Chapter 46

Feedback from the education-reform pilot soon reached Zhuo Siheng.

But it came not from the policy's implementer, Luo Yuanzhu, but from Zhuo Ciheng.

At Tong Shipei's wedding banquet, Zhuo Ciheng had made several close girlfriends her own age. Since most of the women guests were from military families, who valued boldness and resolve in raising daughters over the still grace of poetry and books, several girls and their mothers admired Ciheng's frank, open briskness that yet lacked nothing in propriety, and eagerly sought to know her.

A few were of houses of some standing, with much traffic with the palace. This day Ciheng had received an invitation to view flowers with two friends in the inner garden of the Great Xiangguo Temple. In truth she cared little for flowers and plants; though the back garden at home, once she'd taken it over, was planted with many she couldn't even name, every one had a clear medicinal use. Zhuo Ciheng had heard that many precious medicinal herbs were grown in the Great Xiangguo Temple's rarely-shown back court, and so gladly agreed to go along.

Of course her friends weren't really lingering in sentiment over the last summer blooms; in Zhuo Ciheng's words, only a fool wouldn't use an excuse to get out of the house!

But she went quick and came back quick; home again, she changed out of her whole set of fine going-out clothes into plain everyday wear, and ran to the back court to tend her herbs.

Zhuo Siheng, on his rest-day, was working overtime in the cool pavilion; seeing Ciheng back so soon after going out, he asked, wondering: "Sister, didn't you say you'd gone to the Great Xiangguo Temple with the two young ladies of the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Bingma Command's house?"

"Don't even mention it." Ciheng, back only a little while, already had hands full of mud, and said without lifting her head: "Sister Yunpei was called away by Commandery Princess Hexin — I hear the princess was severely punished by her mother, and now she's at home crying and carrying on and refusing to eat. Really it was just being punished by her teacher at the Inner Library Court — such a small thing to kick up such a fuss over."

Commandery Princess Hexin was the beloved daughter of the late Prince of Ying; after the Prince of Ying passed, the emperor, mindful of the care between uncle and nephew back then, specially granted her a residence of her own with an imperially-brushed plaque besides — and though she still lived in the princely mansion, attending her mother, her rank was unique among the commandery princesses.

Hearing it touched the Inner Library Court, Zhuo Siheng at once set down his brush, came down from the cool pavilion, and pressed: "How was she punished?"

Ciheng looked up and laughed: "That teacher of theirs — cold in manner but fairly easygoing, they say, always letting the students carry on and saying little; then somehow, a couple of days ago, she suddenly thought to hold a test, and those girls with imperial kin ties, who'd never taken her seriously, wouldn't play along — except a very few who study in earnest, they mostly just scribbled any old answers. Who'd have known the woman teacher wouldn't get angry, but had them go find their own mothers to grade and sign the papers — which of them would do that!"

Luo Yuanzhu had grasped the essence! Just so — the traceless surprise ambush; the must-have tactical skill of a high-school homeroom teacher! Zhuo Siheng listened with relish, and simply carried down a rattan stool and brought two cups of tea — one for Ciheng to wet her throat, one for himself to sip as he listened.

"That woman teacher's really something — she actually took the papers one by one and called at the students' homes; hearing it was an imperially-appointed palace scribe visiting, and their own child's teacher, which family would dare slight her? So those mothers looked at their daughters' god-awful papers..."

"No copying Fifth Uncle Zhu's foul language." Zhuo Siheng cut off Ciheng just as she hit her stride.

Ciheng "heh-heh"-ed her way past it, changed her wording and went on: "The woman teacher apologized again and again, saying she'd wrongly received the emperor's esteem and yet couldn't teach the precious girls well — over a year of study and only this level of learning — that she had no recourse but to plead guilty. Sure enough those princess-consorts and the mothered princesses and commandery princesses were smoking with rage! They hauled their daughters over to apologize on the spot, and a few hot-tempered ones even brought out the family rod!"

Ai-ya, corporal-punishment education — that's not so good. Zhuo Siheng shook his head.

