Chapter 10

Zhenyuan, year ten. Early autumn, the ninth month.

On the northern frontier the frost and snow come early; heaven and earth were nothing but white.

Outside, the snow had already risen over the threshold; inside, Huiheng and Xiheng, sister and brother, sat on the kang in nothing but unlined clothes, now and then having to drink a little water to soothe the dry heat. In Shuozhou, in the countryside and the towns alike, people lived in "vine houses" — houses where the walls, joined to the kang, all had hollow flues running through them, so that with the stove burning hot outside, the warm air traveled through the room; and as long as it wasn't a truly bitter cold and the fire was kept fed without a break, the home stayed as warm as spring.

Huiheng bent over the low table at the head of the kang, her brush flying, stopping now and then to rub her slender wrist, then glancing at Xiheng's characters and giving a little guidance. Both her schooling and Zhuo Siheng's had been started and taught hand to hand by Zhuo Yan and Song Liangyu in the beginning; when Zhuo Siheng wasn't there, it had always fallen to her to teach the younger two, and even now, with Xiheng's studies improving by the day, her own learning was still more than enough to teach him.

It had gone dark when the snow began at midday, and they'd had to light the lamp indoors. Writing a long while by the oil lamp tired her eyes; she looked out the window at the snow coming down thick, and sighed without meaning to. "Elder Brother and Old Huyan have been up the mountain seven or eight days now, getting the last of the autumn hunting in before winter, and Ciheng's been gone four or five days with Doctor Rong on his rounds out of the township. I wonder how the two of them are doing — whether they're cold, whether they're hungry..."

"I heard from someone back from the army camp that the cold's come early this year," Xiheng said, without raising his head, his writing hand not stopping. "They're afraid a lot of people will starve again in the winter dearth. The border troops are all laying in supplies, and Elder Brother's only thinking ahead too."

That bitter winter seven years ago... even now, sitting on the warm kang, Zhuo Huiheng could not drive off the desolate cold in her heart when she recalled it.

But however cold the season, life had to go on.

Zhuo Huiheng lowered her head over the table again and went back to copying.

"Second Sister, I've finished reading. Wherever you've copied to, I'll write the rest," Zhuo Xiheng said, setting down the book in his hand.

Huiheng answered without even a glance at him. "No."

Xiheng seemed to have expected his sister to say just that. Unhurried, he laid down his brush. "Last time Elder Brother wouldn't let you copy, for fear it would wear you out, and you said, well, you wanted to read it through yourself anyway — he couldn't budge you, so he grudgingly agreed. He did it out of worry for your health, Second Sister. Now, you can go ahead and copy out this whole Discourses on Salt and Iron by sheer stubbornness if you like; but if it tires you into falling ill, then when Elder Brother comes back he'll surely put his foot down and forbid you to copy for him ever again. Whereas if my handwriting is in the copy, it proves you didn't copy so much and weren't so worn out, and then of course Elder Brother won't have anything to say about it."

Watching her twelve-year-old little brother already able to reason like this — winning by striking at the heart — Zhuo Huiheng didn't know whether to be pleased or to have a headache. But Xiheng made perfect sense: she absolutely must not fall ill and burden their brother again. So she handed him the book, not forgetting to warn him, "Elder Brother still means to take you to sit the qualifying examination next spring. Don't you let your own lessons slip, or see how he deals with you then."

"Has Elder Brother ever had the heart to deal with any of us?" Xiheng winked at her, and at last a rare trace of a smile came to his face.

Huiheng smiled too.

She firmly believed that the cleverest person in this family was her eldest brother; but she believed just as firmly that every one of the three younger siblings, herself included, had a private trick or two for bringing him to heel. When it came down to it, it was only because their eldest brother loved the three of them far too much.

These days, when the family wanted something to read, they mostly borrowed it from the bookshop, copied it out and returned it promptly, saving the money a book would cost to lay by for winter. Their father had once copied out many books this way for his sons and daughters to read through the winter; now that their brother had to go out and earn their keep, she would surely take up the responsibility herself.

So thinking, Huiheng picked up another book, borrowed for her from a bookshop in Ningshuo City, meaning to copy a little more; and out of the corner of her eye she caught the sheet of white beyond the window: at some point the snow had stopped.

