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heart.”
    “Reverend Sir, I have never heard of the Ancestress,” I said shyly.
    The abbot leaned back and rubbed his weary eyes.
    “What a woman,” he said with grudging admiration. “Ox, she began her career as an
     eleven-year-old imperial concubine, and by the time she was sixteen she had Emperor Wen
     wrapped around her fingers to the point where he took her as his number three wife. The
     Ancestress promptly poisoned the emperor, strangled his other wives, decapitated all but
     the youngest of his sons, elevated that weakling to the throne - Emperor Yang - and
     settled down behind the scenes as the real ruler of China.”
    “Reverend Sir, I have heard all my life that Emperor Yang was a depraved and vicious ruler
     who nearly destroyed the empire,” I exclaimed.
    “That's the official version, with parricide tossed in,” the abbot said drily. "Actually
     he was a timid little fellow, and quite likable. The real ruler was the Ancestress, which
     is a title that she awarded herself and which carries a certain Confucian finality. Her
     reign was brief, but gorgeous. She set about bankrupting the empire by decreeing that
     every leaf that fell in her imperial pleasure garden must be replaced by an artificial
     leaf fashioned from the costliest silk. Her imperial pleasure barge was 270 feet long,
     four decks high, and boasted a three-story throne room and 120 cabins decorated in gold
     and jade. The problem was finding a pond big enough for the thing, so she conscripted
     3,600,000 peasants and forced them to link the Yellow and Yangtze rivers by digging a
     ditch 40 feet deep, 50 yards wide, and 1,000 miles long. The Grand Canal has been
     invaluable for commerce, but the important thing for the Ancestress was that three million
     men died during the construction, and a figure like that confirmed her godlike grandeur.
    “When the canal was finished,” the abbot said, “the Ancestress invited a few friends to
     accompany her on an important mission of state to Yang-chou. The fleet of pleasure barges
     stretched sixty miles from stem to stern, was manned by 9,000 boatmen, and was towed by
     80,000 peasants, some of whom survived. The important mission of state was to watch the
     moon-flowers bloom, but Emperor Yang did not watch the moon-flowers. The excesses of the
     Ancestress were being performed in his name, so he spent the entire trip staring into a
     mirror. 'What an excellent head!' he kept whimpering. 'I wonder who will cut it off?' The
     chopping was performed by some friends of the great soldier Li Shih-min, who eventually
     took the imperial name T'ang T'ai-tsung and who sits upon the throne today. T'ang shows
     every sign of becoming the greatest emperor in history, but I will humbly submit that he
     made a bad mistake when he assumed that little Yang was responsible for the crimes of the
     Sui Dynasty and allowed the Ancestress to retire in luxury.”
    I suppose that I was pale as a ghost. The abbot reached out and patted one of my knees.
    “Ox, you will be traveling with a man who has been walking into dangerous situations for
     at least ninety years, assuming that he began at your age, and he is still alive to tell
     about it. Besides, Master Li knows far more about the Ancestress than I do, and he is sure
     to exploit her weaknesses.”
    The abbot paused to consider his words. Bees droned and flies buzzed, and I wondered if
     the knocking of my knees was audible. A few minutes ago I had been ready to dash out like
     a racehorse, and now I would prefer to dart down a hole like a rabbit.
    “You are a good boy, and I would not like to meet the man who can surpass you in physical
     strength, but you know very little about this wicked world,” the abbot said slowly. “To
     tell the truth, I am not so worried about the damage to your body as I am about the damage
     to your soul. You see, you know nothing whatsoever about men like Master Li, and he said
     that he