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“I don’t see why it’s so funny,” Lily said. Her comment brought on a few more hoots. “Well, I don’t.”
“Forget about them, Lily,” Catherine soothed. “They’re just picking on you because you’re a girl. Believe me, they don’t want you for your antiquities….”
The men, right down to the elderly Cambridge professor with the peeling scalp, suddenly found the food on their plates very interesting.
Catherine purred to David sotto voce, “They’re a bunch of boys….”
There probably wasn’t another woman within a thousand square miles built like Catherine, and every man at this table knew it. But Catherine had singled out David, and Hulan understood why. People wanted to connect with him. They wanted to engage him, touch him.
Catherine modulated her pitch once again to include the others. “But I don’t know why we can’t consider Lily’s idea about the Nine Tripods. Could there be a find anywhere that would be more significant to the history of China?”
“The terra-cotta warriors,” Professor Schmidt suggested.
“A great tourist site certainly,” Catherine agreed, “but what do they really say about power?”
“Qinshihuangdi had enough power to unify the country,” the professor replied. “He had enough power to build the Great Wall.”
“No one really knows the true origin of the Great Wall,” Ma cautioned. “Qinshihuangdi receives credit for it, but we all know that much of that is myth, not reality.”
“Myth and reality are connected,” Catherine said, “especially where Yu the Great is concerned.” Again she focused her attention on David, leaning close enough to him that her breasts brushed against his forearm, which, Hulan noticed, he didn’t move. “Do you know who we’re talking about?”
David shook his head.
“But you do, right?” Catherine said to Hulan. “‘If not for Yu, we all would be fishes,’” she recited.
Hulan was accustomed to the deficiencies of her education, but these scholars were appalled when she confessed her ignorance.
Catherine explained that Da Yu—Yu the Great—was the first emperor of China to found a hereditary dynasty. His reign began in 2205 B.C. after he controlled the floods. These deeds were recorded in the Shu Ching, China’s first historical text. Qinshihuangdi was the great unifier, though his reign lasted only from 221 to 206 B.C. China got its name from him and his dynasty—Qin, China. As Professor Schmidt had already pointed out, eight of the nine tripods that Da Yu made were believed to have been lost in a fire that marked the overthrow of Qinshihuangdi’s reign. One was lost in a river.
“Lily thinks it could be our river,” Catherine concluded. “I think she should keep on with her search, don’t you? To have a direct tie to Yu—”
“You have to understand, Attorney Stark,” Ma interrupted, “China has no great epics like Gilgamesh, the Mahabharata, or the Iliad. Yu’s story is the closest, although it isn’t about creation or the spirit world. It’s about the relationship between man and the physical universe. This approach is uniquely Chinese and something we still see in Chinese culture today. Even now our rulers are considered responsible for natural phenomena. Losing control over nature marks the end of their Mandate of Heaven. All that began with Yu, a real man who took on mythical aspects.”
“Such as?”
“Using a winged dragon to help cut rivers to drain the land of floods, marrying a fox spirit with tiny hoofed feet, creating nine provinces, which he then memorialized in the tripods.” Catherine put her elbows on the table and rested her chin on one of her palms so she could face David at a pretty angle. Hulan had no doubt that Catherine’s thigh was now resting against his, and she found this thought strangely titillating. “Lily will do anything to find that submerged tripod.” Then, without shifting her gaze from David, she asked the Englishwoman, “Who are you going to send to a watery grave this time, Lily? Professor Schmidt or Dr. Strong?”
“That’s not funny!” Lily practically yelped.
The others laughed uproariously.
“It always comes down to power and the symbols we use to portray it,” Professor Schmidt said. “You heard Dr. Ma. In China power is granted to those who hold the Mandate of Heaven.”
“That was a feudal idea,” Hulan corrected. “Only emperors were believed to be sons of Heaven.”
“Only emperors? What about Mao?” Stuart challenged. “You have to admit that Mao was in the game for the power. And what about that fellow from the All-Patriotic Society? He clearly cares about power.”
“The All-Patriotic Society is a cult—”
“And you’ve never heard of the Cult of Mao?” Stuart inquired. “But Mao was mortal, and I presume Xiao Da is too. Still, they’re both very much about power. How do you show your power to your people and to the world? With a sword? A nuclear arsenal? A scepter in the West or a ruyi or gui in ancient China? All of these are symbols of power.”
“You should see his collection,” Lily said in obvious admiration, but Stuart was on a roll.
“Power can be found in something as mundane as bricks and mortar if they’re put together the right way,” he continued. “Consider your Great Wall and Three Gorges Dam. Wouldn’t you say they’re both international symbols of China’s power?”
Hulan cut him off suddenly, her tone brittle. “All of this is very interesting, but I’m not here to talk about symbols. I’m here to investigate the murder of Brian McCarthy.”
“What do you mean murder?” Hearing the tremor in her voice, Lily put a hand to her throat. “Brian’s death was an accident.” She turned to Ma. “That’s what you told us. You said it was an accident.”