"Hah! Really it's not for the learning; the way I see it, it's all for face." Ciheng drained her tea in one go, handed the empty cup to her brother, and bending to weed on, said: "Those families go in and out of the palace with faces to keep; if their own daughter fails the aim of the Inner Library Court's schooling and her learning's poor, they'd likely never hold their heads up at social gatherings, nor could they show her off to compare with others — as if their family upbringing were faulty. That's why they're so anxious — not necessarily really for the child's study and progress."

Ciheng's words hit exactly on Zhuo Siheng's real purpose in using this as a method.

To solve a problem at the root, the point of entry often isn't the problem itself.

Delighted, he gave Ciheng's sweaty little head a couple of pats, told her to go on with her work, and returned to the cool pavilion with the self-satisfaction of a plan laid in the command tent that had reaped great effect.

Zhuo Ciheng thought it odd: her brother usually didn't care for such household gossip — how was it today he asked after it?

Back in the study, Zhuo Siheng took up his brush but didn't set it down, instead pondering the key points within.

Though he'd only exchanged a few words with Luo Yuanzhu, seeing the care she took teaching and how solid her own learning was, she could surely use his method well. In fact, were she teaching official families' daughters in some outside girls' school, Luo Yuanzhu needn't have worried; only these daughters of dragon-and-phoenix stock dared slight Noble Consort Luo's sister — most other families would be falling over themselves to court her.

Only, Zhuo Siheng hadn't expected that before long, even the imperial kin would no longer dare slight Luo Yuanzhu.

Because her elder sister, Noble Consort Luo, was diagnosed again with a pregnancy of over two months.

Ever since she entered the palace and bore a son she'd had the honor of favor above all six palaces; now, brocade upon flowers, no one in the harem could outshine her.

Being with child, Noble Consort Luo couldn't well attend the ninth-month imperial autumn hunt; who'd have known she'd tell the emperor she hoped the child in her womb, boy or girl, would take on their imperial father's martial spirit — which so delighted the emperor that he said Noble Consort Luo must certainly come along, and bade them bring all the imperial physicians and choose experienced old nurses from the palace to attend her.

But the empress was left behind in the palace.

Someone memorialized that this was improper; the emperor said many things in the palace needed the empress's full care for him to rest easy.

The empress said nothing; in truth even had she spoken, with no consort-clan at court now, her words might not have gotten out.

The crown prince, though, was this time taken along by the emperor of his own accord. Perhaps just because of this, the ministers felt it was more or less enough, so only the deposal-of-the-empress rumor ran rampant in secret, while all the surface talk fell silent.

As a Hanlin attendant, Zhuo Siheng had of necessity to go and help the emperor handle the daily documents; His Honor Zeng told him to be careful, and careful again — with so much strife a month before the hunt even set out, he feared it might not be peaceful once they'd gone either.

Later, recalling the day the autumn hunt set out, the twenty-first of the ninth month, Zhuo Siheng felt deeply that worldly affairs often unfold their unforeseeable, hard-to-read turns in an especially fair and sunny way — how could human power foresee them?

The Son of Heaven's ninth-month autumn hunt at Suizhou was a fixed rite since the Founder's establishment of the dynasty. In the old days the Founder, martial and heroic, raised troops from the wilds, rose to dragon-glory from Linzhou, marched his army west, and at Taicang Plain in Suizhou, with fifty thousand crack troops, smashed the former dynasty's three hundred thousand defenders, swept and settled the northwest frontier, and spared himself the worry of an enemy at his back as he went south to achieve his hegemony.

Later, when all the six directions and eight wilds had entered the imperial map, the Founder, now holding all under Heaven, came again to Taicang Plain; the autumn grass not yet yellow, one still saw everywhere the broken weapons and grave-mounds of that year's fierce battle. He sighed over the merit and hegemony and the splendor of those days, and said that decades, recalled in a dream, were just like a rotted axe-handle or a millet dream, and only if the later generations of every reign strove diligently could the dynasty's long dream of fortune be kept from waking. So he ordered a traveling palace built at Taicang Plain in Suizhou, and decreed to the dynasty's rulers of every later age: beyond civil rule and settling the age, they must build up martial virtue — each year in the ninth month lead the civil and military officials and imperial kin to hunt here, reward the meritorious soldiers high and low alike, sacrifice to the souls fallen in the Taicang battle, not forgetting the white bones that built the merit, and by martial benevolence and grace draw in the hearts of the people of all the land.

