Jade Maiden 1.4

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[continuing chapter 1]

From the courtyard came the sound of battle, or at least a vigorous domestic dispute.  After several seconds of this a soldier bounced into the courtroom, blood streaming from his nose.  "Excellency!" he shouted.  "We've caught him!  We've brought him here for you!"  The man straightened himself, smiling as proudly as was possible given the red stream gushing from his nostrils.

"Out of my court!" Magistrate Li shouted.  "Clean yourself before you defile my—wait.  You've caught whom?"

"Chin Gwai, excellency!  We've captured Chin Gwai for you!"

Jade Maiden 1.3

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[continuing chapter 1]

"Why are you just sitting there?"  Wen started, then struggled to maintain his balance.  "You've just been sentenced to death, and probably unjustly so.  You duty to us requires you to prevent this sentence from being carried out."

My duty to myself requires that I prevent this, Wen thought.  Slowly he turned his head to the right.  He saw nobody, or at least nobody close enough to have spoken to him.  The peasant picking his nose with such care definitely couldn't have spoken.  It hadn't been Grandfather, either; the voice was wrong, even if the invisibility thing fit.

There are other ghosts here?  The voice, Wen realized, had seemed to come from every direction—and none.  "You," the strange voice added, "continue to be a great disappointment."  Suddenly Wen felt a stinging slap on the back of the head, somehow without actually feeling anything.  And then he saw the old man.  Yes, he thought, another ghost.  This is an unfortunate habit to be starting, at any time of one's life.

Even if it hadn't been for the unworldly voice and the slap-that-wasn't, Wen would have known he was looking at a spirit.  The old man's robe looked like a scholar's robe, but the patterns and even the colors ran away and hid whenever Wen tried to look at them, leaving only smoky shadows of what they might have been.  The man's face began with an angry pair of silkworm eyebrows and scowled its way down to a long, scraggly beard that suggested sun-bleached seaweed.

"I'm sorry," he said to the ghost, pitching his voice as softly as he could.  "I'm not exactly in a position to do much about this just now.  I'm working on a plan, though."

"You should speak to me with more respect, no matter what position you think you're in!"

"More respect?  Who are you?"

Wen felt another blow to the head.  The invisible hand behind it had given a distinct sense of boniness.  "I am your Number One Grandfather, you wretch!"

"My what?"

"Don't take that tone with me, you irresponsible disappointment," said the scraggy ghost, now in front of him, semi-translucent but still nasty.  "I am your Number One Grandfather and founder of the family.  Your should not be letting yourself be executed: you should be preparing yourself for the  job you are about to inherit."

"Inherit?"  Wen stared at the ghost—realizing, as he did so, that the effect had him staring through the ghost and straight into the angry eyes of the magistrate.  "I'm not going to inherit anything," he said.  "And that's the way I like it.  I don't want to be beholden to anybody!"  Number One Grandfather's beard, Wen noted, was as dry, thin and gray-green as the dying fronds of a coconut tree.

Wen stopped.  It had suddenly become very quiet in the courtroom. The magistrate eyes flickered with something dark and extremely malevolent.  Everyone else was staring at him.  "Why can't you all just leave me alone?" he asked none of them and all of them.  "And why can't I have a drink?"

"Do I have any other cases this morning?"  Li asked his clerk with careful, casual disdain.  "If not I should like to watch this execution.  I have grown quite tired of having to deal with this irresponsible young man."

I'm getting tired of being called "irresponsible," Wen thought.  Especially since it seems to mean nothing more than that I don't want to do what you want me to do.  Ghosts and magistrates, he thought: I'm tired of them all.

"There are no other cases, sir," the clerk said.  "Shall I—"

At that moment another case was added to the docket.

Next    Prologue    Chapter 1

Jade Maiden 1.2

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[continuing chapter 1]

"I was not cutting at anything."  I was trying to loosen the knot.  "In fact, I don't even own a knife.  The knife you have been given is the one your guards tucked into my sleeve when they arrested me."

"You were not invited to speak, wretch."  Li nodded and one of the men behind Wen fetched him a solid blow to the shoulder blades.  Wen fell over again, bruising the other shoulder.  He stayed on the floor this time, unmoving, until Li said, "Oh, for heaven's sake.  Somebody untie his wrists so he can adopt the proper posture before me.  I won't be able to hear him if he's on his face that way."  To his credit, the guard hesitated a moment before pulling Wen back into a kneeling posture and removing the cords from around his wrists.  I wouldn't have untied me either, Wen thought.

