River of Stars

If the magistrate, for whatever reason, was also absent or indisposed (he was), the sub-prefect was tasked with the immediate journey and inquiry, including any inquest required.

That, alas, meant Wang Fuyin.

No lack of clarity in the regulations. Failure to comply could mean strokes with the heavy rod, demotion in rank, even dismissal from civil office if your superiors disliked you and were looking for an excuse.

Civil office was what you dreamed of after passing the jinshi examinations. Being given a sub-prefect’s position, even in a far western wilderness, was a step, an important step, on a road that might lead back to Hanjin, and power.

You didn’t want to fail in something like this, or in anything. It was so easy to fail. You might pick the wrong faction to align with, or have the wrong friends at a viciously divided court. Sub-prefect Wang Fuyin had no friends at court yet, of course.

There were three clerks at the yamen this morning, filing, reading correspondence, adding up tax ledgers. Local men, all of them. And all of them would have seen a miserable, frightened peasant arrive on his donkey, muddy and wet, before midday, then heard him speak of a man slain in Guan Family Village—most of a day’s long, awkward, dangerous ride east towards the Twelve Peaks.

Probably more than a day, Wang Fuyin thought: which meant staying overnight along the way in some sodden, flea-and-rat-infested hovel without a floor, animals kept inside, a handful of bad rice for his meal, rancid wine or no wine, thin tea, while tigers and bandits roared in the cold night.

Well, bandits were unlikely to roar, Fuyin corrected himself (a fussy, precise man), but even so …

He looked at the pale, emerging sun. It had rained lightly overnight, third night in a row, thank the gods, but it was turning into a mild autumn day. It was also, undeniably, still morning, and the clerks would know the protocols.

The sheriff had gone north two days ago to deal with taxation arrears towards the hill passes. Sometimes a chancy exercise. He had taken eight bowmen. He was supposed to have five, but he was a cowardly man (in Wang Fuyin’s view), and though he’d claim he was training the newer ones, he was just increasing his own protection. In addition to farmers unhappy about taxes, bandits in the west country were endemic. Bandits were everywhere in Kitai, really, and there were always more in times of hardship. There existed texts on how to deal with outlaws (Fuyin had read some on the long journey west), but since arriving, he’d decided the texts were useless. You needed soldiers and horses and good information. None of these were ever present.

Neither was the judicial magistrate, Wang Fuyin sometimes felt.

Having taken his own escort of five bowmen, their honourable magistrate was on his monthly three-day “retreat” at the nearby Five Thunder Abbey of the Sacred Path, seeking spiritual enlightenment.

It seemed that he had negotiated this privilege from the prefect (Wang Fuyin had no idea how) years before. What Fuyin knew, having arranged to know it, was that the magistrate’s path to enlightenment consisted mainly of time spent among the women (or one particular woman) at the convent adjacent to the abbey.

Fuyin was extremely jealous. His wife, from a better family than his own and not shy about reminding him, had been deeply unhappy to be posted here. She’d made him aware of that on the journey, and on a daily basis since they’d arrived a year ago, her words like the tedious dripping of rainwater from the eaves of their small house.

The one singing-girl place in Shengdu was dismally unpalatable for a man who had known the best houses in the pleasure district of the capital. Wang Fuyin didn’t make nearly enough money to afford a concubine, and had yet to figure out how to arrange his own spiritual retreats to the convent by the Five Thunder Abbey.

It was a hard life he lived.

The village messenger, he saw, had led his donkey to the water trough in the space in front of the yamen and was letting it drink. He was also drinking himself, head down beside the donkey’s. Wang Fuyin kept his face impassive, fastidiously adjusted the sleeves and collar of his robe, and strode into the yamen.

“How many bowmen are still here?” he asked the senior clerk.

Ren Yuan stood up (his manners were very good) and bowed before replying. Local clerks were not “in the current,” not true civil servants. As recently as twenty years ago, before the reforms, they’d been unpaid, reporting to a yamen for two-year terms, drafted from among the two highest ranks of local farmers and villagers.

