Authors: John Hornor Jacobs
Carnelia, Secundus, Tenebrae and I joined the
Malphas
officers and Huáng and Min on the observation deck. Huáng was saying, ‘… it is Ting Huáng, the August One Who Minds the Port.’
‘Is he your brother?’ Captain Juvenus asked.
Huáng seemed puzzled. ‘No, why do you ask this question?’
‘Because you have the same patronym?’
‘I do not understand what that means,’ Huáng said. ‘Ting Huáng is the August One Who Minds the Port. I am Sun Huáng August One That Confronts the …’ He paused, looked at Min. ‘Rumi.’
Min laughed.
‘What is funny?’ Carnelia asked, eyes narrowed. She stepped near the girl – possibly her training with Huáng making my sister more assertive, more belligerent – and Min responded by turning to face here with one eyebrow raised, as if daring her to lay hand on her person.
‘My grandfather is as quick of tongue as he is of hand,’ Min said. A growing smile – not a kind one – spread across her face. ‘And he edits himself. He is not ‘August One That Confronts the Rumi,’ he is ‘Sun Huáng, August One That Confronts the Foreign Devils.’
Juvenus spluttered. ‘Ia’s nuts! The gall.’
‘That’s a pretty title,’ Secundus said, grimacing. ‘I don’t fancy it at all. And here we’ve welcomed you into our society as an old friend and family member.’
Huáng bowed to Secundus. ‘I am sorry for my granddaughter’s words. Our relations are tense, between Rume and Kithai. For many years, I was August One Who Commands The Glorious Armies of Autumn, but after the incident at Shang Tzu, where your Rumi ship
Belphagus
fired upon the August Master of Imports’ ship, sinking it, my …’ He stopped, looking about. ‘You might call it a title … was changed, by word of all the August Ones. They were not pleased.’
‘Wait a moment,’ I said. ‘Are all August Ones named ‘Huáng’?’
‘One puts aside one’s family name when he takes up service to the Autumn Lords.’
‘Yet you’re still the Sword of Jiang.’
‘One is a reputation, the other is …’ He questioned Min. She responded with ‘Birth.’
‘A right of birth,’ Huáng finished. ‘Please accept my apologies. I find great honour in your acquaintance.’ He, quite formally, bowed to each of us.
‘That’s a good chappie,’ Juvenus said, tucking his hands into his belt over his belly. Like most Rumans of noble birth – and I think Juvenus was distantly related to Marcus Claudius, I made a mental note to ask Carnelia, she would know – all his umbrage at the disparagement of Rumans quickly evaporated in the face of obeisance. But I do not think he grasped the man bowing before him, or the country that formed him. For we
are
devils. Or the agents of their spread. The Ruman engineer first bound the daemon, first made an implement of war with the infernal thing hundreds of years ago. And that knowledge was guarded and made secret yet the Hellfire – as is its wont – spread and others captured its strength. ‘That’s quite fine. You’re a good sort,’ he pointed his chin at the turtle boat. ‘What of these gentlemen?’
Min said, ‘They will want to search the ship – and view the crew and passengers to ensure that no Ruman disease enters the city of Jiang.’
Tenebrae bristled at ‘Ruman disease’ and Carnelia actually settled into a stance that I’d seen her take on the decks: a fighting stance.
Huáng barked one word that pierced us all – for a moment I could believe in the magical Qi he spoke of – and then gave Min a long, vituperative tongue-lashing in their native language. Her eyes grew large, she covered her mouth, and fled the deck when he was finished, sobbing.
Huáng, who normally was so composed, seemed rattled. ‘My apologies,’ he said. ‘To make amends for the insult my grand-daughter has given you, please accept my invitation to take rest at my … house.’ He shook his head solemnly. ‘Min will not be there. She has proven troublesome and I am sending her to reflect upon her insults to our family’s honour.’
