Gordon's Quest

Part 1 of 2

by

Christopher Stasheff

Copyright 1992

 

Shang-Ti rested in his great golden throne.  His eyes were closed, his breath came and went like the ocean's tide, but he did not sleep.  In his trance, the strife and joy and sufferings of his people, the Northern Chinese, came dimly, filtered through his concentration, but he was able to dismiss most of those who called on him.  The people who had invented him, the ancient Chinese of the Shang Dynasty, were three millennia dead.  While they lived, he had been a very busy god indeed, managing a legion of sub­ordinate gods and nature-spirits, lending his might to pre­vent the worst of disasters to the Shang kings and their people, and striving to inculcate some trace of the strong moral sense that was the very core of his being to the people from which he had sprung.  But inevitably the dynasty, and the people, had grown corrupt, had begun to think more of their own pleasures and gain than of others, and in their self-preoccupation had begun to think less frequently of their gods, to believe in them less strongly.  As their faith weakened, so did Shang-Ti, until at last he fell into slumber, dozing away the centuries, and his people became only a dream to him.

Then, suddenly, something jarred him awake.  Frowning, he looked down to China and saw a man of the hill folk lying in his bed, tossing in a fever-dream.  He had studied too hard for his civil service examinations, and his health had broken when he found he had failed.  He had been carried home, and there the fever racked him, and the vividness of the dream it brought on, the astounding strength of the man's belief in it, seized even Shang-Ti and made him first a spectator, then a part of, the bizarre tale they young man dreamed.  Shang-Ti saw the three foremost scholars of ancient China healing the hill-man, found himself enmeshed in it, heard himself recognizing the hallucinating scholar Hung Hsiu-Chuan as his younger son!  He had been burdened with a son who had never been one of his own, made purely of that scholar's imagination, goaded by the scraps of tract and scripture he had read, and fueled by hatred of the Manchus who had conquered China two hundred years before.  In disgust, Shang-Ti found himself goaded to actions he would never have performed, found himself smiling upon the naive schoolteacher within his own dream, found him­self speaking words he had never thought.

Then it was over, for the schoolteacher had wakened from his fever-dream.  The imagined son was gone, the alien role was cast away, and Shang-Ti sat limp and dazed in his great golden throne, shaken by the force of human hatred and desire needing to justify itself in fanatical belief.  For a timeless moment he sat, recuperating…

Then he stiffened, galvanized, as that same force took hold of him again, only doubled now, then tripled, then magnified tenfold.  The schoolteacher had remembered his dream, had read more Christian scriptures, and had gone forth to convert his fellow men to a faith that Christians in the West would scarcely have recognized.  To Shang-Ti, it seemed a bizarre and twisted faith, as it did to those West­erners who finally learned its full set of beliefs—though to them, it was strange, even blasphemous, because it incorpo­rated so many elements of Chinese religion.  To Shang-Ti, it was alien, even sacrilegious, because of the Western ideas that wrapped it about.

But at its core—ah, at its core, it was purely the strivings and yearnings of Hung Hsiu-Chuan, the schoolteacher from whose fevered brain it had sprung, and who had gone out, wielding his patchwork Christianity like a sword with which to smite the demons—and the Manchus; to drive them out of China, he sought to destroy the Ching Dynasty, and re­turn the rule of China to the Chinese.

Led by himself, Hung Hsiu-Chuan, Great King, who had declared the rule of the Tai-Ping Tien Kuo, the Great Kingdom of Heavenly Peace; Hung Hsiu-Chuan, visionary, prophet—and the Younger Son of God, Younger Brother of Christ!

 

*           *           *

 

Tseng Kuo-Fan was Chinese, but he did not much mind the Manchus—after all, they had become almost com­pletely Chinese, even though they still refused to accept a few civilized customs, such as binding the feet of their women.  He did not even mind the fact that the Manchus made all Chinese men shave their heads and wear a pigtail down the back; he did not mind it, for he had grown up with it, as had his father and his grandfather and grand­father's grandfather before him.

