Chapter 39

Hearing the Emperor call him, Chen Dasheng hurriedly passed his teacup to a little eunuch and stood up fast.

Eunuch She had laughed himself out at last. Wiping the corners of his eyes, he went into the hall a step ahead of them. Recorder Liu led Chen Dasheng in quick behind. They made their bows, and the Emperor bade them rise.

When they stood, they saw Eunuch She looked angry now. He was dumping several stacks of account-books, each half a man high, onto one side of the daybed, with a little too much force, as if in a temper.

He did this, and the Emperor didn't mind at all. He even said, smiling: "Qingling, you've worn yourself out."

Then the Emperor shot a look at Zhang Minwang, Steward Zhang.

Steward Zhang outranked Eunuch She, of course. Yet he went cheerfully to pour the tea himself, and offered it to Eunuch She with both hands.

Eunuch She took it one-handed, drank it off in a breath, and, with no word from the Emperor to sit, sat down easily to one side.

Seeing Chen Dasheng today had put him in good spirits, so he went on looking at Scabby, and laughed again.

The Emperor, seeing him pleased, was the more pleased with Chen Dasheng. He opened his mouth to speak, and word came from outside that Zheng Xingyun, the Minister of Rites, begged audience.

At that the hall fell silent in an instant. The Emperor clapped a hand to his forehead. And Eunuch She stood and walked straight into the rear hall. In a moment he came out cradling a pair of cotton socks, knelt, and put them on the Emperor's feet with his own hands.

The Emperor seemed unwilling to be waited on so. His foot even shrank back. But Eunuch She said: "Your Majesty, this is what a slave is for."

The Emperor had been in good spirits. Now he was thoroughly out of them.

He waved a hand at Zhang Minwang.

Zhang Minwang caught his meaning at once, turned, and went to the back too. Before long he came out carrying a large tray covered with red cloth, and gave the tray to Chen Dasheng.

Chen Dasheng didn't know what it was. But since it was a gift, he could hardly go wrong kneeling to give thanks.

Thanks given, the Emperor had no more heart to talk, and waved the two of them off. So Recorder Liu and Chen Dasheng kowtowed again and hurried out.

Coming down the side-hall steps, Chen Dasheng, all bewildered, was pulled to the roadside by Recorder Liu again, to give way to a court minister of forty or fifty, a cold, stern face, three long strands of beard at his chin, in plain clothes.

From what he'd overheard, Chen Dasheng knew this was Zheng Xingyun, the Minister of Rites. He gave a slight bow, and Minister Zheng swept past him like a whirlwind.

He seemed in quite a fury.

Chen Dasheng meant to go, but found Liu Daya, Recorder Liu, dawdling over his robe, carefully flicking again and again at dust that wasn't on the hem.

Before long a great voice rang out from the hall. Chen Dasheng hadn't heard it before. It must be Minister Zheng.

"From ancient times to now, the people's livelihood has come from farming and herding. In every golden age the wise ruler prized agriculture! The sages said of governing a realm: the enlightened rulers of old had laws unlike and orders unlike, yet all held the world as kings, how? By making the state rich and its grain plentiful. Your Majesty is but newly enthroned, the realm not yet steady, why then day after day shame your ministers with 'die remonstrating,' and keep dredging up this matter of the lowborn cunning slave!!"

Liu Daya drew a breath and patted his own chest.

Chen Dasheng, at a loss, stared at the steps and thought: just these seven or eight steps, how long can Recorder Liu take to go down them?

Behind them the hall went quiet again. Then, before long, they heard Eunuch She actually laughing, heh, heh.

One hearing told you this was no kindly laugh. You could call it harsh past bearing.

But the Eunuch She of a moment ago hadn't been like that at all. Chen Dasheng was poor at describing people, but he'd felt Eunuch She a gentle, dear sort.

"Minister Zheng is too droll! The sages this, the sages that. Untalented as I am, I've read a few of the sages' books too! A sage, is he not just a man holding a few steamed cakes, calling his own cakes fragrant, hawking all day that what he wrote is the finest of all? Says-this, says-that, isn't it all to fetch a good price before the throne? And your forebear said it too: only with a settled livelihood is there a settled heart.

