Chapter 109

"Eat! Eat up, eat! If, if it's not enough there's more!"

Inside the Yuwen general's mansion.

Madam Damu, forcing a smile, slowly pushed the roast pork knuckle before her over toward Hu Yougui, pressing him to eat more.

From the moment this man was carried home, the whole family had got a fright. And hearing that the flower-delicate young lord had been scared into coming, the whole Yuwen house felt wretched about it.

What their own child was made of they knew perfectly well, and before coming to Yanjing they'd warned her a thousand times over of how things stood.

But who could have foreseen it? This iron tree that hadn't flowered in ten thousand years, the moment the spring took her there was no holding her, and right at the foot of the imperial city she'd carried off a commoner man by force?

Thinking of court tomorrow, where he might face a pack of iron-boned censors, General Yuwen Chongde's every hope died in him, and he hadn't a word to say.

What to do? With a guilty heart, best feed the man a meal first.

High as heaven and wide as earth, eating comes first of all, and only with a full belly can you talk of anything else. And so the mistress of the house ordered the kitchen, and a whole table of solid food was set before Hu Yougui.

Hu Yougui looked at the Yuwen couple smiling apologetically before him, then at the six big-bearded men glowering from the corner, and at the roomful of women all apology, and he stood on no ceremony. Give him food and eat he would, so he bent his head and, with perfect grace, fell to stuffing himself.

The way he ate gave the whole Yuwen family a start, and they all thought, mother of mine, had they carried home a bottomless rice-bucket?

And it was strange too: so small a frame, so dainty and white and tender, where did it all go?

The six big-bearded men in the corner thought it strange too, and sidled up behind Hu Yougui to look him over hard, thinking, the lad eats handsomely enough, but a big bun in two or three bites, seven or eight gone in the blink of an eye?

How many days had he been starved?

After watching a while more, the house's eldest son's wife, Lianghha-shi, gave her mother-in-law a look, and the two of them stood up and left the hall with dry smiles.

The Yuwen family had guarded the frontier town of Boyi Pass generation after generation, and for the sake of peace on the border had married into the local tribes-people age after age. Damu and Lianghha, by the very sound of the surnames, were great local tribal houses.

The two women, mother- and daughter-in-law, went out into the courtyard and searched three times round before they found, in a corner under a guard's umbrella, Yuwen Xiaoqiao, picking at the mud.

This creature had lost her heart in an instant, and carried the man off without a qualm, but once he was carried home she'd turned craven to the bone, not daring even to go near him, daring only to lean at the window and crane her neck and peep like a thief, and to this moment she dared not face Hu Yougui.

Madam Damu was frontier-born, and her manners were nothing graceful either. Seeing her daughter's hopeless state, she hitched up her fine skirt and squatted right down on the ground beside her. "Daughter, give up the notion. You two aren't a matched pair of locks. Your mother thinks it just won't do, well, however you look at it!"

Yuwen Xiaoqiao wanted the match with all her heart. In six-and-twenty years she'd rarely lost her heart once, and who'd have thought her mother would be against it.

At the word she was anxious at once, and sprang up angrily. "Mother! You didn't used to talk like this. Back then you said that if I carried home so much as a jack-donkey, you'd throw in ten storehouses of dowry and send me off to the beating of a great drum..."

The words weren't out before her mother sprang up and knocked her down to the ground with one slap, and Xiaoqiao muttered, "I said I wouldn't marry, and you would have me marry! Now I want to marry, and how is it you're against it?"

Madam Damu said bluntly, "Set your heart at rest and give up the dream! We'll give him a good meal, make our apologies, and send him home nicely. This is a Yanjing youth, not some simpleton from your grandfather's stockade village who can't move his feet at the sight of a female and lets you carry him off as you please..."

Yuwen Xiaoqiao sprang up again. "Why won't it do, why won't it? What's wrong with him? On the frontier any male will do, one's as good as another, but out of all the men of Boyi Pass put together, you find me one better-looking than him!"

Seeing her sister-in-law spring up again, Lianghha-shi reached out and pressed down her shoulder, and the two of them squatted back down, and the three women began picking at the mud together.

Lianghha-shi sighed. "Little sister, your sister-in-law's been through it, at least, and in this you don't know as much as I do! Look at that cream-skin of his, so delicate it'd break at a touch. When you pick a man he's got to be of some use, surely. Can a man stay young and handsome his whole life?

