I didn’t know what to think, and Master Li had withdrawn into his own thoughts the moment we left the executioner’s office the previous night, and he was still uncommunicative.
We entered the Forbidden City without incident, and instead of going straight to the Celestial Master’s office the sage made a stop at the Bureau of Import. When he came back out a short time later the look on his face suggested that at least one thought sequence had paid off.
“Ox,” he said as he climbed back into the palanquin,” I should have done this earlier, but things kept happening to distract me. Do you remember the drugs I used to turn cheap bohea into Tribute Tea?”
I turned red. “No, sir,” I said.
“Prussiate of iron, sulphate of lime, and powder from the fruit of the tamarind tree,” he said patiently. “That last item is rare. Very little is imported, and one must be licensed to buy it. One legacy of late unlamented Legalism is the requirement that companies requesting such licenses must list the names of all corporate officers. Secrecy can still be maintained because such lists are filed by the company name. An investigator has to have the name before he can ask for the file, and some of the names are quite ingenious. Suppose you were one of a group of mandarins involved in a counterfeit tea racket. Suppose you were able to communicate with each other because of old cages, and suppose the use of the cages was explained by a rubbing of an ancient frieze, and suppose you didn’t want people asking for your file. What would you call your company?”
He knew very well I couldn’t answer that. He let me stew in confusion for a moment, and then he took out a piece of paper upon which a clerk had obligingly copied a list of company officers beneath the corporate name Master Li had specified: Sky-flame Death Birds Ghost Boat Rain Race Tea Company, Ltd.
“This is the bunch?” I asked admiringly.
“Exactly. Every bastard involved, including Li the Cat and two other eunuchs of ministerial rank,” Master Li said. “Now, if only…”
He let the sentence die a natural death. He meant “If only the Celestial Master is sane and in one piece and able to help,” and worry returned, and he was silent the rest of the way to the Hall of Literary Profundity. There we were told that we had just missed the Celestial Master, who had hobbled out for his morning walk, but we would surely find him on the lawn leading to the Palaces of the Young Princes. Master Li dismissed the palanquin and set out on foot, and both of us stopped in our tracks and let out long sighs when we reached the lawn. Ahead of us, painfully pushing his canes toward Nine Dragon Screen, was the unmistakable form of the Celestial Master, unchanged from the last time we’d seen him.
“I had feared torture,” Master Li said quietly.
So had I, since that or insanity was the only explanation I could think of for the saint’s signature on a terrible execution order. Now Master Li had to face the likelihood that for once he’d made an error judging calligraphy, and the signature had been forged, but the prospect didn’t seem to bother him. He was almost cheerful as we took a shortcut past the Archery Grounds, but when we came to Nine Dragon Screen there was no Celestial Master.
“Ha! That was a remarkable optical illusion,” Master Li said. “I could have sworn he was right here, but look.”
He pointed to the left and far ahead, and my eyes bulged as I saw a small distant figure hunched over a pair of canes, inching like an arthritic snail past the Gate of the Bestowal of Awards toward the Gate of Peaceful Old Age.
“Better carry me. Somebody must have given him a lift, and it’s too damn hot for my rickety legs.”
I took the old man on my back and started off again, but soon we were out of sight of the saint, wending our way through mazes of high hedges. The gardens of the Forbidden City are for aristocrats, not peasants, so every view is planned for eyes riding at ease at palanquin level. Pedestrians can’t see much of anything until they reach clear spaces, and when I got to a clear space I stopped so suddenly Master Li almost bounced over my head, and when he was settled again I asked in a tiny voice, “Sir, can there be more than one Celestial Master?”
The ancient saint was so far past the Gate of Peaceful Old Age that he had actually reached the Great Theater, and I would have been hard pressed to cover the distance in the elapsed time even at a trot.
“Let’s concentrate on this one,” Master Li said in a tight grim voice. “Catch him, Ox.”
I took off at a run, taking an angle to come out far ahead of him, and I kept racing through lanes of flowering oleander and pomegranate until I panted to a halt at the Well of the Pearl Concubine. I turned and looked back where the saint should be. There was no slow shuffling figure, and I saw nothing to my right. Ahead of me was the outer wall of the Forbidden City, so the only direction remaining was left, and I turned and almost toppled over. Far, far away, between the Hall of Imperial Peace and the Pavilion of Ten Thousand Springs, a tiny stooped figure was straining to move a pair of canes ahead of his shuffling feet.
Master Li was very still on my back. Then his hands squeezed my shoulders. “Let’s try something,” he said quietly. “Turn away and cut between the Palaces of Tranquil Earth and Sympathetic Harmony, as though we’re giving up and making for West Flowery Gate.”
I did as I was told, and in a few seconds I was again running through mazes of shrubs and trees, and after about four minutes Master Li told me to stop, double back, and take the first opening to the left. I climbed a small hill and got down on my stomach and wormed through low shrubs, and Master Li reached past my ears and parted a pair of leafy branches. We were looking out across the long velvet lawn in front of the Palace of Established Happiness, and my liver turned ice cold.
The Celestial Master was racing across the lawn like a panther, stooped low, leaping gracefully over obstacles. His simple Tao-shih robe billowed behind him like a kite, and he was running so fast the robe’s ten ribbons and cloud-embroidered sash were pop-pop-popping in the air like the blurred wings of racing pigeons. He leaped over a huge stone I would have had to climb, hanging suspended in air, legs spread like a dancer’s, and pushed down with his canes to give his body an extra forward vault as he hit the ground. The saint sped on until he reached the Hall of the Nurture of the Mind. Had we continued on the path we had taken we would now be coming out of the shrubbery in view of the hall, and of the Celestial Master, and suddenly he stopped, and tentatively extended his canes, and an aged, frail, crippled gentleman was painfully pushing himself across the grass.
“Sir… Sir… Sir…”
“Why the note of surprise? We haven’t witnessed a miracle since a disembodied dog head chewed the grand warden, so we were overdue.” Master Li said in a high hard voice. “Ox, back to the Hall of Literary Profundity, and hurry.”
At the hall he had me go around the side and through a maze of little gardens, and then he pried a window open and we climbed through. He picked a lock, made his way through an empty office, had me carry him out the side window and across a balcony, and we climbed through another window into the office of the Celestial Master.
“Remember the little object like a brush used by the Eight Skilled Gentlemen to activate the cages? I assume the Celestial Master had one when he sent his message to the mandarins. Find it,” Master Li ordered.
The room was crowded with mementos of more than a century of service and it could have taken us a month to search it all, but now and then the obvious choice pays off. Master Li overturned the jar of writing brushes and pawed through them, and suddenly his hand stopped. Slowly he picked up a brush and held it to the light. It was incredibly old, with a stone handle and a tip made from the tail of a musk deer.