Chapter 73

For a moment Pan Guangling thought Lord Zhuo had gone mad.

He had the straight, springy temper of bamboo, and said whatever came to him. "My lord, have you gone mad?"

"Is it such a mad thing to say?" Zhuo Siheng hadn't looked for so fierce a reaction. Perhaps the thought truly was against all the rules. But he still wanted to hear a present-day science man's view, so he said with a smile, "There's only the two of us here. Even if it's mad talk, where's the harm in saying it?"

Pan Guangling looked deeply troubled. "But my lord, I've never once thought of it..."

"Never thought your own skill could be a new subject in the examinations?"

Pan Guangling nodded. "Our dynasty holds the presented-scholar subject above all. Every reader knows it from the first day he picks up a book. The other subjects, law, classics, calligraphy, mathematics, were all folded into the regular yamen-clerk selection back in Taizong's reign. They aren't tested with the examinations, and they don't count as presented-scholar standing. Pass them and you can enter a yamen as a clerk, true, but the most you'll come to is a man like me, a minor underling in a local yamen, or at the very top a seventh-rank subordinate in one of the capital's six ministries, to end your days there. That's the greatest height. With things as they are, my lord, when you tell me the small matters our works office handles could go into the examinations, how could I ever have thought it?"

"Since that's so, let's think about it today." Zhuo Siheng decided to begin by opening a man's mind. Without piling up the little steps, you never reach a thousand li. "First tell me, would you be willing or not?"

"Of course I'd be willing! What reader doesn't love rank and name!" In his excitement Pan Guangling near overturned the glaze-slip at his elbow, and set it carefully aside before going on. "You came up by the examinations yourself, my lord, with a glorious name. How could you not know the difference it makes? Never mind a man's own ability and learning. Just look at where men stand in the court ranks by their place on the list, and you see the good of a degree. You could set out from the Hanlin Academy, my lord, and even posted away can show your gifts in a commandery. But think of the men on your own list who placed below the top three. At first they could only go to the counties, and those with no connections or pull at home had to grind it out in some lower county no one would even look at. Don't take it amiss, I speak plainly. On this one point alone, doesn't a degree decide each man's start? And that start decides the whole of his road after."

Zhuo Siheng knew it well enough. He'd only to look at himself and his cousin. That Pan Guangling would speak so from the heart of rank and gain, and not mouth the sages' empty talk, delighted Zhuo Siheng, and made him bolder with his mad talk. "Well said! Far better than those who talk only of the heart and the sages and won't speak of real gain. I sought a degree myself with private wishes in my heart. I wanted my family rich and happy and together with me, I wanted my dead parents' souls comforted, I wanted to see every sort and shape of the world and not waste my one life in it. None of these is the reader's way the sages taught, yet I take them gladly, and there's nothing in them I can't say aloud."

To talk so heart-to-heart with Zhuo Siheng heartened Pan Guangling greatly. He felt he was at last fit to speak his mind with Lord Zhuo, and longed to pour out all he thought. "That's the right of it! For us readers to serve in office and do well by the court and the people is a great thing, a duty we can't shirk. But to take no bribes and bend no law, and still do well by ourselves, where's the wrong in that? If it were as you say, my lord, and they opened examination subjects for us in numbers and crafts and farming and the rest, I'd be the first to sit them. No need for all the 'thus spake the master.' They'd test the real, usable ways of things, and I could hold office with my head up, draw a full man's salary, and bring my family a full share of honor. And most of all, is the learning I've shouldered not proper learning too? Is my ambition born a rung lower than other men's?"

At that Pan Guangling could not help growing worked up. He rose suddenly, took a stack of books from the shelf in the room, and spread them on the table for Zhuo Siheng. "My lord, these are the books we clerks of the works read day to day, from making and building to farming and the calendar. Which of them is not proper learning? We've marked them with the methods and ways we can use here in our commandery, and tried them out ourselves first. For this care, this hard work, I'll swear we're no worse than those examination scholars who bury their heads in the sea of books from dawn to dark!"

Seeing the books full of notes, Zhuo Siheng thought of his own days as a science student grinding through practice papers, and was stirred by a dozen feelings at once, and nodded without stop. "Of course. I read no harder myself."

"Ask me to sit the examinations, and of course I'm willing. More than willing. I'd gladly give up my office and sit them as a plain commoner!" Pan Guangling shut the books with a thump. "But where's the chance of it? You only asked on a whim, my lord, I know that well. Still, that you have the heart to ask at all already puts you far above those scholar-officials who reckon themselves a cut above the rest."