"I've not been out these years, but I know a thing or two. What was Huayang like once? And now, three thousand qing of scorched earth without a farmhouse in sight! Day in, day out you shout it back and forth, you alone have reason! You alone are loud! You alone have the sages on your side! How is reopening the markets wrong?

"Say what you will, it's the same old stale stuff. You know grain plentiful, state rich? Then a rich state must send the people home to their fields! Outside Yanjing and Qingfeng gather more than fifty thousand refugees. The Ministry of Revenue has scraped and strained to barely muster a bowl of thin gruel to fill their bellies, and now hard winter's near upon us. What a mouth you have, Minister! Would you have these starving folk fly home bare-arsed, sucking the wind and riding the clouds!!"

"Sheluo Qingling!!"

"Zheng Xingyun!!"

Eunuch She laughed aloud a few times: "What can you do to me? The soul-severing tea brewed of heartbreak-grass has been drunk. The ones who should die have died! Are you not disgusting? You heartless, faithless, hypocrite of a base fellow, putting on mourning-white, and what grief is it you play at!"

A teacup was flung to the floor. The other side went quiet on the instant.

Recorder Liu slowly crouched down, and tugged Chen Dasheng's hem. Chen Dasheng looked round, blank, and crouched too, still holding the tray.

The Emperor seemed used to this kind of racket. He'd had a cup smashed and wasn't angry. He only said, unhurried: "A pity. From the raw shaping to the last glaze, in the old dynasty that thing cost thirty strings. And with one crash, gone! Ha. How would I ever have known such things before!

"That day, I! Pah! I never once wanted to be this emperor! I only wanted to let off my spleen. The day Ruyi was lost, I was so angry I ran off to the commandery to drink. That day I met Tan the Second again. The lad had been wronged that day too, and had drunk a good deal. Later I said I'd rebel, and he said, if ever there came a chance to win merit, he'd be my vanguard for certain! Oh, and now Tan the Second's gone too. Who'd have thought, one line spoken in jest, and it set me over the fire! Can't the two of you behave? If you don't want to meet, then don't, just keep out of each other's way."

The Emperor hadn't finished before a round, fat ball of flesh came rolling up from the side of the hall. He didn't use the door either, he pushed both hands against the side-hall window, hauled half his fat body up to cling there, and shouted in at those within: "Ten thousand blessings, Father! Your son fancied he heard an immortal come calling. The day's clear and bright, could it be my brother Yangde come to see me? Eh?"

The Emperor was half laughing with vexation: "You, what are you talking about?"

The Sixth Prince, Yang Qian, rolled with difficulty back down off the window, and, primly straightening his cap and robe, muttered: "Hmph! Your son knew Father couldn't bear to part with me, every time you hide the immortals away and won't let me see them, cutting off my immortal destiny! Even a father and son can't come to terms over it! Take me for deaf, would you, it was all 'coursing on the clouds,' 'riding the mist.' If it's not brother Yangde himself come today, at the very least it's my little brother Tianxi."

He talked as he went in, and once he was out of sight, Recorder Liu slowly stood. And they saw Zhang Minwang standing outside the hall, wiping the sweat off his brow.

Recorder Liu gave Steward Zhang a thumbs-up. Zhang Minwang glared at him and pointed off into the distance.

So Recorder Liu quietly led the still-baffled Chen Dasheng away.

The moment they left the side hall, without a word of order, Yu Qingguan and the rest fell in behind, walking without a sound. Seven feet lifted, seven feet fell, and the tread rang as if from a single man.

Recorder Liu looked back with envy, then fondly clapped each on the shoulder, all shared pride and honest gladness.

The old palace corridors ran long. Grey stone, vermilion pillars, bright-yellow glazed tile, a single narrow strip of gallery, and eight men walking it, the echo just as if two men walked abreast.

Recorder Liu made small talk as they went: "Brother Chen, tell me, this very corridor we're walking, how many palace maids of the old dynasty do you think passed through it?"

Chen Dasheng shook his head woodenly.

That night, he and a few brothers had gripped their sabers reversed and come hurrying through this very corridor in pursuit. The old dynasty's ministers had run stumbling, shielding their sovereign. Thinking back now, they weren't without loyal men either. Like the last iron cavalry. Like those civil officials at the end, one after another barring the corridor with their frail bodies.

