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were creatures who despised the five virtuous grains.
    Gradually men emerged bare-chested from the tents. It was rumoured that monsoon weather discomforted their kind. Let them sweat! Nevertheless, they found enough energy to gallop up and down, loosing arrows at wooden posts and cheering whenever they hit. A few villagers also applauded and this grieved the man watching from the hillside.
    It was three years since the Mongols had seized Wei Valley, killing Guang’s parents, occupying Three-Step-House, his ancestral home. After the death of his father, Lord Yun, a Mongol commander had been granted the Lordship of Wei Valley by the Great Khan. Yet Guang had devised a way to inspect what belonged to his family by perpetual right and, above all, to visit the shrine of his ancestors. Surely Heaven favoured such an enterprise. The constant flutter in his gut was not fear, merely a reminder he must be cautious. The Mongols would seize him if he failed, dragging him behind their horses.
    Then their triumph over his family would be complete.
    Later that morning a fat warrior rode into the village on his shaggy pony, dragging two prisoners behind, their arms and necks bound by ropes and branches shaped into yokes. Former neighbours for all Guang knew. Certainly their clothes suggested quality.
    Guang turned his attention to the village. Most of the low houses seemed intact, smoke rising from the hearths. Scores of peasants were at work in the remaining fields, tilling or tending the irrigation wheels. On the far side of the valley above the village, Three-Step-House stood as always, its elegance un-diminished. This was the hardest sight, proof of right turned wrong. He examined the distant figures of servants and tried to identify them. They were too far away, in time as well as distance.
    No one disturbed him in the tiny cave as the hours passed.
    When he awoke, he ate the last of his rice-cakes and checked his equipment. Cautiously, before darkness fell he struck flint and tinder, aware how sound travelled in strange ways through the valley. Then he lit a small fire-pot attached to his belt.
    Taking his monk’s staff, part of an elaborate disguise that had served him well on his journey through the occupied lands, he attached an iron cylinder to the end of the bamboo pole, binding it with twisted cords of hemp.
    Scents of evening entered the cave. Birdsong faded.
    Unexpectedly the valley’s monkeys, silent all day, began to cavort and scream. He took it as a favourable omen. Sliding his pack and staff through the overhanging entrance to the cave, he wriggled out, emerging on the ridge above Wei.
    Fires glowed round the cluster of tents, but the village itself was silent beneath its curfew. There had been no curfew when Father was Lord. Surely that time would come again! Guang’s enterprise at the shrine could only bring it closer. Heaven loved the filial, and the scroll in his pouch was a crossbow loaded with piety. He padded into the night, a shadow moving between pine and pawlonia trees and stands of rustling bamboo.
    *
    Crossing the valley proved simple. Perhaps too simple. Were they were waiting for him to reveal himself? One could take no chances with demons. It was well-known their shamans used human bones and spells to detect enemies. Yet finding the old, familiar paths proved easy. He circled round Three-Step-House where fires flickered in the courtyard and drunken men squatted and jabbered, stealing through the darkness to a grove on the hillside above the house.
    Silence of night, glow of fire-flies. Heaven’s constellations lent significance to every movement. His had been a harsh, disappointed life, yet now Guang felt powerful as though destiny guided his steps.
    In this mood he found the ancestral shrine built by Great-great-grandfather – a famous hero of the struggles against the Kin barbarians a century earlier – to celebrate his ennoblement.
    Here Great-grandfather Yun Cai also rested, a poet still honoured