Chapter 129

Not seen for twenty-odd days, Meng Wanquan's face had gone deeply hollowed, his look worn to the last degree.

Five days of unbroken overcast rain had left the rooms damp, so Qi Qian'er had cotton curtains hung, a small bright charcoal fire lit under the eaves, and sat on a low chair brewing tea and listening to Brother Quanzi complain.

These days, every three days he had to make a trip out Xiaonan Mountain way, and it had worn even him, ever one to push himself, past holding up.

"...they hurried thirty cartloads of made-up medicine over in a panic, wouldn't even let us open the packs to check, said it was urgently needed at the front and to get it to Xiaonan Mountain at once, and I thought how pressed they must be, hmph... hauled it over and waited half the night, and only then did a few lazy fellows come out to take the carts. They've all gone mad!

"I said, at least check it over, it's medicine! And they wouldn't even answer me, and it was only a few from the old wounded-soldiers' camp who told me on the quiet, some old made-up medicine, hmph... best not speak of it, playing folk about all day long, giving a man no rest, hauling these baffling things over day after day, and no telling when it'll end..."

He plainly didn't want to let out matters of military secrecy, but was wretched holding it in, and had come to complain.

When he'd done he glanced carefully toward the back court and asked, "Where's the teacher?" He wanted to call on the teacher and talk these things over.

Qi Qian'er said without looking up, "The palace took him off the day before yesterday, says he won't be back for some months."

Then she looked up and met Meng Wanquan's eyes, and each of them looked away again.

Meng Wanquan was no fool, and saw clear through things besides.

Meng Wanquan made a show of ease. "Sister-in-law, don't think too much on it, we came through far worse before, and by my experience... it always turns out all right. You don't know the old days, never mind that back then I was your Dasheng's chief, his gifts were a hundred times mine, and when we both had our arms whole, one of him could beat ten of me."

Qi Qian'er nodded without concern. "Oh."

She knew well how fearsome her own skill was, and with Old Xin's hand added, if he still couldn't escape, then truly Heaven itself had it in for him and his fate was doomed to bitterness.

Everyone who knew the inside of it thought she ought to be anxious and afraid, but she wasn't. In the old days, she'd done her worrying long ago.

The clay pot began to burble, and Qi Qian'er had just taken up the cloth to pad her hand, holding the handle but not yet lifting it, when Yu Shoutian came in from outside. This was Guard Lane's eldest son and heir-grandson, and the two of them smiled the moment they saw him.

The suffering child once thin as a monkey was sixteen this year, a most understanding, gentle boy, grown handsomer and handsomer too, truly not a whit behind any young lord of the Six-Board lanes.

His father was a Gate Marquis, so he counted a proper official's son, and he himself was a little-standard with a batch of things to manage under him, and so he had a steady air to him now.

Ever since the men of Guard Lane went off, and his Uncle Meng and Uncle Cheng had to go out and be busy too, the boy had a post in the Qingfeng Right Guard, neither too busy nor idle.

But now every day, off duty, he'd run home to see whether the aunties were well and whether his younger brothers and sisters needed him, then take a servant-lad round to check all the courtyard walls of Guard Lane and lead out the uncles' horses kept at home for a common airing. He could bear hardship, only was middling at his books, yet having entered Quanhou Street and seen wealth he'd learned none of the street young lords' rotten habits, and that was no small thing.

Mostly he was tight, grudging the share-money for learning bad ways, so the others didn't call him to play with them. Today, though, he'd come later than usual.

Having paid his respects to auntie and uncle, and handed the string of keys in his hand to the housekeeper, and washed hastily with what the maids brought, Yu Shoutian sat down and said to his auntie, "Auntie, there's much spring rain this year, and a pity for the back-court walls of Fifth Uncle's and Seventh Uncle's houses. I think they're going a bit loose. Have someone go and look."

Qi Qian'er looked up and said to the housekeeper, "Go and look, and if it really won't do, send word to the manor over at Jiangzhu and ask Grand-uncle and the rest to fire up a kiln. These are all old houses on our side and there's no little to mend, and summer brings more rain and heavier, so patch up what needs patching. They're putting up new houses over there this year too, and the kiln-money goes on our main accounts."

The housekeeper assented and went, and only then did Qi Qian'er ask Yu Shoutian, "Why are you back late today?"

