Chapter Nineteen
SONG LIM stood amongst a jostling throng of merchants and servants, all waiting impatiently for their turn to be admitted to the Mandarin’s residence…
or rather, Feng’s palace. Lim discovered that the audacious man had given his residence a prestigious name it had no right to. The Palace of Endless Prosperity.
He’d nearly laughed up the lotus seeds he’d eaten when first he’d heard it spoken within the crowd; the ruler of this small port town thought himself the emperor of his domain.
Beside Lim stood a stout man with a long, thin beard.
He held bright red and gold bolts of material bundled beneath one arm, a small birdcage dangling from his free hand; the winged prisoner a brightly coloured creature with a rounded beak of yellow and eyes the colour of fire.
The bird squawked at those who poked their fingers through the bars, whilst its owner crowed just as loudly.
‘This bird is bound for the Mandarin’s collection,’ the man declared, his thin beard tilting in the breeze.
‘A ship’s captain from Portugal heard me speaking of the wonder of the Palace of Endless Prosperity in the tavern.
I told him of the glories within, the sumptuous feasts, and incomparable gardens, and he insisted I bring this bird on his behalf, seeking favour when they are next in port. ’
‘Ha!’ A nearby man who smelled of leather retorted. ‘Kunming sent him a prince, his lordship won’t care for that bird.’
‘Well, this bird is prettier than the prince,’ sniffed the bearded man. ‘I’m told he’s monstrous to look at.’
‘Some of them nobles have a taste for such things.’
Those within earshot laughed far too hard and heartily.
Lim drew blood from his tongue where he clamped his teeth to stop from speaking up.
Despite the coolness of the day, he had worked up a sweat in the press of bodies, and his thigh felt bruised by how often the slipper, in a dark leather pouch dangling from his waist, poked into him.
A young woman cradling a basket of goose eggs turned, eyes narrowed in angry protest.
‘Watch yourself there’ she cried over the din of the crowd, her eyes darted down low on his body, and Lim wanted to shrink down to nothing when he realised she too had felt the poke of the slipper; but mistook it for an aroused body part misbehaving itself.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ he muttered.
Lim shuffled to one side, but only barely so. He’d not risk losing his place; only three people deep from the gates and two harried guards.
As the woman turned away, clucking her tongue in annoyance, she shifted her basket against her hip, raising a freed hand to brush her hair from her face.
Lim stared at the token she held; an enlarged wooden coin, whose markings he couldn’t make out, save for the three holes punctured around its central point.
The coin was not the first one he’d seen; another fellow had tapped his against his teeth impatiently, and an older woman had hers tucked into the crossover fold of her jacket.
He was shoved forward, now only the young woman with the goose eggs ahead of him.
She handed the nearest guard her token, which he flipped over once in his hand before returning it.
‘Go on.’ He jerked the tip of his spear. ‘Move along.’
Lim hissed beneath his breath. Surely Ren must have known a token was needed to enter? Had Lim misjudged the man so badly?
Another shove, and he was face-to-face with the sullen, impatient guard whose sour breath scorched Lim’s face.
‘Token. Now. Hurry it up.’
Pressure built at Lim’s back as the sweep of the crowd was interrupted by his hesitation. His heart sought to punch a hole in his chest.
‘I don’t…I haven’t…’
‘Hurry up!’ The second guard used the blunt end of his spear to knock at the back of Lim’s legs.
‘Oh, careful there.’ Lim jumped, and the hessian draped over the lotus seeds slipped free; drifting to the ground. Suddenly, Master Ren’s words came to him, and Lim shouted over the crowd to be heard.
‘Master Ren…I come at Master Ren’s behest…will you have a lotus seed?’
The guard withdrew the spear, his eyes fixed on the glistening seeds; nestled in the bucket like pearls fresh from the oyster.
‘Give me one. Why did you not speak up earlier, man? Won’t do to keep these from Xinling. She’ll be waiting on them in the kitchens.’
Lim stayed silent as both guards took a seed, popping it into their mouths. One rolled his eyes and uttered a soft groan, whilst the other grinned as he crunched down noisily.
‘Go on then, and don’t delay, man.’
To Lim’s utter astonishment, the guards stepped back, yelling at the crowd behind to stop their pushing, lest the bucket be upset from Lim’s arms. With the swell of unhappy merchants behind him, Lim nodded at the guards before launching into a quick step before they changed their minds.
He’d gone only a few steps when the shout came. ‘Wait! Go no further.’
