Chapter 63

Ten li east of Quanzhang City, the seat of Anhua Commandery, minor clerks from the commandery yamen were piling fresh-cut bamboo and reeds onto the roof of a bamboo shelter, while seven or eight blue-robed officials drank tea inside and took the air. Jinzhou in the fourth month already felt damp and close, and heavy rain had fallen through the night, so the afternoon was hot and muggy past bearing. The rock tea was sweet and cooling on the tongue, but the officials went on grumbling all the same.

"Even allowing for storms at sea and extra stops, he ought to have arrived two or three days ago." The broadest-built of them had been mopping sweat for the past two hours, and his back was already soaked through in a dark patch.

"The messenger said the vice-prefect left Jiangnan Prefecture fifteen days ago. By the count that puts him here any day now, and there's been no word of rough seas anywhere. Most likely the rain made the mountain roads hard going and held him up a little. It'll be tomorrow or the day after. Let's wait one more day." He finished and signaled for more tea.

They were all a little resigned. Only the youngest did not sit. He stood facing east, and from first to last he did not touch his tea.

"Officer Pan, come and sit a while. Prefect He did tell us to go out and welcome the new vice-prefect, but he didn't fix it so hard as all that. Just sit."

Pan Guangling turned back, took the cup a runner handed him, and drained it in one go. He did not sit. His dark, faintly boyish face stayed set, and he went on standing where he was.

They had shared an office for several years and mostly knew one another's tempers, so no one pressed him. The talk turned again to their new superior.

"They say this new vice-prefect was the proudest, most brilliant man in the capital. Every poetry club and literary party wanted him. A man of fine looks and great refinement!"

"Officer Xu has a relative serving in the capital. He'll know these things in more detail than the rest of us."

Officer Xu, so addressed, looked rather pleased with himself. "My aunt's husband's cousin is only a minor Director in the Ministry of Rites. He and this Vice-Prefect Zhuo merely sat at court together. There's no call to make so much of it."

"We only heard at the Prefect's that the new vice-prefect was a top graduate, much prized by the emperor in the Hanlin Academy, a brilliant hand with the brush. Hearing Officer Xu talk, we learn he's a celebrated talent of the literary world too. No wonder Prefect He thinks so highly of him, and wants him for a poetry-and-prose friend before they've even met." One man waved his fan and sighed in admiration. "With so young a talent come to our fine land, the Prefect will have someone to trade verses with on his mountain outings from now on."

They all agreed it was so. Then Officer Xu of the granary office told a few tales of the new superior's doings in the capital. His looks, he said, were beyond compare. Any number of great families and noble houses had wanted him for a son-in-law, the famous Wanyang Tang clan among them, and the top graduate had turned them all down one by one. Some guessed the emperor meant to keep him for a princess once she came of age. Others were sure the man already had a sweetheart at home, and would not throw her over once he'd risen, but meant to keep his word.

The sun ran west as their talk wandered further afield. Pan Guangling said nothing from first to last. He stood straight and watched the far end of the road, and only when a post-courier appeared at the limit of sight, one man and one horse whipping toward them, did he step forward to meet him.

The others came out too, and asked the courier as he got down, "Has the vice-prefect come?"

The courier was still fresh and showed no tiredness. He shook his head quickly and cupped his hands. "The wharf at Yongming Commandery says no ship that's docked lately carried the new vice-prefect. The yamen there has no word of him either."

For a moment they were all at a loss, one saying surely nothing's happened to him, another saying how can this be. Only Pan Guangling clapped the courier on the shoulder, went back into the shelter, poured him a cup of tea and brought it out. "Thank you for your trouble. Two trips in three days."

The courier was parched, and drank it off before he could thank him. Pan Guangling kept the pot in his hand and filled him another, and waited until the man had drunk his fill before taking the cup back.

The courier wiped his lips and smiled. "Thank you, Officer Pan. The Prefect gave the order, and I'll do my best by it."

"Go and cool off in the shelter first, and then..."

Pan Guangling was cut off before he finished.

Another burst of hooves came at the end of the road, quick and urgent. But this rider came not from the east. He came out through the west city gate, a yamen runner, and leapt down near the shelter and ran a few steps. "Vice-Prefect Zhuo is already at the commandery yamen. Lord He orders you all back to pay your respects."

