The king was wrong about Moon Boy's name. He was perfectly named, I decided, because the moon is inhabited by a large white rabbit, and everybody knows that rabbits are notorious perverts.
“Why not give up boys for a week and try me?” Grief of Dawn whispered.
In addition, I decided, he moved like a cat, and Master Li once said that certain Egyptians say that a cat lives in the moon, and everybody knows that the soul of a cat is formed from the composite souls of nine debauched nuns who failed in their vows.
“Come away with me,” Grief of Dawn whispered.
“Darling, I'd like nothing better, but his majesty is a wee bit possessive,” he said.
“Master Li will take care of that. He has a job for you, and that boy you were chasing resembles a Swatow sea slug.”
“Tell the wicked old man I accept. I shall pack a few essential clothes and jewels—you must see the emerald the king gave me—and kiss the lads farewell.”
The lad on the balcony had realized he was no longer being chased, and was coughing self-consciously outside the window. Moon Boy was up with a smooth feline motion.
“Work, work, work,” he complained. “Why must one's responsibilities always interfere with one's pleasures? Still, duty is duty.”
With a catlike bound he was at the window, and with another he was out of it. “Come back here, you little bugger!” he yelled, and he was gone.
Grief of Dawn smiled and settled back in my arms. “Well, now you've met Moon Boy,” she said. “Slightly larger than life, isn't he?”
“Will he come to visit after we're married?” I asked apprehensively.
She looked at me gravely, “Ox, I can never get married,” she said. “Moon Boy and I think that we were part of the same soul, and somehow it was split on the Great Wheel of Incarnations, and a piece of it is still missing. Apart we're nothing, and even when we're together we aren't complete. We wander the world, Ox, searching for the missing piece, and I can never settle down until I find it.”
I wanted to argue about that, but Grief of Dawn had a better idea. We were getting back to where we started before the interruption, and things warmed up nicely, and it appeared that the morning would be saved after all.
“Good morning, my children!” Master Li said happily as he trotted into the room. “Why is it that the most delightful of physical positions to the participants is an aesthetic abomination to onlookers?”
We managed to get separated, and Master Li took Moon Boy's position on the side of the bed.
“Your absurdly good-looking young man just galloped lewdly past my window,” he said to Grief of Dawn. “I've never been much for hopping into bed with boys, but if I could be ninety again, I'd be delighted to make an exception with him. Buddha, what a creature! Has he agreed?”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
“Good. I want to get out of here as fast as possible. Ox, Grief of Dawn, I want you to find the highest point in the castle you can reach, with the best view of the courtyards and walls.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“This evening Moon Boy is scheduled to perform, and after that the Golden Girls will put on a show. Nobody will pay attention to young lovers walking by the lakes in the gardens. How long would it take you to get a sackful of toads and two sackfuls of lanternflies?”
“Not long,” I said. “An hour or two.”
“Splendid,” said Master Li. “Plan to slip out and collect them just after Moon Boy's performance, and with any luck we'll be out of here before midnight. In the meantime, enjoy yourselves.”
Grief of Dawn and I lay back. Dogs were barking and cats were yowling and roosters were crowing and grooms were swearing and cooks were screaming. We got up and dressed and went out to find the highest vantage point.
11
About an hour later we were able to report to Master Li that there were two accessible turrets with good views of the castle and walls, and he explained to us that bandit gangs crossed through Chao at this time of the year to reach their mountain hideouts before the rainy season made the roads impassable, and Shih Hu's favorite sport was massacring bandit gangs.
“He leads his troops personally, and he's renowned for being out of his castle and on the attack within minutes,” Master Li explained. “The drawbridges are slow and cumbersome. I want to know whether or not he uses them, and my bet is that he has some other exit.”
We had nothing to do until evening except mingle with the distinguished guests. Master Li huddled with Grief of Dawn and sent her out wearing her dusty travel clothes, with a wicked dagger in her belt and her bow over her shoulder and her hair bound by a leather cord apparently jerked from a broken bridle. Her hair clasp was polished like an emperor's adornment and pinned to the front of her sweat-stained tunic, and if ever there was a wild warrior princess, it was Grief of Dawn. She was besieged by admirers. I got close enough to hear her explain—apparently Master Li's suggestion—that she was searching for her brother, who had been transformed by an evil shaman and was wandering through the woods in the form of a tiger, with his matching clasp around his furry neck. After that I couldn't get within forty feet of her, so I wandered off.
King Shih Hu's special people were all over, and Master Li got into a furious argument with the world's greatest astronomer about the direction of currents in the Great River of Stars during the rainy season: “neo-Chang Hengian epicycles” and “Phalguni asterisms” and “reverse ch'i concentrations”—I couldn't understand a word of it. I fled to the company of the most beautiful woman in the world and had a very interesting conversation.
She had blond hair and green eyes and said she was a Greek from Bactria. She also said she was sick and tired of being kidnapped by one king after another ever since she had been ten years old, and she would insist upon being buried standing up because she never wanted to see another bed throughout eternity. I liked her very much, although there was a certain tightness at the corners of her eyes and mouth that argued against a close relationship.
I wandered off again and talked with an old man who had a very interesting story to tell, because he had once urinated over the statue of a local Place God when he was drunk, and apparently the God of Walls and Ditches had been passing by, because the next thing he knew, he was encased in bronze and standing on a pedestal as a T'u-ti himself, and there was a terrible drought and the peasants demanded that he bring rain to the fields, and when no rain came, they brought out the ceremonial cudgels and beat him black and blue. He still had some very impressive welts to display. I was pressing him for more details when I heard the drawbridge lower, and then a courier came galloping across it and jumped from his horse and dashed into the palace to report to the king.
Master Li was nodding at me. Grief of Dawn was buried in admirers and couldn't get away, so I made hasty apologies to the former T'u-ti and ran for the stairs. I arrived at my lookout spot just as the king and his Golden Girls came from a side door into a courtyard and entered the stables. I knew that Master Li had been right when I heard the drawbridge raise and slam shut, and several minutes later I blinked at the sight of Shih Hu outside the walls. He was riding on a revolving couch on a great war chariot. He had racks of bows and mountains of arrows within easy reach, and Master Li had told me that he was one of the great archers of the world and would whirl around and around on his couch firing arrows so fast they looked like a waterfall. The Golden Girls rode on horses, and they were followed by foot soldiers jogging in disciplined ranks.
I went back down to report that the king had some kind of exit through the stables. Master Li was delighted.
The afternoon festivities continued with the chamberlain playing host. There were actors and acrobats and Sogdian spin-dance girls who wore crimson pantaloons and performed on top of huge rolling balls. Great mounds of food were brought out. It was half-civilized and half-barbarian. A perfectly traditional dish of ducks’ feet and ham steamed with Peking dates and black tree fungus was followed by an exotic Mongolian stew: venison, rabbit, chicken, fish, figs, apples, peaches, curds, butter, spices, and herbs, all boiled together with mounds of sugar candy. I thought it was quite good, but I noticed that both Master Li and Grief of Dawn spat out the sugar candy.