Even Yingzong, that famously low-energy, sit-still type of emperor, had every ninth month to run out of the capital with a great retinue and suffer at Taicang Commandery in Suizhou, or else be unfilial to the ancestors — a great crime indeed.

The reigning Son of Heaven too was of a scholar's pure air, loving stillness over motion, letters over arms; yet every ninth month he actively prepared the autumn hunt and took part himself. Zhuo Siheng felt that in setting an example as a descendant of the dynasty, his boss was never willing to fall behind his enemy-father Jingzong.

The autumn hunt was not only a grand gathering of the military; half the court's civil officials had to go along too. Mind you, one hunt lasted a full month, and the leadership team around the emperor couldn't sit idle — daily state affairs had to be discussed, and any urgent military intelligence handled specially — so the Secretariat left only a few old officials unfit to travel to keep house, and all the rest attended the imperial carriage.

Zhuo Siheng was no exception.

The day the imperial carriage set out was bright and clear, autumn leaves not yet red-and-yellow flaunting in the dense woods by the road; a mighty column of several thousand advanced slowly, coming west from the Central Metropolitan Prefecture along the Pei River, crossing clean through Fengzhou — a full fifteen days' journey before reaching the Taicang traveling palace in Suizhou.

After two days' rest, the hunting-ground reported that the imperial field-camp's great tents were properly set, and the sacred carriage might come.

Zhuo Siheng, grown up in the north from childhood, had seen much dense forest and wild plain; yet reaching the autumn-hunt camp, he too was struck at first by the grand sight of the northwest's grasslands, and couldn't look away.

Taicang Plain was rich in water and grass, its oil-green sea of grass still thick in autumn; far off, Mount Yan rose and fell high and low beneath the blue sky, spreading the deep-green sinews of its densely-wooded ranges. All the eye could reach was the imperial forbidden hunting-ground; the grand air everywhere proclaimed the supremacy of imperial power.

In truth, was not all under Heaven likewise a hunting-ground of power?

Gazing at the magnificent scene, Zhuo Siheng's thoughts scattered and ran the freer.

With several days' hard travel and too little rest, His Honor Zeng, Grand Academician Bai, and the other old Hanlin ministers were all worn ragged; the emperor, mindful of the civil officials' toil, first let them rest in their tents the first two days, and had the attendants carry on their duties as usual. Far as this place was, the work was the same work; Zhuo Siheng, nearly three years the emperor's assistant, had long had the knack of it, and taking turns each day with his colleagues, was rather more at leisure than in the capital, where entering the palace meant a whole day of it.

This evening his shift ended; walking out of the imperial field-camp's great tent, through row on row of intricate, overlapping linked awnings, from under the golden-bell tassels he saw the gorgeous sun high in the western sky, and Zhuo Siheng felt of a sudden a boundless ease of heart, and stopped to stand a while.

All at once a hand clapped heavily on his shoulder; turning, he found it was Zhao Ting'an — the Earl of Yongxiang's heir, Zhao Lanxuan's older cousin.

"Yesterday I looked for you and you said you'd no time; today you've time to stand here gazing at the sky — don't tell me you're busy!"

Since being drunk under by Zhuo Siheng at the wedding banquet, Zhao Ting'an's attitude toward civil officials had greatly turned around, and toward Zhuo Siheng he felt they'd met too late, unable to drink together every day. Young as he was, he already served as Vice-Commander of the Bingma Command of the Metropolitan Guard, and was the Earl of Yongxiang's heir, raised from childhood in the army camp with his father; a man of soaring gallantry, careless of trifles, since reaching the traveling palace he'd sought Zhuo Siheng out daily to drink with his band of Metropolitan Guard brothers, and Zhuo Siheng had always begged off on the excuse of official duty the next day — today, waylaid, was a real miscalculation.

