The Red Cockatoo

The Governor of Annan was wily, sharp, ambitious, and perpetually afraid. In his household, and with subordinates, he was merciless and dominating. He took joy in harsh punishment, especially of his favourites.

And yet, called on to meet a superior, as today when he was to meet the Emperor’s Emissary, he showed himself to be a creature capable of deference.

The Emissary had come, as one did every seventh year, to inspect the taxes. This Emissary was especially young, weak, soft, and — despite his regalia — unintimidating. He was the Emperor’s sixth son, by a mildly disfavoured concubine. At court, he sat in the shadow of his mother, trying to ignore the jabs and jibes of his older, more accomplished, brothers.

Despite the Emissary’s faltering voice and ill-fitting clothes, the Governor met him as if he were a great deity, or an enemy whom he could neither escape nor best. He bowed deep and long, delivering the customary list of phrases until it was nearly exhausted, treating the young Emissary as if he were the Emperor himself.

The Emissary squirmed internally. He knew he wasn’t the true recipient of these compliments and receiving them felt almost a mockery. He tried not to let the Governor see his discomfort, or, more accurately, hear it, as the Governor had conscientiously lowered his eyes for the entirety of the long greeting.

Approximating composure, the Emperor-ling thrust out one hand, flat to the ground, to indicate ‘stop’, and gestured with the other (two fingers raised, bent twice) for two of his retinue of inspectors to step forward.

Bowing repeatedly, the Governor led the Emissary to the raised seat where he himself usually sat, then took the lower seat of his favourite concubine, where he sat, eyes rigidly forward, for the entirety of the proceedings.

The ordeal lasted hours. How many, the Emissary did not know, but the final sacks were cut, tested, and weighed by the light of flames.

The young Emissary was awoken by a subordinate’s whisper. As mutter became meaning, he shuddered. He hated delivering bad news, and most of all, delivering it as his father would, with violence.

“Governor”, he began. His unformed voice filled only a third of the hall, but the Governor, who’d remained alert and silent throughout the long afternoon, heard him clearly. “Only 70% of your taxes have been met. I will not return to the Emperor with a debt which I would, by our laws, be required to pay myself. You will provide me with the full amount before I leave at midday tomorrow, or I’ll take your head, and those of your household, with me when I leave.”

The Governor shook as he rose, before prostrating himself before the pseudo-Emperor. “Your excellence” he began, using a work kept safe for the highest instances of praise “I thank you for your mercy and promise you will leave tomorrow with a full, or greater than full, load”.

The Governor hadn’t achieved and held his position without being an exemplary actor.

Secure in his tent, the Emissary went to bed with a heavy heart, and the bitter foretaste of violence.

It was, eventually, dawn.

The Emissary hadn’t slept, assailed through the night by images of rotten corpses hanging in cages, gruesomely expressive heads on stakes, burning piles of bodies.

As his servants dressed him, careful to prevent the morning’s dew from touching his clothes, he probed, once again, for the source of his weakness. It didn’t seem to be an excess of empathy. He had no attachment to the Governor, no love for him. What obsessed him wasn’t the killing itself, but its aftermath. The unseeing eyes, the unflinching skin, insensitive to its wounds. What was human, made not. He hoped to grow calloused soon.

Eight servants carried his chair through the courtyard, passing carts laden with rice and salt. The wives and servants of the Governor, defiant or quivering, stood tall or stooped, in the mouths of doors.

At length, his chair was set down in yesterday’s hall, the sound amplified by the echoes off the empty room’s stone walls.

The Emissary and his retinue faced that of the Governor, his opulent robes of office, yellow, black, and red, contrasting with the Governor’s muddled green. The Governor appeared impoverished. Perhaps that’s what he wanted.

The Governor began to repeat his greetings from the previous day, but the Emissary, tired and nervous, cut him short with what, in another more forgiving context, would be described as an imperial gesture.

“Governor. You have had seven years and one day to collect your taxes. What do you have to show me?”

