Chapter 38

Early this morning the old lady was scattered and jumpy. Her wits were nowhere. Then off she went to the infirmary camp to get someone to fetch her this year's first almanac from the Bureau of Astronomy, and she made Qi Qian'er pick the hour.

If the old lady hadn't reminded her, Qi Qian'er wouldn't have thought of it. Only when the almanac came did she remember. A whole household was setting out. Of course you must pick a lucky hour for it to go well.

She stopped short all of a sudden and stared blankly at the window-lattice a good while. Then she laughed at herself. Wasn't this the very thing she'd always prayed for? All at once she had a whole bustling household.

Yes, yes. She must pick a good hour to send Lord Chen back to Yanjing.

Grandmother and granddaughter pored over it on the kang a long while, and settled on the first quarter of the si hour to send them off.

The si hour wasn't so cold, and not so fierce with heat. Step out the door, and the sun would climb along with their road, warmer and warmer. An hour at a gallop to Yanjing, and reaching the gate there, it would be exactly high noon, the wu hour, the sun blazing overhead.

At the good hour they left the house and left the lane. Chen Dasheng and the rest reined in at the settlement gate. The women gathered round again, gazing on, envious, but they didn't come near anymore.

These days some had had letters from home. But most families still waited for word of their own that never came.

They often thought: these men have made good. Will I have days like this too someday? But as the letters grew fewer, some had come down to a single wish. They wanted nothing else. Only that their man come home.

The men had changed back into the clothes they'd come in. Silently they looked at the home behind them. It was a home now. When they'd be back, no telling. But back they would come.

Meng Wanquan drove up a cart. He was going to Yanjing too.

They'd come with only the clothes on their backs and a little savings. But going, Qi Qian'er and the old lady had loaded them a cartful.

Theirs was a plain household, and everything that changed hands was Qi Qian'er's dowry, so of course what these men carried off was their little sister-in-law's things too.

The old lady could hardly bear it. They weren't all her own grandsons. But Qi Qian'er insisted on giving, and the old lady had no say, so she could only ache in secret.

Meng Wanquan's cart was piled full. Brass kettles to boil water, wooden basins to wash faces, bamboo tea-things for guests, thick winter bedding, spare bed-sheets, lacquered pails to draw water, combs, brass mirrors to set the hair by, little knives to trim a beard, seven rolls of matting, seven cut wool felt-pads against the damp, and a mismatched set of black-glazed bowls and dishes to eat from. There was nowhere to buy such things now.

She feared these few would have nothing, and, wanting for the very tools of daily use, would have to go begging one thing after another. Ask too often, and a man is worth less for it.

The house had nothing very fine either. But it was no small thing to be able to fit them out with a whole set. After all, they were going off to be officials, and some appearances had to be kept.

Qi Qian'er hung a little bundle on Chen Dasheng's saddle and charged him: "Some habits have to go. You're grown men, seven great heaven-propping fellows, and every day wiping your noses on your sleeves. These are the cloth handkerchiefs I've cut and hemmed these few days. I don't ask much, but you Registrar-lords, spare your sleeves at least."

Chen Dasheng's face went hot with shame. The three or more speeches of thanks he'd prepared all night vanished on the instant.

And tenderness? To the devil with it!

He nodded, then looked at the old lady standing silent by the millstone. He went over, lifted his robe to kneel, and the old lady caught him at once, glared, and scolded: "I'm not dead yet! What do I want with your kowtow? These, these are new clothes, satin at that. You'll dirty them! And they're no easy wash. Can't you learn to mind your things? Day in, day out, can you never let a body's heart rest!"

What little warm, sticky kin-feeling Chen Dasheng had left scattered like smoke. He couldn't be sad now, couldn't grieve if he tried.

Fine, then. Off he'd go!

The old lady glared at him again: "Truly it's no distance?"

Chen Dasheng nodded: "I'll be back. An hour at a gallop."

The old lady nodded and muttered: "Good you'll be back, good you'll be back." Then she looked up: "How many days will you be gone?"

