The gibbet hung from a wooden framework at the Shih Wu crossroads, amongst matted thorn brambles and blackened hillocks. The bars splayed from a metal disk into a bell-shape over a wooden base.
The leather-clad mute unlocked Cheng Te's iron neck cuff but took over its duty with his enormous hand. He reached under the cage with his other hand, unlatched the trap door, and pushed his charge forward. Cheng Te crawled up into the narrow quarters and drew his feet up near his chin. The latch was re-fastened, and the mute walked away.
When the gibbet was required for another criminal, the latch securing the base would be knocked aside and the remains would clatter to the ground. The citizens of Shao Teng would give what they could not use to the dogs.
“This is not such a poor way to depart the world,” Cheng Te told himself. “If the folk had slit my belly and fed my intestines to the pigs, I would have suffered terribly. This way, I suffer minimal discomfort and may even be fortunate enough to meet a few interesting folk on the crossroads.”
Of course, cruelties were often visited on prisoners by passers-by, such as poking swords through the cage or the taking of a grisly trophy, but kindnesses such as bread, water and wine were not unknown, and some passers-by spent long hours talking with prisoners. There were even a few well-known romances that began with a stranger falling in love with and freeing a prisoner. But these were stories of tragedy or injustice, and Cheng Te knew they did not apply to him. He was a danger to the world, and this was the best place for him.
He pushed his legs through the bars, letting them swing freely, and looked along both ways of Shih Wu Highway. From desert to wasteland, there were no dust clouds, so he looked along both ways of Yung Lo Highway. The mute was receding into the distance, and from barren mountains to Shao Teng, all was silent
* * *
Cheng Te awoke with a dry mouth and cracked lips. He swung his legs for three hours, thinking of water, whereupon a dust cloud puffed into view along Shih Wu Highway. A galloping horse emerged from the cloud, the rider's straggly black hair whipping behind him. When he approached the cage, he pulled his horse to a whinnying halt.
“What are your circumstances?” he asked.
“I wait here until I starve,” Cheng Te replied.
“Was your sentence deserving?”
“Given public approval, how could it be otherwise?”
The man rubbed his arm then looked cautiously around from the height of his sweating horse. “I myself am on the path to becoming a criminal,” he confided. “Out of anger I am riding home to my wife, whose head I will cut off and serve to the man with whom, so my co-workers tell me, she has been sleeping.”
Cheng Te blinked. “Pardon my appraisal, but you do not appear to be as angry as that.”
“I do not consider it proper to expose my anger to you, and so retain my vast emotions behind this facade of self-control.” He looked at his arm. “This is why I have drawn blood.”
“You are most forthright.”
“To my embarrassment, I thought you might profit from my experience.”
“There should be no embarrassment. Indeed, I have knowledge from which you might profit. Ride to your wife and tell her your grisly intentions, but then inform that you will stay your hand long enough to determine if the rumours are true. If she denies it, and there is no confirmation from any in your neighbourhood, or from subsequent investigations, you might track down those who told you the rumours and inquire as to their motives. Perhaps they sought to deprive you of your stake in the gold which, as is evident by the river mud on your boots, you have been winnowing.
“If, however, your wife or someone else confirms the rumours, tell her that she must publicly announce her indiscretion and renounce all claims to your shared household. If she refuses to denounce herself, say that she will watch her lover die at your hands and that she will be sold to carnal urchins, who will make short work of her. She may respond in any number of ways, leading either to your reunion or tragic separation. In any case, you retain your rights as an honest citizen according to the laws of the land, and look forward to a brew of different outcomes. All it requires is the self control which you presently display.”
The man scratched his beard in rumination. “Maybe your advice is not godly, but I detect an ore for wisdom in it. At any rate, your voice has soothed my anger and detained the barbarity which anger would have enforced. I will follow your instructions and so owe you my honesty and pride. Indeed, the possibilities have inspired me, and at your leisure I will set you free.”
Cheng Te shook his head. “I cannot accept freedom. I am a threat to the world. Perhaps you have some water?”
“My apologies, but in my anger I came unprepared. I carry nothing but my sword, to which you are welcome.”
“No. Perhaps you might tell me your name, and promise to last in my mind as a friend?”