---

Snow lay silent over the deep woods; every sound in the world had ceased.

A long iron-feathered arrow tore through the air with a keen whine, shaking the snow from the pine tips, and drove clean into the neck of a snow hare hidden beneath a tree; bright red beads of blood, still steaming, sprayed out. In a moment a figure came treading over the snow — long of limb, a yellow-birch longbow slung on his back, wearing a ginger-yellow fleece-lined hide coat — and picked up the hare's body, dead through but not yet stiff.

He pulled out the arrow and, reversing his grip, tucked it back into the sheepskin quiver on his back, drew a knife from his fleece-lined boot, and in a few quick strokes peeled off a whole pelt, fur and all. The rest of the hare's flesh had just then frozen stiff in the brutal cold; a stroke later and he'd have ruined a fine snow-hare pelt, too hard to work loose.

The getup, the exquisite marksmanship, the practiced hands — by every sign he was an old hunter who'd spent his years deep in the mountain forests. And yet his was only a boy's face, clean-featured and handsome, the brows left bare to the air furred with frost and snow, and rather endearing for it.

"Getting old! If your eyes hadn't been sharp, the brute would've gotten away." This hoarse, weathered voice truly did belong to an aging man; slinging his own longbow back onto his shoulder, he couldn't help remarking, "You know, I say forget sitting for those damned examinations — you've missed two of them already anyhow — better to go and be an archer in the Shenyu Battalion. You'd take an enemy general's head in the midst of a million troops for certain, win yourself some great merit, get sealed lord of Wolf-Colt or whatever it was, and your whole household would eat rich and drink fine all the same."

"Old Huyan, ease off on the storytellers next time you go to Ningshuo to buy wine." Zhuo Siheng laughed, stuffing the frozen hare into the snow-sledge, where a deer and a roe were already lashed down tight. "And if you're going to listen, listen properly — it's called sealing Mount Langjuxu."

"You think I was praising you? I was praising my own good teaching of archery!" Old Huyan had never once got the better of this grandson-aged pupil of his in a war of words; he grumbled a curse or two, and then couldn't help scolding him further. "If you mean to study, then sit at home and study honestly, instead of running off into the mountains with me every few days. Spare a thought for that dead father of yours — back then he wouldn't even let you do the heavy work, terrified those brush-holding hands of yours would turn coarse as a laborer's. He took on all the washing at home himself. By rights, with your sister in poor health, that work should have been yours as eldest brother; but your father played both father and mother, and all so you could study more. Now here you are toiling day and night — if he knew of it in the world below, wouldn't it break his heart!"

Zhuo Siheng knew Old Huyan was going the long way around all this to nudge him toward sitting for a degree, so he answered patiently. "For this prefectural exam I'd have to go all the way to Yunzhong City, the Northern Capital in Ningxing Prefecture, and the road money is dear! If I passed, the departmental exam means going into the capital, where the food costs as much as jade and the firewood as much as cassia — I couldn't afford to stay there as things are now. Oh, and if I passed the autumn departmental exam, I'd have to wait past the first month for the palace exam — spending New Year in the capital. Where would I find that kind of fortune? So I'm just hurrying to save up a little silver for the examination journey two years from now, that's all!"

That said, he briskly looped the snow-sledge's oxhide strap over his shoulder and began hauling it forward, sinking deep and shallow by turns through the snow. The snow-laden trees stood like silent giants, watching the two figures struggle on through a world all of one color; the sleet-grains, clear and glittering, gave off a cold, hazy mist, and the white-covered world had a strange serenity to it — though with a bad-tempered old man at his side, that serenity was easily broken.

Old Huyan was sound of leg and foot; he lengthened his stride to keep close behind, pushing the sledge as he went. "Don't you fob me off! The examination in the sixth year of Zhenyuan you missed to mourn your father — that was only right and proper. But the one in the ninth year, why did you skip that too? Some folk in the township wanted to scrape together a bit of silver for you then, and you turned every one of them down."

