Chapter 42

In the winter of the first year of Yong'an, the snow Qi Qian'er dreaded most came at last.

The flakes came down no light thing from the start. At first, like the fine down under a hen's neck, unhurried, ten-odd days of it, and then the snow fell from her head clear to her tail.

Early one morning, Madam Huang, Old Madam Tao's eldest daughter-in-law, braved the snow to knock, and brought over a bowl of fried dough-balls. Everyone in the settlement knew by now that the Tao men, all but the old one, had sent grain and silver home from the four southern commanderies.

Madam Huang wore a thick sheepskin vest, a cloth wrapped over her head, her face red with cold. She stood at the gate not daring to stir, knocking louder by degrees, her voice timid and small.

Qi Qian'er heard at last, opened the gate, and there she was.

Seeing Qi Qian'er, Madam Huang braced a hand on her knee, bobbed a careful half-curtsey, and said: "Lady, Lady Huo, good day."

This one was a generation above her. Qi Qian'er hurried to open both gate-leaves, returned the greeting, wished her well, and asked her in: "What brings you, auntie?"

Madam Huang seldom went out, at most she'd peer eagerly about from her own gate a moment and hurry back. The rest of the time Old Madam Tao kept her at work in the back court.

First time seeing this wife past her gate, and come to bring her something?

Qi Qian'er nearly laughed.

Old Madam Tao was too ashamed to face her, so she'd sent Madam Huang to make up to her. Generous, that, a fried treat, no less!

Seeing Qi Qian'er, all courtesy, wave her in, Madam Huang was delighted. Her face reddened, and she held out a shallow bowl of dough-balls in both hands: "The snow's caught us today, so I feared the winter shut-in would start and we couldn't get out. My mother-in-law had me come see how the two Ladies are, and if there's any housework, to lend a hand."

Qi Qian'er came down the steps and took the bowl in both hands, and saw the woman's fingers, once deep-cracked and never healed, all salved with oil now, the worst two even wrapped in fine cloth.

How strange the things of this world are. By rights Madam Huang should have died this winter. Other houses had men to help, even in the hardest winter, they'd send home a few dozen jin of winter grain. The Tao house had no men, and this wife worked herself sick and never pulled through.

Madam Huang looked at her hands and smiled shyly, though the pride in her voice wouldn't hide: "It's horse-oil salve. Yesterday my mother-in-law begged Lord Meng, and he sent a man with us and hitched up a camp cart, and we went to Yanjing. Eh? Where's the old Lady? I'll pay my respects and go."

Qi Qian'er was amazed. They'd gone through Qingfeng, packed with refugees, to Yanjing? This she must ask her in and hear out properly.

Out of dread, and unable to bear the sight of the refugees' misery, Qi Qian'er hardly went out at all, she wouldn't so much as touch the edge of the post-road.

She said, smiling: "The old Lady's over at her own courtyard, she doesn't come back here till evening."

The old lady feared that if she moved out, someone would take the good house, so she wouldn't shift her things there for anything, and said she'd keep the room warm with the breath of living in it.

At that, Madam Huang laughed.

After all, the settlement knew each of its old ladies' natures inside out.

The two went into the yard. Qi Qian'er didn't take Madam Huang to the main rooms, she took her to the west side-room of the front court, where she generally worked by day.

The moment they were in, Madam Huang felt the warmth rush at her, and the smell peculiar to a sheep-pen, droppings and burnt wood-ash, no sweet smell, but easy on the body, and wonderfully warm.

This side-room was large too, an inner and an outer chamber, warmed much as the other place: the outer room's stove-fire ran through the fire-wall and the kang.

Baa.

Seven or eight sheep, big and small, were penned by a wood-railing at the head of the room, and beside the pen stood pine firewood, stacked neat almost to the roof.

Madam Huang breathed out, envious, walked to the pen, looked down, and laughed: "Oh! Lambs! And housed indoors, no less, a soft life. Folk don't live as soft as these."

In truth the Tao house wasn't cold this year either.

People clustered together. Seeing Guard Lane haul dry firewood home day after day, the settlement women had begged for hands too, and most every house had laid in winter firewood.

Before, feeling they'd always have to move on, they'd had no habit of laying by fuel. But the Chen house was different. The Chens had connections, standing, sharp news. Whatever the Chen house did, you couldn't go wrong copying.

Qi Qian'er emptied the bowl and, opening the little jar in the corner, spooned black bean-paste into it for Madam Huang, saying as she spooned: "People are all in a muddle, and the beasts have no rule either, lambing out of season! Two born just this month, and the old lady's beside herself, getting up in the dead of night to peep at them. At her age, up and down like that! So we lit the ancestors here a room of their own, and I do a bit of work here in the daytime. A funny year, every day it adds a head to the household."

Madam Huang looked at the two lambs and sighed: "A joy added, a joy added! How fine! Who'd have thought, come, and you can't leave again."

