Chapter 48

Yang Zhen soon knew how badly wrong he'd been.

He had a gentle-tempered old warhorse picked for Zhuo Siheng and led them all out at once; from the imperial field-camp to the north-forest sentry-tent of Mount Yan was some forty-odd li — the plain flat and smooth, galloping fast, less than four hours to reach — but once into the royal forest the dense trees would make hard riding, and with careful searching besides, most of the time would go on the latter stretch.

So his plan was: even if Zhuo Siheng fell behind, the guards needn't wait; they'd all reach the sentry-tent first, and by the time Zhuo Siheng caught up they'd already be out searching for the emperor's central camp.

For this, before setting out he pointedly and none too politely handed Zhuo Siheng a rough map he'd just drawn of the sentry-tent's position, and said coldly: "If you fall behind, make your own way there and await orders."

That young Hanlin attendant named Zhuo Siheng was just tying a cloak over his grey-green official robe; he took the sketch respectfully with not the least resistance, calm as the Pei River crossing Taicang Plain — his smile even held a rippling glint of light.

"Thank you for your care, Commander Yang."

Yang Zhen said nothing, sneering within: we'll see if you can still smile after two hours on horseback.

The military situation was urgent, with no time to make ready; apart from the several guard-teams protecting the inner-camp tents of the consorts and palace folk, and the key men watching the baggage camp, the remaining two thousand guards had all set out with the emperor — two hundred at the emperor's side, the rest deployed at sentry-tents along the way to protect the carriage; the Palace Command could just now muster fewer than a hundred-odd men, but they need only send out the order to find the central camp, and with all the on-call guards working together, finding the emperor's position wouldn't be hard.

Eighty-odd men mounted together; from horseback Zhuo Siheng saw, far off, the still-uneasy His Honor Zeng, leaning half out of the tent to look this way.

The moment anyone showed him concern his heart went warm; heedless of the scornful looks around him, like a child on his first day of school he couldn't help turning back to wave to the "parent."

Yang Zhen saw it and scoffed within, and at once gave the order to move out.

Lead-grey clouds hung low at the sky's edge, a wind rising slowly — a sign of rain to come. But there was no time now to mind fair weather or foul; at the command all set out.

The guards' fast steeds and crack troops were indeed no ordinary thing; the column had run two or three li when Yang Zhen, seeing Mount Yan draw nearer, looked back for Attendant Zhuo — and where was any shadow of grey-green robe and dark-brown cloak!

Fallen behind in scarcely the time to burn a stick of incense — a bookman really was this useless!

But the man carried, after all, the most vital sealed letter; Yang Zhen couldn't just ignore it, and was about to order one man left to find him, when there came to his ear, mingled with the wind, the dense, rapid drum of hooves beating the earth.

Glancing sidelong — who but Zhuo Siheng was riding hard at his very flank?

Yang Zhen was secretly startled: watching the rhythm of Zhuo Siheng's whip and rein, urgent and easy by turns, it was an expert's hand — neither driving the horse with blows like falling rain nor skimming feebly like a dragonfly on water; handling bridle and reins with practiced skill, dropping low to the saddle ahead of the others when the wind came head-on, arching his back to yield when the crosswind blew fierce — a fine horse now meeting a worthy master, its four hooves pounding wild.

Such horsemanship yielded nothing to the wiliest old scouts under his own command, decades weathering wind and dew as companions to their mounts!

Yang Zhen at once saw this small civil-official attendant in a new light; he'd known even a seventh- or eighth-rank petty officer of the Hanlin Academy was a dragon among men, but he'd never seen a first-class graduate of the dynasty ride so swift and fine a horse to chase the wind!

On the march, even drinking water was strictly ruled: however thirsty, one couldn't take out one's flask and drink at will, but must wait for the officer's command, when all the troops drank and rested together and then rode on. Cavalry on the fast march couldn't even dismount and unbuckle to drink, so the soldiers all trained the knack of drinking against the wind on horseback without choking. After two hours' ride Yang Zhen, seeing Zhuo Siheng still tight at his flank, much admired him and had a mind to test him again, so he turned and gave the order: "Slow! Drink!"

