Chapter 37

Half a chicken bone landed on Chen Siniu's foot. He kept his head down, humble, and said nothing.

The chewing in the hall lashed at his heart like a whip, stroke on stroke. Then the page who'd taken the silver-pouch came out from the back and murmured a few words in Shangguan Yizhi's ear. The battalion commander seemed to choke. He coughed hard and grumbled: "Damn it! Nearly choked me. Who cooked this?"

The hall went quiet again. Chen Siniu, not knowing what had happened, bent his back lower in fear.

A long while later the battalion commander coughed a few times and gave a dry laugh.

"Heh, heh, ha ha... ha ha ha! Aiya! My Captain Chen! Brother Chen!"

He rose at last, walked step by step to Chen Siniu, stood silent a moment, then took the bent man by both arms and lifted him up, warm as could be: "Aiya, Brother Chen! I've slighted you! Time after time, why do you keep doing this? It's too much. I thought our friendship had come far enough that you'd just bring a box of pastries for me to try. What's all this? Treating me like a stranger, aren't you?"

Chen Siniu looked up, dumbfounded. Long years of grovelling had cost him the ordinary man's way of reading things. Whatever happened, he thought the worst.

Could it be? The battalion commander didn't want to help after all.

Fear seized him. His insides burned to ash in an instant. His knees gave, and he was about to kneel again. But the battalion commander hauled him up by main force, warmly dragged him off to a small side parlor, and once inside called out order on order: "Someone! Someone! You dull-eyed lot, I'm faint with hunger from all this business. Are you handling business too? Pack of plague-cats, someone, someone! Bring Captain Chen tea, quick! And fetch two liang of your mistress's loose-leaf tea."

Fine loose leaves floated in costly porcelain. A cup like that made a man afraid to touch it. Chen Siniu didn't dare drink. He only looked at the battalion commander, eager and anxious.

But the battalion commander's face, bearded, always careless of the small courtesies, had turned refined today. He was deep in thought, his eyes shifting about. Now and then his gaze crossed Chen Siniu's, and he'd put out a hand: "Oh, drink, drink."

Then he went back to his thinking.

No telling how long he pondered. Chen Siniu's sweat dried and soaked through and dried again, over and over. At last the battalion commander set down his teacup and called out: "Someone! Bring brush and ink."

The page who'd taken the silver brought brush, ink, paper, and stone. In the little parlor the battalion commander took up the brush and wrote a letter. He blew it dry, folded it, put it in an envelope, sealed it with wax, and handed it to Chen Siniu, who had got to his feet:

"Ai. All these years, none of it's been easy. We staked our heads following the Emperor, and it's come out well enough for us all. You, Captain Chen, have toiled long and hard under me too. Your house has an old mother, and Zuoliang Pass is ten thousand li off. Ai, it's a dutiful heart. I know it well."

Chen Siniu didn't know what was happening, but habit answered for him. He thanked him at once: "Thank you, my lord, for your kindness."

The battalion commander waved a hand: "Hai! Kindness, nothing. Every man has his hardships. I've looked after you as best I could these years. You know well enough what happens to a man who flinches before the enemy!"

The battalion commander fixed him with a stare, and Chen Siniu, in a cold sweat, slowly knelt.

When he was down and settled, the battalion commander smiled faintly and lifted him up again: "Ai, it's hard on me too. I needn't tell you word for word what they said below. Sheltering you, I took a good deal of blame, and let those small men make trouble for me above. But what of it? We've both come through alive to now, haven't we? Ha ha ha!"

Chen Siniu had no idea how to meet this scene, no idea how to meet such warmth. He could only mumble apologies.

The battalion commander had a great deal to say today. Holding the letter, he reminisced about old times, and cursed Tan Shiyuan roundly for the space of half an incense-stick.

At last he did give Chen Siniu the letter. He clapped him on the shoulder and steered him toward the door, saying as they went: "Aiya, Brother Chen, that thing you asked of me, I've thought it over. Ai, it's hard on me, truly hard! Even if I'd a way, I can't defy a military order! And Captain Li, how many years has he followed me? He has to march this time too. Ai, this is a hard business..."