Those men were much like today's Minister of Rites. All that thin, spare, wide-sleeved, long-robed willow-tree grace. And afraid to die, too, some wet themselves before the end, yet they didn't dodge.

Then many more came charging in, all hacking away up ahead. Men on the ground, men on the walls, and the so-called men of the martial world coming out from every side to block the way. And they, on this corridor, treading over corpses, chopped back and forth. Blood everywhere. The floor sticky underfoot.

Now there was nothing here. Scrubbed clean, no telling how many pails of water had washed it down.

Recorder Liu poured out his feelings up ahead still: "In this world there's always one household to one roof, like you and me. We're one family! Those out there, great lords though they are, each has his own house, his own circle! But us, we're of the Emperor's circle, and that's a different thing from those lords."

At this he stopped and looked at Chen Dasheng: "You understand that?"

His wife had said this. Chen Dasheng nodded in earnest to show he'd remembered it. He was the Emperor's hired hand.

Seeing him so plain and honest, Lord Liu smiled and clapped his shoulder: "From now on, brother, in the palace our freedom's not the equal of the inner eunuchs', and our eyes and ears aren't as sharp as theirs, but it's near enough. Only, you come to know a great deal, Brother Chen. Some things, no, all things, that you hear, and see, and smell here! Turn around, and best forget them all!"

Chen Dasheng stopped and thanked Liu Daya in earnest: "Thank you for the counsel, Brother Liu."

Behind him the six nodded in the same rhythm together.

Hearing him call him "brother," Recorder Liu was pleased and threw an arm round his shoulder: "As it should be! As it should be! Of all things your brother most admires a red-blooded man like you! We'll get on well from now on. Your brother's good for little else, but go out and ask about me, of that old crowd who followed the Emperor early, there's not one who doesn't know me!"

In his first twenty years, apart from his family and little Hua'er, the great folk Chen Dasheng met were, you could say, none of them kind, harsh at every turn.

But one day, of a sudden, he'd got a letter from his wife, and learned what he was called, and the human world put on a new face. So every kindness he now received, he took with a heart full of gratitude. And the one he was most grateful to was his wife.

He'd not been gone long, and already he felt he was starting to miss her. One thought of her, and his heart both ached and swelled, and he longed to turn round and go back to her side and never leave again.

She lit the fire, and he split the wood. She cooked, and he pulled the bellows. She milled the rice, and he pushed the mill. To think, those were the immortal days the Sixth Prince spoke of.

With his wife, he was an immortal himself.

His wife came, and little Hua came, and later the Emperor came too, like the black raw-lacquer mask under this tray, a thing of fine craft at a glance, made with no small care.

The Emperor had given him so much. How was he to repay him?

Lost in sweet thoughts, Chen Dasheng followed Recorder Liu to a duty-room courtyard by the west outer gate.

The little court wasn't large, six rooms, nothing fine, but roofed with glazed tile. Rarest of all, in a corner of the yard was a clump of miscellaneous bamboo, and half a misshapen rockery with dead moss clinging to it.

Oh, and a hexagonal grey-stone well, and some stone-locks and such gear leaning against the wall. Recorder Liu must be a diligent man, thought Chen Dasheng, surely he trains daily. One day he'd have to ask him properly about the saber.

Recorder Liu pointed at the yard: "This is the duty-room for us Jinwu Rear Guard and your Long Saber Guard. When you've night duty, or the Emperor has other orders, you wait here. Don't wander the palace without a summons."

Chen Dasheng nodded and looked round the yard with him.

The six rooms were all clean, the old beds and furniture still there, even the bed-sheets were silk woven with a swastika-fret. This had once been the private courtyard of an old-dynasty Seal-Holding Eunuch. Later it was given to the Jinwu Guard.

Recorder Liu took him to the two rooms on the west and said these were the Long Saber Guard's now.

Yu Qingguan and the rest had stayed silent the whole way, and only livened up once they had rooms of their own. They went poking about everywhere, lying on the beds, rummaging in the cabinets, pulling a book from the bookshelf and studying it breathlessly, not knowing half a character, holding the book upside down.

Recorder Liu was even-tempered, and stood there laughing, easygoing.