"Good looks won't do for food or drink, and are no help with anything besides. And never mind comparing with others, take your own brother. He was the first beauty of Boyi Pass in his day too, but look at him now, a dozen years on, still handsome? He can't even drink a bowl of chicken soup clean, half of it goes to that big beard of his. Is he still good-looking? When I look at him I just... I just, I just... right?"

Seeing her mother-in-law suddenly look up and glare at her, Lianghha-shi didn't dare run down the woman's son any further.

Whether Yuwen Xiaoqiao was bewitched there was no telling, but the moment she saw the man today the whole sky was clouds to her, and her heart was fit to burst.

There was no chance of her heeding her parents' counsel, and she muttered, grudging and unwilling, "My brother? Hah! My brother's ugly as sin, how could he compare? If I'd married my brother, I'd open my eyes in the morning, see that face, and my liver would ache! And look at my brother's belly, hmph, bigger than yours at eight months gone. A beauty, is he?"

Hearing her sister-in-law run down her own man, Lianghha-shi of course wouldn't have it, and this whole family was blunt as a straight gut, so she jeered back, "I may never have seen a beauty, but when I carried off your brother, in the two years he worked at my house, my five brothers together in a whole day couldn't do as much real work as he did, and all their arms together hadn't the strength of his! There were I don't know how many then who wanted to snatch him from me, and if I weren't the fierce one, my sisters would have lured your brother away long since!"

And at this she stood up, somewhat angry, and pointed into the room and said low, "And this one, he can't even say a civil word coming in, he's eaten so much of our food and won't give us one smile! You just watch. Willow waist, thin little neck, he couldn't so much as lift an axe. One look and you can see he's a pampered thing from a soft house. And you still look for him to work for our family? Never mind the work, we've help enough. Heh! And he can eat, too. Since he came in he's eaten twenty-odd of our big buns, yes, and half a pot of soup, and of the eight dishes to go with the buns he picks out nothing but the meat. Now you tell me, besides a pretty skin, where is he better than your brother?"

Madam Damu added plaintively, "And a whole big pork knuckle too, that was meant for your father's wine tonight."

The custom over at Boyi Pass was that if a grown woman took a fancy to a man, she'd gather the clan and carry him off, and if the man was willing, he'd stay at the woman's house and do two years of hard labor for them, and only then could he take their daughter away.

Though tribal houses of standing like the Damu and the Lianghha had been granted titles by the court generation after generation, and read the books of the lands within the pass, and even had kinsmen who sat the examinations, still, every generation, when a young Yuwen general married, they kept the custom, and the man had to work for the family.

As for whether he worked well or not, that was for the bride of the match to be satisfied with or not.

Her mother and her sister-in-law were against it, but Yuwen Xiaoqiao was all for it. Once she'd fallen for a thing, even a lump of dung smelled sweet to her, and so she stood up and took on the hard tone of the camp. "Never mind. This isn't Boyi Pass, we've transferred to Yanjing, so we'll go by the local custom. This is the Yuwen general's mansion, not some tribal stockade village at Boyi Pass. And anyway, he can't work for our family, and I can't bear to make him!"

And with that she went in a few steps to below the window, tiptoed up onto the sill again, and, heart and eyes full of love, leaned there and watched once more, and after a while sighed in admiration, "Look at him, look how, how handsomely he eats!"

Hu Yougui had eaten his fill at last, and wasn't so angry now. He took up the strong tea and drank a mouthful to cut the grease, then stood up to walk his dinner down.

Seeing that the Yuwen family didn't seem to mean him any harm, he felt his way out, and once outside he saw the courtyard full of Yuwen Xiaoqiao's women-guards carrying chests and setting them out.

Mm, so this was the ten storehouses of dowry they'd chattered of on the road?

Were they getting ready to tempt him with it?

Hmph! No use! His heart was a boulder, he'd never give in. He still had no shoes, and the mud on his two feet had dried.

Yuwen Xiaoqiao watched him from the side a while. Seeing him stand under the eaves, his sleeves blown flying by the wind, like an immortal banished to earth, she was carried away, and dug the harder at the lacquer-skin of the pillar under the eaves.

Picking at the pillar, she plucked up her courage and asked, rather shyly, "Little lord, have you, have you eaten your fill? If it's not enough, I'll have them make you more..."

Full-fed, a man's mood is always better, and much of the anger had gone out of Hu Yougui, but he still wouldn't trouble to answer Yuwen Xiaoqiao, only watched the path from the main hall quietly and waited for his big brother to bring men to save him.

Yuwen Chongde, seeing his daughter so careful, and the man still not deigning to answer her, felt a pang for her.

