Chapter 61

The commandery princess's fondness for Ciheng was plain to everyone; she held Ciheng's hand and asked her all manner of things, from the small doings of village life in Shuozhou to what she'd seen in the capital, and, hearing of her upbringing and her growing years, praised Zhuo Siheng and the whole Zhuo family into the bargain.

A good thing Jin Jia had married the Haixi Marquis's daughter — a childhood sweetheart, and a well-matched house — before entering office; otherwise Zhuo Siheng might really have suspected the princess had her eye on his sister for a daughter-in-law.

The river ran heavy with fog by night; the two boats happened just then to lie moored side by side, so the princess invited the Zhuo brother and sister to rest a night aboard her boat. Seeing that his sister rather liked Yu Fu and the princess too, Zhuo Siheng didn't stand on ceremony and decline, only said he'd be imposing.

That night Yu Fu drew Ciheng to her own cabin; they lay on one couch, foot to foot and face to face, and talked into the small hours, both feeling they'd met too late.

"My elder cousin used to tell me she and Sister Lanxuan got on as if they'd known each other in a former life, and I'd think — you didn't grow up together, never ate at one table or played in one yard, how could you be so close? Today, meeting my own sworn friend from a former life, I know she was right!"

Ciheng always spoke plainly; Yu Fu, warmed to the heart, gripped her hand, lowered her eyes a moment, and when she raised them again they shone: "A sworn-sister bond ought to have a token. Take this, Sister."

Ciheng felt something cool slide into her warm palm; she opened it, and at once shook her head in alarm: "This won't do!"

Yu Fu looked at the mutton-fat jade Jade-Rabbit-pounding-medicine pendant, and again closed her hands over Ciheng's, pushing it back: "You cleared away my family's trouble, and used up even so precious a thing your father gave you to do it. I too must give something dear to be worthy of being your sister."

Ciheng still shook her head and pushed it back: "My brother was one of the ones dragged into it today. I couldn't just stand and watch a pack of stray cats and dogs slander him without saying a word, could I? This pendant is a precious thing of yours too — how could I take it?"

"It's because it's precious that I'm giving it to you." Yu Fu's voice was soft, but her tone firm. "If we're to be true friends, ordinary things mean nothing; you've already given something precious in no ordinary way, and so must I."

Ciheng was cowed by her grave, earnest manner; for a moment it seemed wrong to take it, yet not taking it seemed the greater hurt, so she kept it for now, meaning to ask her brother. The next day, when the two returned to their own boat to set off, Ciheng told him the whole business of the gift, expecting her elder brother to scold her for taking so precious a thing of another's on her own account. Instead Zhuo Siheng only thought a while, then sighed softly: "Then keep it well. In making a friend, in giving your heart, the one thing you must never fail is another's warm, unguarded sincerity."

"But... Brother, you seem to really dislike Sister Fu's brother — the heir?" Even with a note of testing and care in her voice, Ciheng was always in the habit of speaking straight.

This time Zhuo Siheng truly laughed: "'Dislike' is too strong. He and I don't suit each other, that's all. But he'll likely garrison the frontier for a long time, and I'll be in Lingnan two terms — six years — and once I'm back at court we may never meet. What does it matter whether I dislike him or not? You, though — off in the village with no one to really talk to, no friends — to meet a soulmate of a sworn sister is a far rarer thing than my meeting someone I don't get on with!"

Ciheng, open and broad-natured to begin with, laughed too: "Anyone who can make you dislike them must be rotten through and through."

In truth there were many people Zhuo Siheng didn't care for; but to raise it as far as dislike was another order of feeling, too draining for him, so to this day he'd sorted very few into that class.

Still, that Yu boy managed to stoke his temper right at the sore spot every single time — a strange thing.

The two boats parted, one north, one south, their sails each swelling with wind; one thread of spring wind, and two ways of drifting.