All the horses, under the command-obeying guards' control, slowed but kept their hooves moving; each man one-handed unhooked his water-flask from behind the saddle and drank bent to the saddle. Zhuo Siheng too, at the order, unhooked his one-handed; plainly parched, he gulped several big mouthfuls, and didn't choke on the wind either.

Yang Zhen and many guards saw it, and all said "well done" within.

"Whip up!"

At Yang Zhen's shout again, all hung their flasks back in place and spurred their horses to speed anew.

Drinking on horseback twice more like this, the column at last neared the edge of Mount Yan's north forest.

And now wind and rain suddenly broke out, huge drops striking down on them unawares; the once-clear view melted bit by bit into rain-mist, the horses slowing a little too. Yang Zhen, frantic, led the way and whipped on by memory of the deployment map, and at last reached the sentry-tent at the appointed hour.

The sentry-post, for deploying and protecting the sacred carriage and taking in lost hunt-personnel, was small in scale but had seven or eight tents, a rough wooden stake fence walling off a man-high barrier against wild beasts, and guard sentries at both entrances.

Yang Zhen checked orders with the officer there; all dismounted to rest a while, and now, speaking with Zhuo Siheng, Yang Zhen was much friendlier. Long in the army and little among civil officials, he didn't much care to deal with sour, bookish scholars, but this young fellow made him wish he could recruit him under his own command.

"Attendant Zhuo, wait here for our word; the moment there's news of the central camp, we'll report to you at once." Yang Zhen clapped Zhuo Siheng's shoulder, paused, and cupped his hands: "If I gave offense in my words before we set out, I beg the attendant's pardon."

Zhuo Siheng had by now made a few army friends, and knew they judged by ability and nothing else, so at the start he hadn't felt slighted; and now, a fifth-rank officer cupping his hands to apologize, he rather dared not take it, and returned the courtesy: "Commander Yang was mindful of the whole; such worry was only fitting. But the situation being urgent, I knew my own measure before I dared answer — I'd never dare treat so vital a military matter lightly."

His answer was neither humble nor proud, his face and tone alike mild and gentle, and he didn't lord it over others by their faults; Yang Zhen liked him the more, and had a tent cleared for Zhuo Siheng to drink hot water, warm himself and rest, while they must set out again at once into the rain.

Zhuo Siheng hadn't ridden in a long time and was a bit weary; but back in Shuozhou his horsemanship had been taught by Old Huyan himself — the very riding that had ranged the boundless steppe of the Eight Tribes of Wohan — and Shuozhou's wilds made for extremely hard riding, which he'd shuttled through as if on flat ground; so two hours' riding on Taicang Plain wasn't enough to do him in.

Only, listening to the hard, violent rain drumming the tent, Zhuo Siheng fell into a daze, until his fingertips, scalded red by the pewter army field-bowl, made him hastily set it down; his cloak had been dried by the groom at Yang Zhen's instruction and brought back. He couldn't help checking the water-clock — another hour had slipped by unnoticed, and still no one had come back with word.

The scroll-tube on his back protecting the sealed military memorial had been pine-waxed shut and wouldn't let rain in; he didn't take it off, but kept it bound to him, ready and waiting.

At last a guard came to report the emperor's central camp's present position found; Zhuo Siheng didn't wait for the rain to ease, but in the sky-splitting, earth-falling downpour fixed his bearing and set out on horseback.

The emperor's place was now deep in the heart of Mount Yan's north forest, ringed by shoal-flats formed by tributaries of the Pei River; luckily, with this rain, the carriage had chosen higher ground to camp a while and tally the past two days' game, keeping the heads to count and skinning and eating the rest on the spot.

