Tsong smiled. His few stumps of teeth glistened in what light passed through a tiny window. “That would take years,” he said. “He has been with us for centuries, if not longer.”
Again she tautened. “When did he come?”
Tsong sipped his tea. “Who knows? He has books, he can read and write, but the rest of us cannot. We tally the months, but not the years. Why should we? Under his good sway, lifespans are alike, as happy as the stars and the spirits may grant. The outside world troubles us never. Wars, famines, pestilences, those are gnat-buzz borne in from the market town, which itself hears little. I could not tell you who reigns in Nanking these days, nor do I care.”
“The Ming drove out the foreign Yuan some two hundred years ago, and the Imperial seat is Peking.”
“Ah, learned, are you?” the old man chuckled. “Yes, our forebears did hear about invaders from the north, and we know they are now gone. However, the Tibetans are much closer, and they have not attacked these parts for generations, nor ever our village. Thanks be to the Master.”
“He is your true king, then?”
“No, no.” The bald head shook. “To rule over us would be beneath his dignity. He counsels the elders when we ask, and of course we heed. He instructs us, during our childhoods and throughout our lives, in the Way; and of course we gladly follow it as well as we are able. When someone falls from it, the chastisement he orders is gentle—though quite enough, since real evildoing means expulsion, exile, homelessness for life and ever afterward.”
Tsong shuddered slightly before going on: “He receives pilgrims. From among them and from among our own youths who wish it, he accepts a few disciples at a time. They serve his worldly needs, listen to his wisdom, strive to attain a small part of his holiness. Not that this keeps them from eventually having households of their own; and often the Master honors a family, any family in the village, with his presence or his blood.”
“His blood?”
Li flushed when Tsong answered, “You have much to learn, young miss. Male Yang and female Yin must join for the health of the body, the soul, and the world. I am myself a grandson of the Master. Two daughters of mine have borne him children. One was already married, but her husband kept from her until they were sure it would indeed be a child of Tu Shan that blessed their home. The second, who is lame in one leg, suddenly needed only a bedspread for her dowry. Thus is the Way,”
“I see.” He could barely hear her. She had gone pale.
“If you cannot accept this,” he said kindly, “you may still meet him and receive his blessing before you leave. He forces no one.”
She gripped the spoon in her fist as if its handle were a post to which she clung lest she be whirled off the earth. “No, I will surely do his will,” stumbled from her throat, “I who have been seeking over all these lives, all these years.”
2
He could have been a peasant man of the village—but then, every one of them was closely or distantly descended from him—with the same strong frame clad in the same thick coat and trousers, the same grime and calluses on feet that indoors were bare. His beard hung thin, youthfully black, his hair was drawn into a topknot. The house he inhabited with his disciples was as big as any, but no bigger, also of plain earth above a clay floor. The room to which one of the young men admitted her before bowing and leaving was scarcely better furnished. There was a bedstead, wide enough for him and whatever woman might attend him; straw mats, stools, table, a calligraphic scroll, gone brown-spotted and flyspecked, on the wall above a stone altar; a wooden chest for clothing, a smaller brass one that doubtless held books; a few bowls, cups, cloths, and other everyday things. The window was shuttered against a blustery wind. A single lampflame did little to relieve murkiness. Coming in from outdoors, Li was first aware of the smell. It was not unpleasant, but it was heavy, blent of old smoke and grease, manure tracked in on shoes, humanity, centuries.
Seated, he lifted a hand in benison. “Welcome,” he said in die hill dialect. “May the spirits guide you along the Way.” His gaze was shrewd. “Do you wish to make offering?”
She bowed low. “I am a poor wanderer, Master.”
He smiled. “So they have told me. Fear not. Most who come here believe gifts will win them the favor of the gods. Well, if it helps uplift their souls, they are right. But the seeking soul itself is the only real sacrifice. Be seated, Lady JLi, and let us come to know each other.”
As the elders had instructed her, she knelt on the mat near his feet. His look searched her. “You do that otherwise than any woman I have seen before,” he murmured, “and you talk differently, too.”
“I am but newly in these parts, Master.”
“I mean that you do not talk like a lowlander who has picked up some of the highland form of speech.”
“I thought I had learned more than one Chinese tongue well, as long as I have been in the Middle Kingdom,” broke from her.
“I’ve been widely about, myself.” He shifted to the idiom of Shansi or Honan, though it was not quite what she remembered from the wealthy, populous northeastern provinces and he used it rustily. “Will you be more at ease talking this?”
“I learned it first, Master.”
“It’s been long since I— But where are you from, then?”
She raised her face toward his. Her heart thuttered. With an effort like reining in a wild horse, she kept her voice level. “Master, I was born across the sea, in the country of Nippon.”.
His eyes widened. “You have come far in your search for salvation.”
“Far and long, Master.” She drew breath. Her mouth had gone dry. “I was born four hundred years ago.”
“What?” He leaped to his feet.
She rose too. “It is true, it is true,” she said desperately. “How could I dare lie to you? The enlightenment I seek, have sought, oh, that was to find someone like myself, who never grows old—”
She could hold back the tears no more. He laid his arms around her. She clung close and felt how he also trembled.
After a time they drew apart and, for another while, stared at one another. The wind boomed outside.
A strange calm had fallen on her. She blinked her lashes clear and told him, “You have only my word for this, of course. I learned quite early to be nobody that anybody was ... much concerned about or would ... especially remember.”
“I believe you,” he answered hoarsely. “Your presence, you, a foreigner and a woman, that speaks for you. And I think I am afraid to disbelieve you.”
A laugh sobbed. “You will have time aplenty to make certain.”
“Time,” he mumbled. “Hundreds, thousands of years. And you a woman.”
Old fears awoke. Her hands fluttered before her. She forced herself to stand where she was. “I am a nun. I took vows to Amida Butsu—the Buddha.”
He nodded, against straining muscles. “How else could you travel freely?”
“I was not always safe,” she wrung out of her lips. “I have been violated in wild lands of this realm. Nor have I always been true. I have sometimes taken shelter with a man who offered it, and stayed with him till he died.”
“I’ll be kind,” he promised.
“I know. I asked ... of certain women here ... But what of those vows? I thought I had no choice before, but now—”
His laughter gusted louder than needful. “Ho! I release you from them.”
“Can you?”
“I am the Master, am I not? The people aren’t supposed to pray to me but I know they do, more than to their gods. i Nothing bad has come of it. Instead, we’ve had peace, lifetime after lifetime.”
“Did you ... foresee that?”