"Now," Li said, "since there is no need to hear any further evidence in this case, I will pass sentence.  Wen Xia, it is the opinion of this court that you are an irredeemable person, and that the principality of Fusang only suffers by your continued presence within our borders."  Exile? thought Wen.  I could stand exile, I think.  "Therefore I sentence you to death, sentence to be performed immediately.  As you are the son of an educated man and your father once held a clerkship in this city, I will grant you the clemency of beheading rather than boiling."

You probably really do think you're doing me a favor, Wen thought.  But that was in keeping with everything Wen had learned about the magistrate.  Sentencing a man to death for fondling a lantern was stupid enough, but no doubt there was a precedent for it somewhere, and if there was Li would know about it.  Likewise there must be some quirk of the law that allowed Magistrate Li to circumvent the requirement that all death sentences be reviewed and approved by the regent; that, or there was something that Li could turn into a suitable exemption.

The fact that the magistrate had so carefully refrained from even mentioning the true reason he had had Wen arrested told him all he needed to know about the man.  Li would no doubt never admit to anyone what had really happened.  It wouldn't look good if anyone knew; it would reflect badly on his honor as a magistrate.

Next    Prologue    Chapter 1

Jade Maiden 1.1

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CHAPTER 1

It was a beautiful day: a sky of clear blue with just enough cloud to show you how blue it really was, just enough wind to move those clouds from time to time, and temperatures just mild enough to make the clothing you wore feel exactly right.

There were only two things wrong with the day, Wen thought.  The lesser of these was that it almost exactly like every other day in the south of Fusang.  This was boring; the north may have been cool and rainy but at least you could tell one day from another.

The greater of these was that it looked very much like being Wen's last day.  This was—well, he wouldn't admit to being terrified, but it certainly wasn't good.

Jade Maiden 0.1

THE JADE MAIDEN

by Michael Skeet

PROLOGUE

Wen Xia stared at the old man.  When the man lifted his eyebrows slightly, Wen bowed his head.  "My apologies," he said.  "It's just that I didn't see you come in."  He gestured at the locked cell door, beyond where the old man stood, then looked around him as if to emphasize just how small this cell was.  "But beside that," Wen said, "it's just that you look very much the way I remember my grandfather."

"I should hope so," the old man said.  "I am your grandfather."

Introducing "The Jade Maiden"

The next story to come out of the catalogue of the Herridge Lake Public Library is the result of an experiment I ran a few years ago. I wanted to see if I could write the first draft of an entire novel during a single fortnight.

Success, of a sort, crowned my effort: I did indeed write the whole first draft inside the space of two weeks. (And that was when I was still gainfully employed, I might add: the two weeks in question were my summer vacation, not that writing five thousand words a day* was all that relaxing.)

The inspiration for the book was Barry Hughart's incomparable (so I didn't even try) Bridge of Birds, "A novel of an ancient China that never was." In the background was my own love of alternate history: the story takes place in a fantasy version of a California (that never was) settled by Chinese sent abroad by the Ming. (I highly recommend When China Ruled the Seas, by Louise Levathes if you didn't already know about the enormous ocean-going ships of Zheng He.) I suppose this could be called an orientalist or chinoiserie novel (see also Ernest Bramagh) but for me it was just a story I wanted to tell, about a clever thief-turned pirate who goes to hell. All of them.

The story starts on Monday, 27 July 2020.

*The first draft, then, worked out to roughly 60,000 words, which is definitely on the short side for a novel. I rather liked that effect, though, and wish I could do it again. The final draft of The Jade Maiden wound up being just under 75,000 words long. Still a short novel when compared with some of the doorstops in our library, but longer than I'd wanted.

Sowing Ghosts Glossary 4

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This is the final listing of the Japanese words for objects/titles used in the novel. (Yeah, I rather stretched this out. No, you wouldn't have enjoyed me dumping it all on you at once.)

Tomorrow, if you're still with me, we'll start something new. In the meantime, on to entries for S-Z (well, Y if we're being picky).

Sowing Ghosts Glossary 3

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Today we list terms in the letter grouping K through R. A reminder: this is a list of Japanese words for some of the objects/titles for which I've used English translations in the novel itself.

As with previous items in the list, if you are interested in pronunciation of these words, this is a decent resource.