Yu Shoutian scratched his head, a bit abashed. "I went over to the Three-Rites Academy to look in on Top-Scholar. His... his mother had sent someone to fetch me, wept at me fit to die, said Top-Scholar's taken neither water nor food for days, and until he speaks his mother dares not marry."

Officials' children clustered together from small, and each had its sets, and Yu Shoutian was one neither close nor far from any set. Before, he'd played well enough with the Board-of-War lane crowd, but once he had a post they'd drawn away from him.

Have a post, and you're a grown man.

Qi Qian'er, surprised, asked with a smile, "I didn't even know you'd taken up with the Tao house's Top-Scholar. When did you two become friends?"

Children are all snobs, and the Tao house's Top-Scholar was a fatherless child, his grandfather and uncles officials in the provinces in name only and no help to lean on, and poor besides, so the boy was touchy and couldn't blend into Quanhou Street.

"It's not like that... we're not really that close, his mother only thinks we are. I, I just met him often on the road and gave him a lift part of the way, my going off duty's about the time he gets out of school, and we're both Quanhou Street..."

From the day Yu Shoutian had his post, the uncles and aunties had all given congratulatory gifts, and readied grown-man's things for him, such as a horse of his own, a decent carriage besides, and a raise in the boy's monthly allowance and so on.

Meng Wanquan, curious, "Hasn't his mother remarried? All this fuss, and it's not done yet? Why's he gone on a hunger strike? No wonder, I always say, a quiet child is stubborn within, and he was so close with his grandmother, make him change his surname and he'd never agree."

When he'd asked, Yu Shoutian's whole face filled with sympathy, a boy of fifteen or sixteen learning to be wistful, and he sighed, "Ai, I, I understand him well enough, wasn't my own family the same back then. He's pitiful too, in truth, stuck with a grandfather like that."

Qi Qian'er had no use for the Tao house, but wouldn't spoil a child's friendship, and asked, "Where's he pitiful? His mother has money in hand, and now a backer and a famous teacher besides..."

Yu Shoutian laughed to hear Qi Qian'er say so. "Auntie doesn't like his house, my mother doesn't like it either, and my granny's always saying their hearts aren't straight. But Top-Scholar's a junior, what can he do? He's a dull sort, and truly pitiful, do you know? When his house's four branches split, that grandfather of his, who bullies the weak and fears the strong, couldn't find a widow to remarry and didn't dare provoke his fourth uncle's house, so he sent people to have the boy come tend him in his sickness, saying he'd been beaten half to death over on our side.

"The boy means to go into office, and with filial duty pressing down from above, what could his mother do? He sends people with notes every day demanding money, and the two thousand strings in hand looked like it couldn't be held onto, so his mother could only take him and hurry to remarry, or else... a few more squeezings and they'd be out on the street begging."

Qi Qian'er was surprised. "It was for this?"

Meng Wanquan nodded. "Just so. Of the old Tao house's four daughters-in-law, Zhang-shi learned a bellyful of petty scheming from her mother-in-law. Hai! Who with any resource plays scheming games all day? In the old Tao house she's the only one willing to keep widowhood. Huang-shi and Guo-shi took their children and said they'd gone to a nunnery, and I don't believe that, who knows where they are now?

"Hai, and it's only right they'd go, the old Tao house was never so good to them, each house with its own troubles, and there was no help for it! The household split! And with two thousand four hundred strings and more of ready cash in hand, widows and orphans, how were they to live?"

Yu Shoutian nodded again and again. "Right, right, that's just what your nephew told him, however hard it is, eat first, you have to be alive before you can speak of anything else, isn't that so? Anyhow it's come to this, and even without a wedding-feast he's moved into the school with his mother. Old Master Feng's a good sort, when I went the old gentleman was still under the eaves fanning a fire to decoct his medicine."

Meng Wanquan took up the tea Qi Qian'er had poured and drank it off like an ox, wiped his mouth, and went on, "That old gentleman has great learning in him, and what's he after? Only that, grown old, he wants some warmth about his knee.

"Yes, Old Madam Tao parted from Zhou Xingfa back then, and could shelter her grandson, but now she's dead, and Zhou Xingfa's the only elder left. So what's his mother to do? Filial duty's great as heaven, and not remarry means being bullied! Caught easy every time, Zhou Xingfa bullies the weak and fears the strong, so without a backer she might as well dash her head on a wall. Master Feng was once a house-guest to Grand Tutor Li's family, and taught some able students, or the Tang house wouldn't have asked him to teach at the Three-Rites Academy. I thought you knew of this, and after all that you know nothing."

