In the Palace of the Jade Lion Page 4

  “And you notice nothing… unusual, about the jade lion? Nothing at all?”

  “Unusual? Only its quality.”

  Xu Jian thought it very strange that a priest of Huang Ti’s reputation would not recognize the vessel for what it was, yet he clearly did not.

  He finally sighed. “Master Huang, you and I both know that wealth is not at issue here. The king himself could not buy a work of art such as this, because no others exist. It is very old.”

  “Then how did you acquire it?”

  “It belonged to my wife’s family, and it came to my household with her. It was sort of a dowry.”

  “And who is her family? What is their name?”

  Xu Jian thought about the question for a moment, but was finally forced to shrug. “Master Huang, I do not know. It never seemed important.”

  “Censor Xu, do you take me for a fool?”

  “I am an honest man, Master Huang, and so I will answer you honestly—I take you for an honorable man as well, doing your best to serve a king who is neither honest nor honorable.”

  “Now you speak ill of His Majesty? How dare you!”

  “I speak the truth,” Xu Jian said. “And I believe you still recognize the truth when you hear it. The king wants the jade lion, and one way or another I suppose he will have it. There is no reason to insult either me or yourself by pretending there is anything else to the matter.”

  “I have heard enough!” Master Huang turned to the guard. “Captain Fei, summon your men. Search the house and bring everyone you find here.”

  Xu Jian would have cursed himself for making matters worse, only he knew they were already about as bad they were going to get. If he could have neither happiness nor Lady Green Willow, at least he could speak the plain truth again. It wasn’t a trait that was especially valued in the normal functioning of his office.

  Captain Fei reappeared, accompanied by the three other soldiers, escorting Lady Green Willow and her two maids. Xu Jian knew they would find no one else, as all the other servants had been sent away that morning for their own protection. Patience and Wind Whisper appeared apprehensive, but Lady Green Willow held her head high, though she did bow when brought into Master Huang’s presence.

  “Is this everyone?” Master Huang asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Captain Fei said. His voice sounded a little odd to Xu Jian, though perhaps it was because he had hurried so. Master Huang turned to Lady Green Willow.

  “Your husband says that the jade lion belongs to you.”

  “He speaks the truth, though I share all that I have with my husband, so it is his as well.”

  “Was it a wedding gift?”

  “It was meant to be. Instead it was a funeral gift,” Lady Green Willow said frankly. “I was buried in it.”

  For a moment Master Huang just stared at her. Then he turned to Xu Jian. “Has your wife gone mad?”

  “My wife is also an honest person. She’s telling you the truth,” Xu Jian said. It was clear that his wife also saw no point in deception now. He then told Master Huang the story of how he had met Lady Green Willow and her maids, but he couldn’t fail to notice how Master Huang’s countenance was turning darker by the moment. When his story was done, he hesitated, then stated the obvious. “You don’t believe us, do you?”

  “Of course I don’t believe you!” Master Huang said. “I am a priest of the highest rank! Do you think I could be in the presence of spirits and not know this?”

  Xu Jian nodded. “I wondered about that. It was the main reason I tried to keep my family away from you. But you didn’t even recognize the jade lion for what it truly is—an ossuary.”

  “You’re all insane,” Master Huang said.

  “I assure you we are not,” Xu Jian said.

  “Feh.” Master Huang reached into a pouch on his belt, held up a small slip of paper covered in fine calligraphy. “Xian Ju, do you recognize this? As a scholar, surely you have studied the form?”

  Now Lady Green Willow did look apprehensive as Xian Ju answered him. “It is a ward against spirits.”

  “If you doubt my competence, please examine it closely.”

  Huang Ti handed the slip of paper to Xu Jian, who did as he asked. “It is very well done,” Xu Jian said. “I can see no errors in it.”

  “If you recognize that, then you should also know that it requires no great spiritual power on the part of anyone who wields it. I created it, but it would work even if someone such as you were to apply it. Is that not so?”

  Xu Jian, suspecting the priest’s intent, felt his knees tremble. Nevertheless, he spoke clearly. “I believe so,” he said.

  “I want you to place the spirit ward on your wife’s forehead.”

  “You can’t ask me to do that,” Xu Jian said, nearly shaking with fear and rage. “It would destroy her!”

  “I am not asking. I am ordering. Do as I say or I’ll have you and your entire household executed here and now. If she really is a ghost, then you’ll be the only one to die. Shall we test this?”

  Xu Jian’s fear diminished as his rage grew at Hunag Ti’s cruelty. His hand inched toward the dagger in his belt. In his desperation he thought that, if he moved quickly enough, he could take the priest hostage and use him to make their escape. If that failed, Xu Jian was determined to kill the man if it was the last thing he did on earth. He took one step, but he made the mistake of glancing at Lady Green Willow first, and she met his gaze and quickly shook her head.

  “Husband, do as Master Huang commands.”

  Xu Jian stopped where he was. Master Huang, perhaps suspecting trouble, had already taken a half-step behind Captain Fei, and the moment was lost. Xu Jian knew he could not possibly reach the priest before the soldiers struck him down. He turned to his wife.