Sowing Ghosts Glossary 2

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Today's list of the Japanese words for certain objects/titles used in Sowing Ghosts covers words beginning D through J. Once again, if you are interested in pronunciation of these words, this is a decent resource.

A Reminder: Japanese grammar does not contain the notion of pluralization for nouns. The same word refers to both a single instance and multiple instances. So in the past Japan had one shōgun; in this story there are two shōgun.

Sowing Ghosts Glossary

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What follows is a list of Japanese words for some of the objects/titles used in the novel. I realize it's a bit late in the day to be posting this, at least for those of you who've already fought your way through it. But for a list this long, it's more or less traditional it come at the end.

And anyway, unless I figured a Japanese word was common enough in English that most readers would know it (shōgun, katana) I mostly used English translations anyway, to make it easier for readers (and for myself). This is especially true in terms of titles; see bugu bugyō, for instance: "arms master" is just easier for most of us.

This glossary will be posted over the next few days so as to not make something annoyingly long. If you are interested in pronunciation of these words, this is a decent resource. Today's list is a short one, covering words beginning with A through C.

Note: Japanese grammar does not contain the notion of pluralization for nouns. The same word refers to both a single instance and multiple instances. So in the past Japan had one shōgun; in this story there are two shōgun.

Sowing Ghosts: Life in the Capital

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AUTHOR'S NOTE

Life in the Capital
For most people in Kyoto (the inhabitants seldom called the city anything other than “the capital”), life was uncertain, whether they were aristocrats or labourers or even emperors. There was no law enforcement because there were no laws. (There were codes of conduct within samurai clans, but in the capital none was being enforced.) The population had crowded together into neighbourhoods enclosed by walls, or moated walls, such that as many as 150,000 people (or 75,000 or 100,000; nobody’s really sure) were crammed into half the original area of the city. Many streets in the occupied sections of the city were barricaded or gated, and the population, no matter how lowly their status, were more than prepared to defend themselves against warrior incursions.

Sowing Ghosts: Government

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AUTHOR'S NOTE

Government
The most important feature of life at this time was the absence of centralized government. This had a lot to do with a very Japanese approach to the wielding of power. Rather than take over an existing power structure, ambitious men (they were pretty much all men) would insert themselves into a position that was in theory subordinate to the person whose power they were assuming.

So: in theory the ruler of Japan was the emperor, the living representative of an unbroken lineage stretching back to Amaterasu Omikami, the sun-goddess.

But… the emperors, as a class, wielded ruling authority only for a few generations in the first millennium CE, and then their authority was supplanted by one or another aristocratic family, such as the Fujiwara. Instead of usurping the throne, these families took on such roles as regents, and married their daughters to emperors in order to control the throne without occupying it.

Sowing Ghosts: Sex and Sexuality

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AUTHOR'S NOTE

Sex and Sexuality
The Japanese attitude toward matters sexual was very different from that of the contemporary West. (It still is, to some extent.) One of the most obvious ways this difference is displayed is in the characters of Hosokawa Katsunata and his wakashū friend, Togashi Shokan. There was no prejudice against homosexuality or bisexuality in pre-modern Japan, and in some cases warrior men were encouraged to have affairs with younger companions. These affairs served a similar function that served by same-sex relations in classical Greece: the older man acted as a mentor—a very intimate mentor—to the younger. There wasn’t even much of a prejudice against those, like young Lord Hosokawa, who were exclusively homosexual. Heirs could be obtained through adoption, a practice followed by a good number of heterosexuals as well.

Sowing Ghosts: Religion

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AUTHOR'S NOTE

Religion
Most Japanese were Buddhist, but Buddhism was not a single thing, any more than was (or is) Christianity. The oldest schools of Japanese Buddhism date back to the seventh century and were centred in Nara, the ancient capital. A newer set of schools was based in the capital or on the great mountain, Hiei, just north and east of the capital; or in Kamakura in the east, the one-time capital of the Minamoto shogunate. These schools all began as monastic centers, whose monks sought enlightenment as they prayed (and sometimes fought) for the safety of the empire.