‘That’s very kind of you, Sun,’ I said, looking toward Secundus. As the male heir of the Cornelian family, it was his duty to accept or decline. ‘But isn’t that a bit harsh? She is young, and our countries are, if not at war, at odds. What she said wasn’t as offensive as all that,’ I said.
‘She has not just offended you. She has offended our honour with her mean spirit and pettiness.’
‘We accept your apology,’ Secundus said, formally, giving a deferent bow to Huáng. ‘It would be an honour to continue to train with you, as well.’
Tenebrae, standing near Secundus – always standing near Secundus – nodded his head enthusiastically.
‘Then so it shall be,’ Huáng said, and bowed once more.
Tin Huáng, the August One Who Minds the Port, was a rotund, moustachioed man clad in ornate silks and topped with a curious little cap, also silk, that much resembled a Truscan cabasette, or nightcap. His face was swaddled in loose skin and lined with merry wrinkles. He boarded the
Malphas
with a few advisors – both men and women – and approached Captain Juvenus and the rest of us where we waited on deck.
He said something, pouring out angry and harsh-sounding words, indecipherable to all but Huáng. Huáng answered him.
The dialogue went back and forth between the two men, Tin questioning harshly, Sun answering in his mild, calm way, until Sun Huáng turned to us and said, ‘He wants the crew and all passengers to assemble on deck, only then can his inspectors go through the hold.’
Juvenus snorted. ‘Unacceptable. I am on orders from Tamberlaine himself; no Ruman ship is to be boarded, willingly or no.’
Huáng’s mouth tugged downwards in the barest hint of a frown, and he spoke to Tin once more. Finally, they seemed to reach a conclusion and Tin turned to leave.
‘Captain Juvenus, thank you for the journey and your hospitality. Tin Huáng has decreed that he shall take the Cornelians and their retinue in his ship, where they’ll remain in quarantine. He states that the
Malphas
must remove itself a distance of no less than one hundred
li
from the Kithai shores. Beyond the striking range of the guns.’
Juvenus cursed, long and with great imagination. ‘I’m ordered to remain in the mouth of the Jiang River, sir, to ensure our envoy’s safety.’
Secundus turned to Juvenus and placed his hand on the older man’s arm. ‘You are also ordered not to cause another international incident, are you not? We are bridge building and that requires concessions.’ Secundus’ tone was reasonable with a hint of pain. Juvenus looked at my brother and then made his decision.
‘All right, but I don’t like it,’ he said. ‘Come with me to my cabin so I can give you a signal.’
‘A signal?’
‘Ia damn me to perdition’s flames to be buggered by devils if you think I’m going to let you traipse off into Far Tchinee without some way to let me know you need rescue or assistance. I’m not going to return to Rume with that hanging about my neck.’ He turned to the rest of us. ‘It has been a pleasure, lords and ladies, delivering you to Jiang. Now I suggest you make haste and get your assorted shit together and prepare yourselves for search.’
We all thanked him for his generous service and after hastily packing our belongings quickly found ourselves on board the Tchinee turtle boat, looking down-river as the black form of the
Malphas
steamed out of Jiang and back to open sea.
Kalends of Geminus, 2638 ex Ruma Immortalis
After a perfunctory physical examination by the August One Who Adjusts the Energy Flowing Within and an inspection of our belongings by fastidious men – who had a heated discussion over my Quotidian but did not confiscate it – we were allowed to disembark the quarantine ship and enter the swelling city of Jiang.
Jiang is a queer place, by turns elegant and jumbled, beautiful and horrific. In this way it is much like Rume but without the engineer’s influence on sanitation. On the pier, the city stood before us, tall and expansive and teeming with activity. Jiang itself is situated on the Jiang River in a pan-like valley, flat and lined with waterways and canals (though I think there was very little water mixed with the sewage) through which numerous gaily painted (and dung-stained) boats, narrow with shallow draughts, make their way; stretching away from the canal district are swiftly rising hills, upon which stand a multitude of buildings. One gets the impression, upon first viewing it, of congestion and over-population – a million ribbons of smoke rise into the sky, the streets are small and cramped. More scalloped buildings stand there, growing taller the further away from the river they are. In the canal district their roofs swarm with peculiar, featherless flying things with leathery wings like bats but larger, the size of cats, or small dogs, making a cacophonous din and shitting absolutely everywhere. The milling citizens – pedestrians, mothers with children, merchants, delivery men – all walk about with umbrellas. We were lucky that Tin Huáng’s palanquins had a supply of intricately decorated ones. Only a portion of the decorations were smeared with faecal matter.