At the door, a carriage already stood quietly outside the battalion. Seeing them come out, the driver hurried to set down the step-stool.

Chen Siniu had never been treated so. A carriage to see him off?

He was terrified. He wouldn't get in for anything, and clung to the shaft, trying to kneel.

But the battalion commander stuffed the silver-pouch and the letter both into Chen Siniu's breast and pushed him up into the carriage: "Brother, don't be afraid! For friendship's sake, I can't take this of yours, whatever else. Aiya, a man must have a conscience, don't you think?"

Chen Siniu pleaded: "My lord, I have a conscience, I have a conscience! Every season, all year round, your servant has a conscience, my lord!!"

The battalion commander only smiled, pushed him bodily into the carriage, and shoved him inward: "Yes. Your conscience I've always known. Rest easy! I'll see to the matter for you!"

Struggling, Chen Siniu suddenly went still. He gripped the carriage-frame and looked foolishly at the battalion commander, his voice all pleading: "My lord, you see my conscience. Whatever else, save your servant."

He held out the silver-pouch again, but the battalion commander took it and tossed it into the carriage.

The battalion commander pointed at the letter: "Rest easy, Brother Chen. That's a letter of recommendation to my brother-in-law. He's a Vice-Director at the Ministry of Works in Yanjing now. Take this letter and go straight to him. You're a seventh-grade Resolute Captain under me. At the Ministry of Works they'll surely fix you up at the same grade, with a real post, junior seventh at the least. You'll not lose a thing."

Chen Siniu couldn't believe it. He gave a startled "Ah!" and went on staring, baffled, at the battalion commander.

The battalion commander brushed the dust off his hands: "And when the day comes that Lord Chen rises high, if your luck holds and you climb clear to the golden throne-hall, why, I may have to bring my conscience to you! Well then, we'll part here. Safe journey, Lord Chen, Brother Chen!"

He cupped his hands carelessly, slapped the mule's rump, and watched Chen Siniu recede, dumbstruck.

Only when the carriage was out of sight did the battalion commander spit, put his hands behind his back, and walk to the rear court.

The moment he was inside, he said to his wife: "A thing this big, and you didn't tell me sooner?"

His wife smiled, packed away all the "conscience" she'd gathered that day into the cabinet, then turned to him: "I thought he wasn't coming. Who'd have guessed he doesn't even know his own family's business? Funny, really. His house has a ladder to the very top now, so why come begging you?"

She lifted the teapot and filled his cup: "Has our general lost his little money-jar today? Is he sulking?"

The battalion commander didn't take the tea. He pulled his wife onto his knee: "Call me battalion commander! You don't even say 'general' now. Hmph. I've money-jars to spare. I'll not miss that one clinking. Every time you have to smash it to shake the coins out, and it wearies me. Never mind that fellow's a sorry bird, his nephew I truly like. Ai! Not the same breed as this fool bird at all!

"Back in that fool Tan the Second's day, I wanted to pull the nephew over. No use, even Tan Shiyuan couldn't lay a hand on the Long Saber men, so I could only watch the Tan house waste them. And now he's caught the Emperor's eye. That! That's just as it should be. I love a story like that best. Truly, our sovereign is wise! Ha ha ha, that fool Tan the Elder, I could die laughing. Tomorrow when old Tan Shouyi goes over, heh heh! I could grow wings and fly to Yanjing, my dear wife!"

His wife put a lotus-white arm round the battalion commander and gave his beard a tug. He yowled a string of protests, and made to swat her, but she dodged, laughing: "You send that fellow to my brother, and you're easy about it? Not afraid he'll really rise high and bite you back?"

The battalion commander caught the wench and gave her rump a flurry of slaps, then laughed: "If that small man went to any post in the Ministry of War, I'd worry. But the Ministry of Works! Him! A bond-slave born, can't read a character, can't do a sum, the coward. That's the Ministry of Works' money-sluice, and once he's on civil ground, two 'poor' marks in the reviews, and let's see him then! Rise high, indeed. Dream on!"

Chen Siniu didn't know he'd fallen into their scheme. He only felt heaven had rained down fortune. All the way he sat clutching the letter like a fool, looking now and then at the full silver-pouch. And at last he couldn't hold it in. As if let out of a cage, he burst into loud sobs.