It did irritate him that no Chinese could ever rise to the highest posts in the land, that the equivalent of dukes and earls, the mightiest of mandarins, must always be Man­chus—but thus had it been even with Chinese dynasties; the highest posts were always held by blood relatives of the royal family; and since Tseng Kuo-Fan had passed the highest of the civil service examinations, he could ascend by sheer ability to the second level of the bureaucracy.

He had already made great progress; he was now a gen­eral in the Imperial Army.  He had far more to lose than to gain.

But these ignorant upstarts, these hill-country rebels, Hung Hsiu-Chuan and his "princes," could very easily upset all that, and deprive him of a lifetime of striving.  In addition to that, though, they disturbed Tseng Kuo-Fan in a far more profound way.

The Manchus did not, for if they had conquered China, China had then conquered them; they had been concerned only to gain the luxuries and riches of the oldest continuing civilization in the world, and guarantee that wealth and privilege for their progeny.  They did not really wish to change it.

But the Taipings did.  They had broken the statues of Buddha and the Bodhisattvas; they had smashed the im­ages of the Taoist gods, and the soul-tablets of Confucius.  If they conquered China, they would eradicate all rival religions, and with them, half the culture and thought of China.  Perhaps even worse, they would expunge the Confucian civil service system that had given China continuity through periods of anarchy and barbarian conquests; they would alter the very soul of China.  Already they had brought in Western guns and Western organization; they had dreamed up new ways to use those weapons far more extensively than even the Manchus had, improvised ways of using them that even the English and the French had not; they ran their conquered provinces like Army units, with strict segregation of the sexes and virtual slave labor for all but the soldiers; and they looked to the West for their inspirations, not to Confucius or Lao-Tze or any of the sages.  Given their heads, they would no doubt remodel China to resemble one of the nations of those upstart bar­barians, those foreign round-eyed devils, the Europeans.  Yes, all in all, the Taipings were a greater threat to China than the Manchus…

And to Tseng Kuo-Fan and his family.  Though it galled him a little to fight for the conquering Manchus, they were quite the lesser of the two evils.

 

*           *           *

 

Hugi came to Tyr, where he stood watching the einherjar battle.  The raven spoke with the cawing voice of his kind: "Heimdall has heard a commotion at the far end of the world."

Tyr's blood ran cold, as it always did when news came of Heimdall's hearings.  He knew that the voice might be that of a raven, but the words were those of Odin.  "Is it the Time?"

"Nay," said Odin's messenger, "for these are not giants, nor do they approach.  Come to my master."

Relieved, Tyr came.

"Nay, 'tis not the Ragnorak come upon us," Odin con­firmed, when Tyr stood before him by the ash tree.

"Who are they, then?" the one-handed god asked.

"They are the yellow people of the Jade Emperor and Kung Fu-Tze."

Now, Confucius was not called a god, and Tyr knew it well—but he knew also that the sheer power of belief of bil­lions of souls had elevated the sage's ghost until he had be­come just as much a god as Odin himself…

…and no more.  "What quarrel brews among them?" Tyr demanded.

"They contend with one another in civil war."

Tyr relaxed.  "What business is it of ours?"

"They have made themselves a new god—or rather, wrapped an old one in Christian clothes.  They have set him against the gods of the Manchus and strive to conquer China away from those northern invaders.  They seek to drag the Emperor off his throne and expel all Manchus from the Middle Kingdom."

Tyr shook his head.  "There is still nothing in here to concern the gods of Northern Europe."

"But there is—for the descendents of our people seek to trade with these Chinese, and will be sorely oppressed if the schoolteacher's god triumphs.  Moreover, if his followers conquer China, the sleeping dragon shall waken, and may threaten even the island fortress of the Angles, the Saxons, and the Danes."

"And the Normans, though they had forgotten us by the time they conquered."  Tyr's face had set into grim lines.  "Can these silly slant-eyes truly threaten the West?"

"There are very many of them," Odin pointed out, "and they are valiant warriors, if they are given decent leader­ship.  The schoolteacher has chosen good generals, and his followers have begun to triumph over the forces of the Em­peror.  Already he holds a third of China in his sway, and has declared that he is the rightful Emperor, that Heaven has withdrawn its Mandate from the Manchus and be­stowed it upon him.  He calls his reign the Tai-Ping Tien-Kuo—the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace."