Chen Dasheng nodded: "Not many. A fortnight at most, and I'll be home."

"Oh, that's good, that's good!" The old lady smiled, crossed her legs, and climbed back onto the millstone, forgetting even the little cushion great ladies use.

The send-off party was lively. Many people, many smiles, and much talk. And at some point, out of the settlement, came a good little girl, toddling and swaying, a small basket on her back.

It was Xique. No telling what her mother had told her. She wove past the crowd, and, going nowhere in particular, went to look at the familiar-faced women standing there. A quick-tongued one pointed: "Go on, go on, your brother's over there."

So Xique, finger in her mouth, wobbled over beside Chen Dasheng and the rest. But her eyes were on the old lady.

Seeing her, the old lady got down off the millstone. And when she saw the dozen-odd boiled eggs in the little basket on Xique's back, she curled her lip, and said to Chen Dasheng: "Take them! Eat them on the road. She owes us, after all. What of eating a few of her eggs!"

Chen Dasheng smiled, and didn't stand on ceremony. He bent, picked up the dozen-odd eggs, shared them out among his brothers, and put the last into Xique's hand.

Of course Xique knew this was a good thing. She held it up, smiling, then carried it over to the old lady, not to give it to her, but to have it peeled.

The old lady doted on the child, and thought nothing of it. Still grumbling, she said: "You little imp, you know what's good to eat. A rare thing, that thunderstruck mother of yours being generous once, and your brother never got one, but into your mouth it goes."

She cracked the shell, peeled out the white, broke it in two, took Xique up onto the millstone, and set her in her lap to eat, sheltered from the wind.

Xique held up the egg-white to the old lady's mouth. The old lady made to take a bite, and froze. She lifted her head and stole a careful look at her grandson. But her grandson was busy talking to his wife and didn't look at her.

The old lady slowly let out a breath, then heaved a heavy sigh.

Chen Dasheng said to Qi Qian'er: "Fourth uncle, he'll be back sooner or later. And then the old lady will be in a hard spot."

Once you've been a mother, how can you not understand the old lady's heart.

Qi Qian'er said, quite unbothered: "What the old lady does is no business of mine! They're mother and son by blood. If there's grief, it's surely more than the little that shows. If the old lady can hold it in and not tell me, I'd be mad to take it on my own shoulders.

"Let her cry it out, make a scene. Would the old lady drive her own son to death over silver? An elder's affairs are for the elder to settle. I'll just look after the old lady well and live my own life."

Chen Dasheng nodded. He'd spoken his true heart, and he said: "You've had it hard. Truly, no one blames granny. In the old days we didn't know either whether we'd ever come back. That money was scraped up on the road, and we only thought, better not let it go to outsiders. As for fourth uncle. He thinks we don't know."

Qi Qian'er's eyes went round in an instant.

Chen Dasheng's ever-honest face wore a rare edge of scorn: "If we don't know, he's the one with the guilty heart. If we knew, and it came to a falling-out, what then? Drag him before the great lord to have his head cut off? Not knowing, they treat the old lady a little better. My grandfather used to say too: an elder who doesn't act like one loses his standing. I think Brother Stinky-melon and the others feel the same as me."

Qi Qian'er was astonished: "You, you truly knew? And still gave it, time after time?"

Had they lost their minds?

Chen Dasheng scratched his head: "Mm! Brother Stinky-melon and the rest likely know it finer than I do. Me, I'm poor at the hidden things. But their posts sat right by the central army, and my cousin's husband is sharper than us, with wider news. Last year, passing through, he even gave me a sheepskin vest, and we spoke of this then.

"My cousin's husband said: the hills are high, the road long, the war uncertain, no knowing how many days your head stays on. Both branches have only this one old lady left. If it went badly, no telling who'd get the good of it. If fourth uncle and his wife have any shame at all, that's something. For the silver's sake, if we all die, there'll still be someone to put on the mourning-sackcloth for the old lady and see her off properly. We can't read, but we're not fools. Fourth uncle's name rings loud in the army. Chen Fear-Death, who doesn't know it."

