Chapter 111

With trouble at the Laixian dock, the common folk, having nothing else to do, naturally crowded round ring upon ring to watch.

Guan Si'er sent the two yamen officers to fetch their superior, not to find fault with them. It was like a Board of Revenue man seeing a slip in the Board of War: different offices, and though your rank was higher, you weren't their own direct commander, and to point and order was a great breach of official etiquette.

There was no call to do such a thing!

He'd called the two officers because Guan Si'er was now a proper sixth-rank Secretary of the Board of War, and Laixian was a middle-grade county, so the magistrate who held its seal was his equal in rank.

Whatever he had to say he could only say to an equal, for he'd been drawn into it and had seized the men himself. It wasn't that he couldn't afford to cross them. It was the rule.

Had it been only ordinary people robbed, it would all have been easy, but these men before him were scholars, and the brush in their hands was like a blade, so he had to be more careful.

The rules had to be kept, of course, but he didn't like how the Laixian magistrate sat on his hands, and he meant to go home and put in a bad word with the teacher. Next day on watch before the Emperor, if the Emperor were at leisure and fell to idle chat and boasting with them again, he'd slip in a word on the sly, that here at the very gate of Great Liang's Yanjing, the wretched Laixian magistrate was no good at all, and had let the teacher's heart's labor be ruined and worth not a coin.

The officer in charge of the dock today had indeed been slacking off and had not come back, and the two time-killers left had been loafing somewhere out of the river wind, who knew where.

The moment the man came up, Guan Si'er got a noseful of cheap powder-and-rouge, and was angrier still.

The two officers were uneasy, of course, afraid of being called to account by the magistrate, and hated the blind petty thieves the more for bringing trouble on them, so as they bound them they gave them a good beating too.

Guan Si'er couldn't stand to see it, and said with scorn, "That's enough. You'll beat them dead."

Guan Si'er's waist-token bore the device of the Son of Heaven's own guard, of a guard commander, and since he'd bidden them fetch their superior to speak with, the two dared not delay, much less beg off.

Hearing Guan Si'er forbid the beating, the two officers stayed their hands and made their apologies, and one watched the men while the other turned and ran for Laixian.

The officer left was a quick one, and seeing his fellow gone and this little lord still sitting on a sack, he felt it wouldn't do.

From long years knocking about the dock he knew everyone in the place, of course, and so he bustled about, and in a few breaths' time had rigged up for Guan Si'er a cloth awning and a small table, and even served him tea.

Seeing him so understanding, Guan Si'er came down off the sack with a smile, walked straight into the little awning, took off his cloak and tossed it aside, sat down at his ease, and not minding the coarse tea-things, poured a cup and drank a few mouthfuls. Setting down the cup, he said with a smile to the gaping band of scholars, "Is my face so ugly, then, that I've frightened the little masters into such a state?"

The young scholars all shook their heads at this, a most amusing sight.

Guan Si'er didn't know that the scholars were, for one thing, struck by his bearing. Think of it: he'd dropped from the sky like a crane, dealt with the villains cleanly and neatly, and his every word and move showed the manner of a great house. And he could be no more than a few years older than they, perhaps even younger than a few of the older among them.

And yet he was a court official, and by the look of it of no low post.

It was an admiration beyond words, and with the river-bank there besides, a reverence rolling on and on churned in their hearts, so that they felt they could not adore him enough.

Seeing them say nothing, Guan Si'er shook his head and laughed, and seeing the officer offer him two plates of dried river-fish, he put out a hand to refuse. "Take it back to its owner."

The officer bent, and said carefully, "My lord, I didn't take it for nothing..."

But Guan Si'er, not waiting for him to finish, set his face and said flatly, "Do nothing uncalled-for. Take it back."

There was no rise or fall in his tone, not a breath of common warmth in it, yet it sounded most commanding.

The officer, helpless, could only take up the plates and go off abashed.

Round about came another drawn breath, all together, and Guan Si'er found these young scholars rather... hard to put into words.

On account of his own history he looked askance at academy students, at scholars even, only before he'd have sneered the moment he opened his mouth, and now he'd learned to hide it, that was all.

