“This humble person thanks you, honorable sir,” she replied. Her accent was like none that anybody had heard before, but that was no surprise. “I come in search of … enlightenment.” The word shook. Fervent must her hope be.
Tsong turned and bowed toward the shrine and the Master’s house behind it. “Here is the home of the Way,” he said. Some persons smiled smugly. Their home.
“May we know your name, that it be borne to the Master?” Tsong asked.
She hesitated, then: “I call myself Li, honorable sir.”
He nodded. The wind ruffled his thin white beard. “If you have chosen that, you have likely chosen well.” In her pronunciation, it could mean the measure of distance. Ignoring whispers, mutters, and stirrings among the folk, he forbore to inquire further. “Come. You shall take refreshment and stay with me.”
“Your … leader—”
“In due course, young miss, in due course. Pray come.”
Her features settled into an aspect no one could fathom, something between resignation and an ageless determination. “Again, my humble thanks,” she said, and accompanied him.
The villagers moved aside. Several uttered words of goodwill. Beneath a natural curiosity, they were as alike in their mildness—the very children were—as in their padded garments and work-hardened hands. Alike, too, were many faces, broad and rather fiat-nosed above sturdy frames. After Tsong, his family, and Li disappeared, they chatted for a while, then piecemeal went back to their cookfires, handmills, looms, tools, animals, all that kept them alive as it had kept their ancestors alive from time out of mind.
Tseng’s oldest son, with wife and offspring, lived with him. They stayed in the background, except for serving tea and food. The house was larger, than most, four rooms inside rammed-earth walls, darksome but comfortably warm. While homes were poorly and rudely furnished, there was no real want; rather, contentment and cheerfulness prevailed. Tsong and Li sat on mats at a low table and enjoyed broth flavored with ruddy peppercorns, fragrant amidst the savors of other foodstuffs hung under the roof.
“You shall wash and rest before we meet with my fellow elders,” he promised.
Her spoon trembled. “Please,” she blurted, “when may I see the teacher? I have come, oh, a long and weary way.”
Tsong frowned. “I understand your desire. But we really know nothing about you, ah, Miss Li.”
Her lashes lowered. “Forgive me. I think what I have to tell is for his ears alone. And I think—I, I pray he will want to hear me soon. Soon!”
“We must not be overhasty. That would be irreverent, and maybe unlucky. What do you know about him?”
“Hardly more than rumors, I confess. The story—no, different stories in different places as I wandered. At first they sounded like folk tales. A holy man afar in the west, so holy that death dares not touch him— Only as I came nearer did anyone tell me that this is his dwelling ground. Few would say that much. They seemed afraid to speak, although … I never heard ill of him.”
“No ill is there to hear,” said Tsong, softened by her earnestness. “You must have a great soul, that you ventured the pilgrimage. Quite alone, too, a youthful woman. Surely your stars are strong, that you took no harm. That bodes well.”
Dim of eye and in smoky dusk, he failed to see how she winced. “Nevertheless our wizard must read the bones,” he continued thoughtfully, “and we must offer to the ancestors and spirits, yes, hold a purification; for you are a woman.”
“What has the holy man to fear, if time itself obeys him?” she cried.
His tone calmed her somewhat: “Nothing, I daresay. And certainly he will protect us, his beloved people, as he always has. What do you wish to hear about him?”
“Everything, everything,” she whispered.
Tsong smiled. His few stumps of teeth glistened in what light passed through a tiny window. “That would take years,” he said. “He has been with us for centuries, if not longer.”
Again she tautened. “When did he come?”
Tsong sipped his tea. “Who knows? He has books, he can read and write, but the rest of us cannot. We tally the months, but not the years. Why should we? Under his good sway, lifespans are alike, as happy as the stars and the spirits may grant. The outside world troubles us never. Wars, famines, pestilences, those are gnat-buzz borne in from the market town, which itself hears little. I could not tell you who reigns in Nanking these days, nor do I care.”