Taming Poison Dragons by Tim Murgatroyd Page A

Su Lin.
    It was summer when we met. The city panted in the heat. Dog-days without a single breeze to dispel torpor and freshen hope. I found her in an alley behind the Wine Market, where I had gone at twilight to escape the closeness of Uncle Ming’s house. My spirits should have been high, having come first in another monthly examination, yet I was troubled by a sense of emptiness. Success came too easily. I longed to challenge myself in new ways.
    She sat on a wooden doorstep, fanning herself as she sang, her girl’s voice sad and wistful, innocent and knowing. I might have passed by, except her song made me ache. It was a melody from the mountains, and her accent was my own.
    As she finished a verse I began the next. Her mouth opened in surprise, then she laughed that light, scornful laugh of hers. I finished the verse, standing awkwardly. At last I noticed her beauty, and frowned, as though she had challenged me in some way. Her ivory skin covered a perfect, tear-drop face, made enticing by plump lips and almond eyes. Her breasts and legs and thighs, though hidden by robes of the cheapest pink silk, were easily imagined. I cleared my throat.
    ‘It is too hot!’ I said.
    ‘Don’t you mean, how is it I know the same songs as you?’ she replied.
    She was older than me, fourteen to my twelve. At that age such distinctions are worlds. She yawned and stretched. I peeped shyly at her chest.
    ‘Seeing you interrupted my practice, small sir, have you nothing to say?’
    ‘Only this,’ I countered. ‘Why have you so little politeness?’
    She watched me languidly, her fan clicking.
    ‘You are from Chunming Province,’ she said. ‘I can tell from your accent. So am I.’
    I felt wrong-footed, and provoked. In truth, I suppressed an unaccountable desire to wrestle with her, to prove my superior strength.
    ‘Of course,’ I said, haughtily. ‘I am the son of the Lord of Wei Valley.’
    *
    This seemed to impress her. Encouraged, I added solemnly: ‘One day I will pass the Imperial Examination.
    That is why my father sent me here, that is why. . . I am.’
    She looked at me pityingly.
    ‘Is that all?’ she asked.
    ‘Yes, that is why,’ I said, doggedly. ‘My father sent me here to add to our family’s honour.’
    She sighed. Her pout fascinated me.
    ‘Then we are just the same,’ she said. ‘When I was eleven years old, my father sold me to a broker, a most horrible man, who then sold me to Madam, who owns this house. I, too, must pass many examinations.’
    Only then did I realise she was an apprentice singing girl.
    ‘We are the same in that,’ I conceded, lamely, and hurried on my way.
    The next evening drew me back to the alley. Her doorstep was empty, the plain wooden door closed.
    One cold, autumn morning Cousin Hong sent a servant to fetch me. He was enthroned in a small gatehouse at the rear of the family enclosure, alongside a table where a clerk was collecting rent from Uncle Ming’s many tenants.
    They formed a respectful line right out into the street. The clerk’s abacus clicked and  cash  coins clinked on the scratched wooden table. Cousin Hong was eating almonds from a silver bowl, dipping them in rice brandy for sauce. He airily offered me one.
    ‘Eat it slowly,’ he advised. ‘It comes all the way from Tashkent.’
    A miserable, sick-looking man shuffled up to the clerk’s table. Wringing his hands, he bowed low and started to explain why he could not pay the rent. A shameful sight, and one I have never forgotten, though poor men were nothing new to me. Perhaps Cousin Hong’s response fixed his pinched face in my memory.
    ‘Pay or find your belongings on the street, you dog!’ he roared. ‘If you have a daughter, sell her! Get out, you thief!’
    The line of tenants murmured anxiously. Cousin Hong motioned to dismiss the clerk. While we talked, the tenants waited in the wind-picked street. Cousin Hong warmed his hands before a small charcoal brazier, then wagged a reproachful