That had changed with the “New Policies” of Prime Minister Hang Dejin—over considerable opposition. And that had been just one part of a conflict at court that was still destroying and exiling people. In some respects, the subversive thought occasionally came to Wang Fuyin, it wasn’t so bad to be out of the way in the west just now. One could drown in the current in Hanjin these days.

“Three bowmen are with us at the moment, honourable sir,” his senior clerk said.

“Well, I need five,” said the sub-prefect coldly.

“You are permitted to go with four. It is in the regulation. When necessity requires and so on. You just file a report.”

That was his junior taxation clerk. He didn’t stand up. Fuyin didn’t like him.

“I know that,” he said (he’d forgotten, actually). “But we only have three, so that doesn’t help very much, does it, Lo Fong?”

The three clerks just looked at him. Pale sunlight came into the yamen through the open windows and doors. It had become a lovely autumn morning. Wang Fuyin felt like beating someone with a rod.

An idea came to him.

It was born of irritation and circumstance and the fact that Ren Yuan was standing directly in front of him at his desk, hands clasped, head diffidently lowered, showing his grey hair, threadbare black cap, and simple hat pins.

“Ren Yuan,” he said. “Where is your son?”

His clerk looked up, then quickly down again, but not before Sub-prefect Wang saw, pleasingly, apprehension. “Ren Tzu has accompanied Sheriff Lao, honourable sir.”

“I know this.” The clerk’s older son was being trained as a guardsman. You needed strong young men with you to deal with collecting taxes. It was Fuyin himself who would have the final say as to whether Tzu was hired. The young man wasn’t especially intelligent, but you didn’t have to be for some tasks. The salaries paid to clerks, even under the New Policies, were small. One benefit attached, however, was the chance to have sons follow into the yamen. That was how things were done now.

“No,” said Fuyin, musingly. “I mean your younger son. I can make use of him. What is his name …?”

“Daiyan? He is only fifteen years old, honourable sub-prefect. He is still a student.”

“Not any more,” said Fuyin sourly.

The local teacher, Tuan Lung, would be missed. He hadn’t become a friend, but his presence in Shengdu had been … a benefit. Even Fuyin’s wife had approved of him. Lung was educated, well mannered (if a little quick with irony). He knew history and poetry, had experience of Hanjin, obviously, and needed to be pleasingly deferential to the sub-prefect, since he’d failed the examinations twice and Fuyin had passed them, first attempt.

“Master Wang,” said his chief clerk, bowing again, “it is my hope that my unworthy younger son be made a runner, and perhaps even a clerk in the yamen one day, yes. But I would not have dared to ask you until he is older … perhaps two years, or even three.”

The other clerks were listening avidly. Events had certainly broken the tedium of a morning. A murder in Guan Family Village, and now this.

They employed four, sometimes five runners at the yamen—two were outside the door now, ready to sprint with messages through town. Ren Yuan’s aspirations for his son were reasonable, and so was the timing he’d proposed. (He was a reasonable man.)

But that wasn’t where the sub-prefect was going this unhappy morning, facing the prospect of a dismal ride and a bad night, with a dead body at the end of it.

“Yes, all that might happen,” said Fuyin in his most judicious tone, “but right now I need him for something else. Can the boy stay on a horse?”

Ren Yuan blinked. He had a lined, long, anxious face. “A horse?” he repeated.

The sub-prefect shook his head wearily. “Yes. Send a runner for the boy. I want him immediately, with whatever he needs for the road. And his bow,” he added crisply. “He is to bring his bow.”

“His bow?” said the hapless father.

But his voice revealed two things. One, he knew exactly what the sub-prefect had in mind now. And two, he knew about the bow.

Wang Fuyin was aware of it because it was his duty to know such things. Information mattered. The father would have his own means of having learned what the boy doubtless thought was a secret.

If the sub-prefect had had a more effective half-smile, one that conveyed amusement and superiority, he’d have used it then. But his wife had told him that when he essayed such an expression he looked as if he were suffering from stomach distress. He contented himself with another small headshake.

“He’s been trying to make himself capable with the bow. I have no doubt you know it.” A thought struck him. “Indeed, I imagine Teacher Tuan will have informed you at the time of his desire to present the boy with such a gift.”