"You're not thinking of avenging the wedding banquet, are you?"

Zhuo Siheng, squinting in the setting sun, looked for all the world like a sly fox sizing up its prey; even the brave young officer felt a little shiver, and hurried to punch his shoulder: "What? Not allowed to win back my face?"

"It was Fangze who married your sister, not me — why pick on me?" Zhuo Siheng didn't know whether to laugh or cry; he'd met Zhao Ting'an a few times and knew his nature, so he spoke straight too.

"That fellow, in such a soft, cushy post, won't even come to the autumn hunt; and even if he could, I'd make him take leave — newly wed, and not home keeping my little sister company, what's he running off for?" From his daily diligent drilling Zhao Ting'an's face was a healthy wheat-brown, and his laugh showed snow-white teeth, all youthful vigor, with the idle, unfettered air of a young blade of the Five Tombs: "At the wedding you were so mighty — you drank away even my face, the bride's-side brother's; if I don't get revenge, how'll I hold my own before all the brothers hereafter?"

Zhuo Siheng quite liked this fellow's crisp way of talking, and hearing it out nearly laughed aloud: "So this is how you Metropolitan Guard men get your face back? Bullying one small civil official's hardly dignified."

Talking on, the two had reached near the cavalry camp of the army squadrons; here the traffic was all military men and cheerful horses, the people far fewer, and Zhao Ting'an lowered his voice: "Actually I wanted to tell you something — that brother-in-law of mine charged me a thousand times before I came to look after you a bit; his father feels this autumn hunt may hold some trouble, and told me too that in attending the throne you should hold caution first."

Zhuo Siheng already knew of the pre-hunt storm, and being ever steady, wasn't overly anxious about it; but hearing that his good friend and his friend's father were worried for him, warmth flooded his breast, and even the little worry he had was nearly washed away.

"Rest easy — I've got the measure of it; you take care in the army too."

Zhuo Siheng sincerely cupped his hands in thanks, only to be pressed down impatiently by Zhao Ting'an: "Apart from a few troublemakers back from the Frontier Command and the useless prefectural troops, what have I to be careful of? Our Bingma Command isn't like the Palace Command, flitting before the sovereign's eyes day after day; it's you should worry a bit more about yourself."

The autumn hunt being a great affair, the garrisons of every important northern pass had to join the grand occasion. The dynasty's local garrisons were the prefectural troops, brave and battle-worthy though of course not the equal of the elite Three Metropolitan Guards; but the great passes and strategic chokepoints had always been heavily defended by the most valiant pass-garrisons under the Frontier Command — crack troops and bold generals, able to march and fight, from whom the Metropolitan Guards had never won merit or advantage at the autumn hunts.

"The commanding generals of the Frontier Command garrisons have all come?" Zhuo Siheng thought that yesterday he'd still heard before the throne that some military men of remote northern frontier passes wouldn't arrive till the day after tomorrow.

Zhao Ting'an hooked his arm over Zhuo Siheng's shoulder, a plucked grass-blade dangling from his mouth, and said lazily: "The most hateful one has come."

Zhuo Siheng was about to ask who was so hateful, when Zhao Ting'an, most unwilling, jutted his lips in one direction and spat out the grass-blade in utter distaste.

Following his gaze, Zhuo Siheng saw, atop several tall, fine Muzhou steeds, riders in pitch-black heavy armor, like so many half-height iron towers coming slowly toward them.

"Damn it, won't even dismount in the squadron camp — think it's their own no-rules turf!"

Hearing Zhao Ting'an's low cursing, Zhuo Siheng thought to explain that Frontier Command military men of the fifth rank and above were specially permitted to ride through the camp, but seeing the other's unfriendly look, decided to shut up.