Qi Qian'er, taking up the fire-tongs to lift a lump of charcoal, said flatly, "I don't ask after her house's affairs, and they don't dare mention them before me."

Meng Wanquan laughed aloud. "Heh! I know you can't abide them, Old Madam Tao did have her little designs on us, but they came to nothing, and she's dead now, it's past, it's past! That boy Top-Scholar I watched grow up too, after a fashion, and no one has it easy, so let's just wish him well."

Yu Shoutian nodded. "Mm, his spirit was always high. Before, coming from the old city after school, in snowflakes that big, the whole road was our Quanhou Street carriages, and whose house wouldn't call him for a stretch? But he just wouldn't say, and I met him several times and felt... his house is just out the lane, and riding comfortably past made me feel awkward inside, so I, I brought him back. I knew his granny had her designs, but Auntie, I just felt..."

The boy too had learned to leave a sentence half-said.

Qi Qian'er loved to watch him grow, in mind and in heart alike, a very fine boy indeed.

So she poked his head with her hand and said, with a note of fondness, "You felt what? Say it and let me hear."

A plump little girl with a patch over one eye, holding a cloak, made her bow by the gate-wall. Everyone knew this girl, called A-luo.

After the war there were orphans everywhere, and the court could do nothing about it but leave them to their fate, and Old Madam Yu, grudging the money to buy servants, one day strolling the street brought this one-eyed girl home, named her A-luo, and kept her to wait at her side.

Qi Qian'er raised a brow, and a maid went to take the cloak and bring it in.

The maid came back with the cloak. "Mistress, it's Old Madam Yu, says the spring wind's cold and fears Brother Shou will take a chill."

Yu Shoutian laughed, and turned and called to A-luo at the gate, "Go on back, tell my granny and my mother I'm eating at my little aunt's today, and I'm dressed warm, I'll not take cold."

A-luo nodded and turned and ran off like the wind.

When she'd gone, Yu Shoutian said with a smile, "A-luo can eat five cakes and drink three big bowls of soup at a sitting, and my granny says it's a bad bargain, so now she only sends her running about."

A difficult old lady to a house, and Old Madam Yu was a bit of a pinchpenny, but kindly and dear in truth, and at least she wouldn't go out brawling in a mob.

Everyone laughed together, and Yu Shoutian shook out the cloak, and all saw at a glance four or five patches on it, neatly mended, with good cloth even, but patches all the same.

But Yu Shoutian wore it quite easily, and once it was on stroked it and sighed, "Truly warm, Auntie, look, my granny made it over from an old quilt at home, one each for my brother and me."

And they all laughed again. Every house had its old one, and your own family's, however she carried on, was good, and you'd indulge her. As for other houses, even the Emperor hadn't run off, and his house had two of them, and that was hard enough.

Dowager Zheng played the magnanimous one in the palace, and Dowager Jiang was fiercer still, playing the pitiful one outside it, carving at her son's heart day by day.

Qi Qian'er asked Shoutian again, "What do you make of his house's Top-Scholar now?"

Yu Shoutian blinked. "Oh, him, my father used to tell me, for a man to grow up is the matter of a single night. I went to see him just now, and the lad's eyes have gone hard. Later on, I'd say that grandfather of his, hmph, hmph..."

Qi Qian'er's mood was mixed, a release in her eyes and an indifference both.

Yu Shoutian had said he'd eat here, so the kitchen had to make careful ready for him, and when a small table of food was brought, Meng Wanquan and Qi Qian'er watched him eat.

Of Guard Lane's dozen-odd households, all the children were raised as one family's, and never mind Shoutian cadging a meal here, even the old lady, pinchpenny as she was, let Shoutian and the rest come out with bulging sleeves, and sometimes when she was pleased gave them a string of cash threaded on red.

Just as her mood was good, that tiresome man called Yang Zao sent people to the house again.

Lately he was always thus. In Guard Lane Qi Qian'er was with child, Zhang Wanru was with child, and a dozen days after Chen Dasheng and the rest left Chai-shi was too, three expectant women at once.

The Emperor had sent their men off on that death-errand, and with a whole lane of fat little girls and not a single boy, the Emperor too hoped Chen Dasheng and the rest would have an heir.