Sowing Ghosts: Society

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AUTHOR'S NOTE

Society
A lot of the things we think of when we think of pre-modern Japan are not part of Hiroki’s world. For example, there is no sushi here. And though the two meals of the day are called “morning rice” and “evening rice”, rice did not in fact feature much in the meals of all but the leading one percent of people. Boiled millet was much more likely, or noodles made of buckwheat or wheat flour. Hiroki and his companions are perhaps more fortunate than most in being able to eat the occasional piece of fresh or preserved fish. (But note that though most warriors were Buddhist they were not above hunting and consuming game.)

D (500)

We interrupt the current stream of sengoku jidai posts to announce that with this interruption Quipu reaches 500 posts. This isn't a huge number when set against some of the blogs I follow, but it's approximately 490 posts more than I was expecting to put up.

And no, I didn't know that "D" was Latin for 500 until I looked it up.

Sowing Ghosts: Author's Note

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AUTHOR'S NOTE

For more than a century, between 1467 and 1580 CE, Japan was convulsed by a chaotic period of civil war as the governing Ashikaga shogunate fell apart. This sengoku jidai (best translated as “period of the country at war”) is a tremendous source of stories. But it is also a risky period for writers and readers, because much of what we think we know about medieval Japan is not true for the sengoku.

Sowing Ghosts 18.6

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[concluding chapter 18... and the story]

“I’m going to miss that mansion,” Shiro said. “I wonder if Lord Tanuma employs anyone who would be able to make tatami. Those mats are amazingly comfortable.”

Ahead of them a troop of soldiers came to attention at the Kurama Barrier. Hiroki watched them more closely this morning than he had on his previous trip through the barrier, only a week or so before. I have learned much, he thought, and I don’t necessarily like all I have learned. Those warriors, for instance: they were not samurai; they were townspeople who worked for the neighbourhood-safety organizations. How had Katsumi put it? Something like, Soon there will be no point in you people coming back to the capital at all. The thought she might be correct was disconcerting. The world is disarranged enough as it is, without townspeople taking over control of the capital. What has happened to our leaders?

“We never did find out what was really expected of us where Yanagimoto is concerned,” Tetsuo said. “And if we were ever told to fight the man, nobody has passed that order on to me.”

“I don’t know that Yanagimoto had anything to do with what happened to us,” Hiroki said. “As for our fighting for — or against — any of the factions in the capital, I don’t believe anyone in the capital is organized well enough anymore to command Lord Tanuma — or anyone else in the provinces.”

One man is well-enough organized, he realized, and that’s Miyoshi Motonaga. The one who seems to enjoy working with men from the provinces, who keeps himself outside the capital. Hiroki wanted to believe that Miyoshi Motonaga was just another ambitious samurai leading yet another faction fighting for Kyoto. But is he really? Something about him is very different. And though he could have given us much more trouble than he did, yet he is leaving us alone. Why?

You’ll want to learn everything you can about that man, Hiroki told himself.

“Just as well,” Shiro said. “We’re going to be busy enough this spring and summer just defeating all of Lord Tanuma’s enemies in Kozuke. We won’t have time to worry about the capital, next year or any year.”

“There will be time enough to worry about Lord Tanuma’s enemies in Kozuke,” Hiroki told them, “once we have safely got back to Kozuke. One task at a time, gentlemen.”

Pausing to let Lords Naitō and Matsukata, the servants and their baggage catch up, Hiroki, head held high, led them through the barrier.

They began to climb the north-eastern hills, leaving the smell of wood-smoke behind them.

THE END

Next    Characters    Chapter 1    Chapter 2    Chapter 3    Chapter 4    Chapter 5    Chapter 6
Chapter 7    Chapter 8    Chapter 9    Chapter 10    Chapter 11    Chapter 12    Chapter 13    Chapter 14
Chapter 15    Chapter 16    Chapter 17    Chapter 18

Sowing Ghosts 18.5

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[continuing chapter 18]

Katsumi lay on her side, one hand propping up her head while the other traced the characters in the book she was reading. Hiroki, standing in the doorway to her room, saw sweat beading on her forehead and said to himself, Increase the dosage in her medicine tonight. The wound isn’t healing quickly enough.

“I am sorry to see you still in pain,” he told her.

“I have an enormous hole in my leg,” she said. “Of course I’m still in pain.” She took a deep breath. “I am sure I will still be in pain long after you have left the city.”

Sowing Ghosts 18.4

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[continuing chapter 18]

He had eaten a bowl of millet porridge with pickled vegetables, and then a bowl of noodles in broth, and drunk several cups of tea, and now Hiroki sat, reclining slightly, in the mansion’s great bath. His knee heartily approved of the heat and moisture, and it was possible now for him to believe he would be comfortable on horseback for however long it took to return to Kozuke.