With that he sighed a long, self-mocking sigh. "They say of all things low, only study is high. But that study means only the sages' books. These books of mine, never mind to others, even in my own father's eyes are a plaything, not fit for high and refined company... Made by rank and undone by rank. Men like you, my lord, are made by it, a Heaven-gifted talent. Men like us, bent the wrong way and out of step with the world, are undone by it. I don't say this out of sour grapes. I truly feel, sometimes, how unfair it is. Rank is a ladder everyone wants to climb, and there's no shame in saying so. I too would like to build a name and gild my own face a little. But what I'm good at the world doesn't own, so I can only take what's given me... Though, to serve under you now, my lord, is to get some use of my gifts. I'll not call it being buried, at least."

Zhuo Siheng listened with his head tilted, pondered, then suddenly smiled, clapped Pan Guangling's shoulder, and said gently, "A great many chances have to be made." But the words were too vague, and Pan Guangling let them pass without taking them to heart.

The two went back to puzzling over the crag-kiln business.

---

The capital. The palace city. The Yaoyi Hall.

Luo Yuanzhu handed the princess, asleep in her swaddling, gently to the wet-nurse, and only when the palace people had all withdrawn did she say to her elder sister, Noble Consort Luo, who reclined against a couch, "Danshan is a famous mountain of high antiquity, where the phoenix roosts, a sign of gold and jade and good fortune. For the title alone, Princess Danshan already stands first in honor among all the princesses of our dynasty."

Beaded blinds and embroidered curtains closed the two sisters into the early-summer hall. The sunlight lent its brightness but could not burn through the heavy drapes. Noble Consort Luo took her sister's hand and drew her to sit at her side. "I feel the emperor's care, of course. I only fear the title is too showy... Did the Grand Princess say anything when she heard it?"

"Her Highness only said it was a fine title, and that her brother, who least likes to read such odd books, had still dug an allusion out of one, which shows how he dotes on A-Wan." Luo Yuanzhu said softly. "Don't fret, Sister. These days the Grand Princess is busy opening the selection exam, and lets everything else go in one ear and out the other, with no time to dwell on it."

"They call it a selection exam, but inside the palace and out they all call this one the 'women's examination,' which shows everyone knows the Grand Princess's weight and the emperor's regard, and all eyes are on it..." Noble Consort Luo looked with an ache at how plainly her sister's face had thinned these few days. "I hope to see you make something of yourself too, Sister, but you must mind your health."

"The women's examination? That name breaks the rules. If it draws other talk and holds up the real selection, it's not worth it." On real business Luo Yuanzhu was grave even before her own sister. "Don't you call it by their name, Sister. These people likely all have girls of their own to sit it, which is why they talk it up so, to raise themselves."

"Our A-Wan is still little, and I don't look for her to be a woman top-graduate like you. Why would I mix her into this? Nothing but trouble." Noble Consort Luo smiled and straightened the little pin in her sister's hair. "One standout in our house is enough, and that's you. You've loved books since you were small, and your learning is no less than any man's. In getting you this chance I don't only mean to add some luster to our family. I want you not to fail your learning, to show your gifts to the full."

"I know what you hope for me, Sister. It's only that the thing is so tangled. It's all to the good that the Grand Princess leads it now. What I fear is that if it meets opposition at court, the emperor will be pulled two ways, and a good thing will turn into a hard one." Luo Yuanzhu's voice, when she knit her brows, seemed lighter than a sigh.

"Sister, for all you've read, you don't see into people's hearts so well. This selection exam, opened to compile the lives of our dynasty's noblewomen, truly breaks new ground. And whenever a thing breaks new ground, when has the court ever had no one speak against it? A good many officials only wait for such a matter to raise their own worth by it..." Even Noble Consort Luo's sardonic smile was uncommonly gentle. "But this time, why were the few tactless ones who spoke against it put down first by their own fellow officials? And why is there so much praise and so little opposition? Have you thought why?"

Luo Yuanzhu answered at once. "We brought out the old precedent of the Grand Princesses Zhenguo and Dingguo, so none of them dared speak too wildly. Would that not be a slight to the two princesses who refounded the state? They haven't the nerve."