---

Chen Dasheng stayed home five days. On the last morning, when Qi Qian'er had cooked, he carried two bowls out to go visiting.

They each had a home now, so the wretches had begged a set of bedding from their little sister-in-law and rolled it off to their own houses.

Once they had a den, a man settled. Their thoughts and their doings changed on the instant.

Before, a full belly one day meant the whole family unafraid. As for marrying and setting up house, with no elder beside them to fret and prod, the thought never rose. Now their little sister-in-law had said that once the world steadied, a year or two off, they'd all be fathers sooner or later. Glad at heart, they put their brute strength to work. They didn't go out at all, just swept their houses, papered the roofs, mended the courtyard walls, each keener than the next.

Only Chen Dasheng was idle every day, so idle he could have rolled about on the roof.

The spinning about disgusted him, so Qi Qian'er packed him off to a hidden spot up Mount Baiquan behind the settlement, to strip bark and carry it home each day.

The bark he stripped was elm bark. Dried and ground to powder, it could be mixed into bean flour, white flour, coarse flour, and eaten.

In war and chaos and disaster, by rights such edible bark could never have survived. But Meng Wanquan and the rest had pitched camp here, so no one dared go into the hills behind them. Seven or eight li in was a hidden place with a great stand of elms.

His wife knew far too much, which left Chen Dasheng uneasy. And since he was leaving today, he used the visiting as an excuse and carried his bowl to Meng Wanquan's house, one gate down.

Meng Wanquan was home, as expected, splitting firewood.

Plenty in the army played with blades: straight sabers, curved sabers, waist-sabers, and Chen Dasheng's long saber. But however they played, none could match the short-inch snap of Meng Wanquan's short blade.

A row of sawn logs stood on the ground. The foot-and-a-half short saber spun in the crook of his single elbow, a flicker of shadow. The moment the hilt met his hand, a light lift, four chops, no effort at all, and it fell into eight pieces, each the same size, the cut faces smooth as a sawyer had sawn them, a joiner given them a first pass.

"Fine hand, Big Brother."

Chen Dasheng praised him, set his bowl on a log, and squatted nearby to eat.

"What's the meal?"

"Noodles."

Glad to see his brother, Meng Wanquan set the saber aside, squatted by the log too, took up chopsticks, and dug in.

Eating, he said: "Fine hand, nothing! A long saber's out of the question with one arm. But splitting firewood's easy enough. It's the work of one chop, and it earns me a bowl of rice at least."

He shoveled in two more mouthfuls and looked up: "Back home, thank little Hua'er for me. Say I owe him this. If he hadn't put his weight behind me, never mind guarding a medicine-store, with this crippled arm I'd have had a few taels of silver and been sent packing."

Chen Dasheng nodded: "We're brothers. There's time ahead."

"When do you go?"

"After the meal. Next time back, I'll have to look at the work over there."

"It can't be worse than the old fear for your life. And Yanjing's no distance, half a morning on foot, an hour at a gallop."

"Mm."

Both brothers had great bellies. The bowls, a little smaller than a washbasin, were drained of soup in no time.

Days now, a whole crowd had eaten at the Chen house, and every meal the chopsticks could turn up meat in the bowl.

With meat, a meal was good. Meng Wanquan finished full of vigor. He bent, took up the saber, and went back to splitting wood. Chen Dasheng squatted to one side and made small talk.

Meng Wanquan had once been Chen Dasheng's lead saber, the one lead saber who'd lived, of all before him. So Chen Dasheng held him in great respect.

He said: "Brother, the Emperor's granted our chiefs a burial ground. He says they'll be interred next spring. When the time comes, should we brothers scrape together some silver, send someone to carry it back, and help out their households?"

Meng Wanquan nodded without hesitating: "Good! Heaven has eyes, the Emperor didn't choose wrong this time. Tell your wife: draw fifty taels a year from my share and send it back to them. That's all we can manage now. When times are better, more. When the pay's up, we'll help more. Only, do you remember where their homes are?"

