Chapter 29

Seeing that things had eased a little between Fan Xiliang and his father, Zhuo Siheng broached whether he might go to the Fan house to pay respects before his aunt's spirit tablet, and fulfill a junior's mourning grief. He'd meant to do this before coming up for the departmental exam, only the Fan family didn't allow much coming and going, and he hadn't wished to make trouble for his cousin; now, with his cousin about to leave for his post, it was reasonable enough, by the courtesies, to call on an elder and say goodbye at the same time.

But his uncle still refused, and even cursed Fan Xiliang for growing too big for his boots — deliberately vexing Madam Li by dragging in some cousin to pay respects to his dead mother. Fan Xiliang couldn't bear to hear his cousin spoken of so, and argued back a little, which threw his father into a rage, so that he was shut up at home again to reflect on his faults.

Zhuo Siheng felt guilty at heart for having brought this trouble on his cousin, and thought: there was no knowing how many wrongs his aunt had swallowed while she lived, nor how many tears his cousin had swallowed after she was gone. Now, at last, his cousin could go out to a provincial post and carve out a place of his own; and even if he himself couldn't pay his respects to his aunt or fulfill his devotion on his mother's behalf, he would surely help his cousin without counting the cost, and see him safe and happy.

During the days his cousin couldn't come out, Zhuo Siheng ran about everywhere helping, and in the end got a good many things prepared and in order before Fan Xiliang left for his post.

The day of the send-off was the twenty-first of the third month, the fine season of the spring equinox. At the Hengqiao wharf on the Jingjiang Canal outside the capital, a few porters shouted for people to make way, and the trackers, one after another, took the lead in bringing the boats to berth — a scene of packed crowds and goods heaped like mountains. This was the road one had to take heading south from Zhongjing Prefecture: from the capital to Jiangzhou, then changing boats to cross the Three Mountains River to reach Lingzhou — only, to get to Tongtai County where Fan Xiliang would take up his post, one had to change again to the land route and cross over mountains.

In the bright spring light, there was yet the sorrow of parting.

By custom Zhuo Siheng broke off a willow branch thick with green buds and placed it in his cousin's palm. "Cousin, you must take great care of yourself. On the road don't just eat dry rations for the sake of ease — get off the boat now and then and have a fresh meal or two; I've made you some cakes to take along, all packed in your cases. And I bought a few books on Lingzhou's geography and local ways — read them on the journey; know yourself and know the other, and you'll never lose a hundred battles. When you arrive, remember to ask the old clerks at the yamen about local conditions before you do anything else. Most important, remember to send a letter home and to me, to say you're safe."

Fan Xiliang's eyes had long since glistened; fighting it back with all his might, he said thickly: "I know all this. Cousin, working right under the sovereign's feet, you too must be careful in everything — steady as your nature is, remember still to guard your words and your conduct."

The tender willow branch in his hand had been crushed until the sap ran; Fan Xiliang could not go on. Seeing this, Fan Yong hurriedly took up the words: "Young Master Zhuo, our young master hasn't had a free moment, stuck in the mansion, but he still had me running about all over. He said that once Old Huyan, the young misses, and the little fourth young master arrive, it won't do to have your house without a hand indoors or out — you can't very well go on cooking yourself; not only is it unbecoming, it'll get in the way of the sovereign's business. So he had me look over a few useful servants for you, all honest working folk of clean background. I've kept on a widow to do the cooking and the fires, with her thirteen-year-old girl; and an uncle-fellow of about fifty who was once a squad-head, to see to the carriage and horses and keep watch on the courtyard. Our young master has paid these three their wages for a year; after a year, once you've settled into your post and have a little more to hand, you can pay them yourself. I've arranged for them to come to the residence to see you in a couple of days — you can look them over yourself then and decide whether to keep them on."

That his cousin, shut up at home, still thought of his affairs — Zhuo Siheng was moved to the heart, his eyes stinging hot, whether from the spring wind or not, and he and Fan Xiliang clasped each other's hands, looking at each other with nothing to say.

From the flush of triumph after passing to this parting now, the road ahead was uncertain for them both — yet it was a truly new chapter of life, a blank page waiting to be written. Zhuo Siheng was stirred just then, feeling that life's sorrows and joys, its griefs and delights, all hung on the difference of a single instant: sometimes joy was also worry, and sometimes in grief there was joy as well.

