Chapter 75

That He Mengchun feared his wife was no fresh bit of gossip. Everyone knew it.

Years back a short-sighted minor county official, wanting to work Lord He's connections, tried to please him with the gift of a pretty, lettered maidservant to wait on him at his desk. Lord He was so frightened he dared not take her. And Madam He, hearing of it, at once got word to her own family in the capital, and hung on this official, who'd schemed by the wrong road, the charge of "currying favor with a superior, with crooked designs, and unfit conduct in office," and had him dismissed and barred from ever holding office again.

So no one ever again dared introduce Lord He to any pretty companion.

Who ran the He household, everyone knew well.

Only, able as Madam He was, this memorial before her, were it to reach the emperor and be carefully worked over and linked up by the Tang clan's allies, was beyond even her help.

So Zhuo Siheng's errand to the He residence could not fail.

Night rain pouring down, the storm-lanterns of the He residence shaking in the wind, their dim yellow light flickering, Zhuo Siheng swung off his horse, ran a few steps on purpose, and beat on the gate as if gasping with haste.

"Someone! I'm Vice-Prefect Zhuo! I beg to see your lady!"

The He residence was run under Madam He's near-military discipline. Her dowry, it was said, had included a troop of former princely palace guards, who'd come here with her and her husband. Zhuo Siheng had only heard of them and not seen them before. The one who came to the gate now was an old man, who asked Zhuo Siheng's business, led him into the gate-lodge, and, learning he'd brought no visiting-card, hurried off to report. The next to come were two armored soldiers, in fine armor with hands on their sword-hilts, who asked him within.

Madam He waited in the flower-hall for receiving guests, outside her study. She had but one maid at her side, the other two in the hall both armored soldiers, a brave and striking pair. For all that Madam He stood among them in rich dress and gold pins, there was a sweep-the-world air about her. She'd often heard her husband's praise of this young junior, and had met Zhuo Siheng twice herself at banquets, and thought very well of him. Seeing him now in such a state, stumbling, soaked through, out of his wits, and seemingly unnerved too by her guards, she quickly had her maid fetch warmed, soft toweling and dry cloth, and had the others draw back a few steps, two at the door and two behind her, before she spoke. "There's no need for alarm, Vice-Prefect Zhuo. These soldiers are my own family's crack men, palace guards of the princely house, who keep my household day and night, and mean no harm. For you to come riding through the night, there must be some weighty matter. Your elder brother is away, but if it touches this house, you may tell your sister-in-law freely."

Zhuo Siheng bowed. "Madam, there's a true cause for it, or I'd never come to trouble you... The matter touches Lord He, and I dared not take it on myself, and with the lord away, and having so often heard him praise and lean on you, Madam, I've come to beg an audience." With that he handed over the letter and the wooden memorial-box. "Today a wrongdoer used the Administrator's seal to requisition horses at a post-station, and the station-master dared not refuse. But the man dropped these in his haste, and when he came back to look for them he set fire to the station. Luckily help came in time and no one was hurt. These are what he dropped."

Madam He took the letter from her maid, heard him out, and said in wonder, "If he'd dropped them, he had only to come back for them. Why set a fire? Unless there's some dealing in it he couldn't let be known, and wanted to destroy the evidence?"

"I'll not deceive you, Madam. The memorial-box isn't sealed with wax or stamped, but I dared not look much at it. When I opened the letter, it was truly... truly a thing to shake a man to the lungs and liver. I never knew there could be such people and such doings under heaven. I beg you to look and judge, Madam!"

Seeing Zhuo Siheng so flustered and uneasy, Madam He shook the letter open, and the longer she read the higher the long tails of her brows climbed, until at the end her hands shook, and she slapped the letter down hard on the small table at her side. "Cui Lu, the base creature! To frame my husband! Does he think this house has no one in it?"

"Calm your anger, Madam. This is a grave thing. Could it be that someone has overstepped and done this in another's name?" Zhuo Siheng asked carefully.

Madam He pondered a moment, and reached to take up the memorial-box to open it. Zhuo Siheng stepped forward quickly to stop her. "You mustn't, Madam! This is... this is a memorial-box, it won't do to break the rules."

"You scholars are pedants to a man!" Madam He said impatiently. "How would I not know how weighty a memorial-box is? But this box isn't yet sealed with wax, nor stamped with any seal, so there's no memorial in it yet to send up. Why can't it be looked at? If we don't look, how are we to be sure whether Cui Lu and that Wang are in league, with the evidence plain? Don't be a fussy old woman, you a grown man. Your brother's away from the commandery, and the business here should be in your hands. How will this timid way of yours do?"

The rule she spoke of, how could Zhuo Siheng not know it after three years as a secretary at the emperor's side? Memorials were often sent up under joint names, so when one man had written his part and passed it on to the next, the memorial was not yet sealed and stamped, and held nothing secret. Only once it was finally sealed, with the sending yamen's seal pressed into the sealing-clay, did it take on the force of law and become a thing not to be opened at will.

But if he opened it first and left a mark, the thing inside would lose so strong a force, and Madam He, reading it, would be the less enraged.

"Good! A fine Cui Lu! My husband treated you so, and this is how you pay him?" The memorial-box was dashed to the floor by the hot-tempered Madam He. She had read it, and now was past all restraint. "Vice-Prefect Zhuo, will you still not let me see? If I don't look, we'll be done for and never know it!"

In her haste she handed Zhuo Siheng the memorial, and he took it quickly, and, feigning to learn its content for the first time, cried in fright and confusion, "...This... this is all lies! How could he so slander officials the court appointed? Is this a gentleman's doing?"