“While I might have freed you in exchange for your advice, in all other respects I am an honest citizen, and it is not seen as fitting to befriend a criminal. Good day.”
The man spurred his horse. Cheng Te pressed against the bars as he watched the departing flurry of hooves and dust.
* * *
Noon the next day, a pair of lazy stallions drew a wagon down Yung Lo Highway. Reclining behind their reigns was a corpulent man dressed in orange silk. As the horses passed the gibbet the man pulled the reigns and the wagon trundled to a stop. On the side of the wagon was a red curtain, and above that a sign:
CHU HSI
DOCTOR AND PHILOSOPHER
Cures for all ailments at low rates,
Libido problems a speciality!
Cheng Te was still trying to make sense of certain words in the advertisement when Chu Hsi hailed: “Well met, capital fellow! Might I question your availability for service?” Then he rolled in his seat like a bloated butterball, to accommodate a bout of ebullient flatulence.
“I am in quandary as to the service your sign indicates,” Cheng Te said. “By referring to yourself as a doctor you purport to heal the body, and by referring to yourself as a philosopher you purport to heal the mind, thereby encompassing the full range of ailments. But by specifying the ‘libido' as a speciality you imply that your other healing skills are non -specialised, and therefore imply that you are not a master of them. Furthermore, non-specialised service at ‘high rates' may or may not be equal to specialised service at ‘low rates.'”
“Language, and therefore the words in my sign, are unable to capture the enormity of human experience. Language grasps blindly, unable to escape vagueness or contradiction. I would argue that your ego attempts to displace your powerlessness in the face of a seemingly threatening world by attempting to resolve problems with no possible solution or immediate import. This casual observation indicates that the scope of my expertise certainly extends to your mental and physical state, which, given that you are the one who I would do service for, is all that matters. I cannot, obviously, heal every ailment in the world, but by acting consistently at the limits of both the physical and mental professions I try to do so for those who otherwise cannot afford it. I am, in other words, a philanthropist.”
“I am still unclear on what is meant by libido, and to which category, physical or mental, it belongs.”
“Mental. Upon being freed of libidinous cravings, it is known that the mind expands and is open to the most wondrous thoughts. It would be my advice that, in your condition, you probably suffer a neglect of libidinal gratification and would benefit from my services.”
Cheng Te considered this, then said: “I was sentenced with my pockets full, and can afford up to six coppers worth of service, plus several small items including a stag beetle. These items are customarily retrieved by peasants, but I do not see that they would be ill spent if used for my improvement.”
“A wise choice, since I am capable of improving any person! I am an amazing individual, with an adjustment to the trials of life that exceeds all others! I am constantly sated, and for just six coppers I will summarise my knowledge and give you limited access to Mayling, who resides behind the curtain! You seem in good health, so I shall spare you my nostrums, which means that you may keep the stag beetle and other curiosities!”
“Mayling is an accomplice of yours? She will cure my libido?”
“As a smack on the head cures a child of impertinence!”
Cheng Te reached into his pocket and held out six coppers through the bars. Declining the effort of leaning over, Chu Hsi reigned his obedient horses closer and accepted the fee with minimal excess.
“Now part the curtains and let Mayling work her medicine,” he said. “Then I shall impart my fundamental philosophy and leave you more satisfied with your lot in life.”
Chu Hsi reigned the stallions a few steps forward so that the wagon was pressed against the gibbet, then leant backwards into the cushion of his fat and began to nap.
Cheng Te parted the curtains. Behind a row of bars was a young woman, huddling naked in the darkness. She had slender limbs, a miserable face, and straggly hair. Her skin, etiolated by the wagons' shadow, seemed incandescent.
Mayling, crawled forwards without looking up and pressed her belly against her bars. She waited there for a few moments, then frowned and looked up. She gasped, and reflexively drew the curtain over her body.
Cheng Te said, with barely a whisper: “Chu Hsi said you could cure my libido.”
Mayling's face was flushed. “Do you understand the principle of your libido?”
“It is a mental ailment, or so Chu Hsi has informed me.”
Mayling shook her head. “Libido is physical lust, whereby you would use your body against mine. Chu Hsi forces me to perform this duty.”
“I do not understand.”