Lim’s burdened heart suffered another frantic burst of beats. He turned slowly, certain he’d find the spear points aimed at his throat.
‘You forgot this.’ The guard strode up to him and laid the hessian cloth back over the seeds. ‘It’s clean, I’ve checked it over. Here you go. Be careful now, straight to the kitchens with you.’
Lim bowed, low as he dared with his bucket, and moved deeper into Mandarin Feng’s palace.
Feng had chosen the siheyuan style, of course, as did most in the more sophisticated cities of the Middle Kingdom; mimicking the ways of Beijing where the courtyard houses originated.
Lim wasn’t overly fond of the design; he thought all the surrounding walls, maze-like pathways, and hemmed-in buildings too suffocating.
But he did enjoy the gardens of the siheyuan; the grand spectacle of those planted in the inner courtyard, the peacefulness of those in the Spirit Hall where the ancestors rested, and the seclusion to be found in the hidden places in between buildings in the larger siheyuan.
Like that sunken garden in Kunming, where a prince had once spoken quietly with his beloved carp. The same place a cold-hearted fiend had pulled the fish from the water, and left a man bereft.
‘Out of the way, stop staring at the clouds!’
The shout came from behind, and Lim jumped sideways. A trio of men barged past, faces flushed with exertion, each with a barrel hoisted on their shoulder; sloshing liquid within.
‘Careful, you shǎbī.’ The voice came from down at Lim’s feet. ‘What’s wrong with you?’
Lim startled to see he’d almost stepped on a woman crouched beside a wide metal basin where black eels slithered over one another as they twisted about in the confined space.
One slid its oily head over the lip, and she whipped it from the basin and delivered a life-ending blow with the flat piece of wood she held.
She knelt in the shelter of a stack of straw-filled crates; the structure had kept her from being trodden on until Lim had come at her. He glimpsed the contents of the crates; bamboo casings, their contents smelling strongly of gunpowder.
Fireworks for celebrating the New Year when the sky darkened.
‘Forgive me, mistress. Which way is it to the kitchens?’
The woman peered up at him, her hands wet and slick with the juice from the eel’s innards. ‘Do I look like your guide?’
Impatience rattled through Lim, but he took a breath. ‘Master Ren has entrusted me to deliver these lotus for him.’
Her thin lips wriggled, much like her eels; the living ones. ‘Got a way of having handsome men do his bidding, that Master Ren does.’ It was very evident now she was grinning, though it was not a pretty sight for the blackness of her gums. ‘Bet he appreciated your helping hands very much.’
Lim frowned. ‘Do you know the way or not?’
‘Course I do.’ She pulled another eel from her basin and dispatched it with the same ruthless accuracy as the last. ‘Where do you think these eels are headed?’
Her gaze lifted, but her hands worked upon the eel with a short knife, slitting it open with a deftness that was both startling and impressive.
‘Mistress, I’m in a great hurry,’ Lim glanced about in the hope he might spy the kitchens without need of help from this sharp and scrutinising woman. ‘If you can’t help me then—’
‘Don’t get snippy with me, boy.’ She pointed her knife; entrails dangled from its tip.
‘Head up that way, about a hundred steps, then turn left at a hutong with a yellow awning at its entrance. You won’t miss the kitchens for the smell.
Turn left, remember, too easy to end up wandering into the Mandarin’s inner courtyard from there.
Easy for Xinling to organise the delivery of the meals that way, but for you it will just mean getting into big trouble.
Captain Duan’s guards won’t take kindly to a merchant being in those esteemed grounds, no matter how fetching your face might be. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’
Lim flinched at mention of the captain, but thanked her quickly, and carried on in the direction she’d showed.
What good fortune! He was within reach of the heart of the palace.
Lim’s throat tightened at the thought of glimpsing the prince.
Could he hope for it to be so easy? Or was Xian being kept hidden away, as he had been in Kunming?
Eagerness swept him, the weight of the slipper in its pouch heavy against his thigh. He strode along, cursing the crowded passageway, using the bucket as something of a battering ram to make his way, earning himself no friends in doing so.
‘Watch it!’
‘We’re all in a hurry, you brute.’
A large man in a black shanku with red trim nearly knocked him off his feet as he passed by, carrying another of the straw and fireworks-stuffed crates. His queue swung like a club between his shoulder blades; thick and heavy.
‘Out of the way,’ he growled, sounding more bear than man. Lim had the oddest thought that perhaps that was exactly what he was.