Chapter 3

June in Shuozhou hadn't reached summer yet, and the nights were still cold.

Zhuo Siheng and Zhuo Huiheng lay across the edge of the bed practicing characters with a plank for a desk, Zhuo Yan guiding them patiently. Both children's writing had begun to show real training, and the more he looked the fonder he grew, until he kept reaching over to stroke their heads.

Song Liangyu had caught a chill the month before and then overworked herself hulling millet, and she still wasn't well. Every so often she coughed. Each time, Zhuo Yan got up to lay a garment over her and tuck in the quilt.

Ciheng was growing sensible. At the sound of coughing she hopped off the bed, ran out on her short legs, ladled water from the jar and brought it in the dipper, copying what Zhuo Siheng always said when he looked after their mother. "Mother, drink it down quick and it'll settle."

Song Liangyu hugged her and called her nothing but my good girl. Xiheng copied his sister too, and between the teasing and the laughing the sick look on her face improved a good deal.

She had slept half the day and now remembered something. "Husband, the camp supervisor told me while I was hulling rice. The things my sister sent have arrived."

"Your sister? She got someone to bring things all the way here?" Zhuo Yan was surprised, and worried. "There's no telling how much silver it cost or how many connections she used. She mustn't be dragged into trouble over us. Our case is some time behind us now, but if it brought difficulties on her and her husband's family, how could we live with ourselves?"

Song Liangyu sighed. "She'd been married into the Fan family barely a year when disaster struck. The Fans were probably keeping clear of it and wouldn't let her contact me. Which is right. I was afraid she'd be as stubborn as she was as a child and make trouble for herself. Besides, I heard she already had a son by then. Three years here without a word between us, and I don't even know my nephew's name, or how they're all getting on."

Her eyes were reddening and her voice had begun to shake. Afraid brooding would make her worse, Zhuo Siheng cut in. "If the Fans might not allow it, how did Auntie find someone to get things through to us?"

He had lived nearly twenty years in another life and knew something of how people work. A place of exile isn't outside the law, and word and goods can be passed along. If a convict has family willing to spend silver and call on connections, things can be sent — it's only that some is skimmed at every level, and little is left by the end. He'd asked purely to change the subject.

"Perhaps she got my brother Liangyong to help." Sure enough, having something to think about lifted her a little. "Only the Song family hasn't been what it was since my father died. My sister's mourning delayed her past marriageable age, and my brother was young, so when the mourning was over he could only be fostered with a clan uncle. By now perhaps he's passed the examinations and taken a degree. That might be how she found someone."

"Your brother's gifts are no less than my late father-in-law's. He's certain to make the golden roll." Zhuo Yan went to inspect the children's characters, guided a few strokes, and picked up the inkstone case in passing to check whether the ink had frozen. It had become a habit. Before May it still snowed at night, and the ink would freeze so a brush couldn't be loaded, and he would tuck the case inside his clothes against his body until it thawed. It wasn't that cold now, but he still checked without thinking. Zhuo Siheng saw it and felt a warmth in his chest.

The moment of distraction stopped his brush, and Zhuo Yan caught sight of the bruises and blisters running from the crook of his thumb across his palm. "What's happened to your hand?"

"I know!" Ciheng was quick and always got in first. "Brother did it hauling water at the well by the camp gate today." Then she remembered to add, "And I bandaged it when his hand split!"

"But the water jar has been full since this morning." Song Liangyu came over and turned his palm over. Red marks going purple, already scabbed, and he had gone on practicing through the pain. It hurt her to see. She found one of the cleaner garments, tore strips off it, and asked as she bandaged, "Were you drawing water for someone else's household?"

The wound was touched and he sucked in a breath, the pain going up his back in a tingle. It was a moment before he answered. "I was building up my strength. I'm eleven. In under four years I'll be of working age, and when it comes to the mine shafts and felling timber and running rafts, how will I manage if I can't lift or carry?"

His reasoning was that simple.

Staying alive came first.

As a registered male he'd start hard labor the moment he turned fifteen. In Shuozhou there were only four kinds of work — quarrying stone, digging iron ore, clearing hillsides, and felling timber and running rafts — and you couldn't choose. All of it was punishing, and if your body was even slightly short of strength you could die at it. His third uncle had collapsed from hauling broken rock, and in that cold, getting up again turned out to be impossible.

