Messiah Clears the Disc - Oldie Henry Lion 3 стр.

"The deity of Soil who discredited his rank is to be dismissed from his post. The protecting spirit is to obtain a penalty written down in his dossier. Xiucai What's-his-Name will obtain thirty blows of canes in about a month for his disregard for the spirits and inclination to lawsuits."

And quite so the story ended very soon.

But now Judge Bao was not inclined to jokes: in his thoughts he was still looking at the two arms of the dead woman.

Of course, when alive, Eighth Aunty had not any dragons or tigers at her arms; this fact was confirmed both by her husband, the dyer Mao, and by the numerous relatives, as well as by the still more numerous neighbors. Any signs of some magic or medicinal potions were not found too. The judge had once more examined the corpse in the presence of the chief town physician, got sure that the strange putrefaction spots did not vanish, on the contrary, they became even more distinct, and ordered to write this fact down to the record of evidence. After that he went heavily to his office and was now sitting there in an awful mood and with his head unbearably sore.

– ...imagine, the highly respected xiangyigong, he didn't take anything in the house of jüren Tong but tore to pieces his favorite tiger-stripped orchid that the worthy jüren Tong had planted according the Bahua canon...

– Who was it? – asked the judge feeling no real interest, just for distraction. He has turned a deaf ear to all previous parts of the long and variegated story of the loquacious xiucai.

– Well, the burglar himself! – Xingge the Third exclaimed gladly, happy that his boss has at last heard his tale and even seemed to become interested in it. – He tore off the favorite tiger orchid of jüren Tong and then pierced his own breast with a gardener's knife, just into the heart! When jüren Tong had heard about all this, he almost got a stroke, – continued xiucai, very content, because he didn't like Tong who was luckier than he (and, to say sincerely, quite haughty). – He was so sorry because of the orchid... So now he won't go to the Capital; and your substitute, the worthy Fuh, ordered to cut off the arms of the crazy burglar who has committed suicide and to nail them to the pillory at the town square in order to teach the others not to do so again.

– Was the burglar identified? – asked the judge flaccidly; his headache became a bit lesser, may be due to the drug or just by itself.

– Yes, he was indeed! His name was Fang Yushi, a seller of sweets, everybody knows him, a most honest man, unlike other sellers! That's why I was saying: he must have gone crazy. I used to buy rice buns sprinkled with caraway seeds from him, and now I really don't know where to find them! You surely have already noticed, the highly respected xiangyigong, that things are going wrong in our vicinities, well, and people say that in the whole Tianxia...

The judge interrupted xiucai:

– Why didn't Fuh report all this to me?

– He didn't want to bother you, the highly respected xiangyigong! For the case is quite clear, the criminal is known and besides he's dead...

But Judge Bao has diverted again his attention from the chatter of Xingge the Third.

These two silly happenings had something in common, something that made them two adjoining links of a chain, and Judge Bao felt the familiar hunting fervor, the state of mind when you begin suddenly to discern some fragments of the puzzle in the senseless collection of facts, insignificant details, pieces of evidence and testimonies, matching with each other, coinciding at completely unexpected angles, and you understand the right thread is in your hand and now you need only to pull at it, to pull carefully lest you don't tear it...

The violent and seemingly senseless deed of Eighth Aunty crowned by her suicide; and the equally inadequate doings of the respectable merchant Fang Yushi resulted in his heart being pierced. That's the point: the both cases were seemingly senseless and ended with the initiator's suicide!

– I'd like to have a walk in the square, – the judge murmured rather to himself and went slowly out of his office.

– Are you the highly respected xiangyigong Bao?

The question was excessive: only a blind could take the judge Bao for somebody else in Ningo.

The judge turned around without haste. He recognized at once this elderly monk in an orange cassock too. Venerable Banh, a member of secret service, a bit of bodyguard and surely a spy watching the illustrious Zhou-wang. However, he didn't manage to do anything during the recent carnage.

Didn't manage?

Didn't want?