“Your highness” Today, the Governor appeared confident. “I offer you something you won’t find in all of your great empire”

At his signal, his servants parted to reveal … an intricate bird cage.

Inside — the Emissary craned his neck to see out from under his too-large hat — was a bird like none he had seen before. The feathers on its body and head were vermillion while those which spread out as the bird inclined its head were subtler, ranging from the pink of the inner skin of a white peach, through to the orange of a nectarine’s flesh.

“Greetings Emissary” said the red cockatoo, its foot raised and head feathers splayed in greeting.

An advisor, more well travelled than the Emissary, whispered in his ear, calming his startle.

The Emperor’s sixth-son attempted a grave tone. “Governor. The Emperor is no bird fancier. While this bird might be rare, it cannot stand in for 30 percent of your taxes. If you mean to beguile me with its speech, I’m not that callow. I know that there are birds capable of rudimentary copying, but a trained bird will not feed a city” His voice almost cracked. He continued after a pause. “Do you insult the Emperor?”

“Emissary, wait!” The Governor shrugged off his deferential demeanor as easily as he had assumed it. He had no use for it now. “This bird is indeed special, much more special than you’ve realised. I’ll seat it next to you and you’ll see”.

Taken aback by the rudeness of the direct address, already feeling sick at the prospect of blood, the Emissary agreed. The bird was placed on a pedestal in front of him, at eye height.

“The Governor is correct, your excellence” said the bird, in perfect high dialect. “I am no ordinary cockatoo. While others of my kind merely mimic, I speak words of my own, as you do”

The Emissary, far from reassured, felt like he was sinking. It was up to him to decide whether to accept the gift or not. If he did, he would be liable for the shortfall. All his wealth was truly the Emperor’s. It’d be his head.

His desperation made him rash. “Tell me, red cockatoo. Has the Governor been truthful with me? Is this all he has to give?”

The cockatoo paused, moved birdishly to scratch its chin, then returned to its proud-breasted position. “No, your excellency. He harvested a surplus, but he has kept it for trade. He hopes to deceive you.”

The Governor’s face washed white. After the initial shock he pulled a dagger from his robe and lifted it to his own neck. The sharp blade drew a drop of blood. But fear, long his friend, was now an enemy. He could not bring himself to take the life he had guarded so tenderly for so long. He turned and ran for the exit, leaping ahead of his already running entourage. The Emissary stared at the ground below the red cockatoo as the crossbow bolts thunked and thudded, and the screams ceased.

His servants rushed him to their camp, safely outside of the city walls. It was late afternoon when the soldiers began returning and dusk as they washed off the blood in the stream. The Emissary, clean inside his tent, knew he wouldn’t be punished. If anything, the Emperor would appreciate a ruthless response to an erring Governor. Rather than the Emperor’s wrath, the boy brooded darkly on the image of the red cockatoo, its face emotionless as it condemned its host to death. As he drifted into sleep, images of blood and bird feathers swirled.

This cockatoo’s life had begun uneventfully… far from Annan. He learned to eat, walk and fly along with his nest-mates. He was neither the runt nor the pioneer. He shouted for his food, but no louder than the rest. By the time he realised that his colouring was unique, it was both too late, and too early, for it to matter. If he’d continued the normal course of life, he might have found his plumage a boon when it came to mating. But that was not his fate.

He began to diverge from his flock when he started to talk. At first, he copied sounds as his siblings did: the songs of other birds, the sound of rain, crashes in the undergrowth.

But one day, when a peasant walked through his part of the forest, shouting for a lost friend, the red cockatoo felt a jolt in his heart and flew after the man, mimicking as he went. Terrified, the man ran, but the bird understood nothing of this. Even the man’s breathlessly uttered prayers fell out of his tongue, vibrating against his young beak with warmth and sweetness.

After losing the one man, he sought others. To avoid scaring them, he learned to listen quietly, hiding in the trees or the dense tangle of the forest floor. He drank in their words, then sequestered himself deeper into the forest, where he could practice them in peace.