“I always feel a bit strange conversing with someone in the bath,” Lord Hosokawa said from the doorway. “My ancestor Masamoto was murdered in his bath, you know.”

“I know,” Hiroki said. “I remember being told about it.” He nodded for Lord Hosokawa to sit anywhere he could be comfortable. “I will trust you, having no real choice in the matter.”

Sowing Ghosts 18.3

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[continuing chapter 18]

“What’s the hour?” Hiroki stretched, sucking in a breath as his knee protested, and pulled the upper futon right up to his chin.

“The horse, sir,” Jiro said. “Practically mid-day. Should I have woke you earlier?”

“No, and I’m glad you didn’t,” Hiroki said. “Are the others awake yet?”

“Yes, and both Tetsuo-dono and Shiro-dono have bathed. You mentioned as how you would be wanting a hot bath today yourself. Should I have the bath-house readied?”

Sowing Ghosts 18.2

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[continuing chapter 18]

Perhaps it was simply the shock of hearing the accusation spoken aloud, but Kanegawa Akihiro’s rigid composure — and posture — shattered and collapsed.

“It was the end of everything,” he said, sobbing into his hands. “Her decision destroyed me. If she told our lord what we had been doing I would be disgraced or even executed for the part I had played in negotiating with a clan the Miyoshi oppose.”

“And you were overcome?” the arms master asked. “You lost your self-control in your anger?”
Kanegawa nodded, wordlessly. Hiroki frowned at the lord.

“I am sorry, my lord, but this was not the spontaneous action of a passionate man driven past his ability to control himself.”

Sowing Ghosts 18.1

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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

DEPARTURES

The sixteenth day of the second month

Hiroki watched closely to see how Kanegawa would respond to the accusation, but for the longest time the secretary seemed frozen. His brush hovered above the paper before him; not even the ink seemed able to move, and so no droplets fell from the brush.

“A man of action,” Hiroki said with scorn, “would perhaps have tried to cut his way out of this trap. Or at least to deny the charge.” The insult was calculated, but Kanegawa seemed not to have heard or understood it. Again, he did not respond at all.

“But — ” the arms master began.

After staring at Kanegawa for a long breath he opened his mouth again. “I had no real reason for believing Kanegawa had done anything wrong. I imprisoned him simply because I had to do something, and he was the most convenient.” If the lord flushed a little at the admission, it was only justified. No proper lord would have behaved in that way toward a vassal, Hiroki thought.

Decadent Societies, Part 3

From our library; note the Couture
painting, unfortunately black-and-white 

Yesterday I tried to examine the question of American decadence as raised by the late Robert M. Adams in his book Decadent Societies. My conclusion was that, from the perspective of 2020, the USA of the early 1980s was not in fact decadent, and a lot of the symptoms of potential decadence Adams identified turned out not to be all that deadly.

What might be the condition of the USA in mid-2020? Let’s look again at the main symptoms of societal decadence Adams declared:

·       military weakness;

·       losses in major wars;

·       food insecurity (dependence on outside sources beyond the society’s control);

·       technological stagnation;

·       a “grossly oppressive” tax system;

·       acceptance of rising inequality;

·       inability to prevent massive losses through epidemic disease;

·       a complete lack of concern over the increasing proportion of the population with little to no reason to continue to support the society’s existence.

How does the US stack up in 2020?

Decadent Societies, Part 2

Romans of the Decadence by Thomas
Couture, via Wikimedia Commons

About 40 years ago, Robert M. Adams wrote Decadent Societies, a short book (or long essay) that attempted to answer two questions: 1) What did the best-known “decadent” societies of the West have in common? 2) Was the United States of the time decadent by those criteria?

Adams suggests “…’decadence’ may be used as shorthand for the condition of society incapable of transcending difficulties that, years before, it would have shrugged off as routine.” Among the symptoms he lists are:

·       military weakness;

·       food insecurity (dependence on outside sources beyond the society’s control);

·       technological stagnation;

·       a “grossly oppressive” tax system;

·       losses in major wars;

·       inability to prevent massive losses through epidemic disease;

·       acceptance of rising inequality;

·       a complete lack of concern over the increasing proportion of the population with little to no reason to continue to support the society’s existence.*