  “I can’t.”

  She smiled at him. “It may be the last thing I ask of you, Husband, but I do ask. Please trust me.”

  The guards, at Master Huang’s prodding, had already drawn their swords. Tears formed at the corners of Xu Jian’s eyes, but he took one step and, as gently as he knew how, touched the paper to Lady Green Willow’s forehead.

  Nothing happened.

  After a moment or two the paper fell off and fluttered to the floor like a dead leaf in winter.

  “I have reason enough to relieve you of your duties,” Master Huang said. “To tell a king’s counselor such an obvious lie.”

  “But as a follower of the Way,” said Xu Jian, “you understand the nature of balance and imbalance. I have tried to correct that imbalance in Lady Green Willow, and this just proves that our treatment is working!”

  “It proves nothing, because there is nothing to prove. Lady Green Willow is a woman, like any other.”

  “Hardly like any other, but I can see that you’ve found your excuse. Declare me corrupt or unfit if you want. I can offer no defense save to repeat that we have told you the truth. You can seize us and the jade lion with perfect justification. Or….”

  “Or?”

  “You can let us go. The jade lion belongs to us, and we have done nothing wrong. You know this to be true.”

  Master Huang did not speak for several long moments. He finally shook his head. A bit reluctantly, perhaps, but firmly. “Captain Fei, you are to place Censor Xu in custody. All his property and chattels are forfeit to the king. See to it.”

  Captain Fei didn’t move.

  Master Huang scowled. “Well? What are you waiting for?”

  “Orders, Sir,” Captain Fei said.

  “I just gave you my orders!”

  “Not your orders, Sir,” Captain Fei said. He looked at Lady Green Willow, and his eyes were glowing red. “Lady Green Willow’s orders.”

  “Seize Master Huang,” she said.

  Before the priest could react, Captain Fei pinned his arms, and the other guards held their bronze swords against his neck. Lady Green Willow plucked the pouch containing other spirit wards from Master Huang’s belt and tossed it aside. “Now I understand why y
ou did not recognize my nature, Master Huang,” she said. “But you must not be the priest you once were, or you’d have certainly recognized my friends for what they are. Has serving your king served you as well? I would consider this, if I were you.”

  For a moment Xu Jian was too surprised to speak. “I think your prayers yesterday must have been answered!”

  She smiled at him. “I wasn’t praying, Husband. I was sending for help. As you may recall from the repairs to our home, Patience and Wind Whisper are not the only ones who still serve me. But the delay was necessary, since my soldiers could not come to us before sundown.”

  “My Lady, what shall we do with Master Huang?” asked Captain Fei, or at least the spirit who bore Captain Fei’s appearance.

  “I will spare his life, but we need time,” replied Lady Green Willow. “Husband, with your permission?” Xu Jian nodded, and his wife turned back to the ghostly soldier. “Escort Master Huang to the cave where I used to reside, but otherwise do not harm him. Once that is done, you will all please consider your obligations to me and my family faithfully discharged. You are free, as I hope to be.”

  “Thank you, Lady Green Willow,” said the ghostly soldiers in unison, and they bowed to her.

  After the spirits had departed taking Master Huang with them, Xu Jian embraced his wife in happiness and relief. “You’ve saved us! I thought to kill Master Huang myself, but I am glad you didn’t. Perhaps he deserved it, but I believe he was a good man once.”

  “I am sorry that we must leave this place. Especially now,” Lady Green Willow said. She looked down at the spirit ward lying on the floor. She stepped on it, then ground it under her dainty heel. “As for Master Huang, he owes his life more to my gratitude than to my mercy.”

  “Gratitude? Why? He would have had me destroy you!”

  She smiled then. “But I wasn’t destroyed. I already knew that we… that I, was less and less connected to the spirit realm with each passing day, but I wasn’t able to convince myself that my progress had gone so far. Now I see that it has done so, and if I am simply a mortal woman now as Master Huang’s spirit ward proved, then I must be something else as well, something I hardly dared to believe, or to tell you for risk of false hope. That is why I am grateful to him.”

  He frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Husband, I am pregnant.”

  * * *

  The accounts of Master Huang Ti’s mission to interrogate Censor Xu were a little unusual, to say the least, and were thus recorded years later along with many other strange happenings in a book called “Official Accounts of the Mysterious” compiled by the scholar Sung Man Hei. In that version, Master Huang’s guards were found unconscious by the remains of a villa called the Palace of the Jade Lion. The censor’s residence itself was no more than an old ruin, full of cobwebs and rats; it was obvious that no one had lived there in some time.

  As for Master Huang Ti himself, he reappeared several days later, dirty, disheveled, and muttering some nonsense about being trapped in an abandoned tomb. In deference to his delicate health, Master Huang was allowed to retire to a monastery in the south.

  The Provincial Censor and his household could not be located, though there were reports that a wealthy branch of the Xu family later established itself in the city of Xianyang in the state of Qin, whose ruler was far more intent on annexing his neighbors than in collecting art. Descendents of the Xu family, it is said, live in that area to the present day.

  As for the jade lion, it was never seen again.

  © Copyright 2012 Richard Parks