He developed a love of tonality, the way sounds and tones changed when repeated by many mouths. He especially savoured the voices of old men, whose spent and crackly sounds tickled his beak.

His first true step beyond his station happened when, still shedding his chick-feathers, he began to realise that the repeated sounds meant something. He began to listen, and to watch, for language.

Miraculously, by watching the same people day after day, listening to their speech and noting their movements, he edged beyond mimicry into understanding. And with that — and this was his downfall — came a desire to be part of the language, to speak with men.

He was three years old, almost to the day, when he landed in the village square and introduced himself, in the voice of an elderly peasant, to the world of men. And he was three years old, almost to the day, when he lost his freedom.

The Emissary’s journey back to the capital was long, more than eighty nights.

On the way to Annan, the Emissary had scarcely spoken to anyone. In fact, for his whole life, he had scarcely spoken with anyone. He had been tutored alongside his five older brothers, but they were no friends. The boys had their games and their factions. But he was shorter than them, less warlike, too bookish, too quiet — they’d ignored him when they weren’t laughing at him. His younger half-siblings were much younger, barely weaned, plump and screaming. He had no friends there.

His father was, of course, the Emperor. He couldn’t be a father or friend to the boy even if he had wanted to, and there was no indication that he did. The most direct interactions the boy had had with his father were carried out in open court, his role simply to assent.

His mother, in contrast, was ever-present. And yet, her presence offered little to his well being. She was, above all, a politician. Her mission, a reasonable one, was to be held in the Emperor’s favour.

To that end, she ensured that her son was fed to be plump and healthy, schemed successfully to have him taught alongside his older favoured brothers, and volunteered him for missions such as this one.

He was both an asset and a liability. His squeamishness, sensitivity and awkwardness were embarrassments to her, not reasons to love him.

This, and impossibility, the almost grammatical mistake, of speaking with servants, meant that there was no one the Emissary could speak to as an equal.

That is, until the red cockatoo.

Two days after they’d left Annan, the Emissary was bored, restless, and beginning to obsess. The violent scenes in the Governor’s hall hadn’t left his mind. They’d taken a corner for themselves, and squatted, muttering as he tried to read. Before long he’d given up on reading and taken to staring out of the glassless window of his carriage, watching the endless procession of rice fields, mud and dust.

He’d tried various games to distract himself. Imagining a little man running along, jumping from field to field alongside his carriage. Or, staring his eyes straight ahead, willing them to remain fixed, approximating an automaton.

But anything — the sharp crack of a stick beneath the cart wheel, the sight of dried blood on the tunic of a guard by his carriage, the simple realisation that he was avoiding something, brought him back to those images: the Governor, his throat still red, blood pooling across his back dyeing his tunic a deep black, a woman lying next to him, face up, a look of shock on her face, the crossbow bolt emerging unnaturally above her nose. It was in this mood, when, increasingly desperate, the Emissary had called for a servant to escort him to the carriage that held the red cockatoo.

Unlike his, it had no windows. It held crates of various sizes, some far larger than the Emissary. The red cockatoo’s cage, in the warm, lit only by the light from the space above the closed door, was another of those packages.

“Greetings, Emissary”, said the red cockatoo. Yet it was hard to say that he spoke — his beak didn’t move as a mouth did. His tongue, hard and black, blurred like an insect’s wings.

“Greetings Bird”, replied the Emissary, after ensuring his servant was gone. There was no given etiquette for talking to birds, yet he felt self-conscious. He spoke formally: “Tell me, if you will, how you came to be in Annan”.

“I would be honoured, Emissary. Do I have your permission to speak freely?”

The boy assented.