So that was it. That was it! No wonder the cousins and their wives, coming home to visit, never once raised the matter, while Chen Siniu and his wife were humble every time, not the least like elders.

Back then she'd thought it was because they had a fat post in the central army, and the fourth branch was simply currying favor with the better-placed.

Who could have guessed. The others simply couldn't be bothered to reckon it up, and on that one thing held the fourth branch down for life.

In those days, so long as the house had an elder, the house was still a house. But once granny was gone, none of them ever had dealings again.

Qi Qian'er wanted to ask Scabby: then why did you never tell me? But a thought came, and she only sighed inside.

Yes. When kin cheat kin, there has to be a step down for the heart. For the old lady's face, for the dead parents' faces, for the blood's face, you bear it, and bear it.

But who was she? No kin, no tie, and not a scrap of old feeling between them. The old lady was cheated first by her own son, then squeezed by her daughter-in-law. Stripping the dead, sewing and mending stitch by stitch, saving copper by copper a little of her own, only for her legal mother to make off with the better half.

Ten strings of cash, fifty jin of grain squeezed from between the teeth, and in return a girl like her, good for nothing. How could they forgive it? That was the real hatred!

When it all came out, it was she who bore the great sin, the one who lived by sucking the old lady's blood.

Yet she wouldn't have it. She'd always thought: I served your elder, I raised your son, how can you have no conscience?

No wonder that however wronged she felt, however she tried to make it up, she never won their pardon.

Chen Dasheng led the horse slowly out, and Qi Qian'er walked with him.

Looking at the far hills, Chen Dasheng told her his heart: "I used to ask, always: by what right? By what right was it our village the flood drowned? By what right the bandits harmed our people! By what right was it always us who came to grief? Was Heaven blind? So many idle men to prey on, and it was we who got tricked. But later I stopped asking."

He stopped and looked at Qi Qian'er: "The truth is, there's no 'by what right' in this world at all!"

Qi Qian'er lifted her face and smiled at him. Seeing his belt askew, she reached over and straightened it.

Strange. They were beginning to share their hearts.

Chen Dasheng rarely said so much. Today it came out smoothly.

"My cousin's husband said some things back then. He's older than me, and he'd seen more, so he thought further ahead. I turned his words over afterward, and there was sense in them. As long as fourth uncle lives, the old lady is a woman with a son, and our house isn't a house short a gate.

"However much we want to be good to the old lady, we can't step over the son who holds the gate.

"That's surely how the old lady sees it too. However she grumbles, out in the world she'll never say one word against her son. It's always: one unfilial soul at home, and the whole house is called unfilial out in the world. Outsiders only see that you're bad. They'll never sort out who's who inside your house. Too many crooked schemes in the heart, and a man turns into a ghost, and ends up the lower for it. Back then I didn't know what 'the lower' meant. Later I understood."

Chen Dasheng reached over to straighten Qi Qian'er's head-cloth. Seeing the little patch of shaved scalp, he wanted to laugh, then feared her, and had to swallow it. Holding his breath, he said: "Whew. Fourth uncle's on the low road for life. He can't rise. His back is bent, his soul lies flat on the ground. He's no man to the world outside, and at home no one minds his ghost either.

"Ha. I feel the meanness of it for him, living, and like a dead ghost. And he daren't die, either. Our fathers are waiting to settle accounts with him.

"It's just as well. If he comes back later, whatever the mother and son say to each other, leave them to it. Only don't you step in, that's all. These days of ours are ours alone. We could live them any way at all and still have more savor than they do."

True. These days now, every taste was sweet.

Qi Qian'er looked back. Madam Qiao had gone up to the millstone, meaning to bend and say something to the old lady, and got rapped away with a pipe-bowl.

Last life it was the same. Only then it was two she rapped away, each more ghost than the other.

A person who's done wicked things has no dignity left. Living is worse than death.

