Chapter 114

"Little Seven!"

"Sixth Lord!"

From beyond the wall of the Half-Face Pavilion in the imperial garden came two whoops of joy, foolish as any simpleton's, and in an instant they wrecked the heavy air around the little pavilion. The Emperor, already out of sorts, checked at the sound, coughed a few times, and asked, "Who's making that racket over there?"

Zhang Minwang hurried over to report. "Your Majesty, it's the Sixth Lord and... the Seventh from over that way."

He flicked his eyes toward the south gate, and the Emperor could only sigh.

There weren't many in this world who could sit through the Sixth Immortal's immortal-lore, and the old sabers were about the only lot of them.

The Sixth looked a simple, honest soul, but in truth he could tell good from bad better than any, and if someone's manner toward him was all surface, he wouldn't easily go near them.

From who knew when, the one his little Sixth liked best to seek out was the seventh saber over there, Guan Si'er.

In Qingling's words, it was one fool to a family, so let it be borne.

He'd said too, "Could Your Majesty find the little Sixth another fool to play with? Who else in all the world would listen to him pour out his immortal nonsense two hours a day?"

Think it over, and there really was no one, so after that the Emperor let it be.

Besides, the two good friends had arranged to meet next door, and couldn't have known the Emperor would hold council in the imperial garden today, so it could hardly be called an affront.

Outside the Half-Face Pavilion, Meng Dingchen and his four Executive Wardens knelt begging pardon, and a few ministers tied to the Qing Buyi affair of the attacks on Tan Shiyuan stood grave-faced too, heads down and shoulders bowed, staring at the ground.

In truth the Jiusi Hall wasn't to blame. However complete the plan, Meng Dingchen could never have reckoned Zhong-shi would poison her own son, and thinking of it he was sick with grief and anger, and had cursed the Tan house ten thousand times over in his heart.

And now, was the most important thing to take Qing Buyi and bring her to justice? No. It was Great Liang's face, which had to be won back by any means there were.

A little eunuch came hurrying up and knelt outside the hall to report. "Your Majesty, Master Sikou of the Nation-Protecting Temple, the new head of the Twelve Gates of the northern martial houses, begs audience outside the main palace."

Meng Dingchen, kneeling, stirred at this, and his hands quietly clenched.

But the Emperor, hearing it, suddenly laughed. "They come to see me? Heh, never mind. When I was Supreme Commander I had leisure enough every day, but they'd take no notice of us then. And now? Where would I find that leisure. Get up, Fifth."

Meng Dingchen quietly breathed easier, begged pardon, and stood.

Sparrows twittered in the garden, and the Emperor, standing, had meant to say a few comforting words to his subjects, but what came out of his mouth was a bellyful of grievance. "These days I've thought to myself, too, how did that Qing Buyi come to this pass? Think of it, when I first raised my troops, the southern martial houses helped me many a time, and their good turns I keep in my heart. Qin She did me service, do I not know it? But a country has its laws, a house its rules, and under the law..."

He was just working up to a long speech when from beyond the wall came again a burst of joy too great to hold in.

"Wow! So many!"

"This is nothing. My royal father has heaps of it, more than he can use. Look, is it this one?"

"Yes, yes, yes, this is the very Yisetang kind, thank you, Sixth Lord."

"Never mind, never mind! Brothers don't talk so. Take it home and use it as you please, and when it's gone just tell me..."

A thief in his own house, the Emperor could not bear it, and ordered Zhang Minwang, "Call them over. How many days has he known his letters, and already he dares use my Yisetang paper? You, you go and fetch his elder brother too, and that good-for-nothing of mine. What does he mean, I have heaps of it? I haven't many quires of Yisetang left myself!"

Zhang Minwang fled, holding back a laugh.

Watching him go, the Emperor waved a hand at last. "Let it be this for today. Fifth, go and bring Zhen'er along... Whatever's past, however foul the Tan house, now the person's dead and the lamp's out, go and pay respects after all. When all's said, passing through Jiecheng once, I ate a meal she served with her own hands, and who'd have thought it would come to this end..."

The ministers took their leave, and at the moment of leaving the imperial garden Meng Dingchen looked off into the distance in all sincerity, and from his heart thanked the Sixth Prince, and, yes, that luckless seventh saber too.

Each had his own work, and She Qingling of all men best knew his place, and the sons he'd raised had never overstepped the Jiusi Hall by half a step. Meng Dingchen was not a broad-minded man, but his opinion of the Long Saber garrison was fair enough.