Riding in the forest, Zhuo Siheng was the more like a fish in water; he and Old Huyan had ridden through all the old woods of Shuozhou, and he knew in his heart where to duck a branch at a gallop, and here he was all the more in his element; in under an hour he found the imperial camp by the map.

When Zhuo Siheng knelt to present the sealed letter, the emperor, before even unsealing it, had an unhidden admiration in his eyes. Having read it, he pondered a moment, took up a brush and swiftly wrote a vermilion rescript, sealed it again, and handed it to the drenched Yang Zhen standing at his side: "Give it to Minister Shen; he'll know what to do on reading it."

The emperor didn't turn the carriage back at once — likely no frontier-defense matter of moment; but if not urgent, why send an eight-hundred-li express?

As Zhuo Siheng puzzled over it, a hand clapped suddenly on his rain-misted shoulder.

"I hadn't thought I had at my side so young a man accomplished in both letters and arms," the emperor praised with a smile.

Zhuo Siheng told the plain truth, laying out fully how he'd once hunted and fished in Shuozhou to feed his family; hearing it, the emperor seemed to sigh a little, and said only: "The elder brother of a house bears heavy responsibility indeed; and even so you didn't neglect your studies — proof you've not failed the learning your family handed down."

Three years ago, hearing such words, Zhuo Siheng might have thrilled and pounded with excitement; but now, knowing what a hawk-eyed, wolf-watchful ruthless character the emperor was, he only bowed deeply in thanks and thought no further of it.

The emperor wanted Yang Zhen to carry the word to Minister Shen; Zhuo Siheng, now free, could of course rest. He'd meant to set out back for the field-camp once the rain stopped and go on being the small civil official he was, but the wind blew hard and the rain wouldn't let up a moment, driving all night without slackening; luckily the imperial camp sat on a forest terrace with no standing water, and a brazier in the tent dried the damp — snug and dry. The emperor was in high spirits on this trip; seeming not to mean to turn back halfway but to hunt more, he told the homesick Zhuo Siheng to find a suitable lull in the rain himself and start home.

At last, by the next midday, the rain gradually eased; though still pattering, it was much better. Not wishing to be called one who clung to the emperor's side to court the imperial favor, Zhuo Siheng readied his horse's saddle and bridle, took leave of the about-to-set-out-again emperor, and started back along the road.

The way back was harder going.

The heavy rain of a day and night had left the forest in wreckage; the robe and cloak dried at the imperial camp took on damp again, the woods hazy with mist, broken branches strewn everywhere. Zhuo Siheng rode most of an hour, as if moving from one cloud into another; the rain, lighter, still didn't stop, gathering on the dense leaves and branches and, startled loose as his fast horse passed, showering down — as if a host of little waterfalls poured just on him.

Zhuo Siheng found the rainy dense woods lovely enough, but the sodden forest floor had slowed his return a good deal; to dawdle further and he'd be soaked through and take a chill in the autumn rain. Even so, seeing a great, vigorous, nameless tree, he stopped and tucked into his robe a rarely-shaped autumn leaf just touched with frost, to take back and make Huiheng a bookmark to play with.

And it was just then that he heard a strange sound.

Not the rain snapping a branch, nor a startled beast fleeing — but that heavy, tumbling thud of a fall, followed by a girl's scream weighted full with terror.

The voice was a little familiar.

Zhuo Siheng at once dismounted, quickened his soft steps, and brought out his old Shuozhou skill — neither making a great noise to startle the quarry nor failing to close in fast — running toward the source.

The crying grew louder as he neared; the instant Zhuo Siheng remembered whose voice it was, he arrived and saw clearly what was happening:

Princess Qingshan slumped on the ground, crying and crawling; shielding her in front, holding a tiny dagger, was the crown prince Liu Xu, who, pale as he was, wouldn't retreat a step, standing to the death against an armed guard soldier, straight-blade in hand, closing on them step by step.