Another shrewd guess, confirmed by the father’s expression. The distress of the day was not altered, but small pleasures could be extracted, including his clerk’s apprehension. Well, really! If Ren Yuan thought the journey unsafe for his son, what did that suggest it might be for his superior? One could grow indignant!

Wang Fuyin decided to be indulgent. “Come, come,” he said. “It will be a useful experience for him, and I do need a fourth bowman.” He turned to the third clerk. “Send a runner for the boy. What is his name again?”

“Daiyan,” said the father, quietly.

“Find Ren Daiyan, wherever he might be. Tell him he’s needed at the yamen, and to bring the bow Teacher Tuan gave him.” The sub-prefect allowed himself a half-smile, after all. “And arrows, of course.”

His heart had begun pounding the moment the runner from the yamen found him coming back across the fields from the bamboo grove.

It wasn’t fear of the journey. At fifteen you didn’t fear an opportunity like this: riding out of town, a temporary bowman guarding the honourable sub-prefect, keeping order for the emperor. How could you be afraid of that?

No, his fear had been a boy’s: that his parents would disapprove of what he’d been doing, be angered by his having kept a secret—the times with the bow, firing at targets, making arrows, mornings with bamboo swords.

Turned out, they’d known all along.

It seemed that Teacher Tuan had spoken to them before-hand about the gift. He had explained it as a way of channelling Daiyan’s independence and energy, guiding his spirit to balance, building confidence … that these things might matter as he pursued his studies towards the examinations, maybe Hanjin, the court.

His mother had told him this at home when he came hurrying back with the runner, who waited outside. She spoke so quickly Daiyan barely had time to absorb it all. Both his parents knew about his morning forest rituals? Well, you needed to go off and be alone somewhere to think about that. Such information could change the world, your sense of it.

And it seemed the sub-prefect knew about this, too. And had summoned Daiyan—by name!—to guard him on a journey to one of the villages. To deal with a murder!

Could the Queen Mother of the West be turning her face towards him, after all? Could he be worthy of such good fortune?

His mother had been as efficient as ever. She masked feelings with brisk motions. She packed him a satchel of food and cold tea and a change of clothing (his father’s, in fact, they were of a size now) lest he embarrass them among strangers and the sub-prefect. Her expression did not change—not in front of the waiting runner—when Daiyan came back from fetching his bow and quiver from their hiding place in the shed. He took the satchel from her hands. He bowed twice. She bowed back, briskly. He said goodbye.

“Bring honour to your family,” she said, as she always did.

He hesitated, looking at her. She reached up then and did something she used to do when he was younger: tugged at his hair, not hard enough to hurt or dislodge the hairpins, but touching him. He went out. He looked back and saw her in their doorway as he went off with the runner.

His father, at the yamen when they arrived, looked afraid.

Daiyan wasn’t sure why, it wasn’t so far they were going, only to Guan Village. They would be there before sundown almost certainly. But Daiyan’s father was a man who could look pleased or concerned at times when people around him showed entirely different moods. It was puzzling to a boy, always had been.

The sub-prefect was not happy. He was visibly angry, in fact. Wang Fuyin was plump, a lazy man (everyone knew that), and would be displeased because he was forced to make this trip himself, instead of sending the sheriff or magistrate and waiting in comfort for their report.

It wasn’t a reason for his father to look so distressed, or be working to try to hide it. Ren Yuan wasn’t good at concealing his emotions or his thoughts. His gentleness wasn’t always an asset, either, his younger son had long ago decided.

He loved him for it, though.

MID-AFTERNOON, hint of a colder wind. They were riding into it, east out of Shengdu towards the world. The river was out of sight on their right, though they could sense it beyond the forest, a presence in changed birdsong, different birds flying. There was a steady shrieking of gibbons from the steep slopes north of the road.