Chen Dasheng didn't know his brother had taken the blame for the Jiusi Hall, and he started at being summoned. These days, seeing to the scouts' secret business, he lived in his foster-father's small courtyard in the outer palace.

Hearing the Emperor call for him all at once, he glanced at his desk, found a tray-box, put into it some intelligence he'd made ready, and went at a quick step to the imperial garden.

He carried the box and followed Zhang Minwang toward the Half-Face Pavilion, and coming near saw his own Little Seven and the Sixth Prince kneeling on the bluestone ground.

The autumn was cool, with no wind, and Chen Dasheng glanced from the corner of his eye at the two wretches' knees, saw a thin mat under them, breathed easier in his heart, and presented the box before the throne.

The box gave the Emperor a headache at the sight, and, not holding Chen Dasheng an outsider, his first question was, "What's Qingling been doing at home these days?"

Chen Dasheng answered honestly. "Your Majesty, nothing much. The same as in the palace before, reading, painting, a stroll now and then. This morning, though, my father said winter would be here in a while, and a good many of the chickens and ducks he keeps have died of late, and fearing the cold would set on them, he's at home now directing the men to build coops."

The Martial Emperor heard him out and said, full of envy, "Hmph, listen to the life he leads, free and easy indeed! And look at the life I lead, ai, no comparison at all..."

Chen Dasheng pressed his lips in a smile and turned to look at the pair of wretches.

Afraid he'd plead for them, the Emperor pointed at the censer on the incense-table. "Leave those two be. Let them kneel out the whole incense-stick."

With that said, Chen Dasheng of course dared not plead, and being a man of few words, he waited at the Emperor's side and watched him turn over the sheaf of secret reports the scouts had newly sent.

There was much of weight in it, and after reading a good while the Emperor stayed his hand on the account of the Tan house's poisoning of Zhong-shi, and asked, "All this to-do, and Zhong-shi could come to Yanjing and make trouble because she'd had a secret letter from this Wu Xiu? That I can't make out. The Wu house is fallen already, so why would this Wu Xiu pull the very foundation-stone from under his backer?"

Chen Dasheng answered with no feeling of his own in his tone. "Your Majesty, the Tan house once promised the Wu house it would rise again, and the Wu house gave its handed-down art in exchange, and gave up generations of family wealth besides as war-funds to help the Tan house rise. But the Wu eldest daughter, though a first wife, was kept to the inner quarters all along and never respected, and this Wu Xiu, he's been made a cripple."

The Emperor, who'd seen much of such things, thought nothing of it. "That's much in his house's style, but there are gods three feet above your head, after all."

He put the things back as they were, pointed at the box, and Zhang Minwang came quickly to take it away, leaving sovereign and subject to talk in the Half-Face Pavilion.

The Emperor said, "The Tan house's affairs, of late I've no wish to look at them."

They were tiresome indeed.

Chen Dasheng assented, and the Emperor went on, "There's this matter of the northern martial houses meaning to submit, though. The Jiusi Hall has memorialized on it a few times, only what they send reads in a different voice from yours."

With that the Emperor stood, and walked out with his hands behind him, Chen Dasheng following a step and a half behind, and passing the two wretches he saw again that the opened carry-box by Little Seven was full of paper.

Once they were well away, Chen Dasheng said, in a voice not loud but clear enough for the Emperor to hear, "Since my sovereign took the throne, whatever the matter, you've always planned it with your own hand, and it's by your heart's blood that Great Liang has come to this first flush of prosperity. You set me over the scouts just because you saw there's no dividing of south and north, of this martial house or that, in my heart. My heart leans nowhere, so it is now, and so it will surely be hereafter."

The Emperor nodded, pleased, and walking on a way, saw the lotus pond lying like a pool of dead water, and stopped and sighed. "Ever since your Second General's head was found here, I had them root out every lotus in the pond. Last year too, your father, reading the palace records, mentioned this place more than once. Do you know what the emperor who lived here before loved best?"

Chen Dasheng shook his head.

The Emperor smiled. "They were much like me, shut up in this court. After the morning court he'd mostly ride his sedan to the Buddha-hall to burn incense, then feed the fish in this pond, boat on this pond, write poems by this pond, chat with his consorts by this pond. The old dynasty left a full hundred volumes of dress-records. Heh, and now I'm much the same, changing into new clothes of every style all day, worn with no one to see them, unable to go anywhere far, circling this pond day after day..."

Chen Dasheng, an honest man, was a while before he said plainly, "That's a very dull life."