Guilty at heart, he often privately bestowed rich gifts, cloth and satin, clothes, silver, jewels, tonics, household goods... Qi Qian'er was not short of money, and some of these were useful, but some were a burden that had to be set up and kept.

Chang Lianfang came in the door smiling. "Sister-in-law, I'm here again!"

Not daring to give openly, each time Chang Lianfang went back to Qingfeng the Emperor had him carry the gifts over.

Though all of them their own people, Qi Qian'er still rose to receive the bestowal, but long without the awe of the first time, the second time.

Feeling the bundle soft and yielding, she asked, "Little Flower? What's this?"

"Eh? Oh! Our Sixth Immortal's little clothes from when he was small. Consort Xiao says his luck runs thick, so she's readied three pieces for your baby to wear. Sister-in-law, I've not eaten either, get me a share."

Chang Lianfang begged food without ceremony, and the kitchen, without waiting for Qi Qian'er's word, went to make ready again.

The fellow had driven off the servants his family gave him, kept only two guards living in the chessboard court, and farmed out even its cleaning to this side, and without ceremony brought his men every day to cadge a meal, either at Qi Qian'er's or at the old lady's.

He was the old lady's bona fide adopted grandson, and counted a proper young master of the house.

Pinchpenny as the old lady was, she doted on Little Flower, loving him as a true grandson, and this fellow could now and then cadge a few pieces of her moldy pastry.

Before long another small table of hot food was brought, and there being no strict rules in the house, the three of them sat in the little court, and talking of the war as they ate, Yu Shoutian, having caught Uncle Chang just back from putting down the revolt, asked his counsel:

"Little Uncle, our officers argued at the garrison today. Our chief was a cavalryman once, and he says mounted war has far more than ten advantages, no end of good in it, and I've read in the war-books too that mounted war has many advantages, swift as an awl-arrow, light and quick. But those Tan are all fine horsemen, coming and going like a drifting wind, and I, I fear this one may be hard for Great Liang to fight.

"Our cavalry here, I feel they're just that bit short, the Six Steeds Horse Farm's stock isn't up to it in the end, not as big as theirs. I'd have liked to ask about it, but our chief, seeing me, suddenly fell silent."

The boy was rather put out.

"Pfft..." Meng Wanquan couldn't hold back a laugh, and seeing the boy awkward said, "Silly lad! What's he to say to you? Your father and uncles, from the day they joined up, were in the horse-killing trade, the bane of the world's fiercest black cavalry! Any man who fights mounted war has nothing to say to you, and you'd still go crowding up to him?"

Yu Shoutian's face was all grievance. "What's wrong with listening? However fierce my father and the rest, they're only seven or eight men, and they've a host of thousands. Aren't I just worrying for Great Liang?"

Chang Lianfang swallowed his mouthful and laughed. "Worry my foot! We'd fight it without the old sabers all the same, we've had experience fighting cavalry since ancient times. The old sabers' kind of standing up to them head-on is only one way. Come find me when you're free one day, and I'll tell you what a horse-barring battle is, there's no end of fancy work in it.

"And don't you worry about the Tan getting in, they can't get in! Let them in and I'll do them to death! Hmph, who knows what the Emperor's thinking?

"Ai, it's the border folk who are pitiful... The Tan aren't fools, and mounted war most fears bad ground, and since Zuoliang Pass was lost, every city has its defenses against horse-war, and how many horse-barring formations have been set up besides? They can't afford so many dead either, and if they could come in freely those bastards would have come in long ago. It's the rainy season now, and for them to dare come in is just a death!"

Seeing Yu Shoutian unconvinced, Chang Lianfang pointed at Meng Wanquan. "Ask your uncle if it isn't so."

Yu Shoutian looked at Meng Wanquan, and Meng Wanquan glared at Chang Lianfang. "Don't you teach him wrong. A great army's every move and every pause must mind the weather and the ground, and the rainy season now easily mires the hooves, so it's truly unfit for a Tan invasion, but what of when the rains are past? Back in the Long Saber garrison, men like these we'd split into ten squads and harry at their heels in pieces, and no telling how many we wiped out. And you'd fight a horse-barring battle, and how much grain and fodder, how much material would that throw away?"

Chang Lianfang wouldn't have it. "My long-spear formation these few years wasn't drilled for nothing, you wait, tomorrow I'll go before the throne and ask for the war!"

