Chapter 113

Qing Buyi's last attempt on Tan Shiyuan came at autumn's end. The mad nun had turned Yanjing upside down, and the Jiusi Hall spent all its strength and still couldn't dig her out of the city, losing a good deal of the Emperor's trust for it.

Tan Shiyuan was a pitiful case, say what you would. However he'd crossed the mad nun, every dozen days or so he'd lose another piece of flesh, from arm to leg, his eyes gouged out one by one, his nose gone and then his ears, truly a death by slicing while he yet lived.

In the end Tan Shiyuan himself wanted badly to die, but the court would not let him.

With the old recluses all gone, and no one left of the Tan house to come to his aid, he became the bait.

That madwoman, like a wandering ghost, roamed Yanjing, and even if she wasn't aimed at the court, the dignity of Great Liang was not to be trampled. What matter that she was the widow of Tan Shize?

The Emperor issued four kill-orders one after another.

Qing Buyi must be taken and brought to justice, must die under the court's own law...

But Qing Buyi was beyond fathoming, and from the time the Emperor issued the kill-orders himself, for fear she'd go down fighting and take all with her, Chen Dasheng kept men on watch before the hall day after day, resting in any corner when tired, and didn't even go home.

In this grim close of autumn, the old lady at home was at her ease, and when the season came she wouldn't stay in the prince's mansion either, but took Qi Qian'er and the madams of Guard Lane up Mount Baiquan to dig wild greens.

To them, the greatest matter under heaven was less important than a bowl of hot soup at the Autumn Equinox.

As the saying goes, the autumn soup floods the innards, washes the liver and bowels clean, brings old and young of a house together, and keeps them safe and sound. The old lady saw to the fire and the seasoning herself, and by the head-count of each household shared out a great pot of soup to every one.

After drinking the soup at Guard Lane at noon, Qi Qian'er carried a great pot of it back to Yanjing, and had just come into the mansion when she heard her foster-mother had come.

Chai-shi's husband and sons were away, and she didn't get on with her two daughters-in-law, and even the best daughter-in-law, with a mother-in-law by her, has to bow and play small. She wouldn't go before the Chang matriarch, and it wouldn't do to go gadding about from house to house outside, so she could only drift over to the prince's mansion.

"So Foster-mother isn't home tending her own pot?"

Offering up the hot soup, Qi Qian'er made her bow before sitting down.

"Hai, every place has its own custom, and my house doesn't trouble with this one. In years past, when your foster-father was home, we'd hold the autumn sacrifice, but he's not here this year, and of all the wives in the house, who could manage that? Oho! This smells good, though. Is it the old lady's pot?"

Chai-shi looked with a smile at this bowl of wild greens and fish-slices, praising it with her mouth, though the old lady's cooking ran to nothing but throwing in salt, and the soup made a poor show.

She bent and sniffed again, pursed her lips, but in the end took up the spoon at the side and, sitting straight, ate the soup down.

Having drunk it, she downed two cups of strong tea besides before she found the root of her tongue to talk.

Once the servants had cleared the dishes and gone, and no one was about, Chai-shi said to Qi Qian'er, her face all excitement, "Qian'er, come sit over here, Mother has a thing to tell you."

Qi Qian'er held in a laugh, thinking, just as I thought, she's got a bellyful of gossip stored up again.

Ever since she'd moved to Yanjing and begun waiting at Father's side, her foster-mother would find some excuse to come every few days, so that Qi Qian'er knew even how many kittens the old cat in whose backyard had dropped.

They were all newcomers, not like Zhang Wanru and the rest with kin's houses to go to, and even a bit of gossip had to be told to someone you could trust, or if it got out you'd be a wag-tongue.

With a face full of mystery, Chai-shi leaned to Qi Qian'er's ear and whispered, "Mother tells you, something big has happened in our Yanjing!"

Qi Qian'er asked, puzzled, "Something big?"