"Old man, my sisters and brother were at that age with no mother or father to look after them — you said it yourself, it's all for me as eldest brother to do. There's no harm in my going once they're older. And the villagers are all ordinary folk just getting by; why put them to the trouble of pinching and scrimping to pool money for me, when they'd do better keeping their silver for a comfortable little life of their own?"

"You, boy — always thinking of everyone else and only making it hard on yourself. I've watched it all. Those two sisters and that brother of yours are promising, sensible children, every one of them willing to toil and suffer for your sake. Family's meant to look after each other. You've watched over them all this time; it's only right they should look after you too..."

Before he'd finished, the two of them were back at the snow shelter they'd rigged up earlier. Zhuo Siheng came to a stop and looked up at the high, cold, iron-gray vault of sky, and said softly, "Old man, do you remember the first time I came up the mountain with you? Back then Brother Xiao Yong hadn't yet gone south to trade. You brought him along, and he pulled me by the hand — the three of us, we really were happy. He kept close by your side, hopping about in the snow like a merry pine marten."

Old Huyan, casting his mind back, missed those days when his grandson had brought him such joy at his knee, and couldn't help a wistful smile.

"To this day I still dream of the days my father took me fishing. The two of us would crouch by the creek in summer, and the fish were so foolish they'd bite even a bare hook — forearm-long salmon, half a bucket at a sitting. The sky was always so blue, azaleas in bloom at both ends of the creek bridge, and my father and I would run the fishing rod through the handle of the heavy bucket and carry it home between us, one at each end, laughing and talking across the bridge... Those really were the happiest days of my life. I think if you asked Brother Xiao Yong, he'd surely say the same — that his happiest days were the ones you took him up the mountain." Zhuo Siheng turned his head and gave Old Huyan a radiant smile. "My brother and sisters lost their mother when they were small, and not long after they'd grown old enough to understand things, they lost their father too — the bitterest sorrow life has. But thank heaven there was still me, to see them through a childhood worth remembering. So you see... I want my sisters and brother, like me, to have some precious memories that death and pain can't take away — so that when they think back on their young years hereafter, it won't be only grief and hardship, but a brother who kept them company and looked out for them, who took them to gather wild greens and plant the yard in spring; to catch big fish and watch the stars in summer; to roam the hills and pick fruit in autumn; and in winter to sit indoors together, watching the snow come down outside, eating the year's-end reunion meal, talking over the little pleasures of life."

Old Huyan could say nothing more; his heart ached till it hurt, and he only sighed. "Heaven's cruelty... that winter famine — how could it carry off Master Zhuo and leave these old bones of mine behind..."

Seven years ago, a bitter winter famine struck Shuozhou. That winter was uncommonly cold and long, and many fell to a cold pestilence — the old and frail above all, for whom no amount of medicine poured down did any good. Village Head Wu and his wife were among the first to go; many of the old folk followed one on the heels of another. And as the weather turned colder still, more and more in the township took sick, and many of the young and strong began to run high fevers too. Better off than the old and the children, most of the able-bodied did mend after taking medicine — but how much medicine could a single township have laid by? Waist-deep snow pressed down over the whole of Shuozhou, sealing it tight. Word was that the court had allotted medicinal supplies to the townships of Shuozhou — only they could be got no farther than Ningshuo City, and there was no carrying them out at all...

In the end, more than half the township had died before spring came, late and reluctant.

Among them was Zhuo Yan.

Old Huyan still remembered how, hearing the news, he'd run to the Zhuo house heedless of the deep snow, and found the four children weeping wretchedly at the bedside. Zhuo Siheng was only thirteen that year, with the three younger ones a good head shorter beside him; bean-sized tears rolled down his cheeks, and a heart-rending pain was written all over that small face... For those two years he spoke less than he used to, shut up at home reading and caring for his brother and sisters; only as the days wore on did the grief bury itself deep in his heart, and that once bright, open smile came gradually back.

The old man had meant to curse blind Heaven a couple more times, but not wanting to add to Zhuo Siheng's sorrow, he pulled himself together and clapped the young man's now-broad shoulder. "That Brother Xiao Yong of yours sent back a good lot of brushes and ink from the south, by someone he asked — says it's the kind the scholars down there like best. I wouldn't know. Tomorrow we'll hunt a bit more and then head back, and you take it all, and wind-dry the meat besides. The cold's come early this autumn, so lay it all in. I still don't believe the year's end is really going to bar a man from getting through it!"

