The Year of Rice and Salt

'How do you know?' the prefect asked, boring into Kang with his gaze. 'How could you know?'

'I see him there at all hours. He brings our water, and some wood. He has a boy. He watches our shrine. He's just a poor monk, a beggar. Crippled by this thing of yours,' she said, gesturing at the ankle press.

'What is this woman doing here?' the prefect asked the magistrate.

The magistrate shrugged, looking angry. 'She's a witness like any other.'

' I didn't call for witnesses.'

'We did,' said one of the officials from the governor. 'Ask her more.'

The magistrate turned to her. 'Can you vouch for the presence of this man on the nineteenth day of last month?'

'He was at my property, as I said.'

'On that day in particular? How can you know that?'

'Guanyin's annunciation festival was the next day, and Bao Ssu here helped us in our preparations for it. We worked all day at preparing for the sacrifices.'

Silence in the room. Then the visiting dignitary said sharply, 'So you are a Buddhist?'

Widow Kang regarded him calmly. 'I am the widow of Kung Xin, who was a local yamen before his death. My sons Kung Yen and Kung Yi have both passed their examinations, and are serving the Emperor at Nanjing and '

'Yes yes. But are you Buddhist, I asked.'

'I follow the Han ways,' Kang said coldly.

The official questioning her was a Manchu, one of the Qianlong Emperor's high officers. He reddened slightly now. 'What does this have to do with your religion?'

'Everything. Of course. I follow the old ways, to honour my husband and parents and ancestors. What I do to occupy the hours before I rejoin my husband is of no importance to anyone else, of course. It is only the spiritual work of an old woman, one who has not yet died. But I saw what I saw.' 'How old are you?' 'Forty one sui.'

'And you spent all day on the nineteenth day of the ninth month with this beggar here.'

Age in Chinese reckoning was calculated by taking the lunar year of one's birth as year one, and adding a year at each lunar New Year's Day.

'Enough of it to know he could not have gone to the town market and back. Naturally I worked at the loom in the afternoon.'

Another silence in the chamber. Then the Manchu official gestured to the magistrate irritably.

'Question the man further.'

With a vicious glance at Kang, the magistrate leaned over to shout down at Bao, 'Why do you have scissors in your bag!'

'For making talismans.'

The magistrate tapped the wedge harder than before, and Bao howled again.

'Tell me what they were really for! Why was there a queue in your bag?' With hard taps at each question.

Then the prefect asked the questions, each accompanied by a tap of the mallet from the angry magistrate, and continuous gasping groans from Bao.

Finally, scarlet and sweating, Bao cried, 'Stop! Please stop. I confess. I'll tell you what happened.'

The magistrate rested his mallet on the top of one wedge. 'Tell us.'

'I was tricked by a sorcerer into helping them. I didn't know at first what they were. They said if I didn't help them then they would steal my boy's soul.'

'What was his name, this sorcerer?'

'Bao Ssu nen, almost like mine. He came from Soochow, and he had lots of confederates working for him. He would fly all over China in a night. He gave me some of the stupefying powder and told me what to do. Please, release the press, please. I'm telling you everything now. I couldn't help doing it. I had to do it for the soul of my boy.'

'So you did cut queues on the nineteenth day of last month.'

'Only one! Only one, please. When they made me. Please, release the press a little.'

The Manchu official lifted his eyebrows at Widow Kang. 'So you were not with him as much as you claimed. Perhaps it's better for you that way.'

Someone tittered.

Kang said in her sharp hoarse bray, 'Obviously this is one of those confessions we have heard about, coerced by the ankle press. The whole soul stealing scare is based on such forced confessions, and all it does is cause panic among the servants and the workers. Nothing could be worse service of the Emperor 'Silence!'

'You send up these reports and cause the Emperor endless worry and then when a more competent investigation is made the string of forced lies is revealed 'Silence!'

'You are transparent from above and below! The Emperor will see it!'

The Manchu official stood and pointed at Kang. 'Perhaps you would like to take this sorcerer's place in the press.'

Kang was silent. Shih trembled beside her. She leaned on him and pushed forward one foot until it stood outside her gown, shod in a little silk slipper. She stared the Manchu in the eye.

'I have already withstood it.'

'Remove this demented creature from the examination,' the Manchu said tightly, his face a dark red. A woman's foot, exposed during the examination of a crime as serious as soul stealing: it was beyond all regulation.

No woman of breeding ever referred to her feet or revealed them in public. This was a bold person!

'I am a witness,' Kang said, not moving.

'Please,'Bao called out to her. 'Leave, lady.