When they'd fussed about a good while, Recorder Liu brought out from a room a signboard, the lacquer fully dry, and hung it at the courtyard gate beside the Jinwu Rear Guard's duty-plate.

He pointed at it and said to Chen Dasheng: "Brother Chen, come, come, look, this is the door-plate just made for you Long Saber Guard brothers. See if it suits you."

Chen Dasheng nodded, pleased. So, they were owned now. At last they could stand before others.

He knew the three characters Long Saber Guard. So he stood there and looked at it a long, long while, until Recorder Liu clapped his shoulder, and only then, loath to, did he move his eyes away.

Recorder Liu took Chen Dasheng into his own room, lit the charcoal himself, drew water from the well outside and set a brass kettle to boil, then began to chat with him.

He said: "Brother Chen, back there just now, were you frightened?"

Chen Dasheng started, thought of what had happened, and nodded, puzzled.

Dull and untutored as he was, even he knew what a palace eunuch was. That Eunuch She? Mm, somehow rather frightening. To lose his temper like that, and the Emperor not even angry.

Seeing him deep in thought, Recorder Liu said: "To tell this properly you'd have to go back to the old dynasty. But first, remember this: only two in this palace dare be called Grand Companion, one is Zhang Minwang, Steward Zhang, at the Emperor's side, and the other is this She Zixiu, Eunuch She.

"These two, a little slight to Steward Zhang is no great matter. Even before the princes and high nobles, we needn't bow and scrape, for we're the Emperor's own guards and have our own dignity from him! But this Eunuch She you must never, ever offend! Take great pains to remember it, and charge your brothers well too. Never mind whether Eunuch She is a whole man or not, you must respect him as a whole man. Else the scholars of the whole realm would curse you to death! Ai, and then the Emperor couldn't spare you either!"

Chen Dasheng took this to heart in earnest, thanked him, and asked: "Brother Liu, is there some story behind it?"

Recorder Liu nodded: "There is, naturally. It's a long tale, more than a line or two. Hai! It goes back to the old dynasty. Oh, the old dynasty's emperor was buried a few days back, and our Emperor granted the fellow a posthumous name: You, you know it?"

This Chen Dasheng didn't understand. He shook his head plainly.

Recorder Liu was only half a scholar himself. Seeing Chen Dasheng didn't follow, he wagged his head: "You needn't dig into it, it's nothing to you. Just, from now on, when you speak of the old Hongshun emperor, call him the Benighted Emperor. You is an evil posthumous name, a word to shame him."

"Oh!" Chen Dasheng nodded, and repeated: "The Benighted Emperor."

"Ai, yes! The Benighted Emperor! Speaking of him, I wonder, brother, do you know of the old dynasty's Fanxi Fish-Canal."

Recorder Liu hadn't finished before Chen Dasheng shot to his feet and asked loudly: "The Fanxi Fish-Canal? The very Fanxi where they went and changed the river's course?!"

Seeing him worked up, Recorder Liu asked: "Could it be, brother, that you're of the lower two-rivers country?"

Chen Dasheng clenched a fist, then finally sat, and after a long, gathering silence forced out: "I, I, my home is Wuzhi Commandery."

At that Recorder Liu sighed, helpless. He'd have liked to clap Chen Dasheng's shoulder and say a word of comfort. Just then the water on the stove boiled.

So he stood, took the kettle, filled Chen Dasheng's cup, patted his shoulder: "Drink, take a moment. Hongshun's fallen after all, the Benighted Emperor's buried. Try to let it go, brother."

In the eleventh year of Hongshun, the Benighted Emperor's Empress Du fell ill of consumption. The Benighted Emperor was sick with worry, and searched the realm over for physic. At last he got a folk remedy: it needed, as its chief ingredient, a female fish from Fanxi, a thousand li from Yanjing.

The fish was demanded on cruel terms. First, a female. Second, six liang. Third, it must go into the medicine alive.

The land route was hard, over mountains and ranges. So the Benighted Emperor decreed the Fanxi Fish-Canal cut through into the Li River, the better to carry it by water.

