T’ien-chi, “Field Chicken,” was a God Boy, meaning a male prostitute, who wasn’t getting any younger and he was waiting with his best friend, Lan-chu, “Lazy Pig,” an ageing courtesan. They had been saving for years, and they were disguised in beggars’ rags as they clutched sacks of gold and waited at the door of Szu Kui, “Dead Ghost,” a mysterious magus three times arisen from the grave, who would sell them pieces of polished cedar wood, hollowed out and filled on the fifth day of the fifth moon with twenty-four beneficial and eight poisonous ingredients, and if they used the logs as pillows for one hundred consecutive nights the lines on their faces would smooth out, and after four years their youth would be completely restored. The ingredients are a closely guarded secret, but Master Li once told me they included cassia, ginseng, dry ginger, magnolia, broomrape, angelica, plumeless thistle, kikio root, Chinese pepper, japonica, aconite seeds and root, slough grass, and cockscomb.
The Imperial Way was jammed almost from the Phoenix Towers to the Altar of Earth and Grain with the crowd waiting for the Meridian Gate to open and admit them to the Forbidden City: aristocrats in sedan chairs and palanquins and blue-painted carriages; merchants and entrepreneurs in donkey carts with canvas hoods emblazoned with crimson slogans praising the occupants’ genius; scholars ostentatiously listening only to little songbirds they carried in bamboo cages at the ends of long poles; petitioners of all sorts who wore artistically ripped rags to prove the hazards of their journeys and waved buffalo horn lanterns to show they had traveled without rest day and night; legions of secretaries, battalions of bureaucrats, armies of clerks. Rumors flew as thickly as the flocks of vultures that circle a peace conference, and leading the list was the news that for the first time in a thousand years there might not be a Dragon Boat Race. There were four principal reasons:
1) Six reliable members of the Tanners’ Guild had seen a white bird (white is the color of mourning) fly over North Lake carrying a burning candelabrum, following the exact route the race would take.
2) At the exact same time a huge lizard had appeared at the Bakers’ Guild dock and breathed flames over their Dragon Boat, reducing it to cinders.
3) The ghost of Emperor Wen had walked into the great hall of the Salt Monopoly and passed right through the hull of their Dragon Boat while wailing, “Beware the fifth day of the fifth moon!”
4) The Physicians’ Guild had issued a statement saying all the above was rank superstition. What wasn’t superstition was seventeen fatalities in the past ninety-six hours from a disease that looked suspiciously like a form of plague, and the authorities would be wise to consider canceling any activity that would bring great masses of people into close contact, such as squeezing together on the banks to watch the Dragon Boat Race.
And finally, as a considerable anticlimax, Master Li and I were waiting for the gate to open so we could go in and be killed in a ghastly manner by Li the Cat.
It was not a pleasant period. Pain is bearable because there’s a limit to it. The body takes only so much and then goes into shock, but I had plenty of time to think about clever eunuchs and their little games and I didn’t think I could take it if he had me sewn up in a sack with the mangled remains of Yu Lan. Master Li, as usual, kept his own counsel. It was quite impossible to tell from his face whether he was agonized or bored, and when the gate did open and our palanquin carried us toward the Palace of Eunuchs he decided to entertain me with a witty travelogue, pointing out things that should certainly be interesting since I wasn’t likely to see much else on this earth. I must admit that little stuck, although I do remember the “prettiest and most pathetic prison in the world,” the Garden of Dispossessed Favorites, where imperial concubines who lacked the means to properly bribe eunuchs were sent to live lives of celibacy, after having been slandered and removed from favor. Lonely ladies were made to suspire in the shadow of the Tower of Raining Flowers, which is a tall white cylindrical structure capped with a pink dome, from the top of which splashes a river of white oleander blossoms. “The delicacy of the deballed is somewhat overrated,” observed Master Li.
I remember nothing else until we came in view of the eunuchs’ palace. “Notice, my boy, how eunuchs have cleverly arranged to have their quarters rise a good fifty feet higher than the neighboring Palace of Southern Fragrance, where portraits of the emperors are displayed. Thus, in China, do the gelded squat above the gilded,” said the sage, but I was not in the proper mood to provide an appreciative chuckle.
I doubt that an imperial audience could be more impressive. Massed trumpets and a roll of drums announced the opening of great gilded doors, and a gorgeous creature with a golden censer marched in front of us down a dragon carpet between ranks of soldiers who stood at attention in uniforms of red brocade studded with pearls, with gold-sprinkled turbans emblazoned with the emblem of the double phoenix. The walls of the audience chamber were studded with turquoise, tourmaline, amethyst, topaz, malachite, and opal, and more soldiers stood against them: red armor and a yellow banner with a green dragon at the west wall, blue armor and a white banner with a yellow dragon at the east. Li the Cat sat upon a throne facing south, like an emperor, and as on an imperial throne, the back bore the seven-jeweled pattern and the arms were five-clawed. The eunuch himself was dressed quite simply, however, in a red gown embroidered with flowers and stars, and a hat with a single straight plume that designated a Eunuch of the Presence. As befitted one allowed to attend the emperor, his face glowed with Protocol Soap and his breath was sweet with Chicken Tongue Aromatic, meaning cloves. The only jewelry I could see was the crystal vial on a golden chain around his neck that contained his pickled parts. (Castration in China is total emasculation, performed with a special tool like a small sickle, and the unsexed person keeps the organs to be buried with him so he can be made whole again in Hell.) At the approach of Master Li there was a flurry of bowing by lesser dignitaries, and Li the Cat graciously descended from the throne and offered a courteous greeting as to an equal. It was impossible to ignore the charm of the eunuch’s smile, accentuated as it was by perfectly placed dimples, but I noticed that the smile didn’t lift as far as his eyes. They were completely without expression, and cold as first-moon clams.
“Well, Most Exalted One—congratulations on the recent promotion, incidentally—how goes your scientific inquiry into the strength of square holes?” asked Master Li, who seemed to be employing the badinage of the court.
Square holes meant money, of course, and the eunuch modestly displayed a lack of rings. “Paupers and braggarts are reduced to vomiting clouds and spitting out mist, and since gold still flees my fingers I do the best I can with fog.”
“And no man in the empire can better becloud an issue,” Master Li said warmly. “I’ve obviously been misled, since I was informed you’d joined me in investing in the tea business.”
“Indeed? And how much had you invested?” the eunuch asked blandly.
“Too much,” said Master Li. “In fact, I was just thinking about trading my shares for an equal equity in the flower business, although one investing in flowers must first inspect them for aphids or beetles. It’s shocking to consider how much damaged merchandise is offered for sale.”
“Shocking and silly,” Li the Cat said sympathetically. “One continually hears of such things, yet it’s such a stupid business practice! After all, one can always get a far higher price for flowers whose beauty is intact. The trade you had in mind was without conditions?”