riding-habit, no sign of attack came. The ponies grazed. Sir Nigel champed at his feed-bag. Lung and Mrs Jones mimed an elaborate argument about whether to go on up the track or back to the porter’s village and pretended to settle on the latter. At last, shivery with nerves, they were ready.
‘Now Missy foreign woman again,’ said Lung, with a touch of sadness in his voice which rang strangely in this scene of danger and urgency. Theodore guessed he felt that somehow he had been demoted – there was a difference between leading a ritual procession for an important Chinese woman and being guide and factotum for a foreign plant-hunter.
‘Looks like you’re as foreign as I am round these parts,’ snapped Mrs Jones. ‘Tuck that sword you found away and take the shot-gun. Ride with your thumb on the safety-catch, too, and keep your eyes skinned. With a bit of luck they’ve guessed we’re going back, but then again they might of split up, ready to have a go at us either way, once we’re in among the trees. You first, Lung. Theo, you’ll have to ride Bessie and lead Albert – don’t stand no nonsense from him. I’ll be rear-guard. Off we go.’
Lung started towards the dark chasm between the trees. Theodore coaxed Bessie into movement and Albert followed, nervous but subdued. As they reached the trees a voice called in the wood below, but some way back.
‘Don’t hang about, Lung,’ shouted Mrs Jones. ‘We got to get well ahead.’
Lung slapped his pony into a bouncy trot, and Bessie followed the example. One more alarm, Theodore guessed, and she’d try to bolt again. He was tense with readiness when, just before he reached the first bend in the track, a weird wailing rose behind him, shrill and throbbing, like a dog baying . He glanced back and saw that Mrs Jones did the same. Beyond her, framed in the arch of light where the path opened into the glade, Uncle Sam was kneeling by one of the bodies. He looked up to the sky and raised his arms, one swathed in blood-soaked rags. Still wailing, he bowed over the body and covered his face with his hands. His fingers tore at his tangled grey hair.
‘Move along,’ called Mrs Jones. ‘I can’t stomach no more of this. Looks like it might of been his son.’
5
IN THE REST of that day, though the track became steadily narrower and steeper, they travelled further than they had done in any two previous days. They heard and saw no sign of pursuit, but Mrs Jones would rest no more than the horses needed. She was unusually silent, riding close behind Albert so that at the slightest sign of jibbing she could flick him across the haunches with a long withy she had cut – but indeed she seemed to drive them all on, horses and humans, as though she had funnelled her swirling energies into a single blast before which they were nothing but wind-borne seed, blown steadily up the track. It wasn’t that she was scared, Theodore guessed. It was something else.
The map which P’iu-Chun had given them looked like an illustration to a fairy-tale, with a curly dragon blowing the prevailing wind from the south-east corner and delicate drawings crowding the blank spaces; but it was surprisingly accurate, marking every fork in the track, and at last the endless series of zigzags which brought them up into the Plain of Shrines. For more than an hour they had climbed this last section, with the tree-tops below the path not reaching high enough to obscure the view across to the opposite side of the valley, just as steep and now astonishingly near. And then they were in the open.
The trees ended as though a line had been shaved along the rim of the valley and they came out wearily on to a vast, undulating, grassy plateau which seemed to reach right to where the wall of the true mountains shot towards the sky. Scattered all across this plain were strange rock outcrops, carved by wind and water into pinnacles and pillars and shapes like fortresses, and pocked with caves. Sometimes a
‘Now Missy foreign woman again,’ said Lung, with a touch of sadness in his voice which rang strangely in this scene of danger and urgency. Theodore guessed he felt that somehow he had been demoted – there was a difference between leading a ritual procession for an important Chinese woman and being guide and factotum for a foreign plant-hunter.
‘Looks like you’re as foreign as I am round these parts,’ snapped Mrs Jones. ‘Tuck that sword you found away and take the shot-gun. Ride with your thumb on the safety-catch, too, and keep your eyes skinned. With a bit of luck they’ve guessed we’re going back, but then again they might of split up, ready to have a go at us either way, once we’re in among the trees. You first, Lung. Theo, you’ll have to ride Bessie and lead Albert – don’t stand no nonsense from him. I’ll be rear-guard. Off we go.’
Lung started towards the dark chasm between the trees. Theodore coaxed Bessie into movement and Albert followed, nervous but subdued. As they reached the trees a voice called in the wood below, but some way back.
‘Don’t hang about, Lung,’ shouted Mrs Jones. ‘We got to get well ahead.’
Lung slapped his pony into a bouncy trot, and Bessie followed the example. One more alarm, Theodore guessed, and she’d try to bolt again. He was tense with readiness when, just before he reached the first bend in the track, a weird wailing rose behind him, shrill and throbbing, like a dog baying . He glanced back and saw that Mrs Jones did the same. Beyond her, framed in the arch of light where the path opened into the glade, Uncle Sam was kneeling by one of the bodies. He looked up to the sky and raised his arms, one swathed in blood-soaked rags. Still wailing, he bowed over the body and covered his face with his hands. His fingers tore at his tangled grey hair.
‘Move along,’ called Mrs Jones. ‘I can’t stomach no more of this. Looks like it might of been his son.’
5
IN THE REST of that day, though the track became steadily narrower and steeper, they travelled further than they had done in any two previous days. They heard and saw no sign of pursuit, but Mrs Jones would rest no more than the horses needed. She was unusually silent, riding close behind Albert so that at the slightest sign of jibbing she could flick him across the haunches with a long withy she had cut – but indeed she seemed to drive them all on, horses and humans, as though she had funnelled her swirling energies into a single blast before which they were nothing but wind-borne seed, blown steadily up the track. It wasn’t that she was scared, Theodore guessed. It was something else.
The map which P’iu-Chun had given them looked like an illustration to a fairy-tale, with a curly dragon blowing the prevailing wind from the south-east corner and delicate drawings crowding the blank spaces; but it was surprisingly accurate, marking every fork in the track, and at last the endless series of zigzags which brought them up into the Plain of Shrines. For more than an hour they had climbed this last section, with the tree-tops below the path not reaching high enough to obscure the view across to the opposite side of the valley, just as steep and now astonishingly near. And then they were in the open.
The trees ended as though a line had been shaved along the rim of the valley and they came out wearily on to a vast, undulating, grassy plateau which seemed to reach right to where the wall of the true mountains shot towards the sky. Scattered all across this plain were strange rock outcrops, carved by wind and water into pinnacles and pillars and shapes like fortresses, and pocked with caves. Sometimes a
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