Building muscle was a practical question of survival. He didn't know what was coming, but he knew that surviving in Shuozhou under these conditions needed a sound body.

And not only his own. He meant to work out an effective routine, and once he'd tested it on himself, to have his sisters and brother train too. Getting their bodies in order while waiting for better days couldn't be a loss.

Cranking the windlass really did build arm strength. But the bucket had no handle, only rough hemp rope, and two hauls chafed the skin raw. Zhuo Siheng could endure a great deal in study and in life alike, and he'd gritted his teeth and kept at it.

He had thought it through clearly and explained it reasonably, and when his parents had heard him out, both their eyes reddened.

Ciheng spoke up. "Brother wants to be a strongman, and I want to be a doctor when I grow up, so I can cure Mother and Sister!"

"Silly girl." Huiheng was only eight and a bit, but she was precocious and understood why their parents were grieved. She also knew her sister, careless as a child is, had said the warmest thing of all. Tears gathered slowly in her eyes.

Zhuo Siheng thought perhaps all parents were like this. When they suffered themselves they made the best of it and comforted each other, and could talk quite calmly. But seeing a child made sensible by suffering turned them over, and there was only room for the ache — where would they find half a sentence of comfort? He had never had the chance to see it before. In this life he saw it, and it shook him.

Life was as hard as the cold. A family's love was warmer than spring.

For all his worry about what was coming, hope rose in him from somewhere, and he simply felt the family was bound to do better and better.

Zhuo Yan came out of his sorrow too, and his face turned resolute. "Just so. That's exactly how it should be. My son has something of Lord Fan Wenzheng's character: hard pressed and not slack, bent and not fallen. Good. Very good. I used to think Siheng's nature was placid and mild, that he was deferential in his dealings. Now I see it's the true virtue of a gentleman — soft outside, iron within. Excellent."

Then he looked at Song Liangyu, whose eyes were still full of pity, and said brightly, "I've studied the Book of Changes a little, as you know. Why don't I cast a hexagram on these stirring words of his and see what our son's fate holds?"

Zhuo Siheng had no idea his father could do this, and his interest was up at once. Huiheng dropped her sorrowful look too and gathered Ciheng in beside her to listen.

Seeing the children so keen, Song Liangyu let a small smile show. "All right. Then let Siheng's words be the hexagram."

Zhuo Siheng sent the restless Ciheng out for six flat pebbles. When she brought them back he inked one flat face of each and blotted them dry. "Our family hasn't a copper to its name, so these will have to stand in for the six coins. And stones are made by heaven and earth, so they should understand its intent all the better."

Then, very solemnly, he shook the stones in his hands, the clatter going on and on, and all at once opened his hand. The stones dropped and rolled apart.

Xiheng was already deep asleep. He only turned over at the noise and slept on.

"Let me see!" Ciheng flung herself on the floor, gave a startled eh?, and lifted her round face, all disbelief. "Father, Mother, they're all inkless side up!"

Zhuo Yan and Zhuo Siheng bent to look. Exactly as she said.

"What does it mean?" Song Liangyu found it strange. Before her marriage she had drawn lots at temples many times, but a Daoist had always read them for her, and she knew nothing of six-line divination.

There was a strange bright light in Zhuo Yan's eyes. He had done the trick only to soothe them and had never expected this hexagram. Could it be the will of heaven?

"Father, how is it read?" Even Huiheng, always grave and quiet, couldn't sit still.

"This is — this is Qian!" He was overjoyed. "The judgment on Qian is supreme, penetrating, advantageous, upright. It signifies the virtue of the gentleman, and good fortune. I just said Siheng had the virtue of a gentleman, and now we have the gentleman's own hexagram. It answers to the gloss too: Heaven moves with strength; thus the gentleman ceaselessly strengthens himself."

Zhuo Siheng couldn't follow a word and was shaken anyway. So studying here included the occult arts. And what this modern top scorer had in his head at the sight of it was: six stones, how many arrangements? What's the probability of all six landing inkless side up?

The gap between them.

Father had earned the title.

Zhuo Yan had done it on a whim and chanced into a fine hexagram. His mind opened wide, and feeling this was heaven's design and not to be brushed aside, he took up the brush and wrote four lines of verse.

Zhuo Siheng looked over. His father had written:

Dangerous words sent me down to the rivers and lakes; I loose my heart to cloud and mountain — how should this road be lonely? Loyalty and good faith I have pledged all my life; Why fret over fortune or ruin? I'll write my Rhapsody on the Numinous Crow.