Chen Dasheng nodded: "You gave me the locks of hair, but you never told me where home was, not for the lead sabers before you. The ones after, those I know."

Meng Wanquan set down the saber, bent, and gathered an armful of firewood to carry inside.

He came out in a moment: "I've no good head like yours. I can't remember. Lucky I lost this arm, else I'd be like them now."

Chen Dasheng looked at him and smiled: "Brother, what do you want with a whole house of firewood?"

Meng Wanquan smiled too: "Nothing. My money's all gone to your wife. This house is too big, and if I don't fill it, my heart won't sit right. I've five hundred cash in hand, what can you buy? Then I thought, right! I'll pile it full of firewood, and my heart'll be easy."

The two brothers laughed together. Not just Meng Wanquan, the others were the same, roaming the settlement like beasts all day, hunting for anything. Even a millstone nobody wanted, they'd quietly haul into their own yard to keep.

Meng Wanquan wasn't like them. He had to keep up a bit of dignity, so he could only split wood and pile it.

Neither brother said much. Meng Wanquan chopped a while more, then looked up, saw Chen Dasheng hadn't gone, and, puzzled, dropped the saber and sat down beside him: "What is it? Something to tell your brother?"

Chen Dasheng pinched his nose and nodded. He did have something.

These days, everything was done for him the moment he rose. Like a three-year-old, his wife combed his hair each day, brought him food and drink, saw to him top to bottom. His clothes were so fragrant, his quilt so soft, his shoes so snug, his food so hot. His whole body was full of strength, and he felt he had to try, had to put his back into it, to protect days this good.

But however he strained, that house had no place for his hand. He was like a spare ornament. His wife did everything, and he was left a hale lord with crippled hands, drifting through each day.

If his wife hadn't sent him up the hill to strip bark, he thought he'd go mad.

Other men had wives too. Why was his wife like this?

He treasured how able she was. But her ability was more than he could grasp, a sharp, high-flying kind, not like his granny's. It made a man love her, and made a man lost. He wanted to come near, and felt afraid.

Chen Dasheng couldn't say how to name the feeling, so he came to Meng Wanquan, who was cleverer than him.

He cocked his head, looked at the sky a good while, and at last worked out a few words: "Brother, my wife. I just feel she's very good. But even so, I can't get hold of her. Am I just full and idle and making trouble for myself?"

He looked at Meng Wanquan, earnest: "I don't even know what I want to say. Do you follow?"

Meng Wanquan turned to look at him, then finally lifted his arm and gave him a shove that near knocked him over, laughing loud. When he'd laughed himself out, he leaned lazily against the wall behind him, thought a while, and said: "You still haven't seen it? Your wife, she's a bit like Tan the Second."

Chen Dasheng was alarmed: "What! Tan the Second? Tan Shize?"

Meng Wanquan nodded, certain: "Mm. The same kind. Both able. Both strong-willed. Neither will lose an inch to anyone. Tan the Second had a whole body of skill too, but no humanity. He flaunted it, always wanting to show he'd beaten Tan the Elder. Your wife's not like that. Your wife has a whole body of skill, and she hides it. She and Tan the Second, both were raised squeezed in a head-wife's grip. Think it over, isn't that the truth of it?"

Chen Dasheng didn't understand. In his circumstances, affording one wife was hard enough. A couple of wives? Was that not madness?

Seeing him lost, Meng Wanquan went on: "The day your wife came, I was there, standing beside your granny. For days after, I kept turning it over. If I'd been a little bolder, if I'd staked it all, if I'd had your granny's eye, your wife would be my wife now."

Chen Dasheng started, and glared at him.

But Meng Wanquan said, smiling: "You didn't see it. Her legal mother had her by the scruff, like a chick. Dragged her up to your granny and opened with the selling price."

At that, thinking of his wife's fierce, unyielding streak, and of her being so shamed, Chen Dasheng felt a stab of pain.

Meng Wanquan sniffed: "In a great house, a child not born of the head-wife is livestock. They beat you when they please, kill you when they please. Think what will and what skill Tan the Second had, and even he was driven mad. Your wife held it in. On that one score, Tan the Second falls far short of your wife! She endured all the way until her legal mother sold her off. You didn't see it. The very day, she turned round and settled that legal mother's account..."

