[continuing chapter 2]
Penglai Island was legendary in Fusang. Not because it in any way resembled the
Penglai of fantasy, the mysterious island far to the east about which tales had
been told as far back as the Qin, but simply because it was a place where the
writ of the Ming Prince Zhu Yizan only fitfully held, when it held at all. In a country in which the word of Confucius
was still law, Penglai was only intermittently within the law. Pirates lived there, and freebooters and
rogue intellectuals. Bandits vacationed
on Penglai when life on the mainland grew too strenuous for them, and scholars
and nobles visited incognito and then lied to their families about where they'd
been. The courtesans of Penglai were as
legendary as the island itself. Had
Penglai not grown into existence some drunken poet would have to have invented
it. Wen had wanted to see it his whole
life.
The reality, when he marched ashore at the end of his first full day as a rebel and pirate, was less than what he'd heard. But only a bit less. Chin had beached the Jade Maiden in the harbor of a town called Panjiakou, a place whose buildings immediately proclaimed it as being outside the norm for Fusang. Yes, there was a temple—well fortified—on one of the hills above the harbor. And yes, many of the houses were in the accepted, beautiful style and might have fit in well in Měijing. But Wen's eyes were immediately drawn to those buildings that were clearly not Chinese: some, looking soft and rounded—were they made of mud?—seemed to merge into the hillsides on which they'd been built; others were stark, severe, made of blocks of heavy stone and resembling blocks of stone themselves. It was a riot of aesthetic conflict, and Wen loved it instantly.
"An ugly place," said Chin, "but useful. This is where you will undergo your weapons
training. Come with me, you two. Lum, see to it that the water barrels are
topped up and our pork barrels refilled.
I will be back once I've introduced our recruits to the
sword-master."
One-Eyed Lum nodded acknowledgment of the order, his face
impassive. Isn't his eye-patch on the other eye this morning? Wen asked
himself. He turned to look again, but
Lum had disappeared behind a stack of chests being unloaded from a barge. Shaking his head, Wen trotted after Chin and
Yu.
They found the sword-master in a wine-shop. A truly appalling wine-shop; Wen had never
seen anything quite like it, and he considered himself no stranger to
down-market drinking. The building
appeared to have consumed too much of what was sold inside, and leaned against
a tree, seeking support and stability.
Inside, it was gloomy and smelled sour in a way that good Chinese drink
could never generate. And behind the
counter on which cups and jars were stacked was a man whose looks were utterly
astonishing, even in a land where there was a multitude of waiguoren tribes living in the midst of the Chinese.
"Pocapetl," Chin said, gesturing to the man. "This is his shop, and he'll be putting
you up while you study. You are
responsible for any bills you incur in this shop, by the way. So don't let him sell you anything you aren't
prepared to pay for yourselves."
"Poca what?" Wen asked. "What language were you speaking
there?"
"Pocapetl," said the
wine-seller, in an accent thick and lazy.
"I'm what you barbarians call Mei-Ya. From south of here." It amused Wen
to be called a barbarian by a copper-skinned savage whose nose was a
giant, beak-like hook and who had pierced various parts of himself with carved
bone.
"Are there many like you
here?" Wen asked.
"Here? No."
Pocapetl smiled; if anything he looked even more bizarre with his eyes
narrowed and his mouth curving up.
"Millions of us in the homeland, of course, but we don't like to
travel much. I'm different."
"I think we're all different
here," Wen said. He introduced
himself formally, but in deference to Pocapetl's barbarian nature he went back
only three generations. He felt a mild
tremor as he spoke, and wondered if his grandfathers had taken offense at this
insult to the family.
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