But Noble Consort Luo shook her head. "That's why I say you must stay at the Grand Princess's side and watch and learn. She's done this very neatly, and not because she left no handle. It's that she's bound every house with a daughter to herself. In this matter they rise and prosper with her, so of course there's no great resistance."

Luo Yuanzhu was quick, and saw it at a touch, and understood all at once. "The ones to sit the selection exam are already fixed as the lettered daughters of official houses, of any age, married or not, who may send up their names and come to the Grand Princess's residence on the fifth of next month to be tested. These women are of vermilion-and-purple houses, and their families of course wish them to win the first compiler's honor of the dynasty, to leave a name in the histories, to add a stroke of glory and a title to the house, all of it a great help to the careers and standing of the rest of the family. So they won't oppose it. And their agreement and backing is the Grand Princess's own natural wall. They'll spend their own interest to cancel out the pressure of the others who oppose, so the Grand Princess can sit easy and give the whole thing her mind."

"Just so! For these official houses, a thing that wins them both face and substance, why not do it? That is the Grand Princess's real cleverness, to bind up the interests and share the glory..." Noble Consort Luo praised it without stop.

"But... Sister, this idea was not the Grand Princess's own."

Noble Consort Luo's eyes showed surprise. From what her sister had just said, it was clear she did not know the inner workings, so she was surely not the one who'd proposed it. Then who?

Luo Yuanzhu told her sister of meeting Zhuo Huiheng at Chanyue Convent, and added, "That day it was the second Miss Zhuo who put it forward. The Grand Princess agreed to it very quickly, so she'd likely been troubled over the matter all along, and with this way she was free of every hindrance."

"This second Miss Zhuo, named Huiheng, is she the sister of that Attendant Zhuo you told me of before, who planned your way out for you?" Noble Consort Luo asked after a moment's thought.

Luo Yuanzhu nodded. "The very one."

"A family's learning breeds both wit and will, sure enough... A pity our own house couldn't thrive in numbers, or you'd not have to carry the raising of it now..." Noble Consort Luo sighed. "This second Miss Zhuo likely needn't sit the test. The Grand Princess will just grant her a compiler's post outright, I suppose?"

"That was the Grand Princess's meaning, but the second Miss declined it."

"Oh?" This Noble Consort Luo had not looked for. "Why?"

"She said she had only offered a plan, not won a place by talent and virtue, and that to take the post would not sit well with the rest. She'll send up her name and sit the test like the other women, and win a true name by real learning, so as not to fail the Grand Princess's regard and high hopes." Luo Yuanzhu still remembered the certainty and confidence with which Zhuo Huiheng said it, as if the words came from no such frail body, carrying the force and self-command of a thunderclap and a gale. For all that Zhuo Huiheng had a softness she couldn't hide, and spoke gently and mildly, like willow-down on the wind or duckweed on a waterfall, the very picture of a frailty too much to bear, the moment those words were out, neither the Grand Princess Xuanyi nor Luo Yuanzhu herself saw her any longer as a sickly, delicate girl.

Such a set purpose, not in a woman only, but among all the people under heaven, was of the first order of bold and open spirit.

Remembering she was Zhuo Siheng's sister, Luo Yuanzhu somehow did not find it strange. There was something in the air of that brother and sister that was truly much alike.

Seeing her sister deep in thought, Noble Consort Luo felt her own heart stir, and asked, "A-Zhu, my good sister, tell me the truth. Have you some other feeling for this Zhuo Siheng?"

Luo Yuanzhu had been musing on just where the Zhuo brother and sister were alike, and at this question was greatly embarrassed, yet could still slow her voice to explain. "I have no such longing. Don't let your thoughts run on, Sister. The truth is, from the first time I met him I did take some note of him, only because the other ministers of the Hanlin Academy and the Hongwen Academy, meeting me, mostly greeted me as a man greets a woman, while he greeted me with the courtesy of one official to another. It was the first time I'd been treated as an equal fellow-official, and I was glad past telling, and so I thought the more of him. But that is not the love of man and woman."

"I know. You've always held yourself in. He treats you as a colleague, you've thought no further, yet you still feel in your heart he's a man of the first order under heaven, is that not so?" Noble Consort Luo asked, feeling her way.

Luo Yuanzhu's eyes were as clear as her voice, and she said frankly, "That is only natural. His learning and ability are plain to all within the court and without. I'm neither deaf nor blind, how would I not know? But a gentleman's friendship should be plain as water. To talk of anything more would show I didn't value this hard-won equal treatment enough. So say no more of it, Sister."