Mayling put her explanation in simple terms, concluding: “You should not know such things. In normal circumstances you would not engage a woman.”
“Will you ever leave Chu Hsi's employment?”
“Perhaps I did not clarify. Chu Hsi is my father. He is a fat, lazy pettifogger who will not take the time to educate or support me. It was his reasoning that by using me in this fashion he could live out his philosophy. I have come to accept that I will be carted about until his death or an age where I no longer appeal to his clients. He beats me violently when I do not accept this destiny.”
Cheng Te was quiet for a moment, then whispered: “The next time you have a client who does not seem totally without virtue, tell him that you will share booty with him if he releases you. Does your father have any booty?”
“Yes. He keeps it in a secret compartment under his seat. The key is inside the axle. There is a smaller cache with the luggage, on hand to dupe robbers.”
“Tell the next stranger that if he lets you free and locks your father in your place, you will share Chu Hsi's ill-gotten gains. Are there any weapons your father keeps? And clothes?”
“Some small knives, a musket. I have some clothes for cold weather, and there are some costumes for his customer's caprices.”
“Do not reveal any information until your father is locked away, ideally senseless, and you are armed. Even then, be circumspect. If the stranger has an honest streak, he may be content with booty. If he tries to betray you, stab him or flee for your life. There will be risk, certainly: the risk that you will be free to live.”
Mayling bit her lip. The plan could not be flawless, but she could modify the steps until she was confident. “I will do as you say,” she said, “and return to release you. No matter what crime you have committed, you have countered it with your goodwill to me.”
“Do not come for me. This is my fate. But I would like it if you took what is left in my pockets and remembered me as a friend when I am gone.”
“Certainly, I will be your friend,” Mayling said. The words relumed Cheng Te as he reached into his pockets. He took out a stag beetle, a whistling rock, a wishing doll, a tiny, broken bell without a ringer, and handed them through the bars. Mayling accepted the gifts, then held Cheng Te's hands through the bars.
“I should let you go on your way,” Cheng Te said. “The sooner you meet a stranger, the sooner you will be free.”
Mayling nodded, and said, softly: “To allay suspicion you should hear my father's philosophy. I am sure he will be brief.”
Cheng Te nodded goodbye. Mayling smiled sadly and closed the curtain.
Cheng Te composed himself, then called out:
“Oi, Chu Hsi! I am ready for your philosophy!”
Chu Hsi's left eye opened, then the right. He blinked several times, then with great effort pulled at the reigns until the stallions had taken a few steps backwards.
“Is your libido made tolerable?”
“As well as can be expected.”
“As I told you! Now I will summarise my life's motive. The world is composed of philosophically opposed elements. The instant heat exists, so must cold. The instant sky exists, so must earth. By extension, the instant an individual assumes a particular role an opposite role will be played. For example, when a person becomes a criminal, constabulary comes to being. When a person becomes angry, another becomes happy. This is pure logic, and it continues thus: certain individuals, by nature, are better suited to one role over another. I, for example, have a weak heart, and so am unsuited for physical labour. However, the less I do the harder my more physically able counterpart works, so it is in the interest of society for me to endorse lassitude in my daily affairs. Since you, for reasons other than mine, are unable to do work, it would be to everyone's advantage if you did away with all kinds of effort: speech, thought, gesture. After all, the instant you cease to breathe, a new individual shall come into the world to take up the breath! This, given the meagre six coppers of yours, is all I can afford to tell you. But, added to the fee I usually charge for Mayling, you have just been subject to the most radical of bargains!”
“Thank you,” said Cheng Te, who had not been listening.
“Then I leave you to do nothing, as is my advice!”
As the wagon moved away, Cheng Te saw Mayling's face appear between the curtains.
“I will come back!” she whispered.
The next day Cheng Te began to feel signs of starvation: his stomach hurt and he felt disoriented. The sun did its slow arc in the sky, careening at last with an orange smile into the west. The morning after, Cheng Te felt very bad. He watched the mountains and saw a flock of dark birds alight in a crevice. While waiting for them to fly up he began counting thorn brambles, but they kept rolling helter skelter. He imagined a row of soldiers walking over the hillocks to a battle in the distance, then he became dazed. When he regained consciousness the soldiers were gone, the brambles had swapped places, and the birds had flown away without him seeing them.