In the hush around them, the lecturing teacher came to himself at last, straightened his clothes, even patted the dust off himself, came to the little awning, raised his hands, and first gave his thanks. "Thank you, my lord, little lord, for coming to our rescue."

Guan Si'er stood and returned the courtesy, and with a hand invited him to sit. "You're too kind, it was a small matter. Though this place is no charge of mine, as a court official, seeing a thing like this, of course one must step in..."

Guan Si'er hadn't finished before he felt the teacher too had a strange look as he gazed at him. No, no, wasn't the whole lot of them off somehow?

He felt his face again and asked the officer, "Is there something on my lordship's face?"

The officer shook his head over and over.

So Guan Si'er asked the teacher with a rueful laugh, "Teacher, I'm a blunt sort. You all look at me so you've tied my insides in knots. Have I done something amiss and given offense?"

It was too great a discourtesy, after all.

At these words the teacher found his wits at last, and hurried to apologize. "Ah, ah, yes, yes, it's the greatest discourtesy, I beg your pardon, my lord. I am Gong Zhiyi of the Fengwu Academy of Ningjiang, and because, my lor—" And he stared hard at Guan Si'er's face again and studied it. "This, this is a hard thing to speak of. I'll not hide it from you, my lord, it truly gave me a fright. To my eye, the lord, the little lord, is the very image of my second son..."

Puzzled, Guan Si'er leaned back on the little stool in surprise. "Oh? Is that so?"

The teacher stared hard at Guan Si'er and looked him over, this time letting not one detail slip, and at last nodded firmly. "Yes, it's truly so. My son is two-and-thirty this year, and the lord, the little lord's face is the very image of his at seventeen or eighteen."

Guan Si'er didn't believe it, and could only smile and say, "Ah, is that so. A coincidence, then."

This teacher said he was of Ningjiang. Mm, Ningjiang, that was a place he knew.

Ningjiang had two great academies, one called Hezhao, the other Fengwu. And of the two heads of these two academies, besides the one surnamed Zhao who was his enemy, the other he'd heard famed as well. The Emperor had spoken of him, the teacher had mentioned him, the old lords at court now and then discussed him, and not a few of the court's ministers had come out of the Fengwu Academy and counted as this man's students.

Gong Zhiyi, courtesy name Ruian, styled the Fengchi Hermit, a great Confucian of the age.

Only, how was it he was the very image of this man's second son? Was it a joke?

Grumble inwardly as he might, toward a famous great Confucian of the age Guan Si'er would of course not be discourteous where he shouldn't be.

Master Ruian saw Guan Si'er plainly didn't believe it, and in his blunt honesty raised his voice. "If the little lord doesn't believe me, another day I'll paint my second son's likeness myself, and you'll see at a glance!"

My lord's my lord, but why "little lord"?

Guan Si'er, helpless, had to invite the man courteously to sit. "Please sit, Teacher. Of course your junior believes you. And I knew your name long since, the Fengchi Hermit here before me, first and foremost of Ningjiang, whose letters of recommendation flew into the ninefold city. Come, take the seat of honor."

That line of verse spoke of the old dynasty's days. Gong Ruian had been famous young, and by the custom of recommending officials, from the age of thirteen the local officers, the gentry, and the village elders had many times written letters to the throne recommending Gong Fengchi for office, and the emperor of the day had issued edict after edict asking him to come and serve.

Only this Gong Ruian was no seeker after office. His temper, in the Emperor's words, was a rare one among scholars, frank and plain, a man who knew his own worth and weight, and a scholar who wasn't arrogant pleased a sovereign well.

Gong Ruian knew he wasn't fit to hold office, but fit to teach and bring up others, so he turned cleanly away and never entered the court.

At twenty he became a teacher at the Fengwu Academy, and thirty years of teaching had made him a famed Confucian with students, his peaches and plums, all over the realm.

Seeing Guan Si'er praise him with such a face, Gong Ruian felt it most strange, and for no reason the place over his heart ached, sour and sore.

Two-and-twenty years ago he'd come by a heart-ailment, from no cause, and these two years it hadn't troubled him?

Gong Ruian pressed a hand to his heart, feeling this bout came on strangely, and painful too. How was it that, hearing this little lord admire him, he felt a strange gladness besides?

