By the time that Jik and Nils got back to the farm, there was enough daylight to see that the giant had been splashed with blood from scalp to feet, apparently none of it his own. It seemed he hadn’t failed them, at least not entirely.
Mrs. Wu still held little Kin, pale and tear-streaked in her arms, soothing him from the terror that had wakened him screaming in the dawn. She stared owl-eyed and pale at the man before he washed, or as nearly owl-eyed as her epicanthic eye folds allowed. And while he washed, for the display of muscles was unlike anything she’d seen before, though Wu himself was hard and muscular.
Wu poked the barbarian’s wet shoulder. “Bailiff?” Wu said, then repeated. “Bailiff?”
The barbarian bared big square teeth in a grin that fascinated in an alarming way. He clutched with his hands in a pantomine of strangling. Bailiff was clearly a word he knew now, and he repeated it as he mimed. Then he walked fingers downward through the air, as if down stairs, and pantomined the killings and the fight in the barracks.
The blood was the only evidence for any of it, but it was enough. They did not disbelieve him.
While they ate breakfast—bread and butter, beans and curds and cabbage—Jik told his father what he wanted to do. He’d seldom been so forward before, but Wu nodded permission, even though it would lose him two more days of the boy’s labor. He hadn’t expected to see the barbarian again, and had no ideas of his own on how to be rid of this potentially very dangerous man.
After breakfast, the barbarian sat down on a bench, drew his sword, and with his knife scraped the dried blood from hilt and crossbar. Following which he borrowed a file and patiently, thoroughly, worked the nicks out of his sword before using a whetstone on both sword and knife. It took him more than an hour.
He knew all that passed between father and son. Jik would work that morning, then nap. At twilight, when the farmers along the road should be at home, the two of them would leave.
Meanwhile he himself could sleep all day, and would.
They moved briskly in the starlight, bypassed Luü-Gu through farm fields, then returned to the road on the far side of the village. Here even Jik had traveled only once before, but for several hours there was no chance of confusion, for there were no other roads.
At last they came to a crossroad. Jik pointed right and shook his head vehemently. “Emperor!” he said. “Soldiers!” Then pointed left and nodded. “Jampa Lodro!” he said. “Jampa Lodro!” He himself had never been that way, nor had his father, but the road to Jampa Lodro’s was common knowledge.
Nils nodded. “Jampa Lodro,” he said back, and they turned left.
Jik was young and lean and work-hardened, but not accustomed to hiking all night. He flagged near the end, and daylight arrived before they did. The morning was chill, and wet with dew, when they came to the forest clearing with its longhouse, landscaped grounds and outlying fields. Jik knew its Sino-Tibetan name—Gomba Dorje—though not the meaning, Monastery of Enlightenment. Morning meditations were over, and breakfast, and a number of novices and monks were filing into the potato field, hoes in hand. Nils insisted on skirting the clearing to where the forest edge was very near the longhouse.
Despite the chill, Nil’s shirt was in his small pack, and as they approached the longhouse, a novice sweeping a flagstone walk stared at him open-mouthed. It seemed to Jik that the boy hadn’t even noticed the barbarian’s eyes; he was too awed by his size and muscles.
The monk who answered the door gong wore an unbleached linen robe. Clearly he was Chinese, not Tibetan, which made Jik less uncomfortable than he might otherwise have been at this holy and already fabled place. The monk noticed the barbarian’s eyes, Jik had no doubt. Actually he’d noticed more than the eyes; he’d seen the aura. He bowed slightly and the barbarian bowed slightly in return. Jik bowed more deeply. He sensed that this monk was an adept, and he’d heard stories of what Jampa Lodro’s adepts could do. Most of the stories would have set them laughing.
Jik didn’t wait for the monk to ask what they wanted. “I have brought this barbarian here,” he said, “because he is lost and has no home. Also, although he is very brave, he is afraid of being outside in daylight. My father says Jampa Lodro will know what to do with him.” Actually the idea was his own, but ascribing it to his father would give it merit with the monks, it seemed to him. “He is obviously a good fighting man,” he went on. “You might want to hire him as a guard. And do not worry about the eyes. He sees very well, even in the dark!”
The monk smiled. “Thank you. We will see what Jampa says.” The man and Nils looked at each other again. Each seemed to listen to the other, too, although nothing was said, and Jik’s scalp crawled. Then the monk turned and led them to the dining hall, where a novice was scrubbing tables with a stout brush and soapy water. He instructed the cook to feed the two visitors, then left. They were given two wooden bowls each. In one was barley porridge, in the other bean curd with a thick chunk of bread on top, and a small piece of cheese.
When Jik finished eating, he turned to see the monk standing just inside the door, waiting. “I have spoken with Jampa; I am to take the barbarian to him. You are to wait outdoors. I will be back shortly.”
Nils got up as if he’d understood what was said, and after washing his bowls, left the dining room with the monk. Jik washed his also, and went outside to nap beneath a tree.
Though his name was Tibetan, Jampa Lodro did not have the Golok features so common among the Sino-Tibetan aristocracy. This was because he had two Chinese grandmothers. His build was compact, and he looked remarkably solid for someone not a soldier or peasant. In fact, he came from a family of army officers, and until age twenty had been training to be one. Then, in defiance of his grandfather, he’d run away to the monastery of La Tso, above Chengdu in the mountains of Sichuan, and been accepted as a student by the most holy Phabong Rimpoche.
This was an honor, for the number of novices was severely restricted, a requirement instituted by Songtsan I for military, agricultural, and labor reasons. Applicants were closely examined as to their potential and their motivation.
Nonetheless his paternal grandfather had disowned him. Much to the distress of the family, for it was universally considered that to become a drapa, a religious student, was at least acceptable to any family. And to be accepted by a famous rimpoche was an honor.
Most especially acceptance by one with the rare reputation of Phabong Rimpoche. Phabong was a most exalted master, the most famous student of the venerable Tri Kunlek. Tri Kunlek was the great reformer, founder of the popularly termed “Bloodless Order,” so called because it declined to sacrifice animals or divine from entrails. In fact, it rarely divined and did not sacrifice at all. It had also abandoned other practices of most older orders, practices with little or no spiritual virtue. It followed only a few practices which, if followed correctly and with perseverence, put one knowingly in touch with the Tao.
The Bloodless Order was most famous, though, for the spiritual skills of its leading adepts, who, it was popularly believed, could levitate, fast without losing even a kilo of weight, and consult with spirits who had won free of the physical plane. Its adepts were known for their modesty, and never talked about their abilities, but almost everyone knew someone who’d seen them do such things.
And Jampa Lodro was said to be as exalted a master as his mentor, Phabong, and Phabong’s mentor, Tri.
Nils Järnhann knew none of this when he met Jampa Lodro. But he did know, at once, that the stocky, stubble-headed man with the wispy white beard was a wizard more powerful than Fong Jung Hing; and spiritually far more advanced than Nils’s own mentor, Raadgiver, the Dane.
Jampa, in turn, recognized at once that the man before him had been born with more power, more potential, than anyone he’d known before. And that he’d already developed much of that potential. Jampa motioned Nils to be seated on a mat, then sat down facing him. Neither spoke a language that the other knew, but that was no obstacle. Within half an hour they knew each other as closely as twins.