The Year of Rice and Salt

'All voyages of the treasure fleet are to be stopped. All the ships moored in Hangzhou are ordered to return to Nanjing, and all goods on the ships are to be turned over to the Department of Internal Affairs, and stored. Officials abroad on business are to return to the capital immediately; and all those called to go on future voyages are ordered back to their homes. The building and repair of all treasure ships is to stop immediately. All official procurement for going abroad must also be stopped, and all those involved in purchasing should return to the capital.'

When the reader had finished, the new Emperor, who had just named himself the Hongxi Emperor, spoke for himself. 'We have spent too much on extravagance. The capital will return to Nanjing, and Beijing will be designated an auxiliary capital. There will be no more waste of imperial resources. The people are suffering. Relieving people's poverty ought to be handled as though one were rescuing them from fire, or saving them from drowning. One cannot hesitate.'

Bold saw Kyu's face across the great courtyard, a little black figurine with blazing eyes. The new Emperor turned to look at his dead father's retinue, so many of them eunuchs. 'For years you eunuchs have only been thinking of yourselves, at the expense of China. The Yongle Emperor thought you were on his side. But you were not. You have betrayed all China.'

Kyu spoke up before his fellows could stop him. 'Your Highness, it's the officials who are betraying China! They are trying to be as regent to you, and make you a boy emperor for ever!'

With a roar a gang of the officials rushed at Kyu and some of the other eunuchs, pulling knives from their sleeves as they pounced. The eunuchs struggled or fled, but many were cut down on the spot. Kyu they stabbed a thousand times.

The Hongxi Emperor stood and watched. When it was over he said, 'Take the bodies and hang them outside the Meridian Gate. Let all the eunuchs beware.'

Later, in the stables, Bold sat holding the half tiger tally in his hand. He had thought they would kill him too, and was ashamed how much that thought had dominated him during the slaughter of the eunuchs; but no one had paid the slightest attention to him. It was possible no one else even remembered his connection to Kyu.

He knew he was leaving, but he didn't know where to go. If he went to Nanjing and helped burn the treasure fleet, and all its docks and warehouses, he would certainly be continuing his young friend's project. But all that would be done in any case.

Bold recalled their last conversation. Time to go home, perhaps, to start a new life.

But guards appeared in the doorway. We know what happened next; and so do you; so let's go on to the next chapter.

EIGHT

In the bardo, Bold explains to Kyu the true nature of reality; Their jati regathered, they are cast back into the world.

At the moment of death Kyu saw the clear white light. It was everywhere, it bathed the void in itself, and he was part of it, and sang it out into the void.

Some eternity later he thought: This is what you strive for.

And so he fell out of it, into awareness of himself. His thoughts were continuing in their tumbling monologue reverie, even after death. Incredible but true. Perhaps he wasn't dead yet. But there was his body, hacked to pieces on the sand of the Forbidden City.

He heard Bold's voice, there inside his thoughts, speaking a prayer. 'Kyu my boy, my beautiful boy,

The time has come for you to seek the path. This life is over. You are now Face to face with the clear light.'

I'm past that, Kyu thought. What happens next? But Bold couldn't know where he was along his way. Prayers for the dead were useless in that regard.

' You are about to experience reality In its pure state. All things are void. You will be like a clear sky,

Empty and pure. Your named mind Will be like clear still water.'

I'm past that! Kyu thought. Get to the next part!

'Use the mind to question the mind. Don't sleep at this crucial time. Your soul must leave your body awake, and go out through the Brahma hole.'

The dead can't sleep, Kyu thought irritably. And my soul is already out of my body.

His guide was far behind him. But it had always been that way with Bold. Kyu would have to find his own way. Emptiness still surrounded the single thread of his thoughts. Some of the dreams he had had during his life had been of this place.