‘The little lóng … little dragons … live near the wharf and canals and not on the hills. The wharves are better for eating of rats and the cats that prey on rats. And the dogs that prey on both.’ He smiled. ‘Small fish swallowed by big fish swallowed by many smaller fish. But away from the docks, the air is not so full of dragons or shite.’
‘They’re not really dragons, are they?’ Secundus asked. ‘My father would … well, shite himself if he thought that there were wyrms in the world and he hadn’t witnessed one.’
Carnelia sniffed. ‘He might be interested until he caught a whiff of their scat.’ She wrinkled her nose. It had a harsh, ammoniac smell. ‘Father loves the ideal, not the reality of things.’
Huáng smiled but it was terse and he quickly gestured toward the line of waiting litters.
Each palanquin was born by two men, wearing wide conical hats that were large enough to shelter their whole bodies from the intermittent splatters of faeces, and we were swiftly borne out of the canal district into more residential and industry minded areas. The rain of lóng faeces slowed. Before us, great stone walls loomed, heavily fortified and lined with archers (presumably to kill flocks any of the little dragons that flew near and offer protection from vermin of the human sort, the poorer classes and the disenfranchised) and we rode through gates so large they could allow the
Cornelian –
or the
Valdrossos
at least – to pass underneath with room to spare and came at last to an immense boulevard that was half market and half processional
passegiata
-cum-park. It was constructed of massive white flagstones with amply bricked sluiceways to take runoff downhill to the canal district. Statues of towering, stylized yet grim-faced figures, also carved of white stone, eyes closed and hands tucked into alabaster sleeves, lined the way. Clustered at their feet, countless stalls sold rice and meats and vegetables. There were numerous nationalities on display – I noticed Medierans and Galls and Numidians and a few Bedoun – but they were but a tiny fraction of the whole multitude. A few men and women walked about in western suits and not all of them were of Kithai. Floating paper lanterns hovered overhead and musicians played atonal melodies that never seemed to resolve to a central key but simply wandered across the musical emotional ranges. Many buildings lined the thoroughfare – some in the scalloped, rising fashion of Kithai and others in more western form. There were no signs but many of the silken flags and banners draping the facades bore the images of coins or baskets, books and parchment, cuts of meat and spools of thread, fletching and lanterns, and one building – a building that would look more at home in Passasuego than Jiang, obviously of Medieran design – bore the image of what could only be taken as a Hellfire pistol.
While not as pervasive as in Rume, the signs of the use of Hellfire were there, in the smoke stacks, the turtle quarantine ship and its guns. Rume has expanded and maintained its power for the last two centuries because of the infernal and the rise of engineering, and it does not share its technology lightly. Yes, knowing something exists and can be achieved is a powerful prod – the Medierans in turn developed their own infernal technology, as well. Of course, this is all known to you, my love.
As we were passing through a less populated area of the great thoroughfare, we found ourselves and the palanquins surrounded by a gang of young men, dressed in loose-fitting brown clothing and boots and button caps. Many had iron rods in their hands, fixed with spikes; others bore shovels that did not look as though they’d ever turned dirt. One man, older than the rest with a fierce beard and hawklike eyebrows – quite impressive they were, sweeping like wings to his temples – bore a sheathed sword in his hand, one of the straight, thin ones that I have heard our Sun Huáng refer to as jian.
Huáng himself barked an indecipherable order in Kithai, the palanquin bearers set his down on the massive cobbles, and he exited, standing tall and holding his cane. He approached the hawklike man and they had a long, angry-sounding debate.
