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Authors: Susan Barker
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banquet table she beams and raises her goblet of plum wine: ‘To our son’s new bride!’
After the banquet, Duckweed the maidservant leads the cockerel and me to the bridal chamber. She bolts the latticed door when she leaves, locking the newly-weds in. Unperturbed, the cockerel hops and squawks and flaps up on the conjugal bed. He struts in a half-circle then defecates on the bedspread. Has the son of the Huangs died and been reincarnated into this bird? Is that what the ceremony was about?
‘Young Master Huang?’ I call experimentally.
The bird claps its beak and blinks its beady eyes. I shake my head at my foolishness then decide to call the cockerel Young Master Huang anyway, as he responds to it.
As the cockerel puffs up his feathers and swaggers about, I sit on the edge of the four-poster bed in my red silk wedding gown, wringing my hands on my lap as I ponder the fate that awaits me. Am I really to spend the rest of my days wedded to a bird? What a preposterous destiny! Then, out of nowhere, I hear the low cackle of the Sorceress Wu: ‘Wretched she-brat! Character determines destiny. Fate is the excuse of the spineless and weak!’ And though it was my evil grandmother who sold me into this strange predicament, her words lend me strength.
Dusk creeps into the bridal chamber, and I plot and wait as the shadows thicken. My spouse is quieter now, grooming his plumage, plucking out the odd feather not to his liking with his beak. When at last the bolt slides back and the door creaks open, the bridal chamber is completely dark. It is Duckweed, bringing the supper tray. I needn’t see her face to know she is smirking. Duckweed lowers the tray on a rosewood table then turns to the dresser to light the oil lamp. I waste no time. I leap up, grab the water carafe from the tray and smash its neck against the bedpost. At the shattering of glass, Duckweed gasps and spins round. I knock her head with my knuckles and drag her to me by her hair. I touch the jagged edge of the carafe to her throat.
‘Don’t scream,’ I warn her, ‘or I’ll stab out your eyes!’
Duckweed whimpers. In the flickering oil-lamp light her eyes are frantic. Not so high and mighty any more.
‘Tell me what is going on. Speak!’
Duckweed speaks. A breathless rush of words. Young Master Huang died in a tragic hunting accident the year before. He’d passed on before marrying, so his parents wanted to find him a bride, a companion for the afterlife. I was the Spirit Bride in a Spirit Wedding and the cockerel the stand-in for the Spirit Groom. Then, with some satisfaction, Duckweed adds that the eminent Huang family would never have wed me to their handsome son were he alive.
‘Now let me go!’ Duckweed weeps. ‘I have told you everything.’
‘Liar!’ I spit. ‘What happens next?’
Duckweed won’t say. I scratch the broken glass of the carafe against her cheek, drawing blood. ‘Oh no! Not my pretty face!’ she wails. The maidservant then reveals the final stage of the Spirit Wedding: the Sacrificial Ceremony. The following morning I am to be ritually slaughtered then laid to rest beside the corpse of Young Master Huang in the Huang family mausoleum, joining him in eternal sleep. I thank Duckweed, then I beat her with my fists until she is limp and barely conscious. I rip off my accursed silk wedding gown and change into Duckweed’s servant robes and woven reed sandals. Out of spite I snatch up the Spirit Bridegroom, tucking him under my arm. I slip out of the unbolted door and make my getaway.
IV
I flee through the night. The runaway Spirit Bride, dashing pell-mell through paddy fields of croaking frogs, leaping over ditches and streams. ‘Run! Run! Run!’ squawks Young Master Huang under my arm. And I obey, hurtling through the darkness without pause for breath or to ease the stitch in my side. The Huang family own a stable of horses and will come galloping for me at dawn.
Where in the Middle Kingdom am I fleeing to? As
After the banquet, Duckweed the maidservant leads the cockerel and me to the bridal chamber. She bolts the latticed door when she leaves, locking the newly-weds in. Unperturbed, the cockerel hops and squawks and flaps up on the conjugal bed. He struts in a half-circle then defecates on the bedspread. Has the son of the Huangs died and been reincarnated into this bird? Is that what the ceremony was about?
‘Young Master Huang?’ I call experimentally.
The bird claps its beak and blinks its beady eyes. I shake my head at my foolishness then decide to call the cockerel Young Master Huang anyway, as he responds to it.
As the cockerel puffs up his feathers and swaggers about, I sit on the edge of the four-poster bed in my red silk wedding gown, wringing my hands on my lap as I ponder the fate that awaits me. Am I really to spend the rest of my days wedded to a bird? What a preposterous destiny! Then, out of nowhere, I hear the low cackle of the Sorceress Wu: ‘Wretched she-brat! Character determines destiny. Fate is the excuse of the spineless and weak!’ And though it was my evil grandmother who sold me into this strange predicament, her words lend me strength.
Dusk creeps into the bridal chamber, and I plot and wait as the shadows thicken. My spouse is quieter now, grooming his plumage, plucking out the odd feather not to his liking with his beak. When at last the bolt slides back and the door creaks open, the bridal chamber is completely dark. It is Duckweed, bringing the supper tray. I needn’t see her face to know she is smirking. Duckweed lowers the tray on a rosewood table then turns to the dresser to light the oil lamp. I waste no time. I leap up, grab the water carafe from the tray and smash its neck against the bedpost. At the shattering of glass, Duckweed gasps and spins round. I knock her head with my knuckles and drag her to me by her hair. I touch the jagged edge of the carafe to her throat.
‘Don’t scream,’ I warn her, ‘or I’ll stab out your eyes!’
Duckweed whimpers. In the flickering oil-lamp light her eyes are frantic. Not so high and mighty any more.
‘Tell me what is going on. Speak!’
Duckweed speaks. A breathless rush of words. Young Master Huang died in a tragic hunting accident the year before. He’d passed on before marrying, so his parents wanted to find him a bride, a companion for the afterlife. I was the Spirit Bride in a Spirit Wedding and the cockerel the stand-in for the Spirit Groom. Then, with some satisfaction, Duckweed adds that the eminent Huang family would never have wed me to their handsome son were he alive.
‘Now let me go!’ Duckweed weeps. ‘I have told you everything.’
‘Liar!’ I spit. ‘What happens next?’
Duckweed won’t say. I scratch the broken glass of the carafe against her cheek, drawing blood. ‘Oh no! Not my pretty face!’ she wails. The maidservant then reveals the final stage of the Spirit Wedding: the Sacrificial Ceremony. The following morning I am to be ritually slaughtered then laid to rest beside the corpse of Young Master Huang in the Huang family mausoleum, joining him in eternal sleep. I thank Duckweed, then I beat her with my fists until she is limp and barely conscious. I rip off my accursed silk wedding gown and change into Duckweed’s servant robes and woven reed sandals. Out of spite I snatch up the Spirit Bridegroom, tucking him under my arm. I slip out of the unbolted door and make my getaway.
IV
I flee through the night. The runaway Spirit Bride, dashing pell-mell through paddy fields of croaking frogs, leaping over ditches and streams. ‘Run! Run! Run!’ squawks Young Master Huang under my arm. And I obey, hurtling through the darkness without pause for breath or to ease the stitch in my side. The Huang family own a stable of horses and will come galloping for me at dawn.
Where in the Middle Kingdom am I fleeing to? As
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