The Blue-Eyed Shan Read Online Free

to be impolite. Losing required no great effort. These three were old hands.
    Horse-master said, “Wu,” and won big, with four k’ang and a pair of red dragons; he was East Wind and collected double. Greenwood snarled at the loss, and Horse-master flashed a winner’s grin. They shuffled the tiles. Horse-master asked, “Just passing through?”
    â€œYes,” Greenwood grumbled. “It would obviously be too expensive to stay.”
    Horse-master laughed.
    No one was cheating, though there might be a chipped or stained tile now and then that the others would recognize. Greenwood took his time. Games were played to appropriate rhythms and were not to be forced. The room itself was a haven, warm with the buzz of men at truce; anarchists, bandits, tribesmen, they were fighting the government in Rangoon and not the townsfolk of Hsenwi. Only to be left alone! That was all they asked. In their hills and villages, in their fields of poppy and tobacco. Even the Wild Wa wanted only serenity; it was unfortunate that their peace of mind depended on other men’s heads.
    In an hour he lost forty rupees.
    Halfway through the second hour he won a limit hand, and he had his omen: he made Four Small Blessings hidden, and on the next tile the Chinese would have made Three Scholars.
    The Chinese cursed; he was East Wind, and paid double.
    Horse-master contemplated Greenwood. They saw each other more clearly. “On your way to where?”
    â€œKunlong,” Greenwood said.
    â€œSurely not to play mah-jongg.”
    â€œSurely not.”
    Horse-master smiled faintly, to show Greenwood that he liked a close-mouthed man. “Nor to piss into the Salween.”
    â€œNo.”
    The smile persisted. A game within a game! The tiles were stacked. “Well then, you are with British intelligence,” Horse-master said.
    â€œI am not British.”
    â€œSome other tribe, then. But surely a spy. You will sit on a mountain above the Salween and spy on the Red Chinese with military glasses.”
    â€œHiking out in six months to report on the number of donkeys, pye-dogs and silkworms. Forgive me, Horse-master, but if you were sending a spy among the Chinese—”
    â€œTrue, true, by the gods! He would not have yellow hair and blue eyes! Who is East Wind here? Too much chitchat and not enough money-making.”
    Play continued. The Burman lit a cheroot, the Chinese accepted a beedy, Horse-master agreed to split another cruet of rice wine. They were old friends by now, the tiles warmed by four hands, no one winning or losing uncomfortably. The Burman was from Shwebo, a tobacco merchant, up for the harvest. Greenwood understood: tobacco was cut and cured in late summer, but opium was harvested in December and January. The Chinese was a buyer of tea. Of course. Horse-master grinned. “And what do you buy?”
    â€œI sell.”
    The pause was gratifying but short. “A good sharp answer,” said Horse-master. “So then. May one ask what you sell?”
    â€œOne may.”
    â€œBy the gods, this is a talker! So then. What do you sell?”
    â€œPeace of mind.”
    â€œAh,” said Horse-master, “a priest.”
    Greenwood called for a discarded 5-bamboo, and tuned up four overlapping ch’ao in bamboo with a pair of white dragons.
    â€œThat’s pretty,” the Chinese said.
    â€œLike music,” the Burman said.
    â€œYou carry plenty of luck,” Horse-master said.
    â€œI hope I don’t use it all here.”
    â€œAnd how do you provide peace of mind?”
    â€œI’m a prince’s bowman.” It was the old Shan phrase, and the Burmese image, for riding shotgun.
    â€œFinally we have it! Thus your tools, there.”
    â€œThus my tools,” Greenwood said. “The men of the hills come down with their harvest. The men of Kunlong bring it here. They return with silver. I am a lonely traveler and will work for the