Chai-shi nodded like a pestle pounding garlic. "Isn't it just. I tell you, you mustn't pass it on. Yesterday Mother was at the little Cao house for wine, and I caught an earful of gossip, true or not I can't say. You know, don't you, half a month ago, didn't the Marquis Tan's lady come to the capital?"

The Empress's family were called the big Cao house, and Consort Jing's, who bore the Ninth Prince, were the little Cao house.

The Marquis Tan's lady she spoke of was Tan Shiyuan's own mother, Zhong-shi, the first wife of the Founding Marquis Tan Shouyi.

This Zhong-shi, over some old matters, had been kept shut up at home by Tan Shouyi, the story given out being that she was on in years and poorly.

But who'd have thought, by who knew what means she broke out of the mansion and came to the capital with a band of old guards who'd belonged to her natal house.

Qi Qian'er nodded. "I know, didn't she arrive a dozen days ago? Dasheng told me when he came home, the one the Emperor was dodging after court these past days was her, since there's nothing to be done but listen to her weep and plead all day.

"Yanjing's offices are the court's offices, and that madwoman comes and goes like a ghost with no sense of measure. You don't know, Foster-mother, she even laid a charge before the Emperor against the old marquis, saying the old marquis plotted against his own first wife."

The madams of the very first houses gossiped on a different level: the imperial house on their lips with one breath, a marquis with the next.

But Chai-shi today had no interest in Zhong-shi's charge against her husband, and with a strange look she said at Qi Qian'er's ear, "It's a fright to death! They told me that Zhong-shi poured poisoned wine down her own son. Tan Shiyuan, he's been dead... three days now, as of today!"

"What?!"

Qi Qian'er cried out low, and Chai-shi clapped a hand over her mouth. "Aiyo, keep your voice down."

Chai-shi glanced furtively all round and then said tensely, "This business, tss, the court's in for more shame. A mother killing her son in the house of a first-rank great minister, it's too great a stain on virtue. You mustn't go talking of it outside. This came out of the palace, the old Cao lady had a few cups too many, and seeing I was tight-mouthed, she couldn't hold it and let a few words out to me."

Chai-shi had been fit to burst too, and having said it she let out a breath, and nodded firmly at Qi Qian'er. "Tan the eldest is a wretched case too. They tell me his arms and legs were long gone, his mouth and nose off his face, and a great hole in his chest, stinking and crawling with maggots..."

She retched a few times at the air, and said in dread, "But the Emperor wouldn't let him die, so die he couldn't, with four court physicians watching over him, only not letting him draw his last breath."

It was a while before Qi Qian'er sighed. "So it was, then, a mother's loving heart..."

"Just so..."

In this world only a woman understands a woman. Qi Qian'er had been a mother, Chai-shi had borne several, and in a moment they understood: the mother couldn't reach her husband, the court was using the son for bait, and unable to bear her child's suffering, the mother had with her own hand made an end of him.

Think it over, and how deep must that despair have been.

Autumn had come, and in the swallows' nest under the eaves the young swallows' wings had hardened, and they were learning to fly, not high yet, just fluttering under the eaves.

The two women gazed quietly at the nest, and after a while Qi Qian'er pursed her lips. "Foster-mother, I've never liked the Tan house, and you know the old business between your Dasheng's lot and the Tan. Not pouring oil on the fire is as generous as I get."

Chai-shi nodded. "Never mind your house, what house doesn't dislike them? Your foster-father says the way their house drills its troops harms the harmony of Heaven. Hmph, I think this must be their reckoning come. Just count it up: since Great Liang founded itself, it's as if our Emperor were emperor for their house's sake. Either Tan the Second dies and they extort a title over it, or a perfectly good frontier governor won't take up his post but must hang about near Yanjing and not go.

"And now a wicked thing like this, and the court's face is gone. Count back a thousand years and there's no such thing as a mother killing her son. And it's no boast of those good-for-nothings of mine, they're no use for much, but they can read a room.