It looked as if it would end in some sort of violence. As I watched Huáng, the cant of his shoulders, the way he held his body, an ease imbued it. It is hard to describe, my love. It was as though at the moment of incipient violence, Huáng resolved to commit to something and that was a great relief to him, and he relaxed. He became still and, looked absolutely non-threatening. The other man, however, became alarmed. He took a step backwards, gave a terse bow, and then said some words to his men and they passed us by, give terse little genuflections to each palanquin.
‘What was that all about?’ Secundus asked, being in a litter closer to Huáng.
‘They are Monkey-boys.’
Tenebrae said, ‘Monkey-boys? Do they have something to do with this Wukong fellow Juvenus spoke of? The Monkey King?’
‘They are his followers.’
‘They seemed a tad belligerent,’ Secundus said.
Huáng nodded. ‘They are rebels.’
‘Rebels?’ Secundus said. ‘Do the August Ones have some sort of police force?’
Huáng thought for a moment. ‘We have a …’ He looked around, thinking. ‘A militia. It keeps peace in Jiang. Outside Jiang, we have troops. Army.’
‘What was that at the end?’ Tenebrae asked. ‘They seemed to reconsider their bellicose position.’
‘My home is but a short way. We should go,’ Huáng said, ducking his white-crowned head and getting back in his palanquin. ‘My home waits.’
Eventually, we left the market and thoroughfare behind, rising higher. The cobbled lanes were still busy, but a hushed sort of expectancy accompanied our passage, and many of the citizens stopped in their labours or occupations to watch us until we moved out of sight. It was a strange and uncomfortable journey.
When we halted, it was before another stone wall, far enough away from the port and canals for the air to be sweet and the neighbourhood to have taken on a more sylvan aspect; soft, drooping trees stood swaying in the breeze, horses clopped along down the cobbled path, passing elegant houses and walled estates with apple blossom trees peeking over walls and songbirds chirping merrily inside the demesnes.
Two orange painted wooden doors – thick and roughly carved with curving geometric designs at the peak – creaked open on massive iron hinges. Huáng stepped forward and said, ‘Welcome to my home.’ He gestured for us to enter. ‘It will be a long while before Tsing Huáng, the August One Who Speaks for the Autumn Lords, will summon us to the Winter Palace. He now tours the outer regions. When he returns, we will bring you before the Autumn Lords to make your entreaty.’
A bevy of servants, mostly young men and women, trotted up in a deferent jog – a curious, shuffling gait that I only understood when I saw they wore slippers rather than shoes or boots – and escorted us through a walled estate that would rival any patrician’s villa in Rume or Cumæ. The path led us forward through manicured foliage, across ornately carved and lacquered bridges, over fishponds filled with brilliant orange and white spotted fish. Following a footpath, we came upon a lovely miniature pavilion hidden in a little grove of trees with spreading yellow and red leaves, a species I have never before encountered. Beyond that was the manse – I cannot call it a house; villa doesn’t suit it – that had graceful yet sweeping points on the tiled roof and seemed a more squat, considerably wider version of those scalloped buildings we witnessed on our journey through the streets of Jiang. We were led inside, where more opulence assailed us. Golden doors and finely wrought statuary of what I thought must be mythical creatures, though the existence of the little lóng made me realize that some could truly exist. Apes in clothing with intelligent faces, insects that bore weapons, furred creatures that half-resembled dogs but were shaped more as bears. Birds with long curving beaks like swords, fish with jagged mouths that no western fisherman has ever seen.
As we stared at the strange opulence the atrium offered us – Carnelia stood entranced with a painted fabric wallhanging that depicted a fierce woman holding a sword and keeping a phalanx of what could only be described as monsters at bay, each creature having wickedly angular eyes, claws, and fangs – a servant came to stand by each of us, even Lupina, who entered the manse last as she organized our baggage. Within moments they were tugging at our sleeves and saying, ‘Sígueme, porfavor.’ Secundus and Tenebrae shot me dark looks at the utterance of Espan, the Medieran language. The signs of the Medierans were everywhere.
