The king and his bodyguards and soldiers returned just as the sun was setting. They were in high spirits, and the soldiers were carrying a new collection of severed heads mounted upon pikes. When the king and the Golden Girls had bathed and changed, it was time for the high point of the festivities: Moon Boy.
I will admit I was skeptical. A person who looked like Moon Boy could announce, “The song of the lark,” and then go “quack-quack-quack” and get a standing ovation.
We entered a great stone hall. The chamberlain made a great show of rapping walls and floors to show that there was no trickery involved, and then some servants placed a simple wooden table at one corner of the room. More servants brought in two paper fans, a small jar of water, and four cups, which they placed upon the table. Then Moon Boy appeared. He was carrying a simple sounding board like the ones used by girls in my village, and his eyes searched the audience until he found Grief of Dawn. He gave her a wink, and I assumed he was going to perform something especially for her. The servants unfolded a large screen, blocking out the table, and the lanterns were extinguished until the room was almost dark. There was a buzz of conversation while Moon Boy warmed up, and then there were three sharp raps from behind the screen and the room was hushed.
All I know about sound-masters is that the greatest produce sounds that don't actually exist. Somehow they manage to suggest a sound to the ears of the audience, and the minds of the listeners fill in the rest. Master Li, who had heard the great ones for nearly a century, later said that Moon Boy would become a legend that would live ten thousand years, and I had no inclination to argue with him.
I remember hearing a small soft wind blow and looking around to see who had opened a window, and then flushing because I realized it was Moon Boy behind the screen, waving the paper fans. After that I listened with growing wonder and awe as Moon Boy performed a peasant song for Grief of Dawn. I cannot possibly describe something that must be heard, but I made quick notes later on, and I might as well include them here.
Soft breeze carrying night sounds, village sounds… Dog barks loudly, sound seems to be coming in through a window… Man grunts right at my ear, rolls over in bed… Barking fades away, two pairs of sandals passing by window, a laugh and a hiccup… In distance a wine seller calls goodnight and closes his doors… Wind is shifting, blowing from a river… Water sounds, barge poles splashing… Faint laughter, a man begins a bawdy song, words carried away on shifting breeze… Dog begins barking again, right in ears, deafening… Man swears, gets out of bed, stumbles toward window… Sharp yelp and sound of wood scraping across floor as he bangs his knee against a table… Dog even louder… Man fumbling for something, grunts as he throws, barks change into yelps and howls, echoing from cottage walls as dog races away, sound fades… Man yelps as hits table again, crawls back into bed.
Woman sighs and rolls over, whispers to man… Man laughs softly, woman giggles… Find myself blushing as soft lovemaking sounds come from bed… Lovemaking louder, rhythmic… Baby wakes up and begins to cry, man curses, woman groans… Woman gets up and begins nursing baby, man gets up and relieves self in chamber pot… Boy wakes up and says something sleepily, man curses and tells boy to get up and relieve self if needs to… Mixture of sounds: man and boy relieving selves, woman singing softly to baby, baby sucking and cooing, crickets, hoot of owl, breeze through leaves… Boy back to bed, baby back to sleep, man and woman back to bed, woman whispers, man begins to snore.
Fire! Voice shouts outside window, other voices join in, everybody out of bed, baby crying… Man yelps as hits table, shouts out window… Voices say something about a barn… Feet milling around outside, sounds of doors opening and closing, clank of buckets, creak of windlass, man yelps as hits table again… Sandals on, runs outside… Clanks and splashes from bucket brigade, flames hissing and roaring… Incredible confusion of sounds: people shouting, horses neighing, donkeys braying, cattle and oxen lowing, chickens squawking… Gates open and thunder of hooves as animals gallop out… Old man shouting, “My hay! My grain!”… Woman screams about sparks on her roof.
