away to labour on pig farms or be the wives of pig farmers in the other villages of Blacktooth County. Leaving me behind with Brother Coming and the Sorceress Wu.
My childhood is much the same as yours. Strangers knocking in the night. The chanting of spells and magnesium flares in the fireplace. For much of my childhood I am under the impression that Sorceress Wu is my mother and Brother Coming my mute idiot sister. The peasants of Kill the Barbarians Village call me the Wu Child and, owing to the sorceress’s reputation for evildoing, forbid their children from going near me. I am very lonely. Brother Coming won’t play with me, and when she goes into the Neverdie Forest, won’t let me tag along. Rejected and hurt, I bully Brother Coming on our bamboo-mat bedding at night. I slap her, and pinch her black and blue, and get away with it, for she never makes a squeak of protest. I abuse Brother Coming for years, until the evening the sorceress looks over as I am twisting her ear and says slyly, ‘That’s no way to treat your mother, She-brat.’
Shocked, I let go of Brother Coming’s ear. The sorceress laughs. ‘Yes, that’s right. You weren’t squeezed out of
my
loins, Girl. You are the progeny of incest and rape. Your father was the good-for-nothing rapist and your mother the imbecile next to you. No wonder they spawned a she-brat such as you.’
My grandmother makes no secret of her wish to be rid of me and, afraid of being sold into slavery or married off to a pig farmer, I toil for the sorceress. I cook and clean for her, sweeping the floor and scrubbing the pots and pans, keeping our rammed-earth dwelling spick and span. I am filial and obedient and never answer back. But it’s no good. The year I am thirteen, Sorceress Wu tells me of the arrangements she has made.
‘Girl. You are now betrothed to the Young Master Huang of the Huang family of Goatherd Valley. You are to be wedded next week.’
‘But I don’t
want
to be married,’ I complain in a small voice.
The sorceress scoffs, ‘Want? Want? Want is neither here nor there! The Huangs are the most prosperous family in Goatherd Valley. A she-brat such as you ought to be on her knees with gratitude!’
The next day the man with the donkey comes from Kill the Barbarians Village. He hoists me up on the saddle, and we clip-clop away from Blacktooth County. No one, not the Sorceress Wu, Brother Coming, nor the Runts, come to bid me farewell. I never see any of the Wu clan again.
III
The grandeur of the Huang family mansion is such that I cling to the donkey reins, too intimidated to dismount. The manor has a glazed-tile roof and the walls are lacquered wood (unlike the sorceress’s mud-walled dwelling, which a thief needs only a pail of water to break into). A servant boy leads me through parlours and halls to a shady courtyard of cypresses and a shimmering pond of carp. I am exhausted from riding on donkey-back for three days, plodding along the river Sveltedeer to the foothills of Mount Weep. I am barefoot, in a tattered robe stitched from a discarded rice sack. A girl with no name. Having inherited the sorceress’s hump-backed nose, I lack even prettiness as a saving grace. What if the Huang family are disappointed and send me back? What bloodcurdling punishment would the sorceress mete out should that happen?
‘She’s here! She’s here!’ a woman chimes.
Master Huang and his wife enter the courtyard, a handsome couple in black damask robes of mourning, both tall and stately, with unpocked skin and fine sets of ivory teeth undamaged by rot. Wife Huang claps her hands in delight. She sweeps towards me and gathers me into her sweet, fragranced embrace. ‘Welcome to the Huang family, beloved Daughter-in-Law!’
Wife Huang then releases me and gazes upon me at arm’s length. ‘Oh you are lovely!’ she beams. ‘How lovely you are!’
Master Huang is more muted in his reception.
Sotto voce
, he says to his wife, ‘The girl is ugly.
My childhood is much the same as yours. Strangers knocking in the night. The chanting of spells and magnesium flares in the fireplace. For much of my childhood I am under the impression that Sorceress Wu is my mother and Brother Coming my mute idiot sister. The peasants of Kill the Barbarians Village call me the Wu Child and, owing to the sorceress’s reputation for evildoing, forbid their children from going near me. I am very lonely. Brother Coming won’t play with me, and when she goes into the Neverdie Forest, won’t let me tag along. Rejected and hurt, I bully Brother Coming on our bamboo-mat bedding at night. I slap her, and pinch her black and blue, and get away with it, for she never makes a squeak of protest. I abuse Brother Coming for years, until the evening the sorceress looks over as I am twisting her ear and says slyly, ‘That’s no way to treat your mother, She-brat.’
Shocked, I let go of Brother Coming’s ear. The sorceress laughs. ‘Yes, that’s right. You weren’t squeezed out of
my
loins, Girl. You are the progeny of incest and rape. Your father was the good-for-nothing rapist and your mother the imbecile next to you. No wonder they spawned a she-brat such as you.’
My grandmother makes no secret of her wish to be rid of me and, afraid of being sold into slavery or married off to a pig farmer, I toil for the sorceress. I cook and clean for her, sweeping the floor and scrubbing the pots and pans, keeping our rammed-earth dwelling spick and span. I am filial and obedient and never answer back. But it’s no good. The year I am thirteen, Sorceress Wu tells me of the arrangements she has made.
‘Girl. You are now betrothed to the Young Master Huang of the Huang family of Goatherd Valley. You are to be wedded next week.’
‘But I don’t
want
to be married,’ I complain in a small voice.
The sorceress scoffs, ‘Want? Want? Want is neither here nor there! The Huangs are the most prosperous family in Goatherd Valley. A she-brat such as you ought to be on her knees with gratitude!’
The next day the man with the donkey comes from Kill the Barbarians Village. He hoists me up on the saddle, and we clip-clop away from Blacktooth County. No one, not the Sorceress Wu, Brother Coming, nor the Runts, come to bid me farewell. I never see any of the Wu clan again.
III
The grandeur of the Huang family mansion is such that I cling to the donkey reins, too intimidated to dismount. The manor has a glazed-tile roof and the walls are lacquered wood (unlike the sorceress’s mud-walled dwelling, which a thief needs only a pail of water to break into). A servant boy leads me through parlours and halls to a shady courtyard of cypresses and a shimmering pond of carp. I am exhausted from riding on donkey-back for three days, plodding along the river Sveltedeer to the foothills of Mount Weep. I am barefoot, in a tattered robe stitched from a discarded rice sack. A girl with no name. Having inherited the sorceress’s hump-backed nose, I lack even prettiness as a saving grace. What if the Huang family are disappointed and send me back? What bloodcurdling punishment would the sorceress mete out should that happen?
‘She’s here! She’s here!’ a woman chimes.
Master Huang and his wife enter the courtyard, a handsome couple in black damask robes of mourning, both tall and stately, with unpocked skin and fine sets of ivory teeth undamaged by rot. Wife Huang claps her hands in delight. She sweeps towards me and gathers me into her sweet, fragranced embrace. ‘Welcome to the Huang family, beloved Daughter-in-Law!’
Wife Huang then releases me and gazes upon me at arm’s length. ‘Oh you are lovely!’ she beams. ‘How lovely you are!’
Master Huang is more muted in his reception.
Sotto voce
, he says to his wife, ‘The girl is ugly.
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