Chapter 19: Going Forth (Angharad)
(~***~)
Angharad had been unusually deep in dreams when she was woken by a loud sound above them. It sounded like someone was dragging something across the floor. The unhurried footsteps of more than one person pattered back and forth. She wondered what was above them – a house, perhaps? It was a large storeroom, she thought. Not that she'd know.
Ginnar was sleeping curled up behind the barrels, snoring lightly. Angharad thought it best to leave him be. It had been a long, trying night. He probably needed it. The young elf looked around their hideout, taking stock. She hoped the rebels wouldn't take too long and that they would agree to help. Most of the food down here needed to be cooked, and there was no privy.
But as hard as she was working to think through their new problems, a weight had been lifted from her small shoulders. She unconsciously rubbed at her bare wrists. A little smile quirked at her lips. She had never done anything in her life that she'd felt so proud of. Her parents were here in Middle Earth somewhere. She was determined that they find each other. She wanted to tell them everything about Ginnar, the Prince, and Xiaoqing and how they'd escaped.
A rattling sound came from the top of the ladder. She could hear someone climbing down. Angharad put her hand over Ginnar's mouth to muffle his snoring, but it only woke him up.
"Hey!" Ginnar said. Angharad shushed him and pointed towards the ladder. But it was too late. The face of a short, very old woman craned around the barrels to look at them. The children's hearts pounded. Angharad pointed at the symbol on the wall, hoping she would be sympathetic. The woman looked at it, then at the tunnel entrance, and then at the foreign children. She narrowed her eyes, made a 'quiet' sign with her finger, then disappeared up the ladder again.
The children whispered to each other, considering their options, but the old woman returned before they could think of what to do. She lowered a large basket down the hole on a rope before she descended.
"You speak Eastron?" the old lady whispered to them. She began unpacking a few containers from the basket.
"Yes, some Eastron," Angharad whispered back. She was feeling grateful for those grueling morning lessons now.
"The rebels will come in three days. You eat this. Wait here – be very quiet or you'll cause us trouble. I'll send down a chamber pot," the old lady instructed them. She gave them a jug of tea, another filled with a thin soup, and a small container with plain rice.
"Thank you," the children said to her. In the past year they had encountered people good, bad, and everywhere in between. She seemed like one of the good ones. They hoped that it was true. They didn't have a choice but to trust her: they could not go back up the tunnel, and from the sounds above them, there were too many people to go up the ladder.
But luck was still with them. The woman was true to her word. She and her family fed them for three days while they hid in silence under the busy restaurant. (There was reason to be careful: this close to the palace, many of the patrons were guards or servants.)
Then the rebels arrived. To the children they looked poor compared with the people they'd known in the palace. But they moved with the efficiency of trained soldiers. They brought in barrels of dried fish for the restaurant upstairs. Then they packed both the knives and the children into the empty barrels and carted them away, just as they had been doing for months. The children were nervous to be separated, but they were assured they would be brought to the same place.
When Angharad looked back on the weeks that followed, everything blurred together. They spent days in the fishy barrels, bumping along in the back of a cart. At night, they would climb out for basic food and water.
The first few days traveling away from the city were tense. Three times they ran into checkpoints manned by soldiers who were searching through traveler's belongings. Angharad realized at the second checkpoint that they were looking for her and Ginnar. She hated being trapped in this barrel, waiting to see if they would be discovered.
Guards had rifled through a few random containers, but the rebels had enough experience hiding the knives that they had placed the children in difficult to reach barrels in the middle of the cart. The last time, soldiers had grabbed the barrel next to her – she could hear it scraping against the walls of her enclosure. Her heart beat so hard it felt like maybe they'd hear it and find her. But her luck held; they didn't.
As they got farther from the capital, they started to be able to sleep in the back of the cart instead of the barrels at night. (Or in her case, stare up at the stars and let her mind wander.) Even farther out and they were allowed to walk with the company – disguised in simple, secondhand clothes and large straw hats under which they could tuck their distinctive hair. Their rebel escort asked them few questions and answered even less.
(No one ever noticed, but they were followed from the moment they left the restaurant. Xiaoqing was good at disguises. When she decided to follow her curiosity and see what happened to the elf and the dwarf, she knew how to do so without being noticed. No one would look at the peasant woman limping along the side of the road a few cart lengths back – or disappearing into the forests beside them.)
