Chapter 68

The weather in the hills changed often, clear and wet by turns. A spell of rain had just given way to a wide clear sky. The air was damp but carried a chill now, not muggy as before. Pan Guangling wondered if it had turned a touch too cold. Why else would Lord Zhuo's fingertips tremble a little as he rose?

But the man had brought no cloak or anything to keep off the cold. Such things were no use at all in Jinzhou. Just as Pan Guangling was fretting, Lord Zhuo, to his surprise, was smiling and talking with those around him about the muggy heat, and how he, a northerner, was quite unused to it. Pan Guangling thought he must be imagining things. Scolded the day before, he'd been in a daze, afraid his lordship would cast him off and teach him no more, and had fallen to seeing shadows and starting at them.

What he didn't know was that Zhuo Siheng's hand shook from anger, and the sweat he'd broken was a real cold sweat.

Before this he'd only found Cui Lu's needling, fault-picking way of talking unpleasant. But in his years of office he'd met seven or eight such men for every ten, and had paid it no mind. Who'd have known the man was the very superintendent of the Jiangxiang Academy who had once been thick as thieves with the Tang house, one of the chief hands in the life-and-death parting of Gao Yongqing from his father!

Zhuo Siheng had once asked Gao Yongqing closely the names of the Jiangxiang Academy superintendent and overseer who had driven him out. But Gao Yongqing had said the time to right it had not come, and they mustn't move too soon, and had told Zhuo Siheng not to trouble himself over the grudge for his sake. There was a long road yet before the two of them stood at the height of ministers, and they could take it slowly and plan, and when that day came it would not be too late to seek plain justice.

He had of course promised his worthy brother Yongqing to hold it in together and never pick the quarrel first. But the trouble was, he'd never promised that if the enemy walked up to his own door, he still had to sit and plan at leisure.

More than that, this post of Cui Lu's was eight parts in ten the price of running with the Tang house to shield Tang Qifei and force out Gao Yongqing. And the man's place in Jinzhou was a delicate one. Was not the prefect of Jinzhou, Wang Botang, Tang Qifei's own brother-in-law?

Very good. So this was what had been lying in wait for him here.

This was what ran through Zhuo Siheng's mind, while his mouth went on trading easy talk and laughter with Song Yunhe. As the narrow valley came to its end, boundary-markers appeared by the road, one marker to every five li. Ahead stood the stone that marked the border between one commandery and the next.

Through the valley and into Yongming Commandery, the south-slope mountain road grew more sheer still, gorge after gorge winding back on itself in nine bends. Yet the pack-train went faster and steadier than before.

That was because the Futing Mountain roads inside Yongming Commandery had many stone-paved stretches, and where a road truly couldn't be built there were level stones laid for footing, with iron chains along the mountain side for travelers to hold, and the mountain posts grew noticeably more frequent too.

Pan Guangling saw Zhuo Siheng take it all in without a word, and came close to explain. "Three years ago Yongming Commandery wanted to build a few stretches of mountain road on Futing. Not any great works, just laying stone slabs to smooth the road like this, and putting some guards at the places where accidents happen. But when their prefect came about it, Lord He only kept him talking of poetry and scenery. On one hand he said he couldn't bear to call up the people's labor and rob them of the farming season, on the other that Futing's natural beauty was a wonder of creation and shouldn't be spoiled. Their prefect said no more, and left very civilly. And after it, our side's hills are as hard to walk as ever, while they long since built their roads and bridges, and did good for no end of villagers and traders who come and go here to make a living."

He fought to hold down the resentment in his voice. Zhuo Siheng smiled at him, to show he understood.

Anhua Commandery and Yongming Commandery were parted by a single mountain line. With a deep valley buried between them for a shortcut, the walk was really only a day and a half. There were Song-house posthouses along the way for rest, the beds dry and soft, the food fine local fare. Had Zhuo Siheng's mind not been full and his nights wakeful, he'd surely have slept very soundly.

Nor was it only how to deal with Cui Lu that he was turning over.

All along the way, the gap between Anhua Commandery and Yongming Commandery was plain to the eye. Jinzhou was all hills, and most locals naturally lived off the hills. Besides the tea farmers, a good many herb-gatherers and hunters had to go into the mountains often to make their living, and even ordinary households now and then went up to gather what was in season to fill out the family table. But in Yongming Commandery, at least along the south slope of Futing, the mountain roads mostly had paths and rest-stops laid, and there were even stone rails and iron chains to fence off the dangerous gorge-sides, to keep people safe going in and out. Anhua's north slope had none of this. A day and a half, much the same distance on either side, but the greater part of the time was spent in Anhua fighting the wild mountain road. Once you reached the other side's ground, within half a day you began to see the lamplight and hear the cocks of tiled houses and thatched cottages.

And the living of the people on the two sides was as plainly different to the eye.

Anhua Commandery had seemed content enough on its own, with no famine year by year and few disasters. But set against the comfortable life of the people of Yongming Commandery, it fell far short.

The mountain villages of Yongming that Zhuo Siheng passed had thin soil, but every house had both its own farming and weaving and someone working away from home. Seven or eight of the men in Song Yunhe's pack-train were locals, and passing their own homes they each carried in some trinket bought outside for the old folk and children and womenfolk, and took out some local goods to send off with the Song house's other long-distance trains to sell. So every household had some extra living, and the chance of dealing with the wider world besides. Song Yunhe said many families in the villages and tea gardens here sent their children out to be apprentices. The commandery wanted to build a village school nearby these two years, since the people here grew more numerous by the year, and for convenience' sake it was the best way to settle the children's schooling. Song Yunhe said the Song house had always worked hand in glove with the commandery, and that this trip too was partly to look over sites and think how to place and build it so the school could serve both the mountain villages' children and the tea gardens' young ones.

