Chapter 4

Face to the Sun was the most southerly city in the Good Land, the largest in Dongguan Province, and the greatest port in the world. From dawn to curfew, its streets were rivers of people: rapids of darting pickpockets, pools of plodding porters, whirlpools of babbling beggars, peddlers offering trinkets and snacks, stinking night-soil collectors, itinerant barbers, fortune-tellers, astrologers, cobblers, rag merchants, harlots, and thousands more. Wagons, rickshaws, mule trains, palanquins, and overburdened camels came swirling along like logs in the torrent; barrows and stalls constricted the flow like rocks. Shouts and curses mingled with the sound of pipes, gongs, and bells in a deafening clamor.

Through all this reeking confusion, the esteemed and learned Mountain Water, mandarin of the second rank, was being transported in his painted cart. He had two carriers in tandem to pull it, a gong beater and two guards out in front to clear the way, two secretaries trotting behind. Mountain Water was an extremely important man, senior deputy to the city governor. Being late for his luncheon of rice and fish sauce, he had ordered maximum speed, but that was barely faster than a walk in the noontime turmoil, no matter how eagerly his gong beater gonged or his guards wielded their bamboo rods.

As his guards were bracing themselves to fight their way through the absurdly narrow Gate of Prosperity that led into Celestial Vista Square, a gunshot rang out ahead of them. Then another. Then three in quick succession.

Firearms were tightly controlled in the Good Land, but apparently people knew them from fireworks. The crowd in front surged back like a tidal wave. A great mob rushed away from the gate, trampling all before it. Screams of terror drowned out all the other mingled dins. Children seemed to fly through the air. Mountain Water’s entourage was forced to a halt, and his guards found themselves in a real battle. Switching from flicks of their rods to vicious head strokes, they fought to protect their master from being overrun by the human avalanche.

“Floor them!” the senior guard barked and his helper obeyed, taking a two-handed grip on his bamboo and striking to hurt. In a few moments, they had felled a dozen or so semiconscious men and women to provide a barricade. Latecomers tripped over them and were struck down to add to the heap. Mountain Water was a very important personage and must be protected.

The flow faltered and the noise level dropped.

“Senior guard!” Mountain Water shouted.

Man Valor turned and squeezed his way back along the shafts, past the terrified gong beater and the panting bearers.

“Most Honored Master, we should be on our way again in just a—”

“No, no! I want to know what is going on and who is firing guns. You go and investigate and hurry right back here.” Truth be told, Mandarin of the Second Rank Mountain Water looked almost as frightened as his gong beater. More, even.

Man Valor saluted and retraced his steps to the front. The crowd had gone and most members of the human barricade were already back on their feet. Some had limped away, some were still lying injured, but he pushed his way through and trotted along to the Gate of Prosperity. The immediate area of Celestial Vista Square was deserted, as he had never seen it, but an immense crowd had gathered in the center. Drums were beating. A gang of young men there had erected a human pyramid, as if they were celebrating a festival day, and even as he watched, another acrobat shot up from the midst of the crowd and added himself to the top. The onlookers roared approval.

Then there was another shot. And another roar of approval.

Man Valor had no idea what to make of this.

He started to run. His master would want a complete report.

Man Valor’s father had been a soldier, leader of a hundred. He had named his firstborn Man Valor because, as he had explained to the boy when he was old enough to understand, valor defines a man. A man without valor is useless. A man may be strong or clever, but if he is not valorous, he is dirt. Man Valor could barely remember his father, but he remembered that.

When he was ten, the honored governor had sent ships to destroy a nest of wicked pirates and Man Valor’s father had died bravely. Man Valor, escorted by his mother, had gone to the governor’s palace to receive a small bag, which he had been told contained his father’s ashes. He had thus become head of the family, responsible for his mother and sisters.

He had been working like a man ever since. He had done many things, some not very honorable but necessary. He had been a runner and grown nimble. Working in the docks had made him strong. Eventually, some approving ancestor had sent him a job as one of the honorable Mountain Water’s personal guards. Now he was chief guard and twenty-four years old. His sisters were married off at last, his mother did not have to work quite as hard as she used to, and he was thinking of taking a wife.

He arrived at the back of the big crowd. He could hear drums and shengs and men singing. The pyramid had added more men—lithe young men, bare-chested, wearing only cotton trousers and green headbands. The crowd was chanting a name: Bamboo! Bamboo! Bamboo!

Man Valor pushed into the crowd. He was not tall, but he was strong and his tunic would not close around a tea bale. He went through the people like a boat through reeds and no one tried to stop him. He reached the front just in time to watch the human pyramid dismantle, its parts dropping nimbly to the ground, landing on bare feet in perfect formation. The drums thundered and he joined in the crowd’s wild cheers. He had always adored watching acrobats; as a child, his fondest dream had been of being one.

There was much more going on—acrobats running, leaping, vaulting over one another, or turning somersaults in midair; singers and musicians; and dozens more men in the same unbleached cotton trousers and green headbands, holding back the crowd with bamboo staves heavier than the one he carried. There must be more than a hundred of them, possibly two hundred. Who were these people and where had they come from?

Remembering that he had come to find out who was using firearms, Man Valor grabbed a spectator beside him, obviously a porter, for he had a pack by his feet. “Who are these men?”

The porter glanced angrily around, recognized Man Valor’s tunic as the governor’s livery, and flinched. “I do not know, Guardsman.”

“They are the Bamboo Banner!” said a woman with a child on her hip. “From up-country.”