In the final days of their trek out of the capital, the province they walked through looked shabbier and shabbier. The villages they passed were dusty, their people and animals thin and tired. They passed dry riverbeds and rice paddies or ponds with water so low that it stunk. In a few places, flat-bottomed boats sat useless on parched mudbanks.
"Looks like a nasty drought," Ginnar commented to Angharad. She had no context to understand what she was seeing. She had only ever lived in a place of plenty. The weather was mild and predictable in Valinor. Everyone she had ever known was immune to old age and illness. But here, a feeling of sadness and exhaustion seemed to permeate everything. It made her heart pinch.
"I do not know what that is," Angharad replied a little sheepishly.
"It means it is not raining as it should," the dwarf explained to her with an odd look. "Crops do not grow. People are hungry and thirsty."
"Are these people sick?" she asked her friend as they passed one of the dun-colored villages. A few bony looking residents stood beside the road watching them pass. They watched the provisions in their cart with red, hungry eyes.
"Some look it, aye," Ginnar confirmed for her.
"What about him?" she asked Ginnar as they passed an ancient man, wrinkled and hobbling over a cane.
"He is just old, Angharad," Ginnar replied, bemused. The young elf chewed her bottom lip as her mind churned.
Just before they left the village behind, they passed a group of four men carrying a body on a long plank. A tearful group of men, women, and children followed them.
"I – was he dead?" Angharad asked Ginnar, her eyebrows scrunched together in alarm. She had seen animals brought back from the hunt. Never had she seen anyone who looked like a person in that unnaturally still state.
"Yes, elf, he was dead," Ginnar replied, a little exasperated. "There is nothing like this in your Valinor, is there?" he guessed. He knew little about the Western havens, but that it was the land of the immortals.
"No," Angharad admitted quietly. "No, I have never seen anything like this before." The young elf was thinking back over everything she'd been told about mortals. Was this what the people of Rohan had been like, when her father helped defend them from Saruman's army? What about her mother's people from that far, far place she had come from? Did they feel pain like this?
"What happens to them when they die?" she asked. As soon as she said it she worried that it was a faux pas. Ginnar was mortal, too, she realized. "Sorry," she added awkwardly.
"I am not sure anyone knows for certain," the young dwarf mused. "My mam says that we dwarfs go to the halls of Durin where we live with our kin."
"And it all happens – always. No matter what?" Angharad was twisting her young mind around the implications of life in the mortal realm. She had known some of this in a theoretical way. But to see it – to see them suffering in this way – it felt different.
"Yes, friend, we all face sickness, old age, and death here. You elves are strange," Ginnar commented. "I wonder why you all lived in Middle Earth so long, if you did not have to bother with such problems." [1]
"I think we have our own problems," Angharad reflected. She thought about the deep, dark sadness she saw sometimes in the eyes of the oldest elves. She considered for the first time whether the sorrow behind her grandfather's gaze was one of the reasons she always wanted to share her joy with him. She had known much cruelty now, and she was only twenty-six. She shuddered to think of all that Thranduil must have seen in eight thousand years – much of it in this world of mortals.
The friends were glad for each other's company yet again during that dusty pilgrimage out of the city. Their guides fed them and kept them well-hidden from the Emperor's soldiers, but they didn't have much to say to the children in their care.
"Speak to the Dashing King when we get there," one of the rebels finally answered after Ginnar had pestered him stubbornly for days. "We're only couriers who've been asked to bring you to him." [2] The children shared a nervous glance. They had had quite enough of kings and emperors for a while. But they were not about to run off now, so they continued to follow their guides.
Finally, grimy and footsore, the children arrived at their destination. It was late afternoon when the dense bamboo forest they had been walking through parted, and a town of wooden houses, carefully disguised among the young trees, spread out before them. Everyone they could see was dressed from head to toe in the same bright green of the bamboo stalks. They even wore round woven hats in the same color. In the deepening light, if everyone had stood still, you might not have noticed them at all. [3]
"Come on," one of their escorts said, interrupting their gawping. "There's still time to see him today if we move along." (He was a good man, but he couldn't be blamed for being ready to be done. He'd signed up for fighting and spying for the revolution, not babysitting.)
"Where are we?" Ginnar demanded of their guide as he brought them into a modest house in the center of the village. "Why do you bring us here?"