Qi Qian'er nodded to Chen Dasheng in earnest: "I understand."

Seeing his wife take a hint so quick, and few of her words today, Chen Dasheng got greedy and asked, careful: "You, nothing to say to me?"

Qi Qian'er wanted to laugh. She turned her head aside and laughed, then turned back and said, grave: "I have. A great deal. And it's a bit long-winded, won't you be sick of it?"

He didn't dare be sick of it!

Chen Dasheng had only asked in passing. The answer struck him like a thunderbolt. A long while later he murmured: "Then, then say it. I'll do as you say."

Qi Qian'er nodded, satisfied: "Mm. I'll tell you some of it. Things I heard from the old folk. You mayn't understand. Just remember them, and work them out slowly."

Chen Dasheng's heart went to ash. He nodded stiffly: "Oh."

"Remember this: you are flesh, and you will die."

Chen Dasheng snorted a laugh. But he cut it off halfway, looked at Qi Qian'er's round, glaring eyes, pinched his nose, and coughed: "Ahem, mm, mm! I know it. I'm flesh, I'll die. Go on."

"From now on, when you meet the sort that love to flaunt, keep your distance. When such a man shows off, he needs a footstool. You're this dull, you'll be the first he steps on. He'll want you to prove him, to prop him, and in the end to leap up off your back. The Emperor pays a hired hand's wage. He hasn't bought your life. So do the hired hand's work well, and none of the rest is anything to you.

"In the palace, among the officials, there are always the quiet ones, small people who seem to matter nothing. You keep the gate, so you'll often know how many times a month such a one goes before the Emperor. This sort usually has no skill of their own, and can't talk, but wants a good life. So what do they do? They take your doings and pass them to the Emperor or your superior as idle news. The Emperor prizes you, so he likes to hear it. You're close to him, and you become that small person's coin of exchange."

This was hard, and Chen Dasheng didn't follow. He tugged Qi Qian'er's sleeve. She stopped and looked at him: "And, very likely these people are the Emperor's own eyes and ears. A careless word of yours, and the Emperor may know it before you've turned round. Remember: think no one small, think no one great. Keep to your place. Want nothing, and you can't be broken."

Chen Dasheng nodded hard to show he had it, then muttered, head down: "I've got a want."

Qi Qian'er didn't hear him. Ahead of her she was straining after her own thin store of life-lessons: "What the Emperor tells you offhand, you needn't understand, but you mustn't slack at. The more trifling it looks, the likelier it's a move the Emperor has set out. Do as you're told, and don't ask why.

"Whoever tells you a thing is easy, simple, no trouble at all, refuse it on the spot. It's surely not simple.

"The more you want a thing, the surer you are not to get it. So don't want it. Wait, and it comes.

"The one the Emperor loves, rewards most, holds highest, gives the most power, keep far from him too. He's surely the first to die. Even if the Emperor won't kill him, others will. That's how people are: pleased, they lose their heads. Keep far from such a man, and don't waste one word on him. Remember!"

"Oh, then little Hua, little Hua'er."

"Little Hua has no power and no weight. Once you're at the Emperor's side, you'll see. Little Hua is just little Hua."

"Oh."

"There'll always be someone who thinks nothing of you. Do what you will, they'll think nothing of you. Flatter how you will, they'll think nothing of you. So think nothing of each other, and be done.

"Your own cleverness is no use. It's the people around you being clever that keeps you safe. Watch those six well. Each is more of a fool than the last.

"Whoever tells you, I'm an old hand, I do this every day, no trouble! That man can never be trusted with a thing. When it goes wrong, it's always the old hand. It's the man half-learned who takes ten thousand cares. We're here."

Muttering, murmuring, and the ancient post-road lay before them. Qi Qian'er stopped at last and looked at Chen Dasheng, uneasy past bearing.

He was setting off down another road. What people he'd meet, what would befall him, she had no grasp of it at all.

It was Chen Dasheng who patted her shoulder: "I've got it. Is there more?"