Watching the little Zhuo boat sway off far to the south over the river's fine bright waves, Yu Fu went back to the princess's cabin and buried her face in her aunt's bosom, torn between the excitement of a new dear friend and the grief of parting while the friendship was still warm. Commandery Princess Shanrong sent her people out, gently stroked Yu Fu's soft hair, and listened to her murmur.

"I don't know if Mother would blame me for being willful — giving away so important a keepsake. But... what I thought then was what I did, without a single other motive; I only felt I'd done right. And now... I feel I've wronged Mother."

Yu Fu's eyes reddened; with her soft brows and blossom-like face, her tears were wretched enough to break a heart.

But the princess said, very plainly and calmly: "Your mother... my elder sister was the truest creature of feeling. If she knew you'd made a friend who could open her heart to you, and who had courage and daring and a chivalrous spirit besides, she'd only praise you — that to give jade in return for a true friend is the very mettle and breadth a daughter of our house should have."

"Truly?" Yu Fu lifted her head from her aunt's bosom. "I've forgotten what Mother looked like, but Brother says she was the gentlest, kindest of mothers."

The princess herself took out a handkerchief and dabbed the tears from the corners of her eyes: "When your mother was small she swore to me she'd be sisters with me the way the Grand Princesses Zhenguo and Dingguo were — else there'd be no point being born into the imperial house at all. Anyone who could say such a thing was not only a loving mother but the most noble-natured daughter of our Liu house. A pity — one marriage cut short all your mother's great hopes... which is why your brother, so you'd not follow the same road, has these years flatly refused to nod at any match. He won't marry, and so you can't marry off easily either; going by your father's temper, he'd otherwise have found some way to pack you off at fifteen or sixteen. You're only eighteen now — what harm in choosing another year or two? You're the daughter of a Liu princess; afraid you won't get married? Never mind that the Grand Princess Zhenguo never married her whole life; the Grand Princess Dingguo was twenty-one before she chose a husband after her own heart and they grew old together, and I married your uncle in my early twenties — do you say any of us lived unhappily? What a joke."

Her aunt had always been a marvel: she could say the hardest things in the softest voice in the world, never sharp-tongued, never harsh. Yu Fu smiled at last: "Last night I said to A-Ci that though her father died early, the fatherly love she'd had was far more than mine, and that's not counting an elder brother caring for her like a father too. She told me not to let my thoughts run to grievance — that I too had a brother who dotes on me, and grew up sheltered at my aunt's knee; that in this world one can't demand everything be perfect, and to know one thing and count one blessing is the wide-hearted way to live. It's I who've always carried a heavy mind and wouldn't set it down. Now, with both you and A-Ci comforting me so, my heart is much clearer."

At first the princess listened in wonder; toward the end her eyes filled with smiling warmth and she nodded again and again, and when Yu Fu finished she said: "To have won such a friend is truly your good fortune."

Meanwhile, in the study aboard the boat, the air was far more strained. Jin Jia had argued until his throat smoked and was at the end of his tricks; he really did miss Zhuo Siheng — had he been here he'd surely have talked the man round — but recalling the bad blood between his cousin and Zhuo Siheng, he could only sigh.

"No need to go on, Cousin. I know my own measure." Yu Yong laid down his brush, sealed the letter he'd written, summoned one of his attending subordinates, handed it over, and said: "See it into the hands of Shi Ting, Commandant of the Qingzhou Prefecture Army, without fail."

The subordinate took the order and went, clean and brisk about it, so that even Jin Jia privately admired how, young as his cousin was, he governed his men with method. But turning it over, he still said uneasily: "You and I aren't only officials at court — we're descendants of imperial kin, we carry the character for 'imperial'; even walking straight, we can't always avoid being framed by one or two men of no virtue. If you take everything to heart and yield on nothing, you only pile trouble on your own mind. If it were truly a grave matter, I'd back you working your hand; but yesterday's business came down to a pack of scoundrels whose scheme came to nothing — no wave was raised in the end. What's past is past; how can you avenge every little scowl?"