Meng Wanquan didn't take him up, and went on teaching Yu Shoutian like a nephew. "In war and in life both there's a natural balance, everything has its bane, like the iron caltrops the Board of Works has been hurrying to the border cities of late, that's one way of it, only... Great Liang's just done putting down the revolt, and this fellow and his father did no little gorging and guzzling..."

Chang Lianfang lightly knocked Meng Wanquan's foot, and he started, looked at Qi Qian'er sitting silent to one side, and turned the subject for Yu Shoutian. "Ahem... has the military-exam teacher your father found for you arrived?"

Keen of ear as Qi Qian'er was, she fell in with the others and, feigning ignorance, asked Yu Shoutian, "Oh, Shoutian's to sit the military exam?"

Meng Wanquan nodded. "Just so, and this generation of theirs, no telling if it's good or bad, young and strong and well-off, which blunts the will to get on. The founding merits they can't scoop up, nor merit against the Tan, so what then? They started their books late and read little, and have no chance to whet their blades on the battlefield, so that craft's no good either.

"Ai, so they've to read the war-books properly with a real teacher, and at least make military-jinshi later, or what's to be done? Should the descendants of military merit coast a whole life as guards on their ancestors' face? In leading troops and fighting, there's a great difference between one who's read and one who hasn't, so a few proper war-books must be read..."

"The boy's not short of those few mouthfuls of bloody bread, and don't you go teaching him wrong, or the old granny will hear and fight you to the death! There are trades enough in this world to earn a living, and what if he doesn't hold office, and what if he does? If you ask me, nothing matters like being safe. A person has to be able to draw one great easy breath before anything else..."

Lu-shi's voice came from the courtyard gate, and looking up they saw Lu-shi come in smiling with a rosy little girl in her arms and her two sons behind her.

Lu-shi's two sons, one called You Chongjin, twelve this year, one called You Chongtian, nine this year, their father had died the night Qingfeng fell, trampled to death alive by the panicked crowd while shielding his family.

After Lu-shi married Meng Wanquan, the two children got the benefit of entering the Three-Rites Academy, the best school in Qingfeng prefecture, though a family of merchant registration could not let its sons and grandsons sit the examinations.

Meng Wanquan smiled to see Lu-shi, swept his daughter up in his one arm onto his knee and kissed her twice, then looked up and patiently asked the two boys, "School let out early today?"

He'd seen great life and great death, and took the matter of heirs lightly. Lu-shi had brought the two children with her, and he'd never asked them to change their surname, and got on with them quite well.

The two boys made their bows and greetings to their stepfather, and the elder said, "The teacher said there's a happy event at home and a feast to be laid, so he let out school."

Meng Wanquan nodded, turned to look at Yu Shoutian, and said, "I'll say, your word was some use after all. You go over and the old gentleman has a happy event at home."

Qi Qian'er glared at him. "The children are still young, what are you saying such things for? And what if he can't make his peace with it? A person has to go on living."

Then she said to Lu-shi with a smile, "The day after tomorrow our Little Seven's father opens a new class at the Imperial College, send Chongtian and the rest to have a look. A boy should get about more, his horizons should be the wider."

Lu-shi, overjoyed, sat on the stool a maid brought and said with a smile, "Oh, that's a fine thing, but my two... can they go?"

Chang Lianfang set down his bowl and chopsticks, rinsed his mouth, and said with a smile, "Others going might not even get in the door, but these are Guard Lane children, proper kin, so why can't they go? Go, then!"

Qi Qian'er rolled her eyes at him. "Listen to you preen. You're of the chessboard court, you're not our Guard Lane's..."

But before her words were out, a scream came suddenly from next door and startled them all.

Before anyone else could react, Meng Wanquan, his daughter in his arms, was already sitting atop the wall, and bawled toward Master Cheng's house, "What's the matter? That sound doesn't seem right to us..."

Before long Snow-aunt's voice, with a fluster in it she didn't know herself, said from over there, "It's, it's the Cheng household going into labor... it's, it's nothing!"

Lu-shi and Qi Qian'er exchanged a look, and Qi Qian'er, carrying two bodies, couldn't go next door, so Lu-shi sprang up and hurried out saying, "Meng Wanquan! Come down quick, a grown man and climbing the wall with your daughter in your arms. I'll go find the old lady, it's nothing, it's nothing..."

In the delivery room Madam Cheng was drenched in sweat and not making a sound, and Master Cheng sat outside the delivery room, his whole face in tears...