Song Yunhe said, too, with some pride, that the Song house had decided to pay for the land and the building out of their own pocket, and the commandery need only send people to manage it and do the daily teaching.

It was as if, at every moment, he were holding up the vision and the striving of Yongming Commandery, officials and people of one heart, building a fine tomorrow together.

The weight of it came down on Anhua Commandery, and on Zhuo Siheng.

But from the posthouse on, all the way to the tea gardens, he kept his calm, as though everything here were a novelty, and however Song Yunhe boasted, he fell in with him and obliged, with:

"Is that so?"

"So that's how it is!"

"Most impressive, truly!"

The three lines together fitted so seamlessly that no one could have told Zhuo Siheng was the one left awkward in this unspoken comparison on the ground.

Old hand at the sea of trade as Song Yunhe was, he had never met so slippery a young man.

And besides, what use was being embarrassed? If embarrassment and shame could fix things, Zhuo Siheng could have squeezed out a face as red as a bride's at the wedding bow right then. But an attitude would not make the problem vanish.

Zhuo Siheng reckoned he'd come here to change how things stood. Anhua Commandery had drawn rotten luck in getting a He for its governing official. Even shown up like this, all the more reason to thicken his skin and watch and learn.

Still, when he saw the Song tea gardens, Zhuo Siheng was taken aback in earnest.

This was no tea garden. This was a whole hill fenced in for their own, a whole county that was all the Song family's grounds!

As far as the eye went, terraced fields crisscrossed the hillsides, planted with everything from grain to fruit and vegetables. But not a shadow of a tea tree.

Come home to his own place, Song Yunhe couldn't help a swell of pride, and his voice rose a good deal as he showed it off. Seeing no doubt on Zhuo Siheng's face, he couldn't resist asking, "Do you know, my lord, why this is called a tea garden when there's not a tea tree in sight?"

In two lifetimes, ever since he began to study, no surprise question in any class had ever stumped him. Yet Zhuo Siheng showed not a trace of smugness, and only smiled with his head bent. "Poor as I am, I still know that of Futing Mountain it's said, 'where there's crag there's tea, and no crag, no tea.' If the tea trees didn't grow in the hollows and chinks and cracks of the rock, how would it be called rock tea? There are no cliffs and bluffs here, so we'd have to go deeper in, to the three hollows and two gorges, before we'd see your family's tea trees."

Song Yunhe hadn't looked for him to know rock tea so well, and was a little startled. From watching him on the road he could say for certain Zhuo Siheng had never been here before. Yet the man's foresight and depth of knowledge showed he'd come prepared. Surely he'd be an official who got things done. That being so, if there were profit to be had in the changes soon to come to Anhua Commandery, Song Yunhe would gladly get on good terms with this young and able new vice-prefect.

Traders sought nothing but profit, and a thing of mutual benefit was a chance in a thousand years.

---

The capital's outskirts. Chanyue Convent.

"Abbess, the Jinzhou medicines my sister sent are all here. This is the list she made. May I trouble you to check them over and take them into the stores."

Huiheng held out two sheets in a clear, bold, open hand. The abbess of Chanyue Convent, Xuanpu, saw the writing as if seeing the person, and a kind, caring smile came to her as she asked, "That the second young lady should take such trouble. How is Ciheng faring in Jinzhou, I wonder? Have she and your honored brother settled in?" The abbess was sixty now, her hair crane-white, her skin weathered like old pine, but her smile was a loving mother's, calming and settling to the heart.

"My brother and my sister are both settled. Ciheng made a point of sending back the medicines she bought in Jinzhou, and sends word through them that she's safe. I'd heard from my sister of your good works healing people on your travels, but never paid my respects before. To meet you today is a wish of long admiration granted." Huiheng rose and bowed, then went on, "My sister is a handful and must have been a great trouble to you. That you don't hold it against her, and even taught her medicine, is true kindness. I thank you here on my brother's behalf."

The abbess Xuanpu rose and returned the bow, but before she could answer, a Daoist sister knocked and said, "Abbess, the Grand Princess's carriage is at the gate."

Huiheng started, wondering: could it be the reigning emperor's own younger sister, the Grand Princess Xuanyi? She knew the abbess Xuanpu's good name spread far, and that many women of official families in the capital came to call and pay their respects, to talk of cultivating virtue and quieting the self, or to give generously to good works. But she hadn't known a Grand Princess was a friend of the abbess too.

Seeing how calmly the abbess took it, though, it seemed the Grand Princess was no first-time visitor. Not wishing to disturb the abbess's business, Huiheng offered to withdraw, and the abbess had a Daoist sister lead her to a book-room in the rear hall to read and rest a while.

The convent's book-room held plenty of Daoist classics, of course, and a good many books on nourishing life and on medicine besides. Huiheng wandered among them, and came on a rare thing, a former-dynasty cut edition of the Records of the Immortals of Yongcheng. It was the work of a famous Daoist of the last dynasty, holding the lives of a hundred women immortals and women Daoists. Huiheng had heard of it in other books but never seen a copy. Finding it here, she took it down to read.

She didn't know how long she'd read when she heard a stir at the door. She thought the abbess had finished her business and come to talk with her again. But the door opened and closed, and in came a lady in purple, light-footed, as if an orchid of the empty valley had bloomed in the room.

The woman saw Zhuo Huiheng too, but seemed not at all surprised to find someone there, and only gave a slight nod, and said, gentle and grave at once, "I heard from the abbess that Lord Zhuo's sister was reading here, and came on purpose to meet you. I am Luo Yuanzhu. Forgive me for breaking in on your quiet pleasure, young lady."