There were nightingales in these woods. Daiyan’s brother had come here hunting them. In Hanjin, at the court, they wanted nightingales for some enormous garden the emperor was building. Officials paid considerable sums for them. It was folly, of course. How could a caged bird survive the journey from Szechen? They’d have to go downriver through the gorges, then by imperial courier north. If the couriers rode fast … the very idea of a birdcage bouncing by a saddle was sad and amusing, both. Daiyan liked nightingales. Some complained they kept you awake at night, but he didn’t mind that.

In the distance ahead, with the mist gone and the day bright, the Twelve Peaks loomed. There were only eleven, of course. Daiyan had long ago given up counting the explanations for this. The peaks were holy in both the teachings of the Cho Master and those of the Sacred Path. Daiyan had never been this close to them. He’d never been this far from Shengdu—and wasn’t that a sad thought, that someone at fifteen had never been more than a few hours’ ride from his town? He’d never ridden a horse this far. That was an adventure in itself.

Their pace was faster than he’d expected it to be. The sub-prefect clearly hated his mount. Hated all horses, most likely, but even though he’d selected a mare with a placid gait and a wide back, he’d grown even more obviously unhappy from the moment they’d left the town behind. A man who preferred city streets to a country path, as the saying went.

Wang Fuyin was constantly looking around, left and right, behind them. He startled at the gibbons when they grew loud, though the cries were almost constant and should have been unsurprising by now. They were sad, eerie sounds. Daiyan had to admit that. Gibbons could warn you of a tiger, though. They were important that way. They were also meat in a famine, but hard to catch.

The sub-prefect insisted on stops to allow him to step down and stretch. Then, standing on the road, he’d seem to become aware that they were alone in wilderness, himself and only four guards, with the Guan Village farmer somewhere behind them on his donkey. Wang Fuyin would order one of them to help him back on his horse (he was not agile) and they’d set off again.

He made his feelings clear: he didn’t like being out here listening to wild animals shrieking and he didn’t want to remain out here any longer than necessary. Their pace was quick. Guan Family Village wasn’t going to offer much of anything, but it had to be better than a lonely autumn path between cliff and forest with the day soon waning.

The farmer had dropped far behind. Didn’t matter. They did know where the village was, and it wasn’t as if a sub-prefect could be expected to wait for a villager on a donkey. There was a dead man ahead of them—and who knew what lay between where they were and that body?

Then, rounding a curve in the path, the sun behind them, they saw, all of them saw, one thing—or several—that lay between. Stood between, more accurately.

Four men stepped out of the forest on the right side of the road. There was no obvious way in or out, they were just suddenly there, on the path ahead of them. Blocking it.

Three of them held drawn swords, Daiyan saw. One carried a staff, thick as a fist. They were roughly dressed in drawstring trousers and tunics, one was barefoot. Two were extremely big men. All looked capable of handling themselves in a fight—or anything else out here. They were absolutely silent.

And there was no doubt as to what they were.

His heart was steady, which was interesting. Daiyan felt strangely calm. He heard the gibbons above them. They seemed louder, as if agitated. Maybe they were. The birds were quiet.

The sub-prefect exclaimed in anger and fear, threw up a hand to halt their progress. They stopped about twenty paces from the outlaws blocking their way. They were outlaws, of course they were. And reckless, to be accosting a party of five, mounted. On that thought, Daiyan turned around.

Three more in the road behind them. Same distance away. All with swords there.

They could try to break through, he thought. These men were on foot. They could gallop right at the outlaws in front, and perhaps …

That wasn’t going to happen. Not with Sub-prefect Wang Fuyin as one of the riders. He would be the man the bandits had come for, Daiyan thought: a sub-prefect could fetch a considerable ransom. Daiyan and the other guards were unimportant.

Which meant they weren’t worth leaving alive.

As best he was able to reconstruct the moments that followed, thinking back, it was on that thought that he moved. It wasn’t a worked-out, deliberate thing; he couldn’t say any planning or calculation went into what happened. It was a little frightening, in truth.

He had drawn his bow, slotted an arrow, and killed the first man in front of them before he could really say he was aware of what he was doing. His first death, first man sent through the tall doors into night. First ghost.