The Li River was a branch of the two-rivers system, but a flood-control channel that emperor after emperor had guarded and maintained with the greatest care. So from the day that canal was cut, whenever the flood season came, the lower two-rivers country flooded, year after year. And from then Hongshun slid, step by step, toward its fall.

Chen Dasheng sat cradling his cup, dazed a long while, then looked up: "Brother Liu, those lords I met in the side hall today, one careless word of theirs could be another Fanxi Fish-Canal. Isn't that so?"

Recorder Liu never dreamed Chen Dasheng would ask such a thing. He sat stunned a good while, then said: "Yes and no. The likes of Minister Zheng, yes. But Eunuch She's father, his grandfather, his uncle, third- and fourth-grade men in their day, no, they couldn't."

How had it come round to Eunuch She again?

Recorder Liu's voice turned heavy: "You think our Emperor keeps saying 'die remonstrating' for nothing? That comes from here too.

"That year, when the Benighted Emperor said in open court that he'd cut the Fanxi Fish-Canal, of all the civil and military ministers only Eunuch She's grandfather stepped out to oppose it. Not one other man dared say half a word of 'no.'

"The old gentleman stood alone and couldn't turn the tide, but he had a proud spine. The Benighted Emperor threw his memorial back, and he truly died remonstrating. Dashed his head and died! In our great hall out front, I'll take you to see it another day, it's under repair now.

"At the next day's court, Eunuch She's father and uncle went again, on the pretext of begging pardon. Who'd have thought? The two brothers never mentioned the old gentleman's death, they submitted memorials, one after the other, begging the Benighted Emperor to withdraw the decree for the Fanxi Fish-Canal. He had them dragged out, and they dashed themselves dead at the south gate. Oh, that's where you'll stand night-watch hereafter."

Chen Dasheng drank off his tea, poured himself another cup, and asked: "And, and then?"

If Eunuch She was the son of an official house, how had he become a eunuch?

Recorder Liu sighed: "The Son of Heaven flew into a rage, the whole clan put to death! In those years Minister Zheng's father had two daughters. He gave the elder to the Yang family, that's our inner-palace Empress Dowager, the Lady Zheng. The younger he gave to the She family. Now you see, Eunuch She is in truth the Emperor's own maternal cousin. He's no ordinary man!"

Recorder Chen had talked himself dry. He drank a cup down too, wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and went on, his voice full of regret: "These noble kin twist round and round. Several households moved to save the She family that year, and the Benighted Emperor later added a decree: the She house's young ones might draw lots, and three boys and three girls be spared, but none of the six children above waist-height.

"His kin breathed easier then, at least a root was left the She house! You'd not know it, but Eunuch She was a famous talent in Yanjing in those days. Of all the young men of the Zheng, Yang, and She houses, whenever there was praise, his name came first.

"And to save him, his grandmother had his little cousin die under his name."

"But who could have foreseen, a few days on, when the kin sought to visit the prison, the She males left alive had already been put to the knife, and the females sent into the courtesans' bureau."

Recorder Liu's face was full of pain here. It was a good while before he said: "Three males were cut. The ones under waist-height died. Only one lived, She Zixiu, under a borrowed name. Ai! Oh, I recall a thing: our Eunuch She is named She Zixiu, courtesy name Qingling. Hereafter, if you must address a lord, use his courtesy name. To use his given name is disrespect."

But what did any of this have to do with Eunuch She becoming a eunuch in the new dynasty? His cousin was the Emperor now.

So Chen Dasheng asked: "Then the Emperor?"

He too let Eunuch She wait on him? Wasn't that awkward?

Recorder Liu shook his head, helpless: "Our Emperor, in those years the old Empress Dowager arranged it, and he was betrothed to Eunuch She's eldest sister. A pity, that year came the great palace selection, and the girl was forced into the palace, and died not many years after. Hai! Enough. His cousin, his would-be brother-in-law, turned eunuch, what does that taste like in our Emperor's heart? Eunuch She's affairs, don't go talking of them outside. Though everyone knows, be sensible! Heaven, it's a thing to make you die of rage!"

Recorder Liu was worked up by it himself. He slapped his thigh: "Just think, our Eunuch She bided his time through every bitterness, worked hand-in-glove with our Emperor to win the realm. His house had waited so long to see the light. There were still three She girls in the courtesans' bureau. You'd think, with a cousin now emperor, quietly give them an identity, a small thing!