Chen Dasheng didn't know of it. So he listened as Meng Wanquan told how Qi Qian'er dealt with her legal mother, how she turned things round and worked over her natal house, how she scraped that house dry and built up the Chen family's days. And he sat stunned. So his wife was far more fearsome than he'd thought.

Meng Wanquan's admiration ran deep, his voice full of wonder: "Hmph! That day, when it was done, your granny still balked, said she was too thin. And the woman said your wife could read. Only then did the deal go through. Ha! For a wife like yours, ten strings of cash? Fifty jin of grain? Dream on! A wife like yours is worth ten thousand jin of grain. But her legal mother never knew that besides her letters, she had a whole body of skill! Think what an iron will it took. If Doctor Cheng hadn't reminded us after, your granny might not even have known to give her a marriage contract. The deal was for a body-slave's bond, remember. Hmph! A wife like yours, and your house dared buy her home?"

A visible cold sweat broke on Chen Dasheng's brow.

Meng Wanquan clapped his shoulder, envy plain in his voice: "Brother, count your blessings. If she hadn't hidden her skill, would she have come to your house? Believe me, her legal mother could have traded her for a golden carriage and ridden the clouds home.

"No knowing what the girl was thinking. Maybe she just wanted an honest, dutiful family, a house of simple fools like ours, few mouths, some human warmth to it. That's why she stooped to us.

"She came to be in charge. So let her be in charge! You understand nothing, and there's no one else in your house who can manage. Count your blessings! What days do you have now? All of it on her back. As for her nature, don't go by how she lords it over us at home, whole cartloads of talk. That's for her own people! Out of your house, out of this lane, before a stranger, she won't spare a spare word. Hmph! What, you've got complaints? Want to be in charge? Dream on! Tired of living!"

Hearing Meng Wanquan out, Chen Dasheng grew awkward. He looked up at his big brother: "Brother, what are you thinking? I just feel she won't let me do a thing, and it grates on me. Home again, I drift about all day, know nothing of the house, and she talks nothing over with me. So what does she want me for?"

Meng Wanquan stood, set the logs in a row, spun the saber, chopped four times, the wood scattered with a clatter, and said, satisfied: "What for! Be her son when she wants a son, her grandson when she wants a grandson. Curry favor at home, sweeten your mouth, and on the kang serve her with all your strength! I don't believe she could bear to give you up. Fool!"

Then he grinned, teasing, and said to Chen Dasheng: "Good brother? If you're not satisfied, I'm willing! Give her to me. I'll hand you my few hundred taels, and I'll be little sister-in-law's grandson instead..."

He hadn't finished before Chen Dasheng sprang up, kicked him, and shouted: "Rubbish, dream on! I'm off!"

And he stalked away.

Meng Wanquan turned that day over and over in his mind. At last he stood a row of logs up and chopped at them, hard.

He was putting his back into it when someone beside him said softly: "Brother Meng, how do you do it?"

Meng Wanquan started and spun round in a fluster. No one? He looked down, and there was Qi Qian'er, crouched, holding two empty bowls, gazing raptly at the wood on the ground.

She'd seen a hand this clean before. That Eunuch Liao was the same, nothing wasted, one stroke out, snack!, done.

And now Meng Wanquan the same. A few chops, a clatter, and done...

Meng Wanquan drew a cold breath and asked, still shaken: "Sister-in-law, when did you come?"

Qi Qian'er crouched there and held up the bowls: "Just now. That pig delivered the food and returned two of our bowls, so I came in, just as you were chopping this."

She couldn't put it into words, so she made a blade of her hand and swept it down hard: "Brother! How do you do it? I can split wood too, and it's no strain. But it's not crisp like yours. I can't make it come out so clean. Brother Meng, how do you do it?"

Meng Wanquan never dreamed she'd ask about that. He held up the saber: "This?"

Qi Qian'er nodded hard: "Yes, this. I feel you've got a knack. Teach me? There's a leg of mutton at home still. Teach me, and I'll stew it to thank you."