"Is that why he sheds so much blood?"  Tyr scowled, gazing off toward the East.  "I had thought the Englishman to be right when he said that China was a sleeping dragon."

"Then the schoolteacher Hung Hsiu-Chuan may waken that dragon—and if he does, let the West beware."

Tyr locked gazes with Odin again.  "There are many dragon-slayers among our brood."

"Go find one, then," Odin commanded.  "Find me a hero who can bind the will of England against these up­starts who would make a god of bits and pieces.  There are many in Britain who think these Taipings are good, for they seem to be Christians.  Discover for me a hero who shall see the schoolteacher for the blasphemer he is, and unite the English so that they may see it, too."

Tyr shook his head.  "Heroes are made as much as they are born.  I shall seek a man who is the raw stuff, and make a hero of him."

And the god of the single hand was soon to be seen, here and there, walking through England again.  Those who saw him turned away their eyes and tried to pretend they had not seen—and certainly spoke of him to no one, for they knew that when Tyr was seen about the land, war would come to England.

But one man did not turn away.

 

*           *           *

 

Charles George Gordon was off duty, walking the sea­shore near Pembroke Dock, gazing at the roaring surf that mirrored the tumult in his own soul, but gazing beyond it at the deep rolling swell that showed him the tranquility to which he aspired.  He had been wandering for perhaps an hour when he met the one-handed man.

Gordon had only been graduated from the Royal Military Academy for a year and a half; he was twenty, and waiting for orders to his next assignment, eager for the excitement of the fray.  He knew, in a way that was neither remote nor aca­demic, that he might be killed, might even be maimed, might undergo horrible pain—but the thought did not deter him; he was sure that he could endure any pain God saw fit to allot to him—had he not already undergone self-imposed hardships, fasting, and long marches?  If God saw fit to call him home to heaven before his allotted threescore years and ten—why, he was ready.

But he was not ready for the encounter with the old mendicant, whose gaze fixed him with an intensity that stabbed through to his very soul.

He saw the old man sitting on his heels by a small fire, and pity moved his heart, though he was careful not to let it show in his face.  Surely the man was in desperate need—all he wore were the skins of animals and a pair of sandals.  Gordon came up to the fire, reaching in his pocket for a shilling, reflecting that he must not seem patronizing—he knew what pride was; who should know better?  "Good day to you, my man."

"Good day to you."  The old beggar looked up, raising an arm in greeting—and Gordon thrilled with shock to see that his wrist ended in a metal cup; the hand was gone.  He re­membered his manners and forced himself not to stare, to look away, directly into the old man's eyes—a mistake, for that glittering gaze held Gordon transfixed; for a moment, he could not have moved if he had found himself staring down the muzzle of a musket.

Then the old man looked down at the grouse that was roasting over his little fire, and Gordon could move again.  A delusion, no doubt—but he thought twice about offering the alms he had intended.  He stared at the man, at a loss for words—and the more so because he realized that the furs the old man wore were clean, almost new, as clean as the man himself.  He wore nothing but a jerkin and a kilt, only skins with the fur left on.  His long grizzled hair was held back by a headband that shone like burnished gold, though surely it was brass.  A very dark brass.  But surely nothing more.

He did not look like a man in need.

Oh yes, he was lean, and the bones were prominent in his cheeks—but except for the long moustaches that hung down below his chin, his face was clean-shaved, and his arms and legs were thick with muscle.  Rather than impoverished, he looked to be a man in his element, whose life gave him all he needed.

But that could not be!  He had no house, or he would not have been cooking by an open fire; he had no proper clothes.  There were no wild men left in England, in Vic­toria's reign; what could he be?

"You are wondering where my hand is."

Gordon could only nod; had he been so obvious?

"I left it in the mouth of a wolf.  Seat yourself."  It was a command as much as an invitation.  "Partake of my meal."

Gordon was revolted, but also strangely attracted.  He found himself sitting slowly, and murmuring, "Thank you."