Zhuo Siheng laughed. "That's the spirit, old man. Since life has to go on no matter what, let's make an effort and live it well. This deer — I'll take it back and make you a deerskin cloak; put it on for the New Year and you'll be the grandest man in the whole township!"

Old Huyan laughed out loud too. "And here I was thinking this deer's a big one — I'd make you a knapsack out of it, and when you go up for the exam two years from now you can carry your things in it, and won't it turn those green young gentlemen who've never seen the world half sick with envy?"

In the end Zhuo Siheng couldn't win out against the fierce-tempered, stubborn old man, and before the old man could bluster and glare, agreed that the deerskin would go to himself but the rest of the pelts would all go to Old Huyan. The next day the two hunted a few more small beasts. Zhuo Siheng's arrows never missed, and the traps he set were most ingenious; his knack for placing a sound by ear and following a track and trail was such that even a veteran hunter, seeing it, would give a thumbs-up and marvel that the young are to be reckoned with. Old Huyan took it all in and was proud in his heart, though he wouldn't praise the boy outright — only said, in a roundabout way, that this army-issue yellow-birch bow was a good handy thing.

---

By the time the old man and the young one dragged the snow-sledge back to the township, the snow lay knee-deep. Zhuo Siheng went to Old Huyan's house to fetch the things before returning to his own yard, where Ciheng had already come back with Doctor Rong. The four siblings stood at the yard gate in the falling snow, looking and looking at one another — only ten days, and yet it felt like a parting of half a year.

Once the four were inside, Zhuo Siheng took off his hide cloak, changed into an old cloth robe, and led the three younger ones in offering incense together before their parents' spirit tablets, setting out some fresh offerings, and only then did they sit down to eat.

Seven years, gone in a flash.

Zhuo Siheng was now a full twenty — the capping age, just when a man should win himself a degree. His brother and sisters at home fretted over it more than he did; he seemed to do everything at a slow, unhurried pace, sure of himself, even eating in a leisurely, easy way.

"All these years it's been Elder Brother doing the cooking — not bad for a change to have me do it, eh?" Ciheng was very pleased with herself. They were all firm believers in Zhuo Siheng's good cooking, whereas the few times she'd offered to help she'd all but punched through the stove and scorched the iron pot; having finally got a rare chance to show off, she was sure to rush in and claim the credit. In truth, when she was out seeing patients it was Xiheng who cooked; by Huiheng's assessment, eating Third Sister's cooking was a matter of staying alive, whereas when Xiheng cooked there was some actual pleasure for the palate.

"No talking at meals or in bed," Huiheng reminded her sister.

"Father never used to mind when he was alive..." Ciheng only dared talk back to Huiheng, just a little, because Zhuo Siheng was there.

Zhuo Siheng was just about to tell a white lie and praise how his sister's cooking had improved when a knock came at the door. Ciheng was always quickest at this sort of thing, and in a few steps she ran to open it — in the township there were seldom any strangers, and one usually opened up without bothering to call out and ask who it was.

"Eldest nephew, the whole family's at dinner!" Zhu Tong pulled off his thick felt cap and tramped into the little house covered in wind and snow, his face all warmth, the smile of a man coming home. "I haven't eaten either — fix me a bite too?"

He'd never stood on ceremony. In the old days, coming to visit Zhuo Yan, if he arrived at mealtime he wouldn't decline but would call for an extra bowl and chopsticks himself, sitting down to drink and chat as naturally as could be. The Zhuo family were close with him, as though one of their own had come home; the children all loved to hear him tell army-camp stories at the table, doubling over with laughter and never minding their manners, and even Zhuo Yan, instead of correcting them and insisting on the rules as he usually did, would laugh and carry on along with them, now and then warming some of the village brew to drink together.