"If it happened in our house, we'd never dare give the Emperor a scrap of trouble. We'd go far off even to die, and spare him the sight of us, wouldn't we?

"Die like that and the Emperor and the court would still think kindly of you. But no, every few days a fright in the dead of night. Not even the imperial in-law houses have as much to-do as theirs. Back in Shaoshang we never noticed it, so how is it, the moment these people came into Yanjing, they turned out like this?"

Qi Qian'er nodded in agreement. "Who's to say?"

The senior maid Fourth-Moon directed the servants setting out the things under the eaves, and the foster-mother and daughter sat there drinking the autumn wine and running down the Tan house.

All Yanjing knew the old sabers and the Tan house had broken off entirely, half a step from being enemies.

At every festival the Tan house would send someone with holiday gifts to the old sabers' homes, by the measure due to retainers. A pity, the seven held the Tan in plain hatred. Never mind taking their keep, even at court, seeing a Tan official, they'd step aside a few paces to put distance between them.

Everyone knew they had a grievance, yet, rare to say, out in the world no one ever heard the old sabers say one bad word of the Tan, and if someone led the talk that way on purpose, the seven would only smile, beg pardon, stand, and withdraw.

That was no easy thing.

Swallowing the autumn wine, Chai-shi, far from gloating, said with real sympathy, "Tell me, isn't it hard to be a woman? Heaven sees you're to be born and first cuts off your legs. You're raised up at home like a jewel, with great trouble, then sent off to live in another's house, to bear another's children and manage another's household. Meet a man with a conscience and to his dying day he'll give his plain old wife one kind word, and your life's not been easy. But meet a wolf-hearted, dog-lunged one, and he'll store up a whole courtyard of sweet and sour besides, and that's your whole life's lot.

Qi Qian'er took up the pot in both hands and filled Chai-shi's cup, and Chai-shi raised it, drank it off, and said with a bitter smile, "Ever since I heard this news I've felt uneasy, with a river's length of words pent up, wanting someone to talk them out to.

"Any mother who hears a thing like this, a mother poisoning her own son, takes it to herself. Tss, think of it once in the dead quiet of night and there's no sleeping that night.

"To what pitch of despair must she have come before she did it? It's not that I pity Zhong-shi. Shaoshang's not big, and how could we not know what she did in her inner quarters? How many of the old marquis's children never lived past her hands. But now this has befallen her, and I, I've only to be a clan-wife one day and I pity myself, pity myself past bearing! My child, do you understand me?"

Qi Qian'er nodded. A first wife and a concubine stand on different ground by nature.

Setting down her cup, Chai-shi patted Qi Qian'er's shoulder and said with a smile, "But you're one of good fortune, and I know those few children of our house, truly whoever marries in has stored up merit in a past life. They used to laugh at me that my eldest Chai girl went to a rough soldier. Heh! Look now, what a life the eldest girl leads, prized by the Emperor, and given a patent of rank the day she married in..."

As she talked, she saw Fourth-Moon bring a gatekeeper into the back court, and asking what it was, learned it was the Judge of Nanfeng, Hu Chunhou, who'd sent his second son to the house to pay the autumn courtesies and bring hot soup.

Qi Qian'er was taken aback, and asked, puzzled, "His house sends hot soup? Why send it to the prince's mansion?"

The gatekeeper had asked the same, and bowed to answer. "If it please you, madam, I asked the same, but the Hu family's second young lord said it was first sent to the Laodao Camp, only the Fifth Lord's been on duty in the palace these days, and the weather's warm, and fearing the soup would spoil, they could only bring it to our mansion."

Chen Dasheng treated the brothers under him as truly his own, and the two still unwed he kept at his side every day.

That the Hu family could find their way here was no wonder, it was common knowledge.

Chai-shi, lost, asked at the side, "Whose house is this?"