"It is as you will."  The accent was not West Country, nor any other dialect that Gordon recognized.  Perhaps a touch of the Prince Consort, perhaps an echo of the German...

"Where are you bound?"

There was a time when Gordon would have said, "I don't know;" but on his first posting, he had met Captain Drew, the closest thing to a friend he'd had in that grim and dingy place—and Drew had taught him a strange thing: Christianity without a church.  It had come as a revelation to Gordon, with his New England Puritan mother and three generations of Army Gordons gone before him.  Discipline he knew, and always rebelled against it, though he had al­ready begun to insist on it from his subordinates—if there were such a thing as a subordinate to a subaltern.  Church he knew, and resented its boredom intensely.  But Drew prayed quietly, by himself, and made no great show of his faith; it had been only a chance comment at first, a refer­ence here and there, but long explanations when Gordon asked for them.  For Gordon, religion had ceased to be an inconvenience, had become an obsession.

So now, when the old man asked him where he was bound, he replied, "Where God wills."  The words came automatically, as easily as one might say, "To Aberdeen" or "To London."

The uncanny gaze fixed him again, and the odd guttural voice said, "Are you not bound for glory, young soldier?  Do you not yearn for it?"

"No," Gordon said.

The old man nodded as though it were no surprise.  "There is one thing you do yearn for, though."

"Yes."  Gordon met his gaze.  "Heaven."

The old man nodded.  "Do you not mean—death?"

"Of course," Gordon said impatiently.  "Death is the gateway to Heaven."

The old man's smile was almost lost in his moustaches.  "You shall have it—some day.  For you must earn it, must seek it as Galahad sought the Grail.  But you may begin your quest in the Crimea.  Request your posting."

"I have," Gordon said, feeling irritation begin.  "The Army ignores me."

"Then ask Sir John Burgoyne."

Gordon could only stare, again feeling the thrill, the chill, of that single-minded gaze.  How could the old man have known that the War Office's Inspector-General of For­tifications was an old friend of the Gordon family?  "What are you, then?"

"Your genius, perhaps."  The old man rose—perhaps not so old after all, perhaps only in his fifties.  "Perhaps a mes­senger, come to tell you that you shall find what you seek in the East."

But he was going away!  "Wait!" Gordon cried.  "Your bird!"

"Take it," the one-handed man told him.  "It is not the last of my suppers you shall eat."

Gordon stared after him, feeling the chill rise up his spine like mercury in a thermometer.  Then he shook it off, and looked down at the grouse.  When he looked up again, the old man was gone.  Disappeared.

Gordon stared at the place where he had been for several minutes, then looked slowly down at the grouse.  Carefully, he took it from the fire, tore loose a leg, and began to eat.

 

*           *           *

 

The Bear roared, its little eyes blazing, huge claws reaching out to rake at Tyr—but the one-handed god batted the huge paw aside with contempt.  "I am fated to fight the Fenris Wolf, beast!  How pathetic are you compared to that great Foe!"

"You are all of you only very little men!" the Bear growled.  "You could not stand against me, if there were not so many of you."

"Then call your own army," Thor rumbled, hefting his hammer.  "These men are the grandsons of grandsons' grandsons of those who worshiped me, and I shall strengthen their arms!"

"I shall craft them wondrous weapons," Wayland the Smith added.

"Only the three?"  The Bear roared in mockery.  "Where is the fourth?  Where is the trickster, where is Loki?"

"Loki has his own business," Thor said grimly.  He was angry at the Flame-god, but was quite willing to turn that anger on the Bear.  "We shall not need him."

But they did.

 

*           *           *

 

The guns thundered; the horse under him screamed and stumbled.  Gordon shouted and leaped clear, proud that even in such extremity he had not cursed nor sworn.  But he did call upon his God.  "Lord help me now!" he cried, as he sheathed his saber and drew his revolver.  He walked straight toward the belching Russian cannon, staring at the Slavic faces behind its breech.  Terror surged within him, fought to tear loose and overwhelm him, but he fought it down sternly and went step by step toward the cannon, thinking, If it be Thy will, O Lord, then I shall die; if it be Thy will!  For he knew the Russians were almost as bad as the Papists, with their drinking and treacheries, ignoring the clear, shining doctrines of true Christianity.