---

The startled company hurried back to the yamen, and at last got their first real look at the new vice-prefect.

No one could believe that this fellow, his face burned dark and shiny by the sun, face and neck smeared with grey-green mud to keep off the mosquitoes, dressed in a country woodcutter's short jacket with the trouser-legs and cuffs rolled up, was the commandery's new second-in-command.

Zhuo Siheng, for his part, felt comfortable all over. The sweat had all come out of him and the muggy feeling was gone, and with ice basins cooling the yamen, the thin cool breeze let him feel, at last, a little of the road's weariness. In the chair across from him sat Prefect He Mengchun, who had worn the same stunned look for a good half hour now. He Mengchun was a very refined-looking man, past forty but well kept, neither heavy of body nor puffy of face. Zhuo Siheng thought of how Lord Zeng was about the same age, and could not help reflecting that work at the emperor's side truly did wear a man down.

"Zhuo... Vice-Prefect, did you meet some danger on the road?" He Mengchun checked Zhuo Siheng's appointment certificate once more. Only when he was sure it bore the seals of all three departments, the Secretariat, the Chancellery and the Department of State Affairs, and the signatures of their heads, and saw Jiangnan Prefecture's review seal as well, did he dare speak Zhuo Siheng's exact office aloud.

"Thank you for your care, Lord He. There was no danger. The mountain roads were only hard going, and I took a few falls and ended up like this." Zhuo Siheng had just been waved into a seat, and it would have been awkward to rise again on ceremony, so he only made a seated salute with his hands. "But the scenery along the way into Anhua Commandery truly makes one forget one's weariness."

"Mountain roads? From Jiangnan you take the sea route, land at Yongming Port, and go west by the official road. One change of boat and you reach the carriage-post outside the east gate of Quanzhang City. Why would you go by the mountains?"

A sharp tone.

Out of the corner of his eye Zhuo Siheng saw He Mengchun look displeased, yet keep his refined temper in hand. The Prefect said slowly, "Officer Pan, Vice-Prefect Zhuo has come from the capital. It's only natural he doesn't know the roads here."

"One question in Jiangnan would have told him. Every three-year-old in Jiangnan knows the five ridges and three rivers are cruel going, and that to arrive fast you take the sea. Why would Lord Zhuo grudge a single question?"

The speaker, Zhuo Siheng saw, was a young man of about his own age and much his own color, scholarly-looking but hard and blunt of speech. A pair of bright, bold eyes looked straight at him, with an edge and drive he rarely saw in capital officials. The odd thing was that the man had no local accent at all. He spoke clean, correct court speech, upright and clear, just like his looks.

"Pan Guangling!" Even good-tempered He Mengchun found his face hard to keep, and barked the name in warning.

Pan Guangling seemed not to hear. He saluted He Mengchun. "I still have duties to see to, and these few days of waiting on Vice-Prefect Zhuo have already set me back. Forgive my rudeness. I'll take my leave." With that he walked out of the inner hall without a backward glance.

Not one official dared speak. They only watched to see how Zhuo Siheng would take it. He Mengchun looked ashamed, feeling he'd received the man poorly and then saddled the new second-in-command with such a person, and said a few smoothing words.

Cui Lu, the Anhua Commandery Administrator, who had stood behind He Mengchun all this while, said to Zhuo Siheng with a smile, "That one with no manners in his mouth is the eldest son of Pan Weishan, the Administrator of Jinzhou. He entered office by hereditary privilege and came to our commandery as a works-office officer, rank eight junior grade. He's always been wild and beyond reining in. Only, his father is Lord He's superior, and Lord He has always been a mild and generous gentleman, so it's hard to take him to task. Vice-Prefect Zhuo would do well to be careful too."

Introducing not Pan Guangling's office first but his father's rank and name, Zhuo Siheng took the point. He thought this Administrator was more skilled in the art of words than the Prefect.