Qi Qian'er, counting her foster-mother no outsider, told Hu Yougui's history through. Chai-shi, much shocked, was a while before she said, "This, this is a tale fit for a storybook. My child, you mustn't lightly take this soup. Take it and you're kin."

Qi Qian'er thought, that was the very reason, and since there was no asking in the palace, she sent someone to ask the old ones at home.

Fourth-Moon went off a while and came back with Jixiang.

Seeing the household about its own business, Chai-shi stood and took her leave for home.

She'd had a bellyful of words pent up and had let them all out, and went off light indeed.

Jixiang said to Qi Qian'er with a smile, "Madam, the master's meaning is that there are three elders living over there, and in a head-on clash our Fifth Lord loses out by nature, so better just take the things and send him off."

With She Qingling's word given, Qi Qian'er sent someone to call in Hu Yougui's younger brother, Hu Youlu.

Hu Youlu was twenty this year, held the licentiate degree, and was studying now at the Imperial College.

Early this morning the two old people over in Nanfeng had sent someone with half a cartload of things and a great pot of hot soup to find him, saying half the things were his and the other half his brother's.

And that put the boy in a terrible fix.

Ever since his brother was found, Hu Youlu had had no face to come to him. He had gone to the Laodao Camp and hidden out of sight, and seeing the man from afar he'd known his brother at a glance, but had no face to go up and own him.

Before Heaven teaches a man a lesson, it first lets him fall into a great pit and bleed a little, that he may learn what pain is.

From birth he'd been raised before his grandparents, while his brother went with their mother, and was forever found fault with by the grandparents.

Later their mother died, the house fell, the brother hated the father, and the grandparents began to speak ill of the brother.

What did he understand then? The grandparents didn't like them, and he was close to the grandparents, so of course he took against his mother and his brother and spoke only of their faults.

But then the brother was gone too, the house so ruined there was nothing to eat, and he was weak and no one to lean on, and only then did the grandparents think to blame the father.

His family was strange that way: whoever had ability, they'd press down. Later they all said they knew their wrong, all said they were sorry, but the mother and the brother could not come back.

In time it was not allowed to be spoken of.

When now and then in grief and anger he said a word of it, they'd scold him in a tone all "you don't know your place": the dead are dead, are the living not to go on living? Why bring it up again?

Later still the father's luck turned, he took office, married a stepmother, had little brothers and sisters, and they were a family again, and he was more an outsider than ever.

Qi Qian'er looked at the young man the servants brought in, and her first thought was that he looked refined and clean-featured enough, but not as good-looking as her own Yougui, and by no small margin.

Coming in, Hu Youlu saw the gauze curtain hung in the main hall, and knew they took him for an outsider.

He smiled, not much minding, straightened himself, and bowed to Qi Qian'er in earnest.

Qi Qian'er courteously bade him rise, had tea brought him, and when he'd sat said coolly, "The young scholar comes calling on kin, has he not come to the wrong door?"

Hu Youlu had won his degree in the grace examination, and having passed as a licentiate had pulled a few strings to come from Nanfeng to the Yanjing Imperial College to go on studying.

So Qi Qian'er could call him "young scholar" well enough.

Hearing the madam behind the gauze speak none too kindly, Hu Youlu dared not take it up, but said with a face full of shame, "It is indeed too great a liberty, I've brought trouble on your mansion after all..."

Qi Qian'er gave a cold laugh. "Since you know it's a liberty, and know it brings trouble, then think before you do such a thing again, or we'll all be put in a hard spot, and in the end nothing good will come of it for anyone. Think it over carefully, young scholar, isn't that so?"

Hu Youlu slowly stood, forced a smile, and bowed to Qi Qian'er. "The madam is right, but your student came today with a few words he'd like to say to this house."

From the time his brother was gone and the grandparents changed their faces, Hu Youlu had grown three parts more careful than other men in the world. He had little gift for study, but could bear hardship better than any.