The red cockatoo, who had been nodding lethargically in his cage when the boy entered, stood up straight and launched into a monologue which lasted hours. In a multitude of voices, the bird recounted to the boy the tale of his last decade. From the distant land where the villagers, terrified by him, treated him like a stray demon or lesser god, feeding him their best food but remaining mute in his presence, to the various traders and merchants who’d passed him between each other, accumulating riches. The well travelled men who’d amused themselves spending long nights with him, laughing at his drunkenness on plum wine, or telling him tales, some of them tall.

At length he’d been acquired, at port, by a subordinate of the Governor. He’d spent three years at the Governor’s court, at first as a curiosity and jester, entertaining the guests the Governor hosted to display his wealth and power. As a jester, he’d had some dispensation to make jokes at the Governor’s expense. But one night, the Governor glimpsed the real hard hatred that crouched behind his subordinate’s laughter. He became afraid and locked the bird away in a cellar with his other valuables, to be traded. He’d been there a year, speaking only with the crude guards charged with protecting the cellar and keeping him alive. Though uneducated, they’d revealed more than they knew, but had never treated him as more than an interesting freak. Starved for conversation, when the Emissary came, he’d taken his opportunity to escape.

Before the Emissary could word a response, the cockatoo saw the question in his face. “I hated him”, he answered simply. The voice he chose had a sharp edge of what, to the Emissary, sounded like real anger.

On many days, across innumerable conversations, the bird and the Emissary edged cautiously into an intimacy neither of them had found before.

The Emissary would often ask the cockatoo to recite poetry. The bird had a beautiful collection of voices, and a deep and remarkably precise memory. They spent long, dark afternoons discussing the meanings of the poems, the Emissary’s eyes focused on a knot in the wooden floor.

In turn the cockatoo asked the Emissary about his life, carefully at first and then, when there wasn’t resistance, more directly: What did he think about this, how did he feel when his mother said that, did he resent his father? The Emissary, never before having received such attention, shared more than he had with anyone.

In the evenings, when he was too tired to talk further, he’d have a servant read to the cockatoo, whose hunger for words had no limit. Once, when the boy arrived in the morning, he saw the servant asleep in his chair, parchment open in his lap. The bird tilted his head with humour, then shouted, neck extended “Up you wretch! What right do you have to sleep here?” He used the Emissary’s voice. The boy was startled, but soon he and the bird were laughing together at the scared bleary eyed servant’s apologies.

The eighty days and nights of the homeward journey passed far faster than the journey out. The images of the violence at Annan grew weak on their lack of indulgence and slinked out of the mind of the Emissary. What remained, growing with each extinguished day, was the dread of the journey’s end — Chang’an.

The caravan entered Chang’an at noon on the eightieth day. Peasants along the road from Annan had stared with open mouths, lowered their heads, or hid when they saw the caravan approaching, with its macabre ornamentation. By now, the heads of the Governor and his household were past stinking, and the birds and insects had taken the softer flesh. What remained, staked hard onto the first and last carriage, was bone and stubborn sun-darkened scraps.

The city dwellers, beyond the north gate of the city, whooped, roared and sang at the sight of the procession. The boy in the Emperor’s clothing felt no pride at this chorus. He knew that it could be anyone in these clothes, this carriage. And he knew that what they really cheered for was the cheaper food his success would bring.

The procession took all afternoon to reach the palace. The Emissary was ready to undress himself of this responsibility and return to his role as the sixth-oldest son.

The red cockatoo, alone in his musty carriage, nervously scratched the floor of his cage.

The Emperor’s oldest son, hard and tall as a bamboo cane, black beard bisecting his chest, greeted the convoy. As the Emissary followed his retinue up the long flight, on legs that shook from months of seated travel, heralds bellowed:

“The empire returns from Annan. The people of Annan have paid the imperial tax in full. Rejoice!”

The crowds, gathered at the base of the steps, cheered again. The Emissary bowed to the eldest son, ignored his smirk, and was led inside.

Crossing the threshold, he once again became “Didi”, “younger brother”, a dismissive address used by all his superiors. Didi turned to order a servant to house the red cockatoo in his rooms, but realised, too late, that ‘his’ servants worked for the Emperor, and would no longer take orders from a scarcely significant boy.