Whether it was a hint, a warning, or something else, Zhuo Siheng did not much mind just now. He had already got a rough measure of the officials here, and he let none of it show. He only took up where he'd left off. "I came by the mountain road and in through the west gate, and kept all of you waiting so long. That's my fault. I'm newly arrived, and I hope you'll all tell me the ways and customs of this place from now on, so I don't blunder again. If I only put myself out, that's no matter. But if I made things hard for Lord He, that would be a great discourtesy."

They all thought to themselves: a top graduate, sure enough. He spoke like a courteous gentleman and gave his superior full face as well. Seeing the pleased look on Lord He, every one of them half wished for a notebook to copy down Zhuo Siheng's words and conduct, to study and follow later.

He Mengchun saw that the road and the mountains had worn the man down, so that he was not the dazzling, elegant figure of the rumors. But his words were as pleasant as could be, and the Prefect felt much soothed. He told everyone to go and ready the welcome feast, so Zhuo Siheng could go to the vice-prefect's residence made ready for him, and bathe and rest.

Coming out of the inner yamen, Zhuo Siheng did not forget to carry the basket he'd worn on his back the whole way. It still held leftover dry rations and water, and some local produce that villagers along the road had given him. Ciheng had gone ahead at his word to the residence to settle the luggage that had arrived earlier. Chen Rong, who stayed at his side, walked with his head down.

Chen Rong did not like to talk, but perhaps this had truly puzzled him, for he spoke up first, which was rare. "My lord, why be so courteous to these people? They are your subordinates, yet they put a rude question to you about your own choice. That was not right." To his mind it was a way of bullying the newcomer.

But Zhuo Siheng's step was light, and he said with a smile, "When people are young, they most like to take courtesy for weakness. It isn't so. I only worked it out later myself. Sometimes courtesy is calm. And if you think of a person as a walled city, calm is your city wall."

Chen Rong did not follow it, but he knew better than to ask again, and lowered his head and walked on.

The seat of Anhua Commandery was a small city, wedged between two mountain ridges and a rushing stream. The high ground inside lay scattered, and there were only two level spots. One of them held the yamen and the residences around it. These were all built by the government and granted by office to those who came to serve in the commandery, to be given back when they left. The largest residence was of course the Prefect's, as chief officer of the seat. Zhuo Siheng's own vice-prefect's mansion stood two roads further on, both of them planted thick with camphor and banana trees.

Small as the city was, this mansion was far larger than the one the emperor had granted his family in the capital. Three courtyards deep front and back, with a north and a south garden besides, a front hall and a rear hall and all in order. Even the servants' row-houses were not cramped. Zhuo Siheng saw that the main gate already bore a name-board reading "the Zhuo Residence," which rather surprised him.

Only the writing looked a little... a little familiar.

The nearer the mountain road drew to Quanzhang City, the more often he'd seen inscriptions carved at pretty spots of hill and water. The writing on the board looked much like those carvings he'd passed. Alike in being plain and unremarkable.

You couldn't quite call the writing ugly. But if anyone dared write like that copying out books or drafting edicts in their Hanlin Academy, Lord Zeng would have had him in for a talk that very day.

The household servants were all government bondservants. Twenty-three of them had lined up to welcome him. The head steward, a man named Cheng Fu, after paying his respects, raised his head and introduced it all eagerly. "My lord, this name-board was written and given by Prefect He's own hand! It's the first such honor any out-posted official in our Anhua Commandery has ever had!"

So now Zhuo Siheng knew whose writing it was.

That a steward too should talk in such bookish style surprised him more than learning where the writing came from.

Never mind Huiheng, whose fine hand even Zhuo Yan praised. Not long after Xiheng began his lessons, his writing had more bone and form to it than the Prefect's.

How were Huiheng and Xiheng faring now in the capital?

Zhuo Siheng's thoughts drifted further off as he wandered deeper into the mansion.

Spring in the capital sometimes turned cold again, and when the season shifted suddenly Huiheng's old cough would come back. He hoped the capital this fourth month was as mild and warm as ever, and did not leave his sister wretched. He hoped too that the masters at Xiongya Academy would set a little less work. Xiheng was still shooting up in height, and how could a growing boy study hard with the brush every single night?

Having reached his post, Zhuo Siheng found he missed his family more and more. But there seemed to be a good many angles to this place, so he could only hide his longing away inside, and think hard about how to handle the first team-building social of his tenure.