The second arrow was loosed, a second man died before anyone had reacted to the first. At that point one of the outlaws cried out. Daiyan’s third arrow was already flying, also aimed ahead of them. (Speed mattered for archers. He remembered thinking that in the woods this morning, a lifetime ago.)

One man was left standing in front of them after that arrow struck. Later, Daiyan would shape (and teach) ideas about how you dealt with a divided set of enemies, whether a handful or an army, but he was doing it properly that morning by instinct.

There came another shout—behind him. But he killed the fourth man in front before turning his horse with his knees, drawing another arrow, and shooting the foremost of those who had decided to charge towards them. Take down the nearest first, he would later teach.

That man died about ten paces away, sword still in hand for a moment, then falling to the path. The arrow was in his chest. They didn’t have much in the way of armour, these outlaws. Daiyan didn’t remember noting that, but he probably had. Otherwise he might have aimed for their faces.

The other two bandits faltered, seeing they were suddenly in a bad circumstance. Faltering wasn’t the best course of action. Daiyan shot the sixth man just as he broke stride and was starting to turn away to the woods. Not as precise an arrow; it caught the outlaw in the thigh. He went down screaming, high, oddly shrill.

The last one was running back to the forest. He died at the edge of the trees.

The whole thing lasted only moments. A blur and a flash, gibbons shrieking all through. The extreme strangeness of how time could be so slow that he could see (and would remember) individual gestures, expressions, and yet also be so impossibly fast.

Daiyan assumed he had been breathing through it all—breathing was important in archery—but couldn’t say that he had been. Nor had he been aware of movement, anything at all, from the sub-prefect or the other guards. Not after Wang Fuyin’s first outraged, frightened cry. He’d put arrows in seven men, himself. But that was too easy a way to say it. Men had been living and were dead. He’d killed them. You could divide your own life with something like that, Ren Daiyan thought.

You’d never killed anyone. Then you had.

It is well known, inevitable, that legends take shape around the early lives of those who become celebrated or notorious. The stories can grow fanciful, gather luridly exaggerated details: that is what a legend is. A hundred men killed single-handedly. An enemy city, walls three times a man’s height, scaled by night, alone. An immortal poem written by a supernaturally gifted child with his father’s ink and brush. An imperial princess seduced in a courtyard of the palace beside a fountain, then pining away for love.

In the matter of Ren Daiyan and his first encounter with outlaws on a path east of Shengdu one autumn day—the day he left home and changed his life—the tale retained considerable accuracy.

That was because Sub-prefect Wang Fuyin, later to become a figure of note himself, recorded the incident in an official dispatch while reporting also his own successful investigation, arrest, and execution of a murderer in a nearby village.

Sub-prefect Wang went into some detail as to how he had conducted this investigation. It was ingenious, and he was commended for it. That successful inquiry, in fact, would set Wang Fuyin on his own altered path. He became, by his own account, a changed man from that day, with new purpose and direction.

He retold the story of the outlaws and Ren Daiyan in his late-in-life memoirs, drawing upon his early writings (copies carefully kept) from those days when he’d just begun his career, in remote Szechen.

He was as particular and precise in old age as he had been when young, and he prided himself all his life on his strong prose (and calligraphy). The number of outlaws in his memoir remained seven. Ren Daiyan was always fifteen years of age (not twelve, as in some versions). Wang Fuyin even wrote that one of the bandits was only wounded by Daiyan. Another of their bowmen had leaped—dramatically—from his horse to dispatch that seventh man where he lay on the ground.

Fuyin, white-haired at the time of this writing, allowed himself a hint of irony in describing that last “courageous” action. He was well known by then for wit, for clear exposition, for his books on judicial investigation (which had become texts for all magistrates in Kitai), and for being a survivor of the chaos of their time.

There were not many such survivors among those who had been at or near the centre of power in those days. It had taken skill, tact, an ability to choose friends well, and a great deal of luck.

Luck was always part of it, one way or another.

DAIYAN WAS AWARE, immediately, that his life had just changed. What followed on that lonely path between forest and cliffs felt destined, necessary, not truly a matter of choosing. It was more as if the choice had been made for him, he was only the agency of its working.