My mother wove a shirt for me. It was red, the most expensive dye, with delicate braids around the edge of twined cord, twisted with five colours. It was the most beautiful garment I had ever been given. She watched me put it on and kissed me.
‘Go down into the town, now, Udam, my son, and find your heart’s friend,’ she told me. ‘With my blessings.’
Our town is carved out of red sandstone, curving back into the cliffs of Heavenly Peace. We hold three festivals in the year: spring, when the new vegetables are springing up; summer, when the water dwindles and many come to our river from far away; and autumn, when beasts which cannot be over-wintered are sold for slaughter, and there is a great pickling and salting and preparing for the deep cold. It is said that when the great waterfall freezes over, the very depths of winter, one standing by a certain rock can hear ancestral voices, and they will prophesy. I had done so, clinging to the icy rock with mittened fingers, my deerhide boots slipping, and heard only one voice, and only one word: Taaraka, which means, star. I took my word back to the women at the loom, the spinners and the stitchers, but they could not interpret it for me. And if those who spin, weave and cut cannot tell what my word means, how could I?
Once in their lives, each person in Dun Huang goes to the Festival of the Autumn Moon to find a heart’s friend. Not just a lover, but one who knows their secret soul. Sometimes not a lover at all. My mother’s heart’s friend is a woman. They are closer than flesh and bone. The names usually match in some way. My mother’s name is Pulwar, which is fire, and her friend is Kwon, which means dog - and a dog lies happily in front of a fire. My name means solemn or distant. I could not imagine who might be my match. I never met anyone called tired, or bored, or sleepy. And I didn’t think it likely that my quest would involve stars.
But I had a new red shirt to give me confidence, and several bronze tokens to buy little treats, and a load of fine-woven fabrics to sell. So down into the town went Udam the solemn one, leading our donkey loaded with the folded garments. They were of all colours, precious and beautiful, but I was wearing the only red shirt.
I love the autumn market. It is loud with music and voices and the braying of beasts. I threaded my way through the people until I came to my usual pitch, a covered laneway next to S’issk, who sold all manner of bread, each loaf stamped with his lion token. I unloaded and laid out my fabrics, then spent one of my bronze tokens on a honey cake, which I shared with Yakwe, the donkey.
‘Come buy!’ I shouted into the noise. ‘Come buy fine fabrics made by Pulwar the Weaver! Stout thread, clean edges, fine wool, artistic design! Blankets to keep you warm! Fine shirts to please your lover’s eyes! Come buy! Come buy!’
As usual, I did brisk trade. I had only one blanket left and had traded for a load of melons, a lot of fine pottery, a side of pork, a new knife and eight sacks of birds’ feathers for stuffing cushions and quilts. I loaded Yakwe with the proceeds and directed the melon seller to carry most of my purchases and his fruit up the hill to my mother’s house. Then I draped the blanket over my shoulders and told the donkey to go home. She went, little hoofs clicking, eager for the dried fruit-loaf which was Mother’s reward for a diligent animal.
Now I was free to walk around the festival. I looked carefully at each girl as she passed. We do not sequester women as the foolish inland tribes do, expecting slave wombs to breed free folk. Besides, our city lives by trade and women make the most valuable trade goods. We can always trade their fine fabrics. We also have a modest hill of water-polished jade, by which we can obtain grain and metals from other kingdoms. I myself was apprenticed to a jade carver, for we could sell worked jade for ten times the value of the raw stone.
In my red shirt, I attracted glances, smiles, but no one stopped me in my tracks in the way that a heart’s friend was supposed to. I greeted several people I knew, bowed politely to the Master of the City who was feeding his little daughter on S’issk’s honey cake, reminded another trader about pickling salt which was due to be delivered on the morrow, for the beginning of the preserving of winter food. I foresaw that I was going to spend the morrow chopping.
Just as the sun was westering, making the hill of red sandstone glow like a ruby, I heard a child crying and turned to look. I was in the beast market by then. Beasts were being farewelled by their owners. The most valuable of the herds were fed over the winter on stored hay. The least valuable were to be sold for slaughter. A girl child, her arms firmly around the neck of an old donkey, was weeping as though her heart was broken.
‘No, no, he won’t be sold, he won’t,’ she wailed. ‘Not Pracer, not Pracer!’
The trader who was about to sell the donkey for one second rate felt rug, looked ashamed, and slapped at the child’s head.
‘Be silent, daughter, I can’t feed him, he’s almost too old to work,’ he snapped.
While this was very sad, it happened all the time in autumn. I, however, blanket over shoulder, was riveted, nailed to the market, by a young man who caught my eye and then stared at me as though he had never seen such a fascinating thing before. No one had ever looked at me like that. He had hair as red as copper, pale skin coloured now by a blush rising to his cheeks, a strong bony face of exceptional beauty, and he was moving towards me, taking my hand, actually touching me. We were of an exact height.
I felt my heart pulse in my breast, as though it was trying to leap out and burrow into his chest. ‘Oh, my heart’s friend, there you are,’ he said. ‘I knew you would come.’
Then he kissed me, firmly, decisively, and I kissed him back after a stunned moment in which I felt sure that I had died of joy and just not noticed it yet.
‘That’s Pulwar’s weaving, isn’t it?’ he asked. ‘Will you give it to me?’
I unshipped the blanket and my lover shook it out, exhibiting it to the trader.
‘Here we have,’ he said in a carrying huckster’s voice very similar to mine, ‘An exquisite blanket made by the great weaver Pulwar! Strong, even, expertly dyed; the colour alone is enough to keep you warm! What am I offered for this fine blanket?’
The trader shook his head. That blanket was worth three young donkeys. The child, who was going to be a great woman when she grew up, fell silent, perceiving that my heart’s friend had her welfare in mind. She made no protest when my friend took Pracer’s headband in token of trade and wrapped the blanket around the child’s shoulders. She stood proudly under the weight. Ah, yes, she would be a princess when she grew taller.
‘Trade,’ said her father. My love put the halter into the girl child’s hands.
‘He is yours now,’ he told her. ‘And the price of your blanket should keep everyone fed and warm in the deep cold.’
The donkey nosed the girl. She looked hard at my love and told him
‘I will remember you,’ before she gave the blanket to her father and, with a quick wriggle which showed her little deerhide boots and linen trousers, mounted the donkey.
She rode Pracer away to the cloth market to sell the blanket, her father trotting, perforce, behind her. That man did not yet appreciate what power he was nurturing in his house. Though he might have a faint idea by the time he got to the cloth market.
‘You have made a powerful friend,’ I said to him. ‘I suspect she might easily be an avatar of the Goddess.’
‘I would not start our lives together with weeping and sorrow,’ he said to me, embracing me. ‘And I will work or barter for the blanket. My love,’ he said, and kissed me again.
‘My name is Uman,’ I said, coming up for air. ‘You have my heart.’
‘My name is Taaraka,’ he said, as I knew he would. ‘You have mine.’
‘We are Distant Star. Come home with me,’ I took his hand. ‘The only way we will be able to pay for that blanket is to work for it. The rest of our lives, my poor sweet man, will be filled with chopping and peeling and pickling.’
‘I am a dyer,’ said my star. ‘Perhaps that skill might suffice. But I would chop and pickle and labour for all my days, as long as I can do it with you.’
‘Why did I catch your eye?’ I asked, as we walked up the long paved way into the city. I had walked down so sadly. Now I was dancing back with a heart lighter than it had ever been.
‘Why, I made the dye,’ he said, smiling. ‘That coloured your beautiful red shirt.’