Bullets whistled about him, shells burst to right and left—but not a scrap of lead touched him, not a shard of shrapnel.  He came through the smoke unto the breech of the gun, and the gunners looked up, staring in horror out of their broad Slavic faces, as though they were seeing a ghost.

Gordon raised his pistol, and fired.

 

*           *           *

 

"He is blooded," Tyr told Odin.  "The war is done; for fifteen months he has toiled at mapping the borders laid down by the treaty."

Odin frowned.  "How will that aid in making a hero of him?"

"Because," said Tyr, "it has given him a love for wild, open lands, simple living, and rough people with ways that are new and exciting to him.  Never again will he be content to remain in England for very long."

Odin nodded thoughtfully.  "It is well done.  But how shall you confront the Chinese gods?  What force of immor­tals can you assemble to support your champion?"

"I will begin with the oldest," said Tyr, "with the war-gods whose peoples are so long gone that we have forgotten their names.  Then I will come to the Celts."

 

*           *           *

 

Lugh looked up from the spear he was sharpening and saw the One-Handed stalking toward him out of the mist between their realms.  He leaped to his feet, brandishing his spear and shouting, "Can I never be done with you?  Be­gone, invader!  Away, or I will slay you again!"

"Then I would slay you," Tyr returned, irritated by the Celt's bravura, "and we would both be alive again in a second, to continue the fight on and on.  Have you not learned, O Chalk-Hair, that we can only die if humans cease to believe in us?"

"Then how is it you still live?" Lugh taunted.  "The Christ chased you all out of Britain years ago!"

"No more than yourself," Tyr returned.  "Have the Britons ceased to light fires on Samhain?  Have they ceased to dance about the maypole?  Come, you know these things of old, and know that the Island People today are as much your children as mine."

"They are that," Lugh growled, "more's the pity."

Tyr heaved a sigh.  "You were ever poor losers, you braggart Celts.  Is it of no matter to you that our Island People are at war again?"

"When are they not at war?" Lugh returned.  "When they extended their sway around the world, they took up the challenge of constant warfare, forever battling somewhere in the world."

"But now they contend against the Dragon," Tyr said, "or will, soon—and millions of souls shall fuel the power of the god they worship.  Come, it will take all of us to defend our folk this time—even the Ancient Ones, in whom the Britons have only shreds of belief.  We must bind together now, as surely as we are bound in the blood and bone of these descendants of our worshipers."

Lugh scowled.  "We are so bound, aye.  But who shall you find to bind them all to one mind for this war?  They are a contentious lot, and are forever arguing as to what course of action to take.  Why, they could not even agree to forge an empire—it fell to them almost by accident, and by the com­merce of their merchants more than their lust for power!"

"That is true," Tyr said, "but the army always followed to protect the merchants—and I have found us a warrior who can bind their determination together, whether he will or no."

"What paragon is this?" Lugh demanded.  "Cymri or Celt, Briton or Dane?"

"Come and see for yourself."  Tyr turned on his heel and stalked away.

Lugh glowered after him, then hefted his spear and fol­lowed.

 

*           *           *

 

The campaign was done, its echoes were dying inside his head. Gordon walked by the waters of the Black Sea, already restless again.  Orders had come to go to Bessarabia and survey the border with Russia, to be sure it conformed to the Paris treaty—but it was only dull routine, and there was no chance there for fighting, for death.  So as he walked by the sea, the gibbering terrors were laid to rest, and the sight of the waves and the tranquility of their endless beating were healing his soul.

He saw the one-handed man.

He stared at the figure sitting by the fire ring—but the coals were dark, there was no meat, no flame.  Then, slowly, Gordon came up to the ashes.  But he did not sit; he had not been invited.

The old man looked up.  "Sit."

Gordon sat.

"You have won glory."  The old man did not ask; he knew.

Gordon shrugged impatiently.  "It means nothing."  Nonetheless, he touched the medal on his breast.  "I have not found death."