The Emperor nodded hard. "Isn't it! When your father was in this wretched garden he could at least trade words with me, but once he left, hmph! I'm a flood, a wild beast, and who cares what's in my heart? Those who want nothing don't think of me, and those who want something I can't abide..."

This spell of grumbling plainly showed the Emperor was under much strain of late, and with She Qingling gone he'd come down with the sovereign's pettiness, and found no one to his liking.

In all his time in the palace it was the first time Chen Dasheng had seen the Emperor punish the Sixth Lord. So he asked carefully, "Your Majesty, I see there's a box by Little Seven?"

At this some of the Emperor's complaining flew off at once, and he turned, huffing, to ask Chen Dasheng, "I tell you, Scabby, your house is really something, knows how to spirit things out of the palace now, did you know?"

The question left Chen Dasheng blank, and he blinked. An honest man had but one attitude for such a case: I'll say nothing, you say what you please.

The Emperor was used to this dead manner of his, and not waiting for him to play along, said angrily, "This little rascal, in league with the Sixth, stole my Yisetang paper! Did you know?"

"Impossible!" Chen Dasheng retorted, sure of his ground. "Little Seven hasn't the nerve for it."

The Emperor had known he'd say so, and complained, "He hasn't, but my Sixth has, and it's all your spoiling. He's known his letters a few days, read barely a book, and already he knows a fine thing, and dares use my Yisetang paper?"

Chen Dasheng looked at the little wretch kneeling in the distance, and a thought struck him, and he said to the Emperor at last, "Your Majesty, the truth is Little Seven wasn't after the Yisetang paper for himself. If I guess right, he wanted the thing to please Master Ruian."

"Gong Ruian?" The Emperor asked, taken aback. "What's Little Seven to him, how did he come to be thrown together with the Fengchi Hermit? As I recall, Master Gong has been in the capital only a few days?"

Chen Dasheng nodded and sighed. "Your Majesty, the truth is I've been looking into this these days too, and meant to find hard proof before reporting to you. But Little Seven's gone and erred today, so let me plead for him. Little Seven, he's truly a pitiful one. Forgive him this once."

This left the Emperor blank. "Pitiful? What's pitiful about him? Is there some hidden story in this, then?"

Chen Dasheng nodded. "Ai! There is." And with that he beckoned into the distance, and a little eunuch brought a chair and set it by the lotus pond.

Chen Dasheng helped the Emperor to sit, and the Emperor waved him to sit too, so he sat cross-legged on the bluestone slab at the pond's edge and said, "Your Majesty remembers, these past days Little Seven kept taking ill with his heart-trouble?"

Only then did the Emperor recall it, and he ordered his people, "Oho, I'd quite forgotten. Tell those two whelps to stop kneeling, and go into the Half-Face Pavilion to practice their characters. However many sheets of my Yisetang paper they took, let them write that many sheets of characters. Writing's no hard work. If they don't finish today, they needn't think of supper."

Once the little eunuch had gone, the Emperor said gravely, "Is there some story behind Guan Si'er's heart-trouble that I don't know?"

Chen Dasheng nodded gravely. "There is. Your Majesty may recall the day Little Seven first took ill, the family came to the palace to fetch the physician on duty, and found the head teacher of the Imperial College had sent for him too, saying Master Ruian had come down with the heart-trouble as well."

The Emperor thought on it, then nodded. "Just so, that did happen."

Chen Dasheng sighed. "I'll not deceive Your Majesty, I only learned Little Seven's history of late. He told me he's in truth the... out-of-wedlock son of Zhao Dongjin, head of the Hezhao Academy of Ningjiang."

The Emperor's ever-narrowed eyes suddenly went round.

Chen Dasheng said with a full heart's pity, "Our Little Seven was unwanted from a boy, raised under the servants' bullying, penned from childhood with the livestock, and anyone in that house could beat and curse him at will. He barely lived through it, and before he was grown the steward over there tricked him off and sold him to a slaver..."

The Emperor drew a cold breath, and looked at Chen Dasheng much shocked. "Such a thing happened?"

But Chen Dasheng looked at the Emperor, his own face full of doubt. "Your Majesty, I find something off in this. Do you know, from the time Master Gong came to the capital, he and Little Seven began to take ill together. When he's ill Little Seven is ill, when he aches Little Seven aches, and when Little Seven suffers, he's surely in distress too.

"Little Seven came back that day and told me that the first time he met Master Gong at Laixian, the man was startled past bearing, and said Little Seven was the very image of Master Gong's second son..."

The more the Emperor heard, the more startled he was, and he slowly stood.

