Taming Poison Dragons Read Free

storm passes.
    I decide to walk to the lowest pasture of our winding valley. There the Western Highway passes, and I would be sure to meet him.
    Daughter-in-law labours to persuade me I must travel in the family litter. I reply that an old man has earned his eccentricities. Besides, my legs, though unattractive and knobbly, are stronger than a frog’s. Her concern has little to do with my health. She would consider it a great dishonour if I met our noble guest on foot, like a peasant.
    How little she understands men of our kind. It is true P’ei Ti always cared for display more than I, though that is another matter.
    I finally agree to be escorted by my grandsons. We proceed through the village and people leave their houses to make obeisance. There are a hundred families and as many wooden houses in Wei Village, a few roofed with red tiles, most thatched with reeds. The lanes and streets are muddy at this time of year; they smell of dung, damp straw and chicken-droppings.
    I instruct my grandsons to offer a present of rice to a widow. She lines up her children with their foreheads pressed to the wet ground, though I urge her to rise. Wudi rushes out of his courtyard as I pass and begs to accompany me. A refusal would humiliate him. He suggests I take a cup of wine so that his wife has time to prepare a basket of food.
    ‘You are kind,’ I say. ‘But I am impatient to meet my friend. Why not send your sons after us when the basket is prepared?’
    So my quiet walk turns into a procession. There’s no help for it. One cannot clap with one hand. I lead, and my followers come a few yards behind, talking softly among themselves.
    We pass hillsides lined with spruce and maple, dense thickets of fern. This early in the year, spring is more a promise than delight. Two troops of monkeys squabble for possession of a plum grove and we laugh at their antics. When I look back, the village is framed by mountains and peaks capped with white cloud. I gaze for a while, leaning on my stick.
    Wudi’s sons run up with laden baskets, panting like horses. A wry smile takes shape in my soul. I wouldn’t be ashamed to meet P’ei Ti now, with grandsons and loyal servants around me. He might see I have not entirely frittered my early promise. Still I fear he might find me ridiculous, attended by bumpkins.
    Disagreeable thoughts.
    We reach the lowest pasture, the border of my land.
    Here, beside the High Road, the river forms a small lake called Mallow Flower Marsh. Wudi and his sons gather sticks for a fire to boil water and heat wine, using my excursion as a holiday. Grandsons play wrestling games and for a while I am forgotten.
    I follow the lake’s rim through a path lined with reeds.
    The earth smells of rotting things. Ripples flow toward the shore, stirring lily pads where insects flit. Turning a corner, I halt. And stare.
    Deserters. Such they plainly are. Three dog-thin men crouching in a hollow by the lake, leather armour caked with mud, uniforms like tattered flags.
    For a surprised moment we consider each other. My heart races. Desperate men, their hides not worth a grain of millet if caught. Hands reach for swords. Their hollow eyes strip me bare – the purse on my girdle, silk gown and boots – I might feed them for a month.
    The reeds murmur and sigh in the wind. One of the deserters steps toward me, looking round nervously.
    Another follows. Then the third.
    ‘Hey!’ he calls. ‘Old man!’
    I back away.
    ‘Don’t make trouble, if you know what’s good for you!’
    A small stream surrounded by black, peaty earth lies between us. It might delay them for a moment, no more.
    ‘I am not alone,’ I call out. ‘My friends are near.’
    At this they pause, listen. I take two steps back. The leader curses, then rushes forward, his feet sinking in the bog. I wheel and stumble up the path. Hopeless flight! They are a third my age. I gain ten paces before they appear on the path behind me. Now they have sure footing and reach