His grandparents were selfish by nature, and yet had raised that loyal fool of a father of his, and afraid that if he grew able, and got on by his books, he'd avenge himself on his father, they'd done in secret a good many things to chill the teeth.

Luckily he was tough, and in the end had borne it through.

He looked down on Hu Chunhou, and Hu Chunhou knew it, and much avoided this son.

Without his father's shelter he grew wholly alone and cold, and luckily he passed as a licentiate and entered the Imperial College, and then the family changed its face again.

He had a bellyful of words stored up, and waited until that day the father came to tell him the brother wasn't dead, was still alive, and wanted to go with him to the Laodao Camp to find the brother.

So he'd asked his father with a smile, "Father's face was always thick, but I've no face to go."

Seeing the shock on his father's face, he'd felt a great relief.

He knew his father, who truly couldn't be called a bad man, at most a muddle-head fond of his face.

Refused once, the man would never seek him again. Only, those two utterly selfish old things of the house could not be avoided.

Seeing the man stand lost in thought, Qi Qian'er pressed him. "Young scholar, you have something to say?"

"Oh!" Hu Youlu came to himself and raised his face in apology. "Your student was woolgathering, the madam must forgive me."

Behind the gauze Qi Qian'er pursed her lips. "It's a great festival day, and I've matters to see to, so if you've something to say, say it quick."

Hu Youlu then forced a smile. "Yes. Your student came today to ask the madam to carry a few words to my, my brother for me."

"Words?"

"Yes. Trouble the madam to tell my brother this: those two will be seventy come the new year, and for their age, their standing, their blood, if anything comes of it, it's my brother who'll lose by it. Trouble the madam to tell my brother to bear with it two years more and it will pass. Hu Chunhou is one who cares for his face, and the one he married after would like nothing better than for us not to come contending for the family estate..."

"Wait!" Qi Qian'er broke in, her tone mocking. "By the sound of it, the young scholar has quite a grievance against that side?"

Of course Hu Youlu could catch this young madam's meaning: that he was one to climb and cling, seeing this side grown rich, and had begun to speak ill of that side.

He shook his head helplessly, raised a hand to the sky, and said, "Then let me swear an oath to the madam today. I, Hu Youlu, swear to Heaven, if in my heart I bear my brother half a grain of ill will, let five thunderbolts strike me, let me be born life after life a weed by the road, trampled by a thousand feet, ground under ten thousand wheels..."

The oath was a savage one, and Qi Qian'er quickly broke in. "Stop, stop! Don't say such things before me. Just tell me what you truly came for today."

There was grievance in Hu Youlu's heart after all, and at this his eyes reddened, and he lowered his hand and said, distracted, "I'll not hide it from you, madam, all these years I've nursed a resentment: why are other people's grandparents grandparents, and my grandparents, my father, like that? And then came the wars, and my house grew rich, but my days were more wretched than ever to look back on...

"I think of my brother often too, and I'm sorry, sorry that all those years the whole family fed on my brother's blood, and I never said him one kind word... But this sorrow of mine I can only say to a poor brother. Only if my brother were poor and ill-off could he see my true heart..."

He wept in the end, wiped his eyes on his sleeve, and said, "But my brother's rich now, so anything I say is of no use! And it's well enough so, truly, I'm glad. The better my brother does, the more they'll regret it, and the gladder I am..."

She Qingling came strolling quietly out from the back hall, saw his daughter-in-law listening open-mouthed, and made her a sign to hush.

That done, he too sat and listened to Hu Youlu speak the words he'd pent up for years.

Hu Youlu wept and laughed softly. "I'm twenty this year, my fate cut into an upper half and a lower. In the upper half I had a mother and a brother, in the lower I had nothing at all, and even so I dare not complain, for this is my reckoning!

"Knowing my brother's alive, I could knock my head to every god in heaven. My brother lived, and Heaven's given him great wealth besides! You see, in this world evil is repaid in the end after all. As for my family, I used to wonder why they were so cold-hearted..."