He showed a touch of shame. "So, so you, you've heard of me? I'm ashamed, ashamed. I've long not come down the mountain, and the moment I set foot on the bank I disgraced myself, couldn't even keep my own students safe. Truly it's as the world says, of all things a scholar's the most useless. If not for the lord, the little lord's hand, my students would have had a bad fright today."

He looked back at his students and explained earnestly to Guan Si'er, "A fright does them no harm. What's worst is that from this one mishap, in their youthful heat, they'll take a prejudice against Laixian, against Yanjing, even against petty officers. They all mean for the official's road hereafter, and that is the true harm."

Here was a good teacher indeed.

This time Guan Si'er's smile was sincere, and he cupped his hands. "The teacher's right! Your junior is Guan Si'er, serving in the Emperor's Long Saber guard and as a sixth-rank Secretary of the Board of War besides. Call me by my name, Teacher, and as for shame, let's say no more of it. You are a man of books. To ply a whip, to take up blade and spear and kill the enemy in the field, that's my duty, and the two aren't to be measured by one rule."

The two of them sat down, and Master Gong only stared at Guan Si'er's face.

It tickled Guan Si'er to be stared at so, and he asked good-naturedly, "Truly so alike?"

The students at the side, who could hold back no longer and had been wanting to speak, came crowding up and said all at once:

"Truly so alike!"

"Mm! But for the beard, just alike."

"Your skin's fairer, you're better-looking than our second senior."

"Alike in every way..."

The scholars were young, and seeing a sight you might call a marvel, were eager, of course, to bear witness to it.

Guan Si'er found it strange too, but the world was wide and held every wonder, and that someone a few thousand li off should be the very image of him was nothing so much.

So he said good-naturedly, "What's so remarkable about it? I've heard the little Sixth Lord in the palace tell old tales, that the Classic of Mountains and Seas records thirty-odd lands of wonders, and in them thirty kinds of strange people, some with three eyes, some with a man's face and a fish's body, and some who live on with a great hole in the chest. Now that the wars are over, scholars across the realm are thinned out, and the court thirsts for the worthy. You students are young, and this is the good time for learning. You've met a famous master to take you through all the south and north, and once you've seen more of the world, a man like me won't seem strange, and who knows, past Yanjing you may see a third and a fourth just like your second senior."

He was a proper court official, and even if these students before him one day leapt the dragon-gate and by chance rose to higher office than his, still, by seniority before him they were juniors, and their examiners-to-be would surely be Guan Si'er's colleagues.

This was not his days as a captain in the Tan army. He'd long left that circle behind, and was a real Secretary of the Six Boards, while these scholars who'd not yet entered the ranks must all call themselves students before him, and if they'd not passed as licentiates, weren't worthy even to call themselves that.

And what was more, Guan Si'er held an honorary marquisate, the rank of one cauldron, besides.

Scholars always minded rule and ritual, and hearing in Guan Si'er's words a meaning of counsel and instruction, they quickly stood straight, and, like their teacher, straightened their caps and robes, bowed to Guan Si'er in earnest, and said all together, "We students thank the lord for his teaching."

Guan Si'er smiled and nodded, but did not stand, only put out a hand as if to raise them. "It's hardly teaching. I'm a rough man, and I'll say one thing on today's affair. Just now the autumn harvest is only just in, and of all the four seasons this is the busiest for the officials everywhere. How many officers a county yamen has is a fixed number. Great Liang is but newly founded, the treasury is still bare, and the court now sets great store by this autumn's taxes..."

Gong Ruian sat at the side, watching this little lord, the very image of his own son, hold forth with such ease, and somehow, for no reason, he loved him past all bearing, loved him till his heart ached.

He put out a hand and felt in his sleeve, where he had a packet of the candied fruit he often used to reward his students, and he very much wanted to say to this little lord, will you have some candied fruit? It's ever so sweet.

But think as he might, in the end he hadn't the face to do such a thing, and after sitting a while he couldn't hold it in, so with care he begged pardon for the liberty and asked, "I wonder, where is the little lord's home country?"