"No need at all, indeed — ants and flies aren't worth the worry." Yu Yong sat down again, his look not especially severe, his voice even a touch light. "Besides, the 'imperial' in our blood and the 'imperial' of the reigning Son of Heaven aren't written with the same stroke of the brush."

Yu Yong's mother was the sister of Jingzong; Jin Jia's mother was likewise a beloved daughter of one of Jingzong's siblings. Their generation-standing was high indeed, and each was truly a descendant of the near branch of the imperial house — set off by one degree from the reigning emperor, who had only a nominal father-and-son tie to Jingzong.

"Then why go to the trouble at all?" Jin Jia was quite at a loss. "Shi Ting's name in Qingzhou is none too good, as you and I both know; his prefecture-army is slack in discipline and full of incidents. The years my father served in Qingzhou, cleaning up after Shi Ting's messes was his chief vexation. You know all this — why go stirring him up? A debt of gratitude to him won't be easy to clear."

But Yu Yong only laughed it off, leaned back against his chair, and said softly: "If he ran a tight and upright command, I might not need his help."

Jin Jia could never out-talk his cousin, and worrying was no use, so he changed tack: "All right, I'll leave this be. But how has Brother Yunshan crossed you? He's a capable official the emperor prizes; far as this out-posting is, it's a place the sovereign chose himself — I say he'll surely be given weighty use once he's back at court. Even setting that aside, his character and ability are first-rate among our generation; I don't believe you can't see it. Why must you be at odds with him?"

At the name Zhuo Siheng, Yu Yong's half-closed, resting eyes flew open; after a while he said: "He and I don't suit. Born not to get along."

Jin Jia was nearly driven to laugh in exasperation. He prided himself on his good temper, yet this one cousin he could do nothing with, so he brought out his trump card: "You're at odds with the brother — but our sister and theirs get on splendidly. If you sour things and it touches A-Fu, I'll be the first to come settle accounts with you." Placid and given to compromise by nature, the fierce words he loosed had, in truth, little force behind them, but he decided to say them anyway.

Perhaps it was the mention of his sister: the ferocity in Yu Yong's eyes seemed to melt away without a sound. Jin Jia saw it and was a little eased. That was all he could say; and after all, if his cousin hadn't such a temper, he'd not have clawed his way from fourteen to this post — it wasn't that Jin Jia meant to change his nature, only that he wished him to leave a little slack in things. He could only hope it had gone in.

Sailing the river by day, with the spring wind to help, the Zhuo brother and sister reached the bounds of Jiangnan Prefecture in five days, with a dozen-odd li of water still to run to Jianye City, when the sky suddenly began to rain — fine and misting, winding and clinging. Ciheng had never seen such an unclear rain: no drops to be seen, only a thousand thousand threads strung between heaven and earth, weaving thick a hazy, water-misted net of spring, catching them up in it.

She wouldn't go into the cabin to shelter, insisting on standing outside; Zhuo Siheng could only ask the boatman for a straw rain-cape and hat and dress his sister in them properly. One sat under the awning, one stood at the prow, and with the boat riding steady they passed willow-shoals adrift with blue mist and entered the Wudu Gate north of Jianye City.

The capital gathers all the world's riches and splendor; yet Jianye would not be outdone. The people's ease and plenty could be read at a glance in the towers and fine houses about the water-wharf; everywhere the passersby seemed long used to this soft rain that wouldn't wet the clothes, coming and going freely without covering up. Never mind Ciheng, struck dumb by the sight — even Zhuo Siheng felt deeply how vast the world was, that it held so delicate and exquisite yet bustling and thriving a place.

When the boat drew to the bank and his two feet met the blue-brick ground, it still felt unreal. Zhuo Siheng turned to send someone with the travel-chests to the official post-station, and turning back again was suddenly barred in his path by a figure.

"Cousin! I finally get to see you again!"

Fan Xiliang's eyes brimmed with tears, but his smile was bright as wind; his glad tones seemed lighter and more soaring than the fine rain of Jiangnan itself.