Chen Dasheng stood too, and his honest face took on a touch of mystery. "You know, with doubt in my heart I sent men to look into it, and the other day the scouts brought back word, and one look and I was wholly at a loss.

"Though Zhao Dongjin of the Hezhao Academy and Gong Ruian studied under the same master, still, in Ningjiang, for learning and cultivation the first was always Master Fengchi, Gong Ruian, and only after him Zhao Dongjin. In private the two truly didn't get on, and had no dealings at all, and that makes it more puzzling still..."

The Emperor turned a few circles on the spot, then said gravely to Chen Dasheng, "I've weighed this, and there are still a good many holes in the details."

Chen Dasheng bowed. "Just so, and the second party of scouts isn't back yet. In a while it will come clear sooner or later, I think. What I fear most is that it's as I reckon, and then it's a wretched thing indeed."

The Emperor drew a cold breath, and after long thought ordered, "This matter, if it's as you reckon, still mustn't be spread about, but must be looked into in secret. Our court has only just had the Zhong-shi son-killing case, which has harmed the public morals, and if the two great academies of Ningjiang bring forth another virtue-ruining affair, it may well become a scandal of Great Liang...

"I've done nothing, and yet must bear the blame for these wicked, immoral people. Let there be one great earth-shaking calamity and it's my ruined virtue that's drawn the wrath of Heaven and earth! The common folk won't care whether I'm innocent and wronged or not."

Chen Dasheng nodded soberly, and having taken the order sat a while more with the Emperor by the lotus pond, and the Emperor said at last, quietly, "In this world, no earthquake is worse than the human heart. If this is true, then Little Seven is a pitiful thing indeed. He should have been a phoenix-son of a scholar's house, and who'd have thought it would go like this. Lucky he met you, met Qingling, and now he has me to back him besides, so clever a child... Set your heart at ease. Whatever comes, this is one loss we won't take lying down."

Chen Dasheng knelt to give thanks on Guan Si'er's behalf.

The Emperor bade him rise and sighed, helpless. "Hmph, go back and ask your father: of all the pits the two of us fell into once, all the fickle little men we met, a great many really were scholars. These two years the ministers at court have had much to mutter about my founding the Jiusi Hall, and do I not know it?

"But when I meet a hard matter, the ones I like best to use are Fifth and you, and that's the reason. That lot, dressed up as men and all shine and gloss, with nothing in view they're all bright skies and benevolent gentlemen, but let them have some design, and there's no filthy trick they won't bring out..."

Chen Dasheng, full of sympathy, having made his meaning plain, said, "Isn't it so. And Little Seven lately, who knows what's got into him, at every spare moment he likes to hunt up some rare writing-things and run off to the Imperial College. You don't know, every time he comes back he's all delight, nothing but 'the teacher this' and 'the teacher that' on his lips, and it cuts my heart like a knife to hear it."

"Aiya, it's the nature of father and son, it's all governed in the blood. Look what a scamp the Sixth is, and we were parted a good many years too, but the moment we met we were close in an instant. This, you might say, is Heaven with its eyes open, things come round at last from the worst to the better."

With that the Emperor stood, and strolled back with Chen Dasheng to the Half-Face Pavilion.

Inside the Half-Face Pavilion, Guan Si'er and the Sixth Prince lay side by side writing their big characters with long faces. He was no lover of books, and feared nothing so much as being held to his letters.

Writing on, he felt someone beside him, raised his face, and it was the Emperor, so Guan Si'er threw down the brush and knelt to beg pardon. "Your Majesty, I was wrong."

The Emperor looked at that face of his, then at the crooked, shapeless big characters on the desk, and a look of tenderness came over him. "There, get up. Ahem, lately, haven't you been poorly?"

Quick as he was, Guan Si'er at once pressed a hand to his heart like a beauty in pain and knit his brows, and the Emperor, unable to hold back a laugh, gave him a kick. "Enough of your tricks. Your own house's wretched paper, how many sheets could you use if you used all you pleased? Need you go asking the Sixth for it? Is that a mouth on your face, that you couldn't tell me? There, let it be for today. Do it again and we'll see how I punish you."

Guan Si'er, overjoyed, looked at his elder brother, saw his brother wasn't angry either, and gave his thanks in earnest.

The Sixth Prince, seeing Guan Si'er off the hook, made to stop his own brush with a delighted face too, but the Emperor snapped at him, "This is no concern of yours! You spendthrift thing, whatever he doesn't finish falls to you too..."