– Yes, it's me, venerable father, – nodded the judge joining his palms respectfully under his breast. – It's just as the saying goes: you know all things, both explicit and secret ones! I just was going to meet you and talk a little. As far as I know, you had taken monastic vows and then were trained at the famous monastery under the Song mountain? Happy indeed is the cloister the patriarch of which was personally invited to the ceremony when our ruling Emperor Yong Le, the Son of Heavens, ascended his throne, be he alive forever! It seems to me that the Son of Heavens ordered to transfer the capital from Nangjing Beijing just following the advice of the Shaolin patriarch. Was it really so?

– The knowledge of "the lord who maintains undauntedness" is worth admiring, – the monk bowed his head modestly, but this modesty could not deceive the judge.

Venerable Banh couldn't have met him by chance!

– Then I'd like to ask you to show me, as unworthy as I am, the holy signs of tiger and dragon on your arms. I hope the monastery rules don't forbid this?

– Oh, no, the highly respected xiangyigong, just on the contrary! – the monk smiled, clearly flattered by this request of the judge Bao, for it was expressed in such a submissive tone. – Of course you can look at them! Here they are...

And he rolled his sleeves up to his elbows.

The highly respected xiangyigong examined for some time quite carefully the images shown to him (they were branded by fire on the forearms of the monk) and then asked innocently:

– Please tell me, the venerable Banh, can anybody have such signs besides the monks who had passed their tests in the Shaolin monastery?

– I haven't heard about anybody who'd dare to fake them, – the voice of the monk remained calm but his narrow eyes became still narrower.

– But can they be hidden in some way? – the judge went on. – If, for example, some warrior monk does not want to be recognized?

– It is possible, I think, – the monk shrugged his shoulders, – but what for? The scars would be left... Moreover, those who passed the Labyrinth of Mannequins are rather few and well known not only in the cloister. I suppose, you've heard that one who had become a Shaolin monk can get the right to leave the cloister freely only in three ways. The first is to pass the test; but it is not for everybody and requires at least fifteen years of daily exhaustive training; the second is to be sent to the external world on some errand but such occasions are rather rare...

– And what is the third?

The monk simply lifted his hands as if hinting that the third way out is opened for everybody and in any situation.

– I understand you, the highly respected xiangyigong, – continued the venerable Banh after a pause. – You were given a complicated and unpleasant case to investigate. Your duty is to solve this problem... but I think it would not be a great disaster if you'd soon give up your research. Naturally, it would be possible not before you'd have honestly found out all that is possible. And it somehow seems to me, as worthless as I am, that you've already done this. The disturber was acting alone, without any assistance, being surely mad. Besides, she's now dead, and who will be able to say in what state of mind the unlucky woman had been at that moment?

– Of course, you're right, the venerable father, – the judge bowed his head politely. – I've come to almost the same conclusions. I feel inexpressible joy in my soul hearing that my opinion, as ignorant as I am, coincides with the opinion of such a worthy servant of Buddha as you.

They talked a bit more about other things not concerning the case, although Judge Bao understood perfectly well: the monk has already said all he wanted to say allowing him to understand that the venerable Banh and those who stand behind him are not too interested in the detailed investigation of the case.

The judge guessed the reason.

The reason was that the judge has seen with his own eyes the signs of tiger and dragon branded at the arms of the monk. When the venerable Banh bowed and went away, he stood still for some time musing on the coincidence. The only difference was that the venerable Banh had them branded by fire and the other two had the form of the putrefaction spots. For just the same signs appeared after death at the forearms of Eighth Aunty, who had never entered the famous monastery under the Song mountain. And the same signs were now clearly visible at the two arms nailed to the pillory, the arms of a respectable merchant Fanh Yushi.

Who had also never been a monk.

Either at the Shaolin monastery or at any other.

Chapter 2

– You, bastard! – roared Golden Eel trying frantically to whip stinking drops off his gown. – You, shaven-headed beast! Go down here, I'll tear your ugly head from your shoulders!

The monk standing at the wall top did not pay any attention to the shouting below. A minute earlier he had shamelessly pulled up his saffron cassock and pissed down aiming exactly at the Golden Eel's head who dared to come too near to the closed gates of the monastery at the Song mountain. Well informed people told that behind the gates there was a track piercing the rocks and leading from the foothills to the monastery situated much higher, almost at the top; but Golden Eel could not think now about any rocks or tracks. Not so long ago he was in quite another mood after having received an official note summoning him to arrive to the outer gates of Shaolin not later than the Cold Meal Holiday. Golden Eel had expected rather to get an invitation, but such formal note was also not so bad for him, a son of a village elder from Hebei province, a renowned master of quanfa [12] in his native country: he had made his best to obtain recommendations from three much esteemed local persons...

