Yen Tuig-Kuo could not forbear to interject, “Come, come. You are no ascetic. The Emperor rewards, with Imperial generosity, those who serve him well.”
Tu Shad’s manner shifted subtly. It hinted at a schoolmaster with a pupil somewhat slow. “I have visited Ch’ang-an in my wanderings. Though of course I could not go into the palace grounds, I was in mansions. My lords, there are too many walls there. Every ward is closed off from every other, and when the drums sound from the towers at dusk, their gates are barred to all but the nobility. In the mountains one may go freely beneath the stars.”
“To him who walks in the Way, all places should be alike,” said Ts’ai Li.
Tu Shan inclined his head. “My lord is well versed in the Book of the Way and Its Virtue. But as for me, I am a blunderer, half blind, who would be forever stumbling against those walls.”
Ts’ai Li stiffened. “I think you make excuses to avoid a duty you would find onerous. Why do you preach to the people, if you care too little about them to lend your thoughts in aid of them?”
“They cannot be aided thus.” Low, Tu Shan’s words nonetheless cut through the wind. “Only they themselves’ can cope with their troubles, just as every man can only find the Tap by himself.”
Ts’ai Li’s voice slid quietly as a dagger: “Do you deny the Emperor’s beneficence?”
“Many Emperors have come and gone. Many more shall.” Tu Shan gestured. “Behold the flying dust. Once it, too, lived. The Tao alone abides.”
“You risk ... punishment, Sir Sage.” Sudden laughter pealed. Tu Shan shipped his thigh. “How can a head removed from its neck give counsel?” He calmed as fast. “My lord, I meant no disrespect. I say only that I am not fit for the task you have in mind, and unworthy of it. Take me with you, and this will soon be clear. Better that you spare the priceless time of the One Man.”
Ts’ai Li sighed. Yen Ting-kuo, watching the inspector, eased a bit. “You rascal,” Ts’ai Li said, rueful, “you use the Book—what is the line?—‘Like water, soft and yielding, that wears away the hardest stone—’ ”
Tu Shan bowed. “Should we not say, rather, that the stream flows on to its destiny while the stupid rock stays where it was?”
Now Ts’ai Li spoke as to an equal. “If you will not go, so be it. Forgive me when I report that you proved ... a disappointment.”
Tu Shan nearly grinned. “How shrewdly you put it.” He bowed to Yen Ting-kuo. “See, my lord, there is no reason for me to track dirt across your beautiful mats. Best my disciples and I take ourselves from your presence at once.”
“Correct,” said the subprefect coldly. The inspector cast him a disapproving glance, turned again to Tu Shan, and said, in a voice slightly less than level, “Yet you, Sir Sage, have lived longer than almost any other man, and show no sign of age. Can you at least tell me how this is?”
Tu Shan became grave. Some might say he spoke in pity. “I am forever asked that.”
“Well?”
“I never give a dear answer, for I am unable.”
“Surely you know.”
“I have said I do not, but men insist, eh?” Tu Shan appeared to dismiss sadness. “The story goes,” he said, “that in the garden of Hsi Wang Mu, Mother of the West, grow certain peaches, and that he whom she allows to eat of these is made immortal.”
Ts’ai Li looked long at him before answering, well-nigh too softly to hear, “As you wish, Sir Sage.” The watching people drew breath, glanced about, one by one retreated. The inspector bowed. “I depart in awe.”
Tu Shan bowed likewise. “Greet the Emperor. He too deserves compassion.”
Yen Ting-kuo cleared his throat, hesitated, then at a gesture followed Ts’ai Li out of the village, back up the hill to the manor house. Their attendants trailed after them. The common folk made reverence, bent above folded hands, and slipped away to the shelter of their homes. Tu Shan and his disciples stood alone by the well. The wind blustered through silence. Shadows came and went. _ Tu Shan took his staff. “Come,” he said.
“Where, master?” Ch’i ventured.
“To our retreat. Afterward—“ For an instant, pain crossed the face of Tu Shan. “I do not know. Elsewhere. West into the mountains, I think.”
“Do you fear reprisal, master?” asked Wei.
“No, no, I trust the word of yonder lord. But it is well to be gone. This wind smells of trouble.”
“The master can tell,” said brash Ma. “He must have caught that scent often in his many years. Did you indeed taste those peaches?”
Tu Shan laughed a little. “I had to tell the man something. Doubtless the story will spread, and tales will arise of others who have done the same. Well, we shall be afar.”
He began walking. “I have warned you aplenty, lads,” he continued, “and I will warn you again. I have no inspiration, no secrets to impart. I am the most ordinary of persons, except that somehow, for some reason, my body has stayed young. So I searched for understanding, and discovered that this is the only livelihood open to such as I. If you care to listen to me, do. If not, leave with my blessing. Meanwhile, let us see a brisker pace.”
“Why, you said we have nothing to fear, master,” protested Ma.
“No, I did not.” Tu Shan’s voice harshened. “I fear witnessing what will most likely happen to these people, whom I, helplessly, love. The times are evil. We must seek a place apart, and the Tao.”
They walked onward through the wind.
III. The Comrade
1
A ship was loading at the Claudian dock. She was big for an ocean-goer, two-masted, her round black belly taking perhaps five hundred tons. The gilt sternpost, curved high over the steering oar fixtures in the form of a swan’s neck and head, also bespoke wealth. Lugo went over to inquire about her. Bound more or less this way, he had turned aside with the idea of seeing what went on at the waterfront. He made it his business to keep fully aware of the world around him.
The stevedores were slaves. Though the morning was cool, their bodies gleamed and reeked with sweat as they carried amphoras across the dock and up the gangplank, two men to each great jug. A breeze off the river mingled whiffs of fresh pitch from the ship with their odors. The foreman stood by, and him Lugo could approach.
“The Nereid,” he replied, “with wine, glassware, silks, and I don’t know what else, for Britannia. Her skipper wants to catch tomorrow’s early tide. Hoy, you!” His whip licked across a bare back. It was single-stranded and unloaded, but left a mark between shoulder blade and loincloth. “Move along, there!” The slave gave him a hopeless glower and trudged a little faster to his next burden at the warehouse. “Got to freshen ‘em pretty often,” the foreman explained. “They get out of shape and lazy, sitting around idle. Not enough to do any more.” He sighed. “Free men, you could lay off in these wretched times, and call back when you needed them. But if everybody’s in his station for life—”
“It’s a wonder this vessel is going,” Lugo said. “Won’t she draw pirates like flies to a carcass? I hear the Saxons and Scoti are turning the shores of Armorica into a blackened desert.”
“The House of the Caelii always was venturesome, and I guess there’s a big profit to be made when so few dare sail,” the foreman answered.
Lugo nodded, stroked his chin, and murmured, “M-m, sea rovers usually do seek their plunder on land. No doubt Nereid will carry guards as well as her crew being armed. If several barbarian craft came in sight, Scoti probably couldn’t climb that tall freeboard out of their currachs, and given any kind of wind, she can show her heels to Saxon galleys.”
“You talk like a mariner yourself. But you don’t look like one.” The foreman’s glance sharpened. Suspicion was the order of the day. He saw a medium-sized, wiry man of youthful appearance; face narrow and high in the