The vermilion-clad, light-armored Metropolitan Guard officer and the green-robed civil official walking shoulder to shoulder were perhaps, here, more eye-catching than the heavy-armored troopers; the several on horseback, passing the two, all lowered their eyes to look, but their expressions stayed cold and stern. One at the very front, his air the proudest, seemed to look at people out of the corner of his eye — a gust of wind swept beneath his gaze, and his knife-carved, axe-hewn jaw didn't move a whit.

Zhuo Siheng had no military rank, and was just about to nod in ordinary civil-official courtesy, when Zhao Ting'an grabbed him by the collar and yanked his back and head straight; this tipping-up of his head caught, just then, the gaze of the foremost officer.

He was about Zhuo Siheng's age, his complexion much fairer than Zhao Ting'an's, his looks scholarly, not square-faced and fierce like a military man's; his eyes were like squared willow-leaves, long and narrow, carrying an inexplicable disdain when they looked at people, brimming with the haughtiness of one who finds no speck of dust worthy beneath his eye.

No wonder Zhao Ting'an disliked this fellow.

Zhuo Siheng didn't like his arrogant way of looking down at people from horseback either.

The Earl of Yongxiang's house was not like the common great families that spoil their sons; Zhao Ting'an had rolled and scrambled in the army camp with his own father since childhood — the army under his father, they said, drilled and trained without regard to birth, harsh in the extreme, and he'd broken several bones for it — a young man of an eminent house outstanding in both ability and character, by no means some useless idler who resents abler men. He wouldn't even let Zhuo Siheng bow, and stood ramrod-straight himself, not deigning to notice the leading officer of higher rank. But then Zhao Ting'an was Metropolitan Guard; the Metropolitan Guards had always garrisoned the dynasty's Three Metropolitan Prefectures, crack and bold and high in their own regard, and the Central Metropolitan Prefecture's Guards had a further layer of before-the-throne dignity, holding the frontier garrisons in still less esteem.

What's more, from this posture, the two seemed to have some feud, so such a facing-off was no surprise.

At last the troop of riders passed; Zhuo Siheng, all but hoisted breathless by Zhao Ting'an, finally got his footing when the other let go, and, smoothing his official robe, asked: "Do you two have a feud?"

"I wouldn't dare cross him — my old man would break my legs." A sunny young officer, Zhao Ting'an now spoke all snide and sour, with quite the flair of a civil official needling someone at court.

"He's of very high birth?"

"Commandant of the West Victory garrison-pass, Yu Yong; his father is the Duke of Ling, his mother Jingzong's elder sister, Princess Hanzhao — a man who from childhood never had the kind of eyes that know how to look at other people properly."

No wonder — he really had no need for eyes that could see.

"Enough, enough! Today's drink you'll have, whatever you say!" Zhao Ting'an kicked a pebble by his foot flying, as if kicking off the unpleasant shadow, and smiled again, tugging Zhuo Siheng's sleeve, his posture all but wanting a rope to bind him off to his camp as a sacrifice to Heaven.

"I've got attendant duty before the throne tomorrow morning — do you think my life's too long?" Zhuo Siheng in fact had the afternoon shift tomorrow, but he truly dared not drink at the field-camp for fear of botching things.

Zhao Ting'an wasn't having it; roughly clamping Zhuo Siheng's arm, he grinned: "You rascal, this trick again — today I went specially to ask your His Honor Zeng, that one who always talks with his eyes narrowed like he can't wake up; he said you don't reach the throne till tomorrow afternoon, and I've already begged you the morning off from him. He said it's rare for a young man to get out, and so long as it's nothing outrageous, there's no harm in relaxing a bit. Well? Still going to weasel out?"

Alarm! The enemy's within! And it's his own superior!

Zhuo Siheng felt suddenly powerless, crying to Heaven with no answer, to earth with no echo.

As the two tugged back and forth, a voice, no one knew when it had drawn near, came suddenly from right before them.

"Attendant Zhuo... have you time just now?"

At this newcomer Zhao Ting'an could not but kneel — not only he; even Zhuo Siheng hastily bent low.

"Your servant greets the crown prince."

"I greet the crown prince."

One in a military man's single knee to earth, one in a civil official's bow of the neck — both most reverently greeted the crown prince before them.