Hearing Hu Youlu speak of his grandparents, Qi Qian'er couldn't help thinking of her own old lady.

And she murmured, "Yes, and why is it?"

Hu Youlu had long had the answer in his heart, and sighed. "It's nothing much. A poor backward place, a big village, and only the one son born to them, fearful at heart and foolish and ignorant besides. And my father too, from a boy with no brothers to prop him up, afraid of being bullied, played the rough fellow, and having faked the loyal-and-reckless part so long, came to believe it himself.

"I'll not hide it, madam, your student only came to understand this these last few years. Let the past be past. Your student came this once with truly only one thought: trouble you to tell my brother, my brother is a grey eagle..."

Wiping the tears clean from his face, Hu Youlu set himself in order, raised his hands gravely, and said to Qi Qian'er, "Trouble the madam to tell my brother: Hu Yougui has come through ten thousand li of frost and snow, and now is his good time to cross the sea and shed the common, to soar like the great roc clear to the heavens. Beg him not to let the foolish things of this dusty world stir his spirit. People like autumn grass aren't worth his minding. Whatever happens, I beg my brother ten thousand times to bear it a few years, and from then on the sea will be wide and the sky open."

Having said it, Hu Youlu took his leave and went.

A good while after the man had gone, She Qingling gave a soft laugh. "He has a bit of our Fifth's bone in him after all, and there's sense in what he says."

Qi Qian'er raised a brow and smiled. "Since when is a mere college student worth this much of your notice?"

She Qingling stood with a smile. "He's bound up with the family after all, so I had someone ask after this boy's character at the Imperial College. And what do you think his teacher said?"

"What did he say?"

Prince She, rare for him, gave a word of praise. "His gifts are only middling, but he's a rare one in this world who'll bear great hardship, and that's a rather fearsome thing."

With that, gathering his sleeves, he came to the door, and seeing the autumn rain had come on, ordered his people, "Send the one who's left a parasol." That done, he turned back to Qi Qian'er with a smile. "The hardest thing in the world to fathom is the tie of kin, isn't it so?"

Qi Qian'er was left wistful at this, not knowing that in all this great Yanjing, while some made their peace with the past and freed themselves at last, there were those who, knowing full well it was an abyss, would leap in smiling.

At the Founding Marquis's mansion, a woman with a purple scar over half her face knelt in full mourning before the spirit-altar, numbly burning paper money, her eyes all the blank helplessness that comes after terror.

Now and then the woman raised her head to look at the altar, where there stood two spirit-tablets, one with her father-in-law's name, and one her husband's grandmother's.

Wu Xiu lounged idly against the doorframe, picking at his ear with a finger, a strange smile on his face, and spared a scornful glance for the Tan clan elders and the rest helping out in the courtyard.

It was these people who had burst into the mansion the night before, dragged Zhong-shi out of the Buddha-hall where she was shut up, poured poisoned wine down her, and set it up to look like she'd killed herself.

Seeing her brother not stir, Wu-ling raised her head and called him. "Little brother, come. The old lady doted on you once too. Burn her something... In this house..."

She looked about her and said, somewhat grieved, "Not one grown man of our branch is here."

Wu Xiu did as he was told, went over obediently to burn paper, and heard his sister murmur at his ear, "It's strange, too. Who wrote the old lady the letter, do you think? Wasn't it kept so tight a secret?"

But she didn't see that her brother, his head bowed, smiled like a very demon. He burned the paper sheet by sheet, and hearing footsteps at his ear, sat up and knelt properly and said with a grieving sigh, "Old lady, why would you do this?"

More people burst into the courtyard, a rush of hurried steps, and Wu Xiu, paper money in hand, knocked his head against the altar and wept aloud, "Old lady, you treated me as your own grandson, who'd have thought... in the end, in the end, it's this good-for-nothing who's seen you off, old lady..."