A handsome young man turned away from the table of maps he had been looking at to address the dwarf, laughing.
"These must be the renowned escapees! This is the Hidden Village and the center of our rebellion – which I was made to believe you wanted to join," the man joked. He had a warm smile that Angharad immediately liked.
"You are hardly the first refugees to seek us out when fleeing the Emperor – curse his name – but I think you are perhaps the most infamous. And the most hunted. The Emperor is furious that you got away. Well done, I say. That man deserves all the frustration we can give him."
"Thank you for helping us," Angharad said. As an afterthought she curtsied and added, "Your highness." They had called him a king.
"What?" the young man said. He began laughing again. "Someone must have told you my nickname, eh? I'm not royalty. You don't have to kowtow to me. I'm just the leader of this group of fine people who are tired of paying taxes to an Emperor who does nothing while they die of thirst or starvation or plagues. Worse than nothing – he spends their money keeping you in silk and chains! Or paying police to beat them for minor grievances. They picked me out of the stocks to be their figurehead, though I still wonder why sometimes. I do my best to live up to it. I am Li Zicheng, the so-called 'Dashing King', at your service!" he said, giving them a theatrical bow.
Angharad and Ginnar were smiling and giggling along with the man as he talked. They returned his polite, but not royal, bow. She could see why he'd been chosen as a leader. She had known him for all of five minutes and she already felt as comfortable with him as she might with a friendly uncle. He reminded her a little of Elrohir.
"Please, join me for dinner, will you? You'll find we don't have much, but we share what we've got. I'd like to hear your tale from the beginning. I gather you've had quite a time of it lately. Everyone is impressed with your grand escape, by the way. Precocious kids!" the rebel leader praised them.
(He decided not to mention that their translator had had to flee for his life when their absence was discovered. He had made it to a safe house in the South. No reason to burden these children.)
Angharad and Ginnar grinned with pleasure. They gladly sat down on the floor cushions they were offered. In the hands of the Dashing King, the simple bean curd soup and plain rice they were served seemed a feast.
He was such a good listener that the children found themselves pouring their stories out to him without a second thought. He sympathized with their pains. He cursed their captors. He celebrated their victories. By the end of the evening, Angharad and Ginnar were ready to pledge their service to the Dashing King and his Rebellion with as much passion as anyone who had lived under the thumb of the Palace all their lives.
"Peace, children, peace," the young man told them, smiling at their enthusiasm. "We welcome any help you can give us. You have as much reason to hate the Emperor as any one of us does. But whether you can help or not, you're welcome to stay here with us. What little is ours is yours. There's a house full of orphans and widows – you'll find you're in good company in that regard, human or not. I suggest you stay there for now. The important thing is that you stay out of sight. Like I said, you're being hunted."
Zicheng sent the elf and the dwarf away to the orphans' house and settled down to think. He didn't know how their presence might help or hinder their rebellion yet. They were only children, separated from their parents, as many others in the Hidden Village were. They weren't yet at the point of turning away orphans just because it was another mouth to feed. But they didn't need the attention of the soldiers who were looking for these unusual young ones, either.
What the girl had said about her parents coming for her was interesting, he thought. Maybe they'd be grateful. Maybe they'd join the cause. The kind of following he could gather with a pair of celestial warriors at his side… They could free the whole Northern province! He wouldn't mind being the king of a new region. That wasn't the point, he knew, but still. He wouldn't mind.
(~***~)
Angharad and Ginnar had been herded through the dark walkways to the orphans' house. They'd been given green suits to wear, like everyone else in this encampment, and instructed in how important it was that they stayed concealed. For that same reason, the use of lamps or candles was discouraged for any non-critical reason. The house was dark when they arrived; its residents already settled down to rest. Their chorus of their sleeping breaths rose and fell like the sound of the sea.
The elf and the dwarf declined the separate bunks they were offered. They were so used to sharing a mattress now that – in this unfamiliar place – they opted to stick together a while longer. As her companion fell asleep, Angharad listened to the voices of the bamboo that surrounded them. The trees were youthful and energetic. They were thirsty, but they still loved life. She felt hopeful in this place, where people cared for each other as best they could despite all their challenges. She was proud to join these ordinary humans who stood together in defiance of a tyrant Emperor. It was still far from home, but until her parents arrived, it filled her with purpose.