Something very strange. All sounds of the village seem to be lifting slowly into the air… Twisting, turning… As though August Personage of Jade has reached down to China and picked up the village and is turning it this way and that in his hand… A slow, quiet, vast puff of breath as though blowing the fire out… Animal sounds die down, bucket and water and fire sounds die down, shouting and screaming die down… Village settling back down to earth, one sound after another fading away… Boy's sounds fade away, woman's sounds fade away, man's sounds fade away… Baby cooing happily… Baby gradually fades away… Silence.
Three sharp raps. The lanterns are lit, the screen is pulled away. There is nothing but a table and a sounding board and two fans and a jar of water and four cups, and Moon Boy, who clasps his hands together and bows.
Grief of Dawn and I slipped away easily while the audience besieged Moon Boy. I had the sacks and sticks and lanterns ready, and while we caught toads and lanternflies she told me that it was a good thing we were getting Moon Boy out of there because the soft life was causing him to lose his voice, particularly in the high registers, and unless he could find some pretty boys who would give him a good run across the hills he was going to be nothing but the best, as opposed to being supernatural.
“Well, he still seems to have a certain ability,” I said weakly.
She laughed and kicked me in the shins, and we made our way back with our bulging sacks. Master Li was waiting for us at the stables, which was a pity because we couldn't stay and watch the Golden Girls. It was their turn to perform. The great lawn was as bright as day with thousands of lanterns, and they were entertaining the guests with a hair-raising game of polo, which I had never seen before. (It had been the rage at court ever since it had been imported from India, but I was not exactly an ornament of the court.) The Captain of Bodyguards was particularly spectacular, because she thought nothing of crashing her horse into another one at forty miles an hour, and as Grief of Dawn watched them I could see that she was yearning for a sable uniform and a polo mallet. I dragged her away.
We had time to decorate toad faces with a little white paint while we waited for Moon Boy. At last he managed to pry himself away from the adoring mob, and he slipped through the shrubbery carrying a large backpack of clothes and jewels.
The toad, as everybody knows, is one of the five poisonous animals, and is the Beast of Moon and Night, and it spits Vermilion Dust that causes malaria, and is the confidant of the tortoise, the most devious and inscrutable of all living things. When toads have feasted upon Chinese lanternflies their bellies swell to grotesque proportions, and since the lanternflies are swallowed whole they continue to produce greenish flashes of light at twenty-six pulses per minute. The effect is quite startling. The effect is particularly startling when the green pulsing bellies are highlighting white-painted demon-toad faces. If one adds ghastly ghost screeches from Moon Boy, the result can be an experience that will remain with you for life.
One hundred of the hideous things hopped through the doors of the stables, and the screams of the soldiers and grooms were drowned out by the howls from the audience at the polo match. We stepped aside to avoid being trampled to death, and inside of a minute the stables contained nothing but toads and horses. We raced inside.
The exit was easy to find, because it was directly across from the king's war chariot. It was a wide tunnel, sloping downward, and we grabbed torches. Master Li hopped up on my back and we ran down the dark passage. The king would scarcely allow an open path for his enemies, of course, so the problem was going to be getting through the doors. The tunnel leveled as it started to run beneath the moat. Ahead of us was a huge iron door, and Master Li told me to stop. His eyes moved slowly over the walls.
Rows of iron shields hung there. The centers of the shields bore strange emblems, and they protruded from the smooth surfaces. The emblems seemed to concern every subject from agriculture to the zodiac, and Master Li thoughtfully chewed on his beard.
“I suspect sequence locks,” he said. “The king rides down this passage on his couch on the chariot and punches shields that form the code to open the door. It's almost certainly set up so that the wrong code will cause an unfortunate result, which means that the king can remember it even if he's drunk or half-asleep. Probably a personal horoscope, or his lucky stars. Does anyone happen to know when he was born?”
Nobody did, but Grief of Dawn said, “When he picked me up and put me on his lap I noticed the amulet around his neck. It had the planetary symbol of Mercury.”
“Good girl!” Master Li rubbed his hands happily. “If the amulet means enough to him that he wears it permanently, the code may simply be characteristics of his guiding planet. Let's see if they're all here.”
He had me walk up and down the line while he hummed through his nose and studied weird symbols. Then