Guan Si'er laughed, and said, careless, "You ask in vain, Teacher. All Yanjing knows that we few brothers of the Long Saber garrison came of contract-slaves. From as early as I can remember I had no parents at my side, and I don't even recall where my home country is. That I've come to today's fortune is only by a few rough skills, carrying my head in my hands to do the court's work, and that's how it's come to this."

When Master Ruian had heard him out, he pressed a hand to his heart and apologized. "It was a careless word of mine. I beg the little lord won't hold it against me."

How would Guan Si'er hold it against him? He shook his head with a smile to show he didn't, and then, as if some ghost moved his hand, he asked one more question. "Since the teacher comes from Ningjiang, I wonder, do you know Zhao Changxi of the Hezhao Academy?"

Better had he not asked. The question out, the air around them turned strange.

After a long while Master Ruian, haltingly and with care, asked, "So, so the little lord knows Dongjin?"

Dongjin was Zhao Changxi's courtesy name.

Guan Si'er shook his head at once and said very firmly, "Of course I don't know him! It's only that you two teachers are both famous men of Ningjiang, so your junior couldn't help asking."

Hearing this, those around all breathed easier together.

The truth was, here lay a feud between Ningjiang's two great academies and their two heads, not to be spoken of. Master Ruian had in fact come of a merchant family. He was clever by nature, with an excellent memory, and could draw three conclusions from one, born to be a scholar.

Later his father, afraid of holding him back, paid a great price to send him to study at the noble Zhao house, and from then on came the trouble of that rivalry over who ranked first, or second.

This Zhao Dongjin was a good scholar too, but for all his trying he could never beat Master Ruian, and was forever the second, ten thousand years running.

Later still, the two schoolfellows both entered the old Fengwu Academy of the old dynasty together, and both studied under the old head of those days. Afterward Master Ruian refused office, and having passed the examinations as a juren, went back to the academy and took over as its head, and his senior schoolmate became head of the Hezhao Academy on the opposite mountain.

And from then on the Zhao head on the opposite mountain was full of spleen, and must vie with Fengwu to be first in everything, and the students of Ningjiang's two academies began to suffer for it, a calamity truly out of nowhere.

Of course, in this contest only Zhao Dongjin contended. Master Ruian was frank by nature, and slow to notice besides, and set his heart on nothing but his books and his learning. When people asked him, how have you gone and angered Dongjin again lately?

He'd ask back, all puzzlement, "Eh? Has that happened? How is it I don't know of it?"

And so the one on the opposite mountain grew angrier still.

Guan Si'er found it strange, but had no mind to ask further.

He wasn't a talkative one either, so he held a polite smile and waited until the Laixian magistrate arrived in a sweat, and then courteously made the handover. He'd caught the men himself, so he had to complete the formalities for the other.

The Laixian magistrate was unlucky too. There was a slip in his administration, the peace he was charged to keep was in a shambles, his subordinates first failed in their duty, then loafing rogues robbed a famous Confucian, and this Confucian was to lecture several days at the Imperial College before the Son of Heaven and the princes besides, and now a colleague had caught him out.

Worst of all, this meddling colleague was likely but a step from His Majesty, seeing him every day. And even if the colleague said nothing, how far was this place from Yanjing? And what was the Censorate there for?

Angry past bearing, the magistrate took the few rogues back and gave them another hard reckoning, and from then on, as if by a miracle, the Laixian dock settled into peace.

Guan Si'er cared nothing for what the local magistrate thought, and the business settled, he mounted to go, but Gong Ruian came trotting over and barred his horse's way.

A man of some decades, yet he acted with no check of age, and stood barring the horse, gazing foolishly at Guan Si'er, until at last he said with an open face, "Thank you for the rescue today, little lord. In a few days I'm to lecture at the Imperial College, and if I've any leisure I'll, I'll come and sit with the little lord a while... No! I'll call at your door to give thanks! I must call at your door to give thanks!"

Guan Si'er laughed, cupped his hands and nodded to him, and without a word more spurred his horse and rode off.

But he didn't see that, not long after he'd gone, Master Ruian pressed a hand to his heart and felt it as though cut with a knife.

From the moment the teacher's pain began, Guan Si'er, for no reason, pressed a hand to his own heart on horseback and began to ache too.