Through gestures and pidgin Latin, we made the slaves to understand that we were sisters, Lupina our handmaid, and we wished to share a sleeping chamber. Much attention was brought to my belly, smiling Tchinee women clustering about, the many servants touching me there with light hands and giggling, though what amused them I still cannot say.
Huáng bid us be comfortable in our new quarters. His servants would bring our luggage, and someone would come round to notify us to supper. One of his stewards had brought him a parchment and he disappeared, still reading the glyph-like writing of Kithai that covered it.
Our room was massive, with towering ceilings covered in moulding that was so intricately wrought with relief sculpture and designs it would take a ladder and a month to puzzle it all out. In an alcove was an elaborate and fussy blackwood bed with three sides covered in flowing silk and the other standing open – a bed for lovers, if the lovers stood fifteen feet tall. Multiple mattresses were covered in satin brocade and the yellow coverlet – the Autumn yellow, I later learned, the colour of Kithai’s rulers – was embroidered with flaming red lóng and puffy white clouds. The room had a rich, varied smell and Lupina wrinkled her nose as she picked up one of the many pillows strewn about on the floor and in low-slung blackwood chairs. She sniffed and said, simply, ‘Stuffed with herbs,’ and walked to the door to the room and tossed it out.
There was a flawless mirror – so flawless I was stunned by my own reflection and, on closer inspection, the pallor and blemishes on my skin from the long, near-closeted journey on the
Malphas
– flanked by shiny black lacquered armoires, each festooned with golden ornamentation, for us to store our clothes. We settled in, swiftly, while Lupina took all of the herb-stuffed pillows and neatly stacked them in the hall.
More servants entered, one a beautiful young woman, black hair pulled back in a severe bun, who motioned to us, saying only, ‘
aquí, maestra’
in a thick accent. She approached a wall (every inch of it decorated with filigree and relief carvings) and pressed a section that depicted a young robed woman standing by a pool. There was a click, and the wall moved, revealing a door which swung open. Inside was a small pool set in the white stone of the floor. I could smell woodsmoke and char, and from another adjoining room two heavily muscled men entered, bearing between them a copper pot that Lupina could fit in, and poured boiling water into the pool. A few moments later, another two men entered and repeated the process, exiting hastily. There was a stillness in the women servants while the men were in the same room. When they were gone, the pretty young maid turned an ornamental flower on the side of the pool and more water poured in, diluting the steaming hot water.
After placing the petals of a yellow flower in the water and pouring scented oils, the servant dropped her robes and stood before us naked. She was quite comely and the bath looked and smelled so inviting after the long journey that Carnelia and I disrobed and joined her in the water, while Lupina scowled and loitered about until I told her she had to bathe and only then would she disrobe and join us.
It was quite a merry little gathering in the pool and at some point a carafe of spicy wine appeared – I did not see whoever brought it – and even Lupina relaxed. Afterwards, we dressed in clean clothes and strolled the estate, walking on its beautifully manicured footpaths, listening to the songbirds roosting in the blossoms of the trees, watching the fish sluggishly swim the artfully designed ponds. When the sun fell, we were summoned to dinner with Sun Huáng. In another massive room we dined. As opulent and elaborate as his manse was, his dinner (like his manner, his style of dress, his economy of movement) was simple. There were steaming bowls of rice, lightly vinegared and sprinkled with sesame, grilled meat tossed with vegetables, and a light fish soup followed by a pudding of some sort for dessert. It was delectable and the perfect repast and we all praised the quality of the victuals to Huáng. He seemed pleased, though he did not show it, but when questioned about the Monkey-boys, he answered in the tersest fashion. I daresay he was distracted, for throughout the dinner his stewards would approach him silently, touch his shoulder with great respect, and either whisper in his ear or hand him folded parchment that he would read and hand back.