(~***~)
Angharad was woken from reverie by the feeling that someone was watching her. She turned over and found herself face to face with a very small human with a snot-smeared nose and his thumb in his mouth.
"Mmmnnnn," the toddler hummed. He pointed at her hair with his free hand, which clutched a grubby piece of blanket.
"Hello…" the elf said awkwardly. It was barely past dawn, but the house of orphans and widows was already waking. In this town without lamps, the people rose with the sun. A teenaged girl came over to them and picked up the little boy.
"There you are, you walking hurricane," she scolded. She looked at the elf girl he was pointing at and became curious herself. Angharad poked at Ginnar behind her to wake up. It seemed they were about to meet their new housemates.
"Where are you from, yellow hair? How'd you end up here?" the teenager asked, incredulous. Ginnar sat up behind Angharad, clearing his throat and rubbing his eyes. The children had started to gather around the curious new residents of their house.
"He has a beard!" one of the children exclaimed at Ginnar. He smoothed his hands over his face with pride. Of course he did. He wasn't a baby.
"We're from the West. We were captives in the Emperor's palace, but we escaped. Your Dashing King says we can hide here. We want to help. We hate the Emperor, too," Angharad explained to their wide-eyed audience.
A few of the older children spit on the floor when she mentioned the Emperor. Three women had joined at the back of the gathered children. They must be the widows, Angharad thought.
"Oh, you're them!" one of the older boys scoffed. "I saw soldiers searching carts for you out on the big road. Good job getting away, though. Sounds like you pissed off the old man." The children tittered at the naughty language even as the three women tsked them.
"That's enough," the oldest looking woman told the children. "It's time for morning exercise, let's go." She turned to the newcomers, sizing them up.
"Are you coming to training?" she asked with a scowl.
"What kind of training?" Ginnar scowled at back her.
"Self-defense," she replied. She began gathering up the youngest children along with the other women and the oldest teenagers and herding them out of the house.
Ginnar shrugged at Angharad. "Sounds interesting," he said. Angharad nodded back at him. They were part of a rebellion now, after all. It could be useful to know how to defend themselves.
The young elf and the young dwarf swung off their bunk and followed the chaotic pack of unclaimed children. Angharad noticed that she was taller than most of them, except for those who were fully grown. Ginnar's stature was not so noticeably short in this group, she thought – although his flaming hair and beard would always set him apart.
But despite their differences, today they were just a part of the crowd. They're just like us, Angharad thought as she followed the group across the Hidden Village. We're all just children without our parents, trying to find our way. The thought made her feel warm for them. Sharing her troubles with a friend had been her saving grace so far. Maybe they were about to have some more friends.
(~***~)
Footnotes:
[1] This exchange between Angharad and Ginnar is inspired by the tale of the Four Sights from the tale of Siddartha Gautama, who became the Buddha. It is an important precursor to his decision to leave his privileged life as a prince and take the journey to enlightenment.
I thought there was an interesting parallel between Siddartha and Angharad. Both, until these moments, have lived lives of safety and luxury, away from the disturbing sights of the trials of mortality (notwithstanding Angharad's recent misfortune). Angharad has not yet encountered the fourth sight – the ascetic – but given that her character would need to grapple with these things, and how influential Buddhism has been in parts of China's history, I thought a nod to this story was appropriate.
Maybe it's a little mature for these young friends to think about, but they've been exposed to a lot. It might make anybody think.
[2] The 'Dashing King' was the nickname of the leaders of a rebel army that opposed the Ming Emperors in the 1630s and 1640s. According to what I've read, it was originally used by Gao Yingxiang, and then by his successor, Li Zicheng. I would note that I am pulling from events that did not all happen at the same time: the Wanli Emperor, Zhu Yijun, died before this uprising occurred. But all of my influences in this storyline are coming from roughly the same hundred-year span: from the mid-16th century to the mid-17th century, at the end of the Ming dynasty. As before, this is not meant to be a historically accurate representation, just inspiration.
[3] This visual is directly inspired by the brilliant costuming & bamboo forest scenes in House of Flying Daggers (film, 2004), which is a significant influence in this story line.
Other influences in this chapter and the succeeding story arc are Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (film, 2000), The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (film, 1978) and more, which will be cited later as relevant.
