder for the horses…”

“Everything, Lord.” The headman smiled. “Everything you desire.”

—

It was while Shi-Rong was eating in the headman’s house that he thought to ask about the beautiful woman he had seen on his previous visit. Here at least he got some information. She lived in a big house with her extended family, on the outer edge of the hamlet by a pond. Did she have a husband? She did, and several children. Was the husband there?

The headman seemed to hesitate. Why was that?

“I suppose so, Lord. Sometimes he or his brother goes to the local town. But even then, he’d normally be back by nightfall.”

Why did Shi-Rong have a feeling this wasn’t quite true? Perhaps the woman was without a husband for some reason, and the headman was trying to protect her from a magistrate and soldiers who, for all he knew, might try to take advantage of her.

But after he’d finished eating, he went outside and began to stroll along the lane. There was a full moon. He did his best to remember the woman. Had she really been so beautiful? The vision in his mind was incomplete, imperfect, like an old silken garment that has become frayed. He wanted to know.

At the entrance to the village, by a little shrine, he noticed a path on his left that led through woodland. Was that the way to the woman’s house? He turned into it.

There was enough moonlight through the trees to pick his way along the uneven path, though he stumbled on tree roots once or twice. After a while, as the path wound through a bamboo grove and then back into the woods again, he decided he must have made the wrong choice. And he was just about to turn back when he thought he saw a glimmer of water ahead on the left. So he pressed on until he reached a place where, looking between two trees, he found himself staring across a moonlit pond.

The farmhouse lay on the