Only when Guan Si'er was out of sight did Master Ruian's old steward come up to steady him. "Your heart-pain hasn't troubled you these two years, master. This must be from the fright you had today."

Master Ruian held on to his hand, gazed into the distance a long while, and then murmured, "I don't know how it is, but ever since I saw that little lord, my heart has ached into eight pieces, no, into pieces without number..."

And with that the tears suddenly streamed down, and slowly he crouched to the ground and, for no reason he knew, began to weep.

Guan Si'er came back to Yanjing and went into the prince's mansion with a hand pressed to his heart.

He had no wife, and didn't go back to Guard Lane, and when he wasn't at the office he stayed with a clear conscience at his brother's. The brother's place was big anyhow, and he'd just take any courtyard and hold it and say he'd live there from now on, and being the youngest, not a soul in the whole household dared say no.

He'd only just changed his clothes at home when someone came to ask him to the Pengyue Pavilion to eat. And so Guan Si'er, a hand still pressed to his heart, came to the Pengyue Pavilion.

The Pengyue Pavilion was the most elegant court in the prince's mansion, with a glimmering half of water, a fine prospect that cupped the moon and cherished the wind.

Oh, and the family was grand now, so they didn't say "eat" anymore, they said "take a repast."

Master She, seeing Guan Si'er come in to the repast with a hand on his heart, teased him with a smile. "Our Seventh's smitten indeed. His wife's gone and he aches like this over it?"

Guan Si'er sat down, and it was a good while before he took in what the teacher was laughing at, and then his face flushed red, and he drew a breath to explain, but his heart only ached the more.

His breathing grew tighter and tighter, and then the pain was such he couldn't get his breath.

Qi Qian'er had been making shoes at the side, and seeing the Seventh's color wrong, she threw down her work and called out, "Someone, quick, there's something wrong with the Seventh!"

At once the whole household was in a fluster.

Everyone, hands all over, helped Guan Si'er onto the couch, and the teacher had someone fetch a court physician from the palace.

When the court physician arrived at the prince's mansion in a sweat, he came into the courtyard to hear the little patriarch saying to a group of old sabers, "Aiyo, who'd have seen it before, our Seventh turns out a man of feeling after all?"

Everyone nodded together, and from the room came a voice full of breath and vigor, "Brother! I keep telling you it isn't that!"

The physician wiped the sweat from his brow and thought, how is this a heart-ailment?

But when he went into the room, he saw the fabled Seventh Lord so pale of face, a hand pressed to his heart, half-reclined on the soft couch, with beads of sweat as big as beans running down his brow.

The physician dared not dawdle, and hurried up to take the pulse, only to find it beat strong, the heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys all as sound as they could be.

So he asked carefully, "Sev, Seventh Lord, can you tell this humble officer in what way your heart pains you?"

Guan Si'er was at a loss himself. It wasn't that his body had no strength. It was all a mystery, wasn't it?

He sat there with a hand on his heart and said, "It's, it's hard to put into words, only it feels as if my heart were cut with a knife..."

The words weren't out before Chen Dasheng's teasing voice came from outside, "Then it's all over, no saving it, the lovesickness, it must be the lovesickness! I'm afraid he can only be sent off out of town to cultivate quietly together to be cured..."

Hearing this, Guan Si'er, for no reason he knew, wanted to laugh, but this ache of his heart was truly as if cut with a knife, not the knife-cut of flesh, a strange taste he'd never tasted before, a stifling misery, as if he wanted to bury his face in someone's breast and have a good cry but had no breast to bury it in, a pain of the utmost grievance.

For no reason he put out a hand and wiped his face, and gave himself a fright. "Brother, come in quick and see, how is it I'm crying?"

But he didn't know that in the Laixian posting-station, Master Ruian too ached at the heart a whole night, and through the night called three of the county's doctors, and drank two bowls of a sleeping draught before he could barely get to sleep.

And he knew still less that this same night, on Fengwu mountain a thousand li off, a woman woke from a dream and ran barefoot into the courtyard, searching all about.

When her youngest daughter came to soothe her, she caught hold of her, her face all tears. "A-mao, I dreamed your little brother had become a great official over in King Yama's land. He rode so tall a horse, and he was the very image of your second brother..."