He returned to his quarters, washed, stepped out of his ceremonial clothes and into a tunic. His mother greeted him briefly, then checked his body for bruises, and declared him much too thin. He ate with her, then lay down on his pad to sleep.

They left the bird in a storage room used for wine. It was cold and pitch black. The cockatoo was silent.

Didi woke with the feeling that he’d been anxious for hours. His silk sheets clung to the acidic sweat that coated his body.

As the Emperor rarely awoke before noon, the boy would have hours to wait until his hearing. He wished he could spend the time speaking with the red cockatoo, but he had no freedom in the palace.

He must eat breakfast with his mother, be tutored and then… and then.

At breakfast, his mother monologued about the various intrigues since the boy had been gone. A more favoured concubine had died in childbirth, the third from first-born still failed to learn to write, even with the help of the doctor and a new tutor. The Emperor had summoned her twice during the boy’s absence, and on one meeting, they briefly spoke. Didi glumly ate, averting his eyes from the face of the dead duck angled towards him.

One of the household’s servants, nameless to Didi, escorted him to his daily tutoring. He’d been gone for months, but nothing had changed. The boys barely looked when he entered, and soon were back to mocking the tutor, and flicking expensive inks against the wall. Didi, there on thin permission, made himself small.

At midday, the boys were summoned to be dressed for court.

The throne room was hot, despite its size. The walls were hung with expensive drapes, and mounted torches to allow for the reading of parchment. The Emperor, on his lacquered throne, sat above his significantly tiered sons, concubines and servants.

The aging man kept these sessions as short as he could. His beard was massaged daily with charcoal to hide the grey, and his bones clicked audibly when he stood to greet his court. Yet still… he steamed with power. His face was hard and honed, the eyes intelligent. He was in control.

The return of the taxes from Annan was the first order of business. Didi, once more ‘the Emissary’, sweated in his seat three tiers below the Emperor.

The Emperor flicked a finger and a gong was struck. The hall, already silent, resonated.

“First, the taxes from Annan. I hear that they were collected, in full, with appropriate persuasion”

A hush, the Emissary was expected to answer.

“Yes, your excellence”

“Good” The Emperor glanced at a parchment on his lap. “Next, the election of a new Governor for Annan. I choose … ”

“And…” interrupted the Emissary. The court gasped, the older boys whispered and nudged each other.

“And what?” Snarled the Emperor, his harsh, sweating face concealing the small flutter of pride he felt when the meek boy dared to speak back to him.

Surprised to be given permission, his head pounding, Didi spoke deliberately. “Apologies your excellence, but the people of Annan also left us a gift, one which requires your attention”

“And what, tell me, is this gift?”

“A red cockatoo” Didi had to shout the rest over the laughter “one which speaks our language. An extremely rare and valuable specimen”.

The Emperor chuckled, a little cruelly “And what, boy, would you have me do with this bird?”

This was all going a little too well for the boy. He almost lost his composure and allowed himself hope.

“He, the red cockatoo, should be allowed to join the court as an advisor and entertainer. He sings beautifully, and knows all manner of things. If we give him access to the library he could learn much more. He could be greater than our greatest scholars …” he almost forgot “... your highness.”

The court was in visible disbelief. No one spoke back to the Emperor, and especially not a sixth son, living in mild disfavour.

The Emperor flicked a finger for the gong to be rang again. It silenced the whispers. Once the buzz had cooled … “Bring in the bird!”

The court sat in silence for what felt like a very long time, sensing each time the Emperor shifted in his chair.

Abruptly, the doors swung open, two servants entered and parted. One carried the cage. Another carried a box. The cage was placed on the box, allowing the bird to stand at the height of any other court petitioner, and the servants disappeared. The red cockatoo was left, looking very small, alone in the centre of the room.

“Your highness” The bird spoke in a voice none but the Emissary recognised — that of the dead Governor. It was the perfect choice, Didi thought, clear and educated yet deferential.