See a friend off a thousand li, and still there must be a parting at the end. Watching the boat Fan Xiliang had boarded pull slowly away, Zhuo Siheng still walked along after the trackers a good while; only as his cousin's face, so like his own, gradually receded down the canal did he realize his arm ached from waving, and he stood where he was, a loneliness filling his heart.

But this loneliness didn't leave him long to steep in it, for his new work, too, was beginning.

On the twenty-third of the third month the Hanlin Academy issued a set of official robes — even the inner garments came as a matched set — of blue-green tussah silk of excellent quality; the official boots were comfortable and solid to step into, and there was a whole series of other items besides, all to be kept safe and not lost. Along with the things, the Hanlin Academy also gave him a letter, informing him that this year's first class and several of the second-class jinshi were all to report for the roll-call at the Secretariat on the twenty-fifth. Wrapped in the letter was a red-copper waist-tablet, carved with Zhuo Siheng's future office, his post and rank, and his name.

The state apparatus really was proper and orderly, Zhuo Siheng reflected.

The Secretariat — called the Ziwei Department in a former dynasty — was the decision-making organ nearest the sovereign, and quite simple in structure, with only two subordinate branches: the Administration Chamber and the Hanlin Academy. The Administration Chamber was headed by the Grand Councillor — that is, the chancellor in actual power — with very few subordinate officials and no superfluous offices, all of them capable men; it only discussed the great affairs of state with the emperor and drafted and formulated national policy, and could have a say in any matter of state. The Hanlin Academy held some scholarly functions besides — such as giving the emperor his classics-lectures, studying and improving alongside him, and so on — but was also the emperor's confidential secretariat, drafting edicts and decrees for the Secretariat, and taking part in the discussion, composition and transmission of national policy.

Besides, the head of the Secretariat, the Secretariat Director, was a nominal post, reserved for retired elder statesmen who'd been regents or trusted counsel; so in fact the true head of the Secretariat was the Grand Councillor Shen Minyao, whom he'd already met.

Having entered the Hanlin Academy, his immediate superior was Zeng Xuandu, the man who'd set the departmental-exam questions. All of them people he already knew.

As he tidied the still-empty study in his cool pavilion, Zhuo Siheng thought it over: rather than rack his brains to curry favor with his superiors, better to obediently do first the things he ought to do, court less trouble, and get quietly through this first stage. If problems arose, he'd deal with them as they ought to be dealt with — neither shirking nor rigidly forcing the matter; and if none did, he'd take the chance to understand how the bureaucratic apparatus fit together and how the machinery of empire ran, and add to his own experience through it.

He'd not long finished thinking it through when his newly hired cook, Widow Chai, came to bring him a late supper.

Widow Chai's face was somewhat worn by wind and frost, and she was rather thin, but she was brisk and full of spirit. A woman of Muzhou, she'd married a traveling peddler and moved to the capital for an easier life. Two years back her man had lost his life to a flash flood on the road while about his trade in Xuanzhou, leaving mother and orphaned daughter to depend on each other. She had a little property, true, but Widow Chai was a hardworking sort who couldn't sit idle; thinking to keep the money for her daughter's dowry, she took work as a kitchen help for her livelihood. Hearing from Fan Yong that it was to be cook at the household of a new Hanlin gentleman, where her daughter could wait on educated, well-mannered young ladies, she was more than willing.

Having grown up in the north, she was best at all sorts of wheaten foods and cakes, right in tune with the Zhuo family's tastes; after eating her braised noodles once, Zhuo Siheng couldn't stop praising them. And Widow Chai's daughter, Ahuan, was lively and forthright too. Though Zhuo Siheng still wasn't used to being waited on at home, Fan Xiliang's concern had been right after all: once he got busy he truly had no time to see to the family's meals and daily needs, and he couldn't let his brother and sisters always wear themselves out alone; to spend the money that ought to be spent, and buy his family some settled ease and some time, wasn't a bad little goal to work toward for himself.