He had six sons and only this one girl, and later, when the girl wanted to go to the battlefield, he hadn't opposed it either. For his house had always been different from others. Ever since there was a Yuwen army, it had watched the grasslands, held the border steady, and kept off the enemy.

In short, a different place to live meant a different way of doing things.

Take his wife's family: his father-in-law ruled one stockade village, his mother-in-law another, and his mother-in-law's village was a big one at that, ruling tens of thousands of people and tens of thousands of mu of mountain and forest land.

His mother-in-law doted on the girl, and said Xiaoqiao could inherit the village one day, and the clan elders there agreed and were willing, and so that his daughter could rule it in time, Yuwen Chongde had raised her as a man.

He had never dreamed the Martial Emperor would move the Yuwen family from Boyi Pass into Yanjing, and it wasn't only his daughter: these days his whole family couldn't take to Yanjing. The people here, their very guts were crooked when they spoke.

But he was, after all, a full third-rank General of Cherished Civility, and when the sovereign moved his troops and officers he had to come. And who'd have thought the girl would come to the capital and be snared?

Heart-weary, Yuwen Chongde came to the hall door, looked first at his love-struck daughter, sighed deeply, and said, "Young man, have you eaten well? If not, there's meat enough in my house!"

To a loyal and valiant house that, under whatever emperor of whatever reign, had kept honestly to the frontier and sheltered the common people, Hu Yougui could not be discourteous.

Hearing the general's question, Hu Yougui turned and made his bow. "Thank you, General, I've eaten well."

Eh? He'd spoken at last, and wasn't so stand-offish after all.

Looking again at the chests filling the courtyard, General Yuwen said, a little troubled, "Young man, I'm sorry for this. Whose house are you of?"

Find out where he was from, the better to send him home.

At this Yuwen Xiaoqiao grew anxious, sprang up, went to Yuwen Chongde's side, and pushed him toward the room. "Father, go inside! Leave this alone, won't you?"

Yuwen Chongde glared at his daughter, thinking, she'll come to grief over this sooner or later anyway, and seeing how soft and mild this youth was, best it be a soft, mild grief. Otherwise... if she went out tomorrow and carried home a prince, the whole house might be put to the sword.

He shook his head helplessly and could only turn to Hu Yougui. "Young man, don't be alarmed. If you want to go, she can't keep you..."

Yuwen Xiaoqiao, furious, shoved her old father into the hall, slammed the door behind her, turned and looked up, and saw this jade-fair youth glaring coldly at her, and a deer went running into her heart, and her legs went weak as could be.

She steadied herself against the wall and forced an abashed smile. "Don't, don't listen to my father!"

Hu Yougui had seen Yuwen Xiaoqiao only a few times, but this one before him now, tss, how to put it?

There was no telling whose advice she'd taken, but she'd turned herself clean into a she-devil.

In the turn of a moment she'd put on a bright red skirt and a headful of ornaments. Perhaps she'd wanted to show off her beauty, but her skin wouldn't take the white powder, and her face hung with lump upon lump, a face like paste.

Hu Yougui was on his guard against this creature and had no good opinion of her, and he stepped back a pace.

Seeing him draw back, Yuwen Xiaoqiao went up to curry favor. "You, you, you needn't be afraid of me! I, I won't do anything! You, you're, er, quite a good eater, aren't you?"

Hearing this, Madam Damu and Lianghha-shi, standing at the edge of the courtyard, were entirely set at ease, and with mocking faces they thought, that's settled!

She'd never marry him off now!

Yuwen Xiaoqiao, come up before Hu Yougui, was a little taller than he was to begin with, and she'd had someone dress her hair in the Yanjing fashion, the knot piled as high as the flying apsaras on the wall of the Nation-Protecting Temple, only the apsaras weren't this ugly.

What Hu Yougui hated most was anyone taller than himself, and he backed away, so that the two of them, one ever retreating and one pressing step by step, went down the hall steps and circled the chests in the rain.

The rain ran down Yuwen Xiaoqiao's face in streak after streak, and it was more of a sight than ever.

Two turns round, and she asked loudly, "Am I, am I not good enough?"

To ask such a thing, of course she wasn't. Hu Yougui stopped and nodded. "No, you're not."

Good, like hell!

Yuwen Xiaoqiao, much in demand on the frontier and courted by many a strong man, showed a touch of hurt at this. But she was a woman general, broad of heart as ever, and could recover at once even from a blow, so she forced a smile and pressed on. "What's wrong with me?" And circling the chests once more, "You mind that I'm dark, is that it?"