He had started on the Four Books and had the Great Learning and the Doctrine of the Mean cold, but he'd barely touched poetry, and could only look at his mother as if begging for rescue.

Song Liangyu had caught her husband's high spirits, and smiled at her son. "This is the poem by that Lord Fan Wenzheng your father spoke of. It's about how a gentleman conducts himself, and about keeping his integrity in adversity when no one is watching."

Zhuo Siheng was shaken again. He'd known his parents came from scholarly houses. Only now did he grasp what that was worth.

The strength in Zhuo Yan's characters pleased Song Liangyu more the longer she looked. Then the lines gave her an idea, and even the illness fell out of her face. "Husband — why not take a courtesy name for Siheng from this poem?"

Zhuo Siheng was taken aback. He hadn't "heard" many books, but Zhuo Yan had gone through the Family Instructions of the Yan Clan with him, and he remembered one line clearly: the given name rectifies the person; the courtesy name expresses his virtue. So a boy was named at a hundred days, but the courtesy name came at the capping ceremony at twenty. It was usually bestowed by an elder to complement the given name, and established families often asked the child's teacher, or even a famous living scholar with ties to the house, to bestow it. He was still nearly half that age short of twenty. Wasn't this early?

He had read only a handful of books and always remembered them at their most pedantic. His father had real learning, and after a moment's thought his mind was clear and free of hesitation. He set the conventions aside, feeling that heaven's moment had come and mustn't be let slip. He clapped his hands and praised his wife's intent, looked over the lines again, and said with sudden clarity, "I know which two characters you mean."

Devoted as they were, the two only looked at each other and smiled, and each reached out to point. Both fingers came down on the same two characters: cloud and mountain, from I loose my heart to cloud and mountain — how should this road be lonely?

And so, at eleven, Zhuo Siheng had a courtesy name.

Zhuo Yunshan.

"Thank you, Father, Mother." He thought it sounded wonderful and the meaning was fine, and he took it gladly.

Then came a burst of urgent pounding at the door.

The warmth in the room stopped dead.

In a labor camp, a knock at night was seldom good news.

The room was small and Zhuo Yan reached the door in two steps. He opened it and froze.

"My respects, Supervisor Zhu."

Even in exile, even uneasy, Zhuo Yan's manners were exact, and there was still the bearing of an official in his slight bow.

Zhu Tong had been setting Zhuo Siheng on the accounts, but to let his son get on with his studies, Zhuo Yan worked the accounts out each time and left the boy only to copy them in. One day Zhuo Siheng was tired and went to bed early, so Zhuo Yan wrote them in himself. Zhu Tong noticed, and didn't lose his temper. He sought Zhuo Yan out and got the thing straight. Coming from the ranks, what Zhu Tong despised most was a bookish man with a high opinion of himself, sour and poor and full of airs. But Zhuo Yan neither pitied himself nor put on any hauteur, and the two got on well. Later Zhuo Yan gave him a good deal of quiet advice on handling a superior — neither servile nor overbearing — while keeping himself safe: not bottling up his temper and not giving offense either. Zhu Tong found it useful and stopped being as widely loathed around the camp. He was no scoundrel at bottom, only coarse and blunt and careless of the niceties, and from then on he warmed to Zhuo Yan, a man of real learning who was sincere and forthright besides. He looked after the whole family too.

He had come at this hour with a storm lantern, and having stepped inside he left the door open. His face was all delight. "It's not respects — it's — it's news!"

Close call. He'd nearly said glad tidings.

Only then did Zhuo Yan notice the lantern was covered with white waxed paper, and that a long strip of white hemp cloth was tied at his waist.

Song Liangyu saw it too.

The two of them stood rooted there, minds blank.

Of the four children, one was asleep and three stared blankly at each other, with no idea what was happening.

But both parents came from families of officials and had lived in the capital since childhood, and they knew what Zhu Tong's outfit meant.

Zhu Tong took Zhuo Yan's stiff hand and lowered his voice. "The late Emperor has ascended to heaven. The proclamation of the new Emperor's accession came a thousand li at speed and reached Shuozhou tonight. The reign name is something like Zhenyuan — but that isn't the point. Elder Brother Zhuo. My good Elder Brother. The edict says there's a general amnesty!"