"Not for yourself, no.  But it shall come, it shall come."

Gordon's eyes glowed.  "Soon?"

The old man shrugged.  "How quickly is 'soon'?  In three years' time, you shall have another chance."

Gordon was clearly disappointed.  "Three years?  For three years I must rot in peace?"

"There will be work."  The old man looked down at the roast, then looked up again.  "There is much glory to be won for your God, much fame to be gained for his name."

Gordon felt the cold chill again, the thrill; his heart leaped.  "Will there be war?"

"For England, yes," the one-handed man said.  "For you, there will be more hunting."

The terror screamed to be let out, but Gordon kept it locked in.  His eyes shone with gratification.  "What quarry?"

"The Dragon," the old man said.  Then he rose and turned away.  "Eat of my supper."

"I shall."  Gordon lowered his gaze to see that the meat was done; he took the spit from the fire.  He did not bother to look up; he knew the one-handed man would be gone.

 

*           *           *

 

"Bow down, and do not even seek to raise your hands against me!" the shining figure proclaimed.  "Am I not the God your Englishmen worship?  Am I not God the Father?"

"You are not."  Loki gestured, and the flames of glory died, showing only a venerable Chinese sage.  "You are Shang-Ti, the ancient father-god of China, and have de­luded that poor dreamer Hung Hsiu-Chuan into mistaking you for the Father of Christ, and his son Jesu."

"I deluded him?"  The sage's mouth tightened.  "Say rather that he has trapped me in his delusion—he, and a hundred thousand of his followers!"

Thor laughed, and the clouds shook with his mirth.  "Oh, well done, Loki!  Well have you seen through his impos­ture!"

"To no purpose, barbarians!" Shang-Ti snapped.  "Can your soldiers fight against one who believes he fights for the son of their God?  What will the real Son say?  What will the Father?  What of the God your Foreign Devils claim to wor­ship?  What of Jehovah?"

"Hush!  Do not speak His Name!"  Tyr glanced about un­easily.  "He is above and beyond this conflict, Ancient One—above and beyond all things, for we are but fabrica­tions of the minds and hearts of human beings, given life by their deepest, most secret yearnings—even as they are His."

"Their belief will give me strength to stand against you and all your kind!"

"All?"  Tyr looked back over his shoulder at the Celtic gods and, beyond them, the dim and distant elder gods of Britain.  He turned back to Shang-Ti.  "There are many of us, Old One.  But there are many of yours, too.  Call up your vast array of deities."

"I cannot!" Shang-Ti said bitterly.  "This dunce of a schoolteacher has bound me into a religion in which there is only one God.  I am bereft of my entourage."

Tyr raised an eyebrow.  "Then you stand alone against us?"

"Let your puny Englishmen come!" Shang-Ti blustered.  "My people shall swallow them, chew them up, and spit them out, as they have done to so many before!"

"They have not chewed me, Ancient One."  The Manchu war-god stepped up beside Tyr and Odin.  "And my lance is still in your heart."

But Shang-Ti wrenched out the lance and threw it back with contempt.  "They have swallowed you, they have chewed you—and even now prepare to eject you.  You, and all who are yours!"

"Indeed?"  The Manchu's eyes glittered dangerously.  "Then I must rip out their bellies while I am still within them!"

 

*           *           *

 

England had forced a new treaty on the Chinese and withdrawn her gunboats, but the Emperor refused to sign it.  Well, not refused, exactly, but there was one delay after another, cavil after cavil, excuse after excuse.  Finally, in exasperation, England had sent Lord Elgin to make sure the treaty was signed—and Sir Hope Grant, with 15,000 soldiers to clear his way.

It was late, very late, when Gordon received his orders.  He strode the decks with impatience; he barely restrained himself from blowing into the sail to try to hurry the ship.  When they were becalmed and the great paddlewheels alone drove them, he stood calm and chill on the outside, but was almost feverish with anxiety inside.

And sure enough, by the time he came to the China coast, the first few battles had been won; the Union Jack flew over the Taku Forts.  But Lord Elgin and the army had advanced only as far as Tientsin, and Gordon joined them there.