Of course Hu Yougui minded. Never mind that he didn't want a wife at all, even if he did, he'd never pick one like this.

He was a sharp-tongued one to begin with, and meeting what he disliked, of course he spoke cold and cutting. "Dark is the least of it!"

Damn it, you're taller than me besides!

But Yuwen Xiaoqiao didn't find the words cutting, and admitted it with a smile. "I am pretty dark! But I'm not out campaigning now, so sooner or later I'll be fair! My mother said I was white as could be when I was born."

"White as could be" was frontier talk, about the same as "white and tender."

Hu Yougui was angered past bearing, and tipped his face up to take the rain full on it until he'd cooled, then turned and spoke the nastier. "Was the young general so unbridled as this on the frontier too?"

What a lovely voice this jade-fair one had. What had he said, now? She hadn't caught it.

Yuwen Xiaoqiao pressed a hand to her heart, looked about her a little at a loss, and at one glance of Hu Yougui's muddy feet her heart ached. "Don't your feet hurt? Er, I'll find you some shoes, yes, look at me, where are my wits, shoes... shoes..."

She looked this way and that and began rummaging in the chests. Hu Yougui saw silks and satins flying everywhere, gold and silver vessels flying everywhere too, and the household were well used to her carrying on, for as she flung things out, the guards went bounding all over the ground to catch them up.

Madam Damu, seeing her daughter wreck the things, hurried over to stop her. "Daughter, don't wreck the things! There are no shoes here. I packed your dowry chests myself, how would there be shoes in here?"

True enough, she really had no shoes.

Yuwen Xiaoqiao straightened up abashed, and said rather shyly to Hu Yougui, "Er, the rain's heavy out here, will you go and sit inside? I'll have them find you a pair of shoes first, all right?"

Awkward and uncomfortable, she reached for a brand-new silk skirt and scrubbed it hard against her cheeks. A few strokes, and Hu Yougui did get a clear look at this woman general.

And say what you would, she wasn't bad-looking after all, of an open-browed sort different from the Yanjing girls, with sword-like brows and starry eyes.

Seeing the jade-fair youth staring at her, Yuwen Xiaoqiao dropped the silk skirt, laughed a few times, and looked up. "I, I know I'm not like them, but I, I'm really better than any woman in Yanjing. I've my own salary, I won't spend your money, I, I can even keep you! And if you say yes, I'll, I'll do all two years of the labor for you myself! Truly, only say yes, and from then on I'll not let you suffer the least hardship, cutting firewood, plowing the fields, I can do all of it!"

The silk clinging to him was no pleasant feeling, and Hu Yougui tugged at his collar. "For two surnames to join in marriage and make a good match, there has to be a matching of gates..."

As if she'd let him finish, she promised at once from the side, "I don't mind about you! Truly!" Yuwen Xiaoqiao smiled in all sincerity. "Even if you had nothing at all, I wouldn't care."

This was one who'd got the bit in her teeth and wouldn't hear a word of sense, and Hu Yougui muttered angrily in the rain, "It's I who mind about you. A match takes willingness on both sides, at least, and one like you, without a scrap of virtue, grace, speech, or skill..."

The words were ugly, and the six bearded men peeping at the window couldn't stand to hear them, and with the fellow so cutting of tongue besides, they each wanted to climb out, grab the lad, pin him down, and give him a beating.

A pity their father had his wits about him and held them back one and all.

Yuwen Chongde glanced outside and said to his sons, "Hai, go out and do what? Haven't we been shamed enough? You're ugly dogs who think your own pup smells sweet. Look at his clothes, his bearing, his looks, and then your sister's sort? Ask all over Yanjing, how many girls past twenty are left unwed here?

"The man's right, too. Living's living, and you've got to mind the household and the keep of it. Your mother in her day was much like your sister, but at least she could weave a straw rain-cape and the like. What can your sister do? She can wield a whip, that's what."

The eldest beard muttered, "This Yanjing youth's no good thing either, cutting so with his tongue."

The second beard agreed, "Isn't it so. Sister's used to her freedom, she'd do better back at the frontier village."

And with that they sighed together, and Yuwen Chongde said wistfully, "Back to the frontier? Who wouldn't want to."

Out in the courtyard rain, one cold and one ardent, they said nothing, and stood a long while, drenched to the bone and chilled to the heart.

At last Yuwen Xiaoqiao said with a bitter smile, "What you spoke of, I know it. It's the thing the Yanjing women learn from childhood."