"You so-called gentlemen who only fold your hands and talk of the heart, you're a hundred times useless, nothing but scholars! And you in the Hanlin Academy too, yet so blind to the ways of men. Do you know why he frames you and my husband?" Madam He, angry at Zhuo Siheng for being so feckless and sorry for him, young as he was, to meet such a thing, softened her tone to set him right a little. "Had you not been posted here, this vice-prefect's post would have been his. You came, so of course he hates you. That's one. Two, this chance comes once in an age. If you and my husband both lost your posts over it, since you'd fallen while in office, the court's unwritten rule is that the local subordinate officials fill the guilty men's places for the time. Wouldn't he then sit firm in the prefect's chair for the two years left? With plenty of moving about in that time, another promotion in two years is not past hoping!"

Zhuo Siheng paced a while, and said mournfully, "He and I have no friendship, of course. But Prefect He treated Administrator Cui so warmly. I've been here only a few months, yet I've seen and heard it and admired it. Is there no such thing as a gentleman's friendship in officialdom? Must my brother's open, generous heart breed such envy and hate?"

Thinking of how courteously and warmly her own husband had always treated Administrator Cui, the words filled Madam He's breast with grief and resentment too, and she sighed that the world left no room for a man of letters. Then she said, "In any case it's done now, and he may well have another copy of this writing laid by. What will you do?"

"This... why not summon Administrator Cui to the yamen and question him, and hear how he explains it?"

"You! You're a soft, weak scholar, the same as that worthless brother of yours!" Madam He's exasperation ran deep. She half wished to put on an official's robe and be prefect herself. "I ask you. If he won't come, and you've only tipped him off, and he has the memorial sent up, what then? With Wang Botang above him to pass it on and get it before the emperor, even my family might not have the power to turn it. If the emperor then won't hear another word and lays the guilt on you, with heaven high and the emperor far, you two won't even have the chance to cry your wrong! Here in the commandery you'd likely meet a cruel end!"

Zhuo Siheng heard her out and said in shame, "But with my brother away, I truly don't know what else to do... I beg your guidance, sister-in-law!"

Hearing him turn to the fond, respectful way he spoke of her and her husband in private, Madam He's heart softened of a sudden, and she hadn't the heart to be hard on him. She thought: he's a young official after all, out-posted for the first time, where would he have seen such bloody storms and the dark schemes of officials devouring one another? A little green is only natural. I shouldn't have spoken so, and frightened the child. So she asked in a kindlier tone, "Very well. Since you call me and your brother so, you trust me. Your brother's away, so I'll make the decision for you two, and settle this so it comes out right. What do you say?"

"With you to steady us, sister-in-law, of course I'm easy!" Zhuo Siheng bowed at once. "I'll do whatever you arrange!"

Madam He nodded, turned, and called forward the princely-house guard who'd stood waiting, and gave her order. "Carry my word. Take men and break into the Administrator's residence. Say that while the head of the commandery was away he schemed with an outside official to raise a revolt, and that the documents and evidence are now seized, and arrest the whole household, old and young, and put them in jail."

"Yes!"

The soldiers were princely-house men to begin with, come here with Madam He, and obeyed her every command. At the order they left at once to muster men and set out.

Zhuo Siheng privately admired such thunder and speed. Meet a true revolt or an inner rising, and with this kind of nerve one could surely smother the hidden fire in the stove. If Madam He were the prefect of Anhua, he'd likely have been spared all this trouble.

But the play had to be played out.

"Sister-in-law! This... whatever else, he's an official the court appointed!" Zhuo Siheng urged anxiously. "Never mind whether it'll draw talk at court, if it harms my brother's good name, wouldn't the loss outweigh the gain?"

That at such a moment Zhuo Siheng was still mindful of her husband's name and standing moved Madam He deeply. She felt him simple and pure of heart, and pitied such a man fallen into officialdom, truly a deer let into a wolf pack, a sad and sorry thing. So she brought out an older woman's kindness to soothe him. "My good younger brother, you and your brother are of one merciful heart, gentle souls who always think the best of people. With no guile in you and no twists in your heart, how will you fare in office from now on? Hear your sister-in-law's word. From this on, when a thing comes up, you mustn't waver and hang back so. You must bring out some nerve and daring of an official, and not let these base creatures slip by!"

She saw Zhuo Siheng, after his hesitation, nod hard as if screwing up a great resolve, and heard him say, "Since I've promised to do as you and my brother say, I'll keep my word. Only I beg you send someone to call my brother back soon... With no one to head the commandery, it truly won't do..."

"Good. I'll send a trusted man of my own to carry him word. You needn't fret. Go to the yamen and ready the jail. There'll soon be guests in it." Madam He laughed, well pleased with herself.

The night rain showed no sign of stopping, but it had gone much gentler than before.

Zhuo Siheng, coming out of the He residence, did not go first to the jail, but back to the yamen, and gave the order that the four gates of Quanzhang City were not to be opened before next morning without the commandery's warrant, so as not to upset the people's ordinary life at daybreak. But through the night they must still guard against anyone carrying word out. Though with Madam He's thunderstroke methods, house-thief and outside-thief alike would likely be taken with ease, and what he did was no more than a finishing touch and a guard against trouble before it came.

He did not go to the commandery jail.

For before he ever went to the He residence, he had, by the Cui family's registered numbers, told the jailers to clear the matching number of cells. He was, after all, a soft and kindly reading man, and the way of a good host was one of a gentleman's graces. He never dared forget it.