He sighed and looked at his hands. There were brown rust stains across his palms. Without thinking, he tore off a strip of his shirt and used it to rub one of the bars. The rust came off in layers and before long the metal was almost shiny.
He tore away a few more strips of his shirt and worked until he was exhausted.
* * *
He was woken by spurious hoof beats. Coming from the east along the Shih Wu Highway was a figure of unusual proportions. Its head was squat and horned, with a single, yellow eye and a slit for a nose. Its hefty torso supported great arms with three fingers, and its long, bulky legs terminated in cloven hooves. Around its six rows of teeth and groin were squirming, multi-coloured tentacles. Its skin was vermilion, decked sparsely with tufts of coarse, black hair and thorns.
Here surely was a creature more repulsive to any society than Cheng Te, but it seemed brazen, and swaggered next to the gibbet. The tentacles inhibited the flapping, blue tongue, and rank bubbles of gas rose into the air with each gargled word:
“You are nothing compared to me!” it said. “I am a fastidious, brilliant individual who makes acceptable joy of life by being who I am! By nights I roam the mires and eat muskrats, slime and frogs. By day I wander the barren places of the planet and prey on remote itinerants! I have found it is my Nature to beg solitude, and in the lifestyle that is Natural to me I prosper and have no exclusive enemies that could do me harm! You, on the contrary, are so pathetic that in being true to yourself you are placed in a gibbet to become a foetal impression of rot!”
Cheng Te was petrified, and propelled himself against the back of his cage. “Leave me alone, demon! I cannot die yet! Your ugliness offends my sanity!”
The beast snorted. “I have no intention to kill you,” it said, and dropped to its hind. It looked across at Cheng Te, tentacles drooping where its lips should have been. “I come only for conversation. You, unlike other individuals, have no choice but to comply. Most people I meet in my wanderings are capable of fleeing or doing damage and I am forced to eat them. But I am no demon. I am as human as you, and my aggression stems from persecution. Other men do not understand that it is they who are ugly, not I.”
Cheng Te relaxed somewhat. His initial fear had recuperated some of his faculties. He inquired, as politely as possible: “But how is it that you look as you do? As you admit, you differ by degrees from normal men.”
“My mother did not wish to give birth and took an excess of poisons so that I might die in the womb. But my personality is so utter that I may not be deterred from my lot, and I survived the ordeal. I entered the world in the form you see me in now, though of a smaller size.”
“How do you know this?”
“I undertook to find my mother during my turbulent adolescence. I finally met my mother in a village far north of here. I was touched that she recognised me after such a long time, but it hurt that she detested me so. She had enough compassion to tell me the circumstances of my existence, then ran off and used a knife to cut out her womb. She died in the process, and since then I have wandered in solitude, looking for a mate, as repelled by others as they are of me.”
“That is a pitiful story.”
“It is not so pitiful. I, after all, have been allowed to come into existence, to the benefit of the world. Before I die it is my ambition to actualise my philosophies and populate the world with denizens such as myself. Unfortunately, I have tried almost every species of animal and race of women and none have reproduced successfully. My animal offspring often die in utero , or exit the womb as discoloured balls of skin, bone, fur, or scales. My human offspring are unintelligent blobs of coloured meat with a multiplicity of organs, and the mothers always die. Still I search.”
Cheng Te shook his head. “Your ambition is flawed.”
The beast's single brow lowered. “I am a para-individual, unique even among hermits who live through rejection of their progenitors. Their ongoing renunciation of the world is itself a dialogue, but even the wild animals I encountered as a child were afraid to adopt me. My education was without external direction so that my intelligence has veered in directions attributable only to my own personality. My purity makes me more beautiful than all others. Does my logic sound egoist or invalid? No. Neither is it captious or fallacious, rather stark and concrete.”
Cheng Te sighed. “Despite the direction of your education, you have learnt to speak the language of other men. Perhaps more importantly, you have said that you wish to populate the world with those of your kind. This indicates a social desire. Perhaps you seek immortality through simulacra, but your young will be different to you, having half the attributes of your wife. Furthermore, if your young prefer each other's company to isolation, they will constitute a new society. Indeed, the more pedantically you inculcate your morals, the less utter will be their individuality. And since your increased number will increase your visibility, men may discover and rise up against you, forcing you to defend your precarious ego from within and without.”