Meng Wanquan snorted a laugh: "Sister-in-law, you'd learn this from me? Your Scabby's far better at it than I am."

Qi Qian'er shook her head: "He's different. He uses a different kind of strength than you. Not so quick and clean. I want to learn yours, a chop, and it falls apart. Mm, like that..."

She made the motion again, rapt with longing.

Chen Dasheng got home and stewed in his temper a good while. He watched his wife go out, and then she didn't come back.

Clumsy he might be, but he could think deep too, thank you. So, in a cold sweat, he rushed out, and when he reached Meng Wanquan's yard, Meng Wanquan was stacking wood for his wife to play with, a whole heap piled higher than a man.

Steadying his breath, Chen Dasheng put on an unconcerned look, stepped in, walked over with his hands behind his back, and asked, easy: "Ha, what are you at? Qian'er?"

Qi Qian'er glanced at him and went back to studying the wood.

Chen Dasheng went on: "Oh! Playing with wood, are you? Come home and play with wood, we've got wood too..."

"Don't make trouble. Listen to Brother Meng."

Qi Qian'er rolled her eyes at him and stayed fixed on the wood.

Meng Wanquan, glowing as if oiled all over with mutton-fat, said to Qi Qian'er: "Sister-in-law, when I lost my arm, I was good for nothing, couldn't so much as lift a bowl. Later the officer said, you've done hard service, it'd be a shame to send you home, so help run the infirmary camp..."

Qi Qian'er cut in: "Too much talk! Just tell me about this wood."

Chen Dasheng nodded along, that's right, too much talk.

Meng Wanquan shot him a look: "Hai. That day, by chance, splitting wood again, I found it. There's a point in the wood. Find that point, and whatever you're doing, it's the work of one stroke."

Poor Qi Qian'er had a nimble mind too, but think as she might, she couldn't grasp what this "point" was.

Seeing they didn't understand, Meng Wanquan pointed proudly at the heap of wood: "Sister-in-law, pull out those few on top."

Qi Qian'er stood and pulled a few logs off the top, looking at Meng Wanquan.

Meng Wanquan, grave as an old scholar: "Doesn't fall, does it?"

Qi Qian'er nodded, grudging: "Mm."

"Now pull out a few from the middle."

Qi Qian'er pulled some logs from the middle, and half the pile came down.

Meng Wanquan said: "Down came half, eh?"

Chen Dasheng put in, helpless: "Brother, what are you getting at?"

Meng Wanquan ignored him and said to Qi Qian'er: "Look here."

He put out a foot and kicked at the bottom of the jumbled heap. One log shot out, struck the wall opposite, bounced to the ground, and the whole high pile came crashing down.

That log was not big. Thin and small.

Qi Qian'er stared a long while, and said, with real awe in her voice: "Brother Meng, how did you kick it? How did you know which one held the weight?"

Meng Wanquan bent, picked up a thick log, hefted it, and smiled: "How I kicked it, I can't quite say. I just found, everything in this world, if you want to break it, you don't need more force. You find the support, the point, send the strength there, and it all comes apart... like this."

He tossed the thick log up, whipped the saber from his waist quick as thought, even had time to spin it twice on his wrist-bone, and as the log fell to waist-height, he pushed the edge up against it, light: "Just so. No strain, and it's in two."

The thick log fell to the ground in halves.

He looked back at Chen Dasheng: "Back in the Long Saber Battalion, when they were young and had no strength and couldn't chop through, they worked at this a while too. When the iron cavalry came riding down, and they had to dodge aside, they'd look for the point on a man's armor. However thick the plate, find that point, flick the blade in, and the armor falls apart on the instant. Then it's easy to cut. The man's got no cover, and it's two halves..."

He'd have gone on, but he saw Chen Dasheng clap both hands over Qi Qian'er's ears and start steering her out.

Walking her off, Chen Dasheng glared at Meng Wanquan: "The good things you could teach, and you teach her this! What's she to learn it for? She's not going to charge the front..."

Qi Qian'er let him lead her, murmuring, rapt, as she went: "Mm. A point? A support. What support?"

Chen Dasheng, in a cold sweat, had nothing in his head but the picture of his wife swinging a blade and himself falling into two halves.