“Who are the Bamboo Banner? Who leads them? What—”

The porter snapped, “Watch!” He pointed to where a band of drummers was beating a wild tattoo, rising to a climax, turning all heads. One of the Bamboo Banner men was prancing around in the open space, arms wide, drawing attention to himself. Another watching him held a gun at his side, butt on the ground.

Satisfied that he had the crowd’s attention, the first man stopped prancing, turned to face the gunman at a range of four or five paces, and spread out his arms. The other went down on one knee and raised the gun to his shoulder. It looked like a modern rifle. Man Valor shouted, “No!” and a few other spectators also cried out. But most did not. They had seen this done already.

The gunman fired. Crack! His victim staggered as if he had been punched, but he did not fall. He laughed and spun around, showing that he was unhurt. The crowd roared.

“How do they do that?” Man Valor yelled. He meant to ask the porter, but one of the Bamboo Banner crowd controllers had noticed his livery and was suddenly there.

He was young, tall, and bony, with close-cropped hair and very bright eyes under his green headband. He held his staff horizontally with both hands, as if about to push Man Valor backward. But he was grinning, showing a broken tooth.

“Heaven preserves us, Guardsman! You want to see? Hit me!”

Suspecting a trap, Man Valor leaned on his own staff and said, “Why should I hit you?”

“Because you cannot hurt me. Go ahead. Hit me with your stick, anywhere you want.” His grin grew even wider. “Except between the legs. I am not senior enough to take that one yet.”

This was a trap. The kid had some pink welts across his chest, but he would not be so amused if Man Valor broke a few ribs for him and he had a lot of friends handy.

“No.”

“A coward!” the boy said with disgust. “Here!” He held out his bamboo rod to the porter. “You hit me. Hit me hard.”

The porter shook his head, snatched up his pack, and backed away into the crowd.

“Are there no real men in this city?” the boy wailed.

“There are now!” said one of his comrades, arriving at the scene. He was older and heavier; he was also the one who had just been shot and ought to be dead. “Front or back, Leaping Serpent?”

“Both!” Leaping Serpent said. He turned sideways and hunched his shoulders, bending slightly. The other man raised his stick overhead and brought it down two-handed across his victim’s shoulders with a crack that made Man Valor wince and several of the spectators cry out, as if they had felt the blow themselves. It certainly looked genuine, but the youth hardly reacted at all.

He straightened and put his staff behind him. “Again!”

The strike came sideways this time, whistling like a sword cut, and took him full across the chest. He staggered backward a step and Man Valor thought he saw a wince, but it was gone in an instant. The blow should have laid him flat on his back.

“Now will you hit me?” Leaping Serpent asked him mockingly.

The acrobats were building their pyramid again, but Man Valor had to deal first with this inexplicably indestructible youngster. “With my own stick?”

“Certainly.” No hesitation.

“Then hold out your arm and I’ll break it for you.”

At once, Leaping Serpent extended his right arm to the side. “Hard as you can.”

Man Valor looked warily at the other man.

He nodded. “Go ahead. Heaven preserves us because we serve the Good Land. Serpent is far along in his studies. You cannot hurt him.”

Man Valor raised his staff two-handed and brought it down on the boy’s forearm as hard as he could. The arm moved, of course, but there was no trickery. He both felt and heard the impact.

Leaping Serpent said, “Thank you! Not a bad smack.” He wiggled his fingers to show that he had taken no hurt. “Will you let me do the same for you?”

Man Valor’s tunic was thickly padded to protect his arm, but he shook his head. He could not work if his arm was broken; he needed wages to eat.

The crowd was applauding the acrobats. He looked to see how the pyramid was coming along.

“Why not?” asked the older man, stepping close. His eyes were as bright as the boy’s under thick dark brows. “Are you afraid of being hurt?”

“Yes.” And if he did not get back to report to his master very soon, he was going to be hurt with a whip.

“We are not afraid of anything. We follow the Bamboo Banner and no man can hurt us.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You don’t trust your own eyes? You saw me shot? A big strong man like you cannot break a boy’s arm?” He lowered his voice and moved his face very close to Man Valor’s. “I am Chestnut River, patriot of the third proving, of the Pearl Army.”

“I am Chief Guardsman Man Valor.”

Chestnut River raised bushy eyebrows at the inappropriateness of that name. “The Emperor is dead.” His breath bore a sweet smell of spices and his teeth had a green stain on them.

Sweat! Here was treason! “No! Not true! Long live the Emperor!”

Chestnut River nodded solemnly. “The palace lies to us. The Good Land is being ruled by a woman! Do you wonder that Heaven is enraged? That we have storms and floods and terrible omens? We must restore the Golden Throne. Bamboo himself leads us.”

Man Valor just gaped at him. Men who could not be hurt? The urgency of the drums seemed to have merged with his heartbeat, filling him with a strange, confusing insistency. He was shaking. The pyramid was four men high now and obviously heading higher still.

Chestnut River took his arm in a grip whose power was appreciable even through the armor padding. “Come with us, Man Valor. Follow Bamboo; follow the Bamboo Banner. We will have you as top man of a pile like that one inside two weeks. In three months, you will laugh at blows and bullets and sword cuts. Join us!”

“My master … I must go and explain first and then—”

“No, you must come now.” Already Chestnut River was leading him across the square and he was putting up no resistance. Leaping Serpent strode along on his other side, grinning joyfully.

“But my mother …”

“No one may turn back when he has taken the first step. Do you need to prove it with a gun? I will gladly let you try to shoot me, but it will do no good, as you saw. Bamboo had made us invincible. Will you be one of us, Man Valor? Are you worthy of that name you bear?”

Man Valor kept on walking.