The poor Sixth Immortal was as if struck by five thunderbolts, and in an instant couldn't even hold his brush steady.

Seeing Chen Dasheng about to go with a wholly bewildered Guan Si'er, the Emperor called them back after all. "Wait a moment. Someone, give him two more quires of Yisetang paper, and the Ge ink I've put by, give, give him two sticks of that too, and if there are any better brushes find him a few. The poor thing, what fine things has he ever seen? A few sheets of wretched paper, worth going round such a great circle for?"

The Sixth Immortal looked at the Emperor full of grievance, thinking, Father, sooner or later you'll drive your son into another Nezha, and then you'll be sorry.

Guan Si'er gave thanks, and the Emperor said, all tenderness, "Your brother tells me you've improved, which is good, and that of late you often go to the Imperial College to ask Master Gong for instruction in your studies?"

Guan Si'er's face filled with shock. How could he ever go asking for instruction in studies? But his brother had said so, and one couldn't deceive the sovereign, so there was nothing for it but to own to it with tears in his eyes.

Much gladdened, the Emperor stroked his beard. "The Fengchi Hermit is of high virtue and repute, and his learning is foremost of the Confucians. Since you wish to learn, you must put away that grasshopper nature of yours and study well under your, ahem, under him."

And so Guan Si'er went off carrying two quires of Yisetang paper, and two sticks of Ge ink from his future wife's house besides. He didn't dare say he was surely not short of this. At any rate, after the Ge family affair, anyone in Yanjing with a bit of Ge ink in hand had struck it rich.

Even though the Ge family's recipe had become the imperial house's property now, Ge ink was still Ge ink, and however fine the palace-made kind, it could not be called Ge ink.

Chen Dasheng parted from him at the palace gate. At first Guan Si'er, carrying the box, trailed listlessly after his brother.

Chen Dasheng scolded him. "You want good paper, hasn't our house got any?"

Guan Si'er, with a bellyful of grievance already, raised his face at this. "Brother, how was I to know the Sixth Lord's paper was stolen?"

Chen Dasheng scolded him like a smith let down by his iron. "Stolen, my eye! You just caught a good moment, and I won't waste breath on you. Who knows how much he's taken before, and for the Sixth Lord to take his own father's things is only right and proper, not the same as for you. You, you're a lame leg meeting a broken axle, so just own it. The Sixth Lord does as his whim takes him, so next time have a little more care."

Guan Si'er nodded, helpless, and had gone only a few steps behind his brother when he heard his big brother say, with a face of distaste, "What are you following me for?"

Guan Si'er was fit to go mad, and raised his face. "To go home?"

But Chen Dasheng pointed at the box and scolded, "Don't you take that stolen loot home and have your teacher curse you to death. Wasn't it for Master Gong? Off you go over there."

And with that, not minding whether Guan Si'er liked it or not, he got into the family carriage and left.

In all these years it was the first time his brother had left him behind. Desolate at heart, Guan Si'er, his mouth set, dawdled his whole way to the Imperial College.

Master Gong held no class today, and was discussing with a newly come teacher of the Imperial College the matter of where its students came from, on word from the Board of Rites that from next year on, to enter the Imperial College you had to be a son or grandson of a fifth-rank or higher, of a commandery or county duke, or a great-grandson of a junior-third-rank, to qualify for admission.

Guan Si'er came in to hear this, and spoke up. "That can't be. The Emperor never said such a thing. There aren't even enough of our own men to fill the court as it is, and they'd set limits?"

The moment Guan Si'er spoke, Master Gong felt a pang in his heart, and sprang up in an instant, turning to Guan Si'er. "Ah, you? How is it you've come here?"

Already sore at being cast off by his brother, Guan Si'er grew more aggrieved at hearing Master Gong say this, and with a touch of a temper he'd never had before, he held up the box. "Are you too sick of me, then? I, I've brought you this. I'll set it down and be off."

Master Gong denied it on the instant. "How could that be! Impossible! I can't welcome you fast enough, and you, you'd leave already?"

For no reason a wave of sorrow took him, and loath to let the boy go, he took the box, set it aside without looking at what was in it, and caught up the teacher beside him. "Come, you're not to hurry off. And it happens, I, he, he's a future one too, Ji Dongyu, Master Benkun, he teaches the Two Rites, you, you..."

You couldn't blame Master Gong for not getting his words out. The truth was he was like this every time he saw Guan Si'er, and it took him a good while to join the thoughts in his head to his mouth.

This Master Ji looked from one to the other, puzzled, and asked, "Fengchi? And this, which of your young lords is this?"