Sandalwood Death: A Novel (Chinese Literature Today Book Series)

blood, like newly pressed oil, streamed from a hole in his back. I stood there, not knowing what to do, when a hand reached out and pulled me off the path, just in time for me to see soldiers run down the path past me.
    I had been saved by the County Magistrate’s wife, who quickly led me into a private room in the Eastern Parlor, where she removed my straw hat and stripped the tattered jacket off me, rolling it into a ball and tossing it out a rear window. Then she shoved me down onto the four-poster bed and under the covers. Next she lowered the silk drapes on both sides of the bed, with her on one side and me on the other, in total darkness.
    I heard the loud voices of soldiers, who were now in the rear garden. Raucous human noise rose everywhere—the garden’s front and rear paths, the compounds fronting the two main halls, and the side courtyards. Then the moment I’d feared arrived: the pounding of footsteps had reached the Eastern Parlor courtyard. “Commander,” someone said, “these are the Magistrate’s private quarters.” The next sound I heard was that of a whip landing on someone’s back. The drape was pulled back, and a scantily clad, chilled body slipped into my bed and pressed up against me. It was, of course, the Magistrate’s wife, the body my lover had once embraced. There was a knock at the door; the knock then became a pounding. We held each other tight, and though I could tell she was trembling, I knew that I was more frightened than she. The door flew open; she pushed me to the far side of the bed and covered me from head to toe before parting the drape. Her hair was a mess, I assumed; she was dressed for bed, and she must have looked like someone who has been startled out of a deep sleep.
    “First Lady,” a coarse voice said, “we have been ordered by Excellency Yuan to search for an assassin!”
    With a sarcastic little laugh, she said:
    “Back when my great-grandfather Zeng Guofan led soldiers into battle, Commander, he had one inviolable rule to maintain discipline and preserve the cardinal guides and constant virtues, and that was, no soldier was permitted to enter women’s chambers. Apparently the New Army personally trained by Yuan Shikai, Excellency Yuan, has no use for that rule.”
    “Your humble servant would not dare offend Your Ladyship!”
    “What does daring or not have to do with anything? And what do you mean, offend me? You search what you wish and see what you want. You people have already destroyed the revered Zeng family name, with no voice at the court, and you take your puffed-up courage from that fact.”
    “Those are harsh words, Your Ladyship. Your humble servant is only a soldier who obeys his superior’s orders.”
    “Then go tell Yuan Shikai that I want to know if it is acceptable for soldiers to break into women’s quarters in the middle of the night, humiliating their occupants and besmirching their virtuous good name. Is Yuan Shikai an official of the Great Qing Dynasty or isn’t he? Does he have no womenfolk of his own? A popular adage has it that ‘A warrior can be killed but not dishonored; a woman can die but not be defiled.’ I shall let my death stand in opposition against Yuan Shikai!”
    Just then a flurry of footsteps sounded outside the door.
    “The Magistrate is here,” someone whispered.
    The First Lady burst into tears.
    The Magistrate came through the door and, in a voice quivering with emotion, said:
    “Dear wife, I am a worthless man for letting them give you such a fright!”
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    4
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    Once the commander and his troops were scolded out of the room, the door was shut, and the candle extinguished, I climbed out of the Magistrate’s bed, with moonlight filtering in through the window lattice, lighting up part of the room and leaving the rest in darkness.
    “I thank Your Ladyship for saving me from certain death,” I said softly. “If there is another life after this one, I hope I can return to serve you, even as a beast of burden!”
    I turned to leave, but she stopped me by tugging on my sleeve. I saw a glimmer in her eyes and detected the subtle fragrance of cassia on her body. That took my thoughts back to the cassia tree that stood tall in the courtyard of the Third Hall. The Mid-Autumn Festival was a time when the perfume of cassia blossoms filled the air, and the County Magistrate and his wife ought to be enjoying a shared drink and the beauty of a full moon. I knew I was not fated to share