Qi Qian'er blinked, then held up a finger: "One more."

Chen Dasheng covered his face, sprawled over the saddle, his shoulders heaving a while, then turned back holding his breath: "You, ha, whew, say it!"

Qi Qian'er charged him, in dead earnest: "From now on, whatever little Hua'er gives you, anything worth over ten strings, you don't take."

Chen Dasheng nodded: "I know. You said. Wear fifty-string shoes, and you need a fifty-string belt and a hundred-string robe to match. I've no money, can't afford it, and wearing it only wears me out."

Qi Qian'er nodded, pleased: "Mm. When you draw next month's pay, don't send it home either. First have each of you make three sets of plain cloth clothes, inside and out. Whatever's in fashion in the capital, whatever cloth, whatever robe, remember, you always wear just those three. They'll get used to it, and stop measuring themselves against you, and stop picking at you. But have the clothes cut by a top tailor, that's dignity. Now, now you, off you go."

There was a great deal more, really. But the lucky hour had come. Go, then.

Chen Dasheng nodded, took the reins, and swung up onto the horse.

Qi Qian'er held her head-cloth and looked up at him.

They both smiled. Qi Qian'er thought: I've spat out all of last life's words on him today, at last.

Chen Dasheng gave a shout, and the men galloped off, gone in a trail of dust.

An hour or so, and the few of them reached Yanjing's east gate. They led their horses zigzag through the disordered city, and at last got back to the guard garrison. Before they'd even reached the gate, a black-bearded officer with a full jaw of whiskers, sitting in the gate-lodge, caught them and called: "Aiyo! Gentlemen, you're back at last, quick, the Emperor called for you this morning!"

So, without waiting for Meng Wanquan, they were dragged off toward the palace again.

The formalities of entering went smoothly. Only at the middle gate Chen Dasheng and the rest gave up their long sabers and waist-sabers.

The blades were set on a table in the guard garrison. As they left, a clamor rose behind them. Looking back, they saw a crowd of guards swarming the table, three deep inside and three deep out, jammed together.

Someone outside was jumping and shouting: "Let me see, let me see."

"Let me touch it, let me touch it!"

"These young pups!"

The black-bearded man laughed and turned to Chen Dasheng and the rest: "These green boys, with no notion of anything! They've known your great names a long time and think the world of you. Only, these last days you didn't lodge at the garrison, so they had no chance to see you. Today they've got their wish at last! From now on, Recorder Chen and you Registrar-lords must teach them often. Don't mind my face, hammer at them all you like, and let the pups learn how high heaven is and how thick the earth!"

Chen Dasheng had always been plain with people. His wife had said he was the dullest, so he'd best just deal with folk as he was, and not envy the sweet-tongued their way of pleasing. He couldn't learn it, so better to stay as he was.

"Can't drill it. No war, no edge to the blade!"

Chen Dasheng passed this on coolly, and the man was taken aback.

Then he clapped his own head and laughed: "Yes! Yes. That last remnant was all carried off by that old thing Chang Mianshen. He left our garrison not a scrap. Well, from now on we go in and out at the Emperor's side, no more daily dread. At least it lets wife and children off."

Chen Dasheng felt the truth of it deeply, and praised: "Just what my wife said, my lord. Only, who might you be?"

What a tangled way of talking, leaping back and forth so fast.

The man was stopped short a moment, then a laugh like a clear thunderclap rolled out: "Forgive me! Forgive me! I, oh, I'm Liu Daya, Recorder of the Jinwu Inner Guard. Only my Recorder's post is junior fifth grade, half a grade above yours, Recorder Chen. But never mind that. In our garrison we win face by our own worth."

He was a fine sort. He'd likely made a thorough study of Chen Dasheng and his men, and he showed the warm-heartedness of a fighting man, plainly.

Chen Dasheng blinked, then quickly cupped his hands: "Well met, Lord Liu!"

