Finally she said, “You think I should apologise.”
“Who cares what I think? You’re the one who sat in a cell for how many years thinking about right and wrong,” said Tet Sang. “What doyouthink you should do?”
Guet Imm looked furious. The youngest novice of the Order of the Pure Moon could have told them that according to the deity’s precepts, it was for Guet Imm to bow her head and forget her ego.
“I wasn’t thinking about right or wrong when I was in seclusion,” she retorted. “I wasn’t thinking about anything. That’s the point of meditation. You’re supposed to empty your mind.”
“You’re right, of course,” said Tet Sang mildly.
Guet Imm glowered at him some more. “If I don’t say sorry, then what? Brother Lau will kick me out?”
Tet Sang shrugged. “It’s Ah Lau’s group. It’s for him to decide.”
Guet Imm shook out her sleeves, raising her head with the air of a martyr. “If I have to say sorry or he’ll kick me out, then there’s no choice. I have nowhere else to go.” She shot Tet Sang a vengeful look, daring him to say anything about coffeehouses.
But having won his point, Tet Sang had no interest in gloating. “Thank you, sister. Sometimes, we all have tosacrifice to keep the peace.” He paused, then added, “Ah Lau might ask about your martial arts training.”
Guet Imm had turned, as though she meant to charge out and get the apology over with right then. She looked back. “What about it?”
“The men were surprised you knew how to fight.” Tet Sang examined his grubby nails dispassionately.
Guet Imm blinked. “Really? Don’t they knowanythingabout the Order?”
Tet Sang hummed. “You’ll be surprised what people know—or think they know. There’s been,” he said deliberately, “some talk about witchcraft.”
“Oh?” said Guet Imm. “And what did you say?”
It was the first time that evening that Tet Sang found it hard to decipher her expression. But simplicity had served him well so far.
“I cannot say what I don’t know,” he said. “I was not an anchorite. Even—back then—these things were closed to me.”
Guet Imm sat back down, frowning.
“Shaping the earth is one thing,” she said. She was referring to the five key devotional practices of followers of the Pure Moon—the five fingers of the goddess’s hand. The first: emptying the gourd with meditation. The second: filling the gourd with the chanting of scriptures. The third: planting seeds by analysing the scriptures. The fourth: shaping the earth by cultivating one’s physicalpowers. And the fifth: shaping the air by cultivating one’s spiritual powers. The last included the practice of the healing arts but also other arts which were rather more obscure. Laypeople called these magic.
All five fingers were regarded as divine mysteries, to each of which a votary could productively devote a lifetime. But that did not mean there was no hierarchy.
“I can tell them how I learnt to fight,” said Guet Imm. “But the fifth finger of the deity’s hand… that is a deep matter. Even if I know how to explain, will they know how to understand?”
“Not much scares the men,” said Tet Sang. “But who is comfortable when it comes to witchcraft? I cannot tell you what to say, sister. But if it’s Ah Lau who asks, I think it’s best to give him some kind of answer. To say nothing will make people nervous, and frightened men behave badly. You saw Ah Yee tonight.”
Guet Imm’s face fell. “Is it so easy for them to distrust me? I’ve done my best for you all, brother. Can you say I didn’t contribute? Try and smell Brother Ah Hin!”
“We all smell better,” Tet Sang reassured her. “Don’t get me wrong. The men are still your friends. I am just saying, be careful. Most of them are not in a good situation. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have become roving contractors.
“Everyone knows we cannot risk waiting three weeks for Yeoh Thean Tee to come back. The only place to hidefrom the mata is the jungle. But if we stay here, how are we supposed to hide from the bandits? Right now, the men are disappointed. It won’t take much to make them desperate.”
“Oh, we won’t have to wait three weeks,” said Guet Imm. “I know what we can do. I would have told Brother Lau if not for all the disturbance.”
Tet Sang stared. “What?”
“It’s not like only Yeoh Thean Tee has keys to the Yeoh family vault,” said Guet Imm. “There are other people in the family.”
“The maid told us everyone went on this business trip.”
“No, she told us Yeoh Thean Tee’s sons and nephews went with him,” said Guet Imm. “But when she said there was nobody in the house, that made me wonder who counted as somebody. I thought,Surely, Yeoh Thean Tee didn’t take his wife and mother along. So, I went back to his house in the afternoon—”
“Youwhat?”