Elgin gave the signal, and Sir Grant moved his troops northward.  An Imperial army blocked his way, with Manchu bannermen at its center, tall and burly in bright half-armor, banners fluttering overhead.  Almost as intimi­dating were the troops of Mongol cavalry on the wings, sturdy men with pointed, fur-trimmed caps who rode tough little ponies.  Gordon looked upon them and felt an echo of the dread that Europe had felt when Genghis Khan's horde had ridden in from the steppes.

But the Europeans had fast-moving cavalry of their own now, and cannon and grapeshot, as well as a musket for every infantryman—and they blasted by the numbers, laying down a continuous field of fire while they advanced, row upon row, volley upon volley.  The Mongol cavalry rode as a mob, and broke upon the wave of bullets; the proud Manchu bannermen charged and stumbled as the grapeshot hit them.  The Manchu cannons boomed in reply, but the stone balls fell short, or flew wide.

To Gordon, in the thick of it, the battle seemed inter­minable, as all battles did; time stopped as he urged his troop on, seeming to ignore the musket balls about him—though secretly hoping one would strike him.  But none did, and suddenly it was all over; the bannermen and the Chinese infantry were in full retreat; the Mongols were galloping away.  Sir Grant would not let his men follow; their mission was to bring Elgin to Peking, not to conquer China.

But his strategy seemed odd; they swung north of Peking and came down through the Summer Palace.  Gordon stared in awe at mile after mile of perfectly manicured garden, of dainty dells and miniature pagodas next to ponds that were expanded to lakes by the scale of the models.  There was not one palace, but two hundred, some with scores of rooms, some of merely a dozen—pavilions and summerhouses and arbors, made of precious woods and decorated with jewels.

But there was litter on the grass, and cups and plates left on the tables, for the Emperor and his household had fled in frenzy farther north to Jehol, only days before the French and English came.

So the guns rained cannon balls and grapeshot on Peking, and Prince Kung graciously agreed to discuss terms.  An agreement was signed—by the Prince, not the Emperor, but Kung was his brother and regent, and the Emperor was re­puted to be ill.  Elgin declared amity, and demanded that the prisoners the Manchus had taken be returned.

They came in bullock carts—carrying wooden boxes.  The English and French looked upon the remains of their countrymen and their loyal Sikh troops, and paled, and trembled with rage.  The Army screamed for blood to an­swer the blood that had been shed, the tortures that had been visited on their men.  A few were still alive, and told of the agonies inflicted by the Board of Punishments.  But the treaty had been signed anew; Britain and France had pledged amity again; they could not strike through to con­quer Peking and punish Prince Kung and his torturers, nor march north to capture the ailing Emperor himself.  Lord Elgin strode through the Summer Palace, sunk in brooding thought, then emerged to announce the punishment to be visited on the Manchus—a punishment that would smite only the Emperor and his nobles, by destroying a treasure that had been reserved to them alone.

The Summer Palace.

The French diplomat protested at the destruction of such beauty that had taken centuries in the building, but Elgin stood firm.  His own officers warned that, by de­stroying the Emperor's private pleasure-park, he would un­dermine Chinese respect for the Manchu regime; he would strike at its foundations, and the government of China might crumble.  Elgin stood firm.

 

*           *           *

 

"Begone, you barbarian monkeys!"  The Manchu gods were drawn up in a wedge.  "If your hairy devil-people dare to seek to strike at our Emperor, you shall die on our spears!"

But Tyr stood between Thor and Lugh, his own spear poised in his palm, a shield fastened to his handless arm.  Behind him, in array, stood the gods of the Danes and the Angles and Saxons; beyond them stood the gods of the Celts.  Even farther back stood the shadowed gods of the Elder Britons, and in the distance, dim but menacing, hulked the gods to whom Stonehenge had been erected.

"We are far more in number than you," Tyr informed the Manchu gods, "but that matters far less than our strength, for your people have begun to turn away from you, to forget you—and the Chinese gods have never stood with you.  Give way, or perish."  The old gods of Great Britain began to march.

 

TO BE CONTINUED…