The beast jumped up and hollered abominably. He banged his fists on his head and stomped his hooves, trembling so much that each tentacle gave its own performance.
“Your arguments are invalid because their source is in the crowd! How can you talk of morality? You have been imprisoned for a lack of it! I am my utter self, and derive my morality from absolutes!”
The beast spun on his hooves and retreated. Before long he disappeared behind a series of hillocks.
Cheng Te closed his eyes, and felt the bars press against his forehead as he rested forwards.
* * *
Mayling's next client was a mentally deficient vagabond, whose head Chu Hsi cracked open with an iron bar to prevent his daughter's strangulation. Later that day, Chu Hsi steered his wagon into a small village and hid Mayling in a stable across from his chosen tavern. Twice he returned to the wagon to impress his overbearing lard upon his daughter, and he also rented her to a grim, unsmiling man from the tavern. The man's manner did not encourage Mayling's trust, and it was not until they were leaving town that Chu Hsi came across a balding, middle-aged man. When the man entered the wagon, he prattled fretfully, unable to commit the act he had paid for. Mayling almost blurted out her offer, and he agreed with a rapid nod of relief. He called Chu Hsi to let him out of the wagon, left at a trot, and returned with two able-bodied men, who released Mayling and beat Chu Hsi to near-death. The would-be customer then said that, if paid for the fee of the hired men and given a kiss on the cheek, he would gladly leave the rest of the money to Mayling.
Soon Mayling was driving the wagon that had contained her for so long, and reached Shao Teng. The buildings were in a state of disrepair, and the orange dirt of the unpaved streets shifted in the dry wind. The shrine had broken tiles and discoloured, warped boards, and the voices which came from inside seemed delirious. As a dog ran past, a human femur in its mouth, the local folk ranged listlessly about the central square, eyeing Mayling with suspicion.
She steered the horses towards an old man playing cards at a table in the street.
“Excuse me, could you tell me about the gibbet at the Shih Wu crossroads?”
“You must be very lucky, to have those horses and wagon.”
Mayling threw him a pouch, which he caught with one hand. He opened it, took out the coins, and then resumed playing cards.
“What of the information?”
“What information?”
“When was the last sentence carried out?”
“That's expensive information.”
Mayling threw him another pouch. “I have paid you more than enough. Tell me when-”
“Paid me? You have done no such thing.”
Mayling paused. “The two pouches at your elbow-”
“My father gave these to me as a boy.”
“I won't give you any more money. Tell me what-”
“There is nothing to tell,” said the old man, and turned his attention towards his cards.
“Give me the money back.”
“You have not given me any money.”
“I will complain to your judiciary.”
The man picked a card from his deck and examined it absently. “And they will tell you that it is a crime to inquire about past crimes, that any payment related to such an inquiry must have been an act of bribery, and that acts of bribery are punished by confiscation of property.”
Mayling stared at him, dumbfounded. She looked around the square and saw the same miserly expression on every face. She opened her mouth, closed it again, and quickly urged the stallions onwards.
She travelled the barren mile to the gibbet with her heart beating nervously. She had no idea if Cheng Te would still be inside his cage. For all she knew another criminal might have become intimate with the bars. But she pulled the stallions to a halt about ten metres from the framework, climbed down from the wagon, and walked closer.
Inside the cage sat a boy, no more than three, his shirt torn away and hands loosely holding the bars. It almost appeared that he had fallen asleep while trying to shake his way out.
Mayling did not worry about the smell. She moved right up to the cage, held the tiny fingers, and cried ashamedly. That was when she noticed the strips torn from his shirt and the scraps of cloth half under his body. She looked about the cage and noticed that the bars inside had been scrubbed down. Mayling started to walk around the gibbet, looking at each cleaned bar in turn.
The bar Cheng Te held in his right hand had not been finished, and Mayling started weeping again. She picked up a piece of cloth, gently moved Cheng Te's right hand, and began rubbing it down. When she had finished, she returned to the wagon.
It had been Cheng Te's understanding that the peasants would eventually collect him for their dogs, and who was she to deny him that?