Recorder Liu, still smiling, returned the salute in earnest: "Well met, Lord Chen! No need for ceremony hereafter. Our twenty-eight garrisons rank equal, your Long Saber Garrison is a yamen the equal of ours, only your household's small and mine's large.

"For that matter, your courtyard was my rear guard's to begin with. Then the Emperor gave the order, and Lord Zeng, seeing our yard slack, carved out a court for you. So we're colleagues and brothers, and neighbors from now on. My family's all off in the outer commanderies. From here on let's look out for each other, eh?"

The man had said so much. Chen Dasheng felt he ought to say a great heap back.

He labored a good while, and could only nod at him in earnest: "Good! I'll look out for you!"

By his lights, this man was truly a good one. His eyes were straight, his ways direct, nothing muddy about him, and a neighbor besides. Easy to get on with.

Like the steward of the old horse-farm. That man was good too, just as blunt, and seeing they'd nowhere to eat, had looked after them day after day.

That care and that respect never weighed a man's rank. They'd won it by their own worth, staking their lives, earning it with the blade.

Recorder Liu laughed his earth-shaking laugh again, and led them in.

In truth Chen Dasheng had been to the palace more than once. The first time he came in by the very middle, the Meridian Gate, the south gate.

His wife said the Meridian Gate was of the highest honor. Even the Empress passes it but once in her life.

But that night, he'd cut down a good many men beneath that gate. The blood flew high. The door-studs were dyed red.

In the thick of it, he'd thought this courtyard an ordinary place, only a bit bigger.

Now, coming in again behind Recorder Liu, the place turned all at once broad and towering, long-drawn-out.

Recorder Liu tended them carefully as they went.

"Ai, we mustn't walk down the middle."

"Ai, this is the passage for the great sacrifices."

Last time, with little Hua, they'd gone in as they pleased and walked where they pleased. But this time, it was different again.

Those rules bound a man, and slowly gathered up the palace's dread, and made it larger, and larger.

And that dear Emperor seemed changed too. Grown high and unreachable, a little terrible.

Nor could you see him straight off. You went gate after gate, half an incense-stick down an old road, a full eight gates.

And at last they found the place.

Guards and eunuchs share nearly the same privileges. Both are the palace's half-free folk. They can go most places the Emperor can go, the rear palace excepted, of course, and the consorts' courtyards excepted.

When the two Recorders arrived, they found a spot to sit. At once several little eunuchs brought straw mats to spread, and someone even fetched them tea.

All one's own people. The favor came naturally.

As for the ministers waiting to be received, they weren't here. They waited, it was said, in a long side-chamber near the side hall.

Chen Dasheng looked at the sky and puzzled it over. Waiting? Weighting? Were they monkeying about?

The Emperor's familiar voice came from the hall, unhurried. Chen Dasheng at once turned, teacup in hand, and through the crack of the door saw into the side hall.

A few days unseen, and the Emperor had grown thin! Today he wore house-clothes, and was barefoot, half-reclining on a daybed with his eyes half shut, seeing to business.

A few steps from the daybed, four or five ministers knelt, making their reports.

The Emperor said, displeased: "One plain edict, and you must dress it up in fancy writing. What is a new dynasty's spirit? A new dynasty means getting people moving, stirring! And you fuss all day over this rite and that register. Can you not see what's outside? Outside, years of war have choked the roads with brush, the villages are empty of smoke, the common folk can't get home, and so the fields go untilled! And around Qingfeng and Yanjing the refugees crowd together and no one relieves them?

"Dawdle a few more days, and my people will turn to wild brush!!

"The other day I said your old emperor was dragged to his death by salary-worms like you, and one of you was ready to die remonstrating! Well, die then! You didn't!

"Ha! Very funny. Why so loath to die remonstrating before? If you'd died remonstrating early, it'd never have fallen to me to lie here. What good are you!!"

Our Emperor's a rebel born, and this was the flavor of him.

Chen Dasheng liked it, at any rate.

Whoosh.

A heap of memorials came flying out from within and landed on the floor.

Chen Dasheng thought: the Emperor's grand indeed. That's the Emperor for you!