Zhuo Siheng ate the vegetarian wontons of his late supper and praised Widow Chai again; she grew so excited she half wished the Zhuo children were coming into the courtyard that very moment, so she could show off her skills to the full — with only Zhuo Siheng eating now, and not much at that, it was truly a hero with no field for his valor.

Fu Ji, in charge of Zhuo Siheng's outings and of watching the courtyard, seemed an honest, dependable man too, not much of a talker. He'd once served in the army, then been discharged after an illness left its mark; once recovered, he'd worked a while as a hand at a private horse-farm on the capital's outskirts, but now that the farm's owner had run afoul of the law, he'd lost his wages too. As it happened he knew a relative of Fan Yong's, who passed him along to work at Zhuo Siheng's household; since his background was known, Fan Yong dared entrust him with a job like keeping the house.

Going from having to rely on himself for everything to suddenly having a "big household" with three servants, Zhuo Siheng felt he'd need a while to adjust — as on the twenty-fifth, when he rose bright and early, got himself ready and set out for work, only for Fu Ji to catch up with him five minutes on, driving the household donkey-cart, and remind him that it wouldn't do to walk to work in his official robes.

Had he really walked all the way to the Hanlin Academy, he'd have made a laughingstock of himself on his very first day.

He thanked Fu Ji, climbed into the narrow blue-green cabin of the cheap secondhand cart the household had bought, and five minutes later reached the Secretariat.

The yamen here faced straight onto the road, before it a broad, square open ground, its bricks so level that not even a weed grew; carved stone guardians stood to either side of the gate, a row of mulberry trees spread a curtain of new green across the way, and on each side of the open vermilion-lacquered gates stood two Imperial Guardsmen, halberds and pikes in hand, martial and severe.

Zhuo Siheng showed his waist-tablet and was let through; stepping over this threshold for the first time, he understood all at once the sighs of the scholars in the poems and essays about the carp leaping the dragon gate.

The second-class men were already waiting inside the Hanlin Academy, with Peng Shihu of the first class standing in the front row; after Zhuo Siheng arrived, the tanhua Xu Yanfeng came right on his heels. They had just exchanged greetings when His Honor Zeng Xuandu arrived too.

This was the first time Zhuo Siheng had seen the man who'd set his departmental-exam questions. Zeng Xuandu was in his forties, broad-faced and square of feature; apart from the perpetually somewhat drowsy, sleepy look on his face, he was in every way just what a middle-aged scholar ought to be. He spoke slowly and deliberately, and did not throw his weight about merely because it was his first time addressing new subordinates, but simply, calmly and plainly told each man his assignment:

"You three Hanlin attendants, save on rest days, are each assigned a daily shift to enter the palace with me or the other academicians, to receive edicts and take down records — you must be careful and quick and let nothing slip; those not going in stay on duty at the Hanlin Academy, and if the Secretariat has an edict, you are to draft and consult on it without delay, weighing the wording and setting your brush only after consulting the other academicians. As for you examining editors, if the Secretariat has an edict for you to copy out and transmit, you must be prompt and make no errors either; in things you don't know, ask the seniors, and do not decide on your own."

So clear in logic and so concise that Zhuo Siheng felt this superior of his was not, in fact, as sleepy and slack as he looked.

"Attendant Zhuo, today you come into the palace with me." And so his name was called.

But Zhuo Siheng had already realized his lot was to pass his days at the emperor's side, running into the palace all day long; he had to get used to it and quickly cultivate a civil official's competence. So he bowed slightly, to signal his compliance.

To enter the palace one rode the Secretariat's dedicated official carriage, much roomier; Zhuo Siheng sat in the lower seat below his new superior, closing his eyes to rest along with the old man.

Suddenly, eyes still shut, Zeng Xuandu spoke: "Today you and I go into the palace not for an audience with the emperor."

Zhuo Siheng answered respectfully: "Yes; a newcomer as I am, I only follow your arrangements."

Zeng Xuandu, still with his eyes closed, this time nodded, and said: "Today we open the crown prince's lessons — an important matter too; on no account be remiss."

The crown prince...

Zhuo Siheng assented with calm on the surface, but within him the waves surged and his heart was in wild disarray.

Was his Zhuo family fated to be locked in a feud with this high-risk profession for the rest of their lives?