Hu Yougui turned his head aside.

But she urged him in earnest, "Only, I'm afraid I can't learn it now, and I don't want to, and it's not a thing I ought to learn. See, I dressed myself up like them, and you didn't like it any the better, did you? So, could you set some other condition? Truly, every house is its own way. Only say you'll marry me, and two years on I'll give you the best life in all Great Liang, I swear it! I'll not let you suffer the least hardship."

Hu Yougui wouldn't trouble to answer her, and bent his head to tug at his sleeve, thinking, not let me suffer? The first time we met you took a whip to me. A toad lusting after swan's flesh...

As the two of them stood at a deadlock, a gatekeeper came trotting into the courtyard with a card in hand.

The taut Hu Yougui breathed easier at last.

Before long Yuwen Chongde went trotting out with his troop of beards, and Chen Dasheng and his brothers, all in guards' dress, came grandly in at the gate.

The rotten lot of them, at the sight of Hu Yougui, all laughed together.

Chen Dasheng even had a pair of high clogs in his hand. Seeing his brother standing in the rain sure enough, he tossed the shoes over and said with a smile, "Sorry, big brother was late."

"Never mind. The food here's not bad."

Hu Yougui caught the clogs, sat on a chest to put them on, and stood up, and because he was at last taller than the she-devil, the corners of his mouth curved up.

It was the best-looking smile Hu Yougui had given since he came in the door, and Yuwen Xiaoqiao was struck dumb again.

She swallowed, pressed a hand to her heart, and drew a long breath.

Guan Si'er, finding it funny, came over under the umbrella holding back a laugh and made his apologies. "Brother, I'm sorry, it was hard on you!"

Hu Yougui gave him an elbow and cursed, "You did it on purpose, didn't you?"

"I'm wronged to death! I had two heaps of people fainted away over on my side..."

Yuwen Xiaoqiao was no fool either, and she saw through it in an instant. Hu Yougui thought she'd be furious, but this one's head worked differently from other people's.

Having worked out Hu Yougui's rank, she came over smiling. "You! So you're a court official too."

Hu Yougui gave a proud, cold laugh, cupped his hands, and made her a bow. "That's the least of it! This humble officer is Hu Yougui of the Long Saber guard. General Yuwen, this isn't the first time we've met. That whipping in the camp that day, however many years have passed, this humble officer still doesn't dare forget it."

It was five thunderbolts on her head in an instant. Yuwen Xiaoqiao only turned a fool at the sight of Yougui; out in the world she was a hand at drawing up troops, at a thousand-li pursuit, at a night-raid on the enemy camp.

Remembering now who he was, she stood stunned, and only after a long while said dully, "Is it, is it really you?"

Hu Yougui, secretly delighted, cocked his head and laughed softly. "The very same, me, the one who came to steal a person."

Yuwen Xiaoqiao's eyes shone bright, and she said loudly to Hu Yougui, "You, why didn't you say so sooner! So it was, so it was me you came to steal that day after all?"

She flung the words out, and Hu Yougui tripped his left foot over his right and stumbled, and lucky that Guan Si'er, holding the umbrella for him, put out a hand to steady him. Guan Si'er fell to snickering.

Just then Chen Dasheng had finished his business with Yuwen Chongde inside, saying only that today's affair touched on the scouts' secrets, and he hoped General Yuwen would let no word of it out.

Yuwen Chongde of course agreed, and saw the party off as he'd see off a plague god.

When the party had mounted and gone and their backs were out of sight, Yuwen Chongde said to his daughter at the gate, "Daughter, give up the notion. These aren't our sort at all. Never mind a matching of gates, here in Yanjing we truly can't reach so high. Even an honorary marquis of theirs outranks your old father."

This time Yuwen Xiaoqiao said nothing, and went into the mansion as if she'd learned her lesson.

Another night passed, the wind died and the rain stopped, and everyone thought the matter was settled.

But the next day was the grand court, and before dawn the Long Saber guards, in their armor, were making their way to the office gate.

Hu Yougui hadn't slept well the night before, and yawning and muddle-headed he took hold of his big white horse. He had the reins in his grip and was just about to swing up when all at once he felt himself light as a swallow.

By the time he took it in, he was already sitting on the horse.

Dazed, he looked down, and saw a face smiling like a flower: Yuwen Xiaoqiao, her hands still raised, showing a mouthful of white teeth, smiled sweetly up at him. "Yougui! You want to ride? I'll help you!"