"Send them far away, dowry them well, find them honest families to live out their days, good days, no? Bear a few children later, adopt one back to Eunuch She, and the She blood carries on. Isn't that so?"

Chen Dasheng nodded at once. Just so!

Recorder Liu gave a cold laugh and slapped his thigh again: "Hmph! No such luck. The day after Yanjing fell, old Master Zheng, the Empress Dowager's father, our Emperor's own maternal grandfather, sent poisoned wine and made those three girls drink it. Tell me that's not maddening!"

"Eh?"

Chen Dasheng was thoroughly shocked: "His own, his own grandfather?"

Recorder Liu nodded, and said with scorn: "Yes! His own dear maternal grandfather! That old, never mind! You heard Minister Zheng's tone today. Father and son are cut from one cloth, sour and stupid! Our Emperor was furious. The dukedom should have gone to the old master, in his rage he gave it to Minister Zheng instead. So Minister Zheng is Duke Zheng as well."

At this he glanced warily at the door: "That whole family is pedantry itself! Ai, pedantry! Just those two words! You haven't heard how they're cursed outside, lately people throw filth at his house every day! The scholars, once they go mad, don't go mad by halves! So Minister Zheng daren't go out, but pent up too long and forced to attend court, he put on mourning-white for his grand-nieces. Sheer nonsense!"

Before Chen Dasheng's eyes flashed the river-bank where his mother died, a whole stretch of them lying white, and the village folk weeping, digging pits by hand to bury each one properly.

His own elder sister, his cousins, his aunts, and the village women besides. He thought: if even one of the women of his house had lived, would they have saved her? They would! Whatever befell, she'd be kin.

A long while, and Chen Dasheng murmured: "Eunuch She has had it hard too."

Recorder Liu sighed: "Yes! Hasn't he just! Hmph! They tell me the Zheng house still won't let it rest, they insist the fittest place for our Eunuch She is to leave the world and become a monk.

"So our Eunuch She, in a rage, came back into this palace, back into this great cage, and made himself a eunuch in dead earnest. That fourth-grade Seal-Holder's post, our Emperor never gave it him, he went and demanded it himself, and when the Emperor wouldn't, he lost his temper. Heh heh!"

Recorder Liu suddenly laughed: "The man was pushed to the edge and threw it all away! So now he drifts about before his cousin day after day in the inner eunuch's robes. Lately, Minister Zheng's whiff, when he stands up, no one comes within a few feet of him, even the old-dynasty ministers say they're ashamed to stand beside him. So the two of them, they don't meet, or they meet and quarrel. The Zheng family."

Recorder Liu pointed at his own head: "Up here there's always been something wrong with them. It's not that I don't respect, look at our Eunuch She, when have I not been all reverence before him? It's not the whole-man or half-man of it, it's a man's character. Isn't that so?"

Recorder Chen was chattering on with his small talk, when Chen Dasheng, without warning, stood up and walked out.

Liu hurried after, asking all the way: "Ai! Brother! Where are you off to? You gave me a start, so sudden! Where to?"

Chen Dasheng reached the doorway and stopped short himself. He looked back at the palace walls, at the towering, rolling glazed roofs, and after a long while murmured: "Brother Liu, the Emperor has avenged my whole village's wrong for us."

Recorder Liu started, thought it over carefully, and nodded: "Ai, put like that, it's true! Isn't it just! Avenged, avenged! The Benighted Emperor met his evil's evil reward too, served him right to lose the realm. Eh? Eh! Brother, where are you going?"

Chen Dasheng's heart was in a swell. Walking, he thought: the Emperor had avenged his whole village. He ought at least to thank the man. But the man had everything. How was he to thank him?

His steps slowed and slowed. He walked all the way to the west gate. And when he saw the several shuttered shops facing the palace gate, he stopped, and said to the utterly baffled Recorder Liu: "Brother Liu, tell me, by what means could these shops be made to suit the Emperor's wish, and open their doors again, one by one?"

Liu Daya was struck dumb. A good while later he answered in earnest: "Brother, if I knew that, I'd take over Minister Zheng's trade and go be Minister myself. Have you lost your mind?"