Seeing it was him, the four children warmly called him Fifth Uncle with every other breath, till his face glowed and his heart went warm. He dumped his bundles big and small on the kang and hurriedly handed round a good many gifts to the children, first asking Huiheng whether she was feeling better and then praising how she'd grown into a prettier girl by the day, next inquiring how the other children's studies were coming and whether they'd made progress, and finally, seeing that Zhuo Siheng had shot up even taller than himself, grinning so wide he couldn't shut his mouth.

Zhuo Siheng could see he'd likely come straight from the camp to bring things to the family and ask after their comfort, and was deeply moved; he quickly packed a good amount of the mountain goods, hides and fresh game he'd taken into a basket to freeze out in the yard for him.

Zhu Tong first offered incense to the spirit tablets of Zhuo Yan and his wife and paid his respects, and only then called the children to eat together.

Once Zhu Tong was at the table, everyone kept to the old custom, just as when their father was alive — all cheerful talk and laughter, no talk of upbringing and household discipline. Zhu Tong's especially pleased-as-punch manner over the meal suddenly reminded Zhuo Siheng of something, and he asked, "You're so happy, Fifth Uncle — is it that the field-provisions quartermaster post Fifth Aunt mentioned before has come to something?"

"That's my eldest nephew for you!" Zhu Tong was thoroughly pleased with himself. "Now that I'm back at the Yanhe garrison, of all things I've been promoted. A field-provisions quartermaster is a piddling little thing, mind — minding one camp's small stores, nothing more — but say what you like, it carries a rank, junior ninth grade, and it's let your Fifth Uncle cut a fine figure for once! Hundreds of men were scrambling for the few spots that opened up, and I'm the one who snagged one!"

"Then let me toast you with tea in place of wine — congratulations on your promotion, Fifth Uncle!" Zhuo Siheng was genuinely happy for Zhu Tong, and drained his tea in one go; the other children offered their congratulations too.

Zhu Tong acknowledged the toast happily several times over, then said mysteriously, "Eldest nephew, have another guess — why did this chance come my way this time?"

Zhuo Siheng thought a moment. Zhu Tong might be a good deal more flexible these days, but he was still that same blunt, upright sort — flattery and toadying were beyond him. If this chance had come, it must be because his good work had caught a superior's eye and won his regard. As for the man who'd held the post before, there was no telling whether he'd simply been promoted and moved on; but Zhu Tong had said several spots had opened, which meant a large-scale reshuffling of posts — and yet there'd been no word of fighting anywhere this year, so how could so many men in the army be getting promoted at once?

"Has one of the Emperor's sons reached the age to be made a prince and gone off to his fief needing a guard?" Zhuo Siheng felt this was about the only possibility — the Emperor was a little past thirty this year, so his eldest son would be about that age, wouldn't he?

Zhu Tong slapped his thigh and heaped on praise. "Uncanny, truly! Dragons breed dragons, phoenixes breed phoenixes, and a rat's son knows how to dig a hole! This knack of yours is nearly a match for your father's... but you're off by a hair. What the reigning Emperor enfeoffed wasn't a prince — it was the crown prince! One of our deputy generals went up to the capital to take a post in the Eastern Palace and took a few of his own men with him, and that's how the spots opened up for me to profit by."

Zhuo Xiheng's expression flickered, and he traded a quick, delighted glance with Huiheng before asking, "Fifth Uncle, with something like the naming of a crown prince, wouldn't there be some extra grace granted — for instance... the opening of a grace examination?"

"Yes, yes, yes! That's exactly what I came for!" Zhu Tong dug a twenty-tael silver note out of his coat and pressed it on Zhuo Siheng. "This is a little something from your Fifth Aunt and me — don't refuse it. Both my girls are married off, and there's nothing much to spend silver on at home; call it my finishing the wish my old brother left. Set your things in order and start out tomorrow — I'll arrange the cart and horses. This grace examination came up all of a sudden; the edict says every prefecture has to make ready all over again. Besides, it's the ninth month now, and the autumn session that usually opens in the eighth month is long past — so the edict says the autumn sitting of this grace examination is put off to the eleventh month, and you'll still be in time to get to Yunzhong, the Northern Capital! A chance like this doesn't come easy. Who's to say it isn't my old brother Zhuo and his wife watching over you from heaven! Eldest nephew — you be sure to seize hold of it!"