After all these efforts he came here obeying the orders.

And now he has spent almost a week sticking around in front of the locked gates in the company of seven other lads aspiring, like himself, to the right to enter the most famous monastery of the whole Empire and to become monks there. The ninth to sit at the gates was an aged heshan [13] from the mountain temple in Ande district, but he was allowed to enter almost at once. After having waited only about three hours he handed the guards a written permission of his patriarch; the gatekeepers examined the letter reading it several times, exchanged glances between themselves and then waved hands inviting the visitor to follow them.

– So it goes in the world! – a youngling who bore still his childish name Baby Snake Cai sighed enviously. – We, the laymen, must get heaps of recommendations, wait here gods know how long, and the reverend monks go to and fro, as they like: take a patriarch's permission and walk everywhere! It is just the same as in our governor's office: one must enter bowing humbly while the others march in on horse and with banners flying!

If it were earlier, Golden Eel would not have answered anything considering Baby Snake to be a greenhorn. But after the first day of waiting he began to lose his calm mood; after three days his self-possession has been almost ruined, and now his patience was coming to an end, as well as the week that seemed endless to him. Golden Eel was ready to tear to pieces anybody who'd have bad luck to approach him...

The monk who dared to piss at his head finally made him mad of rage.

– Well, where are you?! A bit afraid, eh?

The gates opened slowly, with a squeak. Two gatekeepers appeared in the clearance: two monks, alike as twins, both strapping, broad-shouldered, with their heads bluish because of daily shaving.

– Ha! – Golden Eel shouted with as much disdain as he could. – The sanctimonious swine is hiding behind the others' back! Oh indeed, these are the heroic monks! Well, come to me, I'll show you a pair of good tricks!

At that moment he has completely forgotten that he himself arrived here not at all for piety or for leaving the sorrowful world of vanity and mundane illusions; he was attracted merely by the glory of Shaolin as the birthplace of warrior arts, the pupils of which were famous throughout the world, from the Boshan peak in the East to the Western paradise of the lady Xiwangmu!

Cai the Baby Snake, evidently frightened, pulled at the Golden Eel's tunic sleeve for him to notice that the gatekeepers are approaching but the furious candidate was not scared by the fact at all.

As soon as the slow-walking guards went near to him Golden Eel took up demonstratively the position of "Little Black tiger", little known in the South provinces, and with an abrupt exhalation of air struck fiercely the nearest guard's belly.

– What's up with you? – asked the monk, quite surprised, looking at Golden Eel who was now jumping around, wailing and nursing his wrist, badly hurt. – Are you out of your wits?

– Oh, I know! – the second guard slapped himself on his shaven crown. – He's just showing you, reverend Jiao, the northern skills! Well, but I do remember... Yes, it is the "Lean, mangy tiger"... no, not "lean", simply "little"! Little and black! Exactly so! Little black tiger!

– Tiger? – the first monk was surprised beyond measure. – Little and black?! But I haven't heard about such creatures!

– They have everything there in the North. They call it ferret. It is little, black and very fierce, no tiger would equal it!

The first monk shook his head doubtfully, grabbed Golden Eel's by the collar and dragged him to the stairs in about ten feet from the gate.

They were not too high, these stairs, not more than fifty steps.

Golden Eel knew their number for sure.

When you strike your head at each of the steps it's hard to be mistaken in counting them.

Other candidates watched the process in perfect silence, not considering the rumbling of seven stomachs: nobody has supplied the unhappy lads with food during the week of waiting, so they had to be content with what they had brought with them, and those who hadn't cared for provisions in advance could only sustain their existence by collecting berries and edible roots in the vicinities.

A whole week of half-starving is not an easy thing indeed...

Having fulfilled their task the monk guards disappeared behind the wall leaving the gate opened.

– What if I try to have a look? – said Baby Snake to himself but changed his mind at once: you peep in and those guards would throw you down the stairs topsy-turvy!

It was about noon when the glossy face of a guard appeared again in the clearance between the gate shutters.