Liu Daya clicked his tongue with open scorn, and said low in Chen Dasheng's ear: "That lot in there, not one of them can get a thing done! Truly, we've no one to use just now, so they think they've got us cornered! Tsk! Afraid of them, my foot! Wait till the great men from the four southern commanderies arrive tomorrow, hmph, my foot!"

The four southern commanderies still held the old Shaoshang officials, the backbone that had carried the Emperor to the throne. Naturally this lot were no match for them.

Chen Dasheng had come up out of Shaoshang too, so he nodded, certain, at Liu Daya: "Good-for-nothings!"

Liu Daya chimed in at once: "Old-dynasty good-for-nothings!"

"Mm!"

His own home country flooded. If not for these good-for-nothings, why suffer any of it? The Emperor cursed them well.

From inside came a middle-aged man's low weeping. Someone said: "Even, even if we are surrendered ministers, we should not be so insulted."

Before he'd finished, the Emperor said: "Then die remonstrating. You'd be the first since I took the throne. I'll surely give you a rich burial and never touch your family."

A moment more, and the man wept: "Only, my house has an aged mother to keep. I dare not be unfilial. If not."

"There, there, there, the same old song. Leave your mother out, and your fathers too! You dutiful sons, let's speak of now. These few days I've looked at the old registers. Never mind Yanjing, Qingfeng city alone had eight thousand seven hundred-odd shops on the books. And now all the markets of Yanjing are shut. What are you all doing? Don't tell me I killed off Yanjing's shopkeepers. I came in at the head of my men, whom did I kill, whom did I wipe out? Do you think I don't know? True, I killed no few. But not one shop did I touch, not one household did I disturb! The siege ran so long, no one went out, so where are these shops?!"

"Your Majesty, two months under siege, those inside couldn't get out, those outside couldn't get in, and with no goods, of course there was no trade."

"Oh, be quiet! Do the pot-menders, the bowl-fixers, the scale-setters, the knife-grinders, the go-betweens, the foot-trimmers, the fortune-tellers, the letter-writers, the sedan-bearers, the shoe-menders, do they need goods to trade? Where there's one shop, there are two. Goods going out and coming in, that's how the people's hearts steady."

Chen Dasheng listened quietly, nodding away.

He was listening with relish when a eunuch came sweeping up from the side, a crowd of little eunuchs behind him, all cradling great stacks of scrolls, grand as anything.

One look, and here was a great personage. Even Recorder Liu, who'd sat so grand all this while, stood up.

Recorder Liu greeted him respectfully: "Steward She, how is it you're here at this hour?"

Eunuch She nodded coolly at him: "There's no one to spare anywhere, what would you have me do? Even a half-gelded thing like me is put to work as the Ministry of Revenue's accountant now. And this is?"

He looked Chen Dasheng up and down. Halfway through, that face of frozen ice broke into a smile, startling Recorder Liu.

He'd never seen this one smile.

Chief Steward She asked, smiling: "This, would this be Recorder Chen? Ahem, Chen Scabby!"

Chen Dasheng was amazed. This eunuch knew his milk-name?

Eunuch She was amazed too. He stared hard at Chen Dasheng's sweet-melon face and couldn't hold it in. He braced himself on the door and laughed aloud: "Forgive me. The last few times you came, I was busy, and, ha, missed you. Ha ha."

Someone inside scolded at once: "Who's making that noise!!!"

Someone trotted in to tell the Emperor. Before long the Emperor laughed too, and called out: "Enough! A whole day of it, and finally something to cheer me. Get out, the lot of you, bring me a proper memorial when it's drafted. Settle this today, or you're plain unfilial!"

More memorials came flying out, and a few age-old lords still in the old dynasty's official robes fled, clutching their caps, hiding their faces.

The Emperor's voice softened as he called out: "Is that Dasheng and the rest come back? Come in. Look how you've set your Eunuch She laughing, how long has it been? I've never once seen your Steward She laugh."