“I am here to present myself for your service”.

A silence.

“Bird” growled the Emperor. “All I know of you is the enthusiastic report of my son, and another, reaching me last night, that you exhibited deathly disloyalty towards your Governor. Why should I admit you to my court?”

“Your excellency. I’ve dreamed of your library since I first heard rumour of it, shut up in a dark room in Annan. All that I have done is for the chance to know it. I will do anything for you, I will … give you my flight feathers, stay in this cage, if only you allow me access. The Governor of Annan was cruel and unfair. At first he tutored me and had me entertain his guests, but after a time, he grew angry, and locked me away. Since then, I’ve yearned to serve someone as great and generous as you”

Many in the court were spellbound. The cockatoo was eloquent for a man, let alone a bird. His register, one which most petitioners failed to master, was perfect for the address of an Emperor, even if the content of his speech took liberties he had not been given.

“You speak of cruelty, bird … there is no cruelty. I, and I alone, own the library. Whatever access I give to it is my right, and I can set requirements as I wish. My scholars are eunuchs, they may have no possessions. They may speak only to each other, to my advisors and to me. The advantage of their knowledge is no one else’s”. He paused. “If you wish, I will allow you to join them”.

The bird hesitated for only a moment. Didi bit his bottom lip. “I shall. Thank you, Emperor”.

The Emperor smirked and waved a wrist. “Take him away, remove the flight feathers, and leave him in the care of the scholars. Next, the Governor of Annan …”

Didi let out a long held breath.

The red cockatoo seemed happy for a while.

He found the scholars interesting. In the evenings, he sang songs with them, took part in feats of memorisation, made short rude poems to make them laugh, and came to know all their voices, and for a while, no more.

During the day, he could often convince a scholar to read to him. Despite his gift of speech, he never could learn to read.

Over the years, the red cockatoo’s own poetry turned ever more to the subject of flight, images of open skies, evocations of the feeling of alighting from a branch, the sensation of uplift.

Children playing in the courtyard sometimes heard an echo of their play coming from a high window. But only on a hot day, when the air was perfectly still. They never glimpsed a single red feather.

Time passed. After the Emperor’s confident but brittle firstborn was cut down in a distant battle, his thirdborn still failed to learn to read, and the others preceding him were tarred by petty squabbles and improprieties, Didi was named successor.

Now thirty, the new Emperor was rigid, rule-following, and not un-confident. His teenage anxiety and weakness had been flayed off of him by the years of hard scheming. Years of hewing closer to the Emperor had given him an understanding of the necessities of power. He no longer felt that violence was unfair, and though he still looked away, he did not hesitate to order it.

A while after his ascendance, when he could avoid it no longer, the Emperor went to visit his scholars, and the red cockatoo.

Seeing again, after fifteen years, his first and only friend, the colours of his feathers faded, his feet grubby in the cage, the new Emperor felt a moment’s tenderness.

The bird, still bold despite his age, greeted him as it had the last time they’d met — as an equal. The Emperor, with a quickly extinguished glimmer of regret, corrected him. With a practiced wave of his hand, he shut down the bird’s eloquent attempts to beg for his freedom.

His advisors had told him that the bird was an asset — wiser than all their scholars put together. The Emperor knew that such wisdom must be guarded. It would protect him in any succession battles to come.

After his dismissive gesture, the cockatoo perched in silence as the Emperor spoke with his scholars.

The cockatoo looked searchingly into the Emperor’s eyes, head cocked. He saw no reflection of his former friend.

Sent as a present from Annam —

a red cockatoo,

coloured like the peach tree blossom,

speaking with the speech of men.

And they did to it what is always done,

to the learned and eloquent,

they took a cage with stout bars,

and shut it up inside.

– A classical Chinese poem by Bai JuYi, tr. Arthur Waley [see more].

Thanks to Anna, Devon, Freya, Joe and my Family for the feedback.