Qi Qian'er gave the bowl back, and Madam Huang, after two polite refusals, took it. Old rule, you don't send a person home with an empty bowl who brought you something.

Black bean-paste was a fine thing now. Madam Huang felt the rim, and set it carefully on the windowsill by the door.

When she came back, she saw Qi Qian'er take a wooden stick, lift a pot-lid, and stir a pot of red dye.

Madam Huang was a fine hand at textiles. She fetched a stick of firewood and came to help stir, saying enviously as she stirred: "Dyeing cloth? Only a Lady's house could afford it. The tone's true, is it? Mineral dye, not madder! Just as I said, your house has deep stores. Toon-ash is easy come by, I found some on the road myself, but a red like this, that's ground cinnabar, isn't it?"

Qi Qian'er nodded, smiling: "Hai! All dregs, they can't strike a true color, just the medicine-storehouse leavings. They moved in some old bottom-stock from all over, didn't they? Some had lost its potency, only a bit of color left worth looking at. Doctor Cheng and the rest were going to throw it out, and I said, don't throw it, I'll buy it!"

"They were going to throw it out, and you bought it?"

"Well now, even if they throw it or burn it, it can't be turned to a man's profit, that'd be embezzlement. Why make trouble for Doctor Cheng over nothing? A few coppers' worth.

"So I bought some blue-green medicine-stuff. That cinnabar's not fit to look at, jumbled odds, a few dozen jin heaped up, more stone than cinnabar, so it dyes no proper red. I mix the stuff any old way, no two pots come out the same color!"

Qi Qian'er set down the stick and took Madam Huang into the inner room: "Look, all pale, none deep. You're a fine hand, tell me what to add."

Madam Huang stepped in and her head swam. In the inner room ran a dozen ropes, hung full of dyed fine wide cloth, black, blue-green, dark red, vermilion, kudzu-red, a strip of each color, all hung full.

She stammered: "Not deep, for not deep, burn more toon-ash and try?"

That said, she looked round, and there on the single-sleeper's kang was heaped a jumble of cloth, a hundred bolts at a glance, but not one pure white, all mottled with mildew-black and rings of yellow water-stain.

One look and you knew it was top-grade fine cloth.

Madam Huang's heart ached for it. She went and gathered a piece up, felt it, bent to smell it, and asked, her voice trembling, full of pity: "young Lady? This, what happened to this?"

Qi Qian'er pressed her lips in a smile: "This is those several cartloads you all spoke of, the gold and silver treasures the Emperor granted!"

Madam Huang was aghast: "Eh? The several cartloads, this?"

Not quite, there was fine brocade too, only that she couldn't be shown.

Qi Qian'er sat and smiled, helpless: "Hai, the old dynasty was dead poor, what could their storehouse bottoms hold? They've handed out a heap of patents of rank lately, and this is about what comes with them. Did you truly think a Lady like me was any great thing? Same as this cloth, bottom-of-the-heap!"

Madam Huang's fingers trembled with the pity of it. A fine thing like this, how many days at the loom, worked near to death, and spoiled to this?

Then she thought again: hai, it was the young Lady's own, why should she ache over it? What of it, a small matter! So long as it wasn't rotten, cloth in the hands of women like them could always be turned back into a decent thing.

Madam Huang sighed: "Who could match the imperial house, even the storehouse bottoms are like this! These are fine things! Quick with your hands, and can't you make something of them? All the year's dyer's-weed, the fourth-month indigo-plant, rehmannia root by the river, a run of woad, magnolia, pagoda-indigo, bur-marigold, gromwell of the eighth and ninth month. Merciful heaven, so much cloth! It's given the young Lady work indeed, a dozen years at a little pot wouldn't dye it all!"

Of a sudden she wasn't envious anymore. She caught Qi Qian'er's hand and said fondly: "My house dyes cloth too. Next year, when we go up the hills for the plants, I'll call the young Lady to come along. We've a few dye-recipes at home too, our colors come truer than yours."

She said it, but at heart she was full of true admiration. This little wife the Chen house had got, she really did know everything, indoors and out. These cloths were no top-grade true color, but the rare thing was, every piece was dyed even, a great hand in a dye-house did no better.

Qi Qian'er pressed her lips in a smile: "Yes, I like a natural plant color. I've time on my hands anyway, we'll work at it slow, dye it slow. Something new to wear my whole life, and isn't that fine?"

Madam Huang worked up her nerve to praise: "The young Lady's clever-handed, anything comes out well for her."

Clever-handed? Qi Qian'er didn't think herself clever. The work was only things she'd done over and over for decades. What she admired in herself was her patience, she could keep her head down and just go on working.

But when someone flatters you, you flatter back.

She took Madam Huang's hand, smiling: "My granny says my hand's a rake, great coarse stitches, not to be looked at! For clever hands, it's the Tao house's wife, how brisk you are at it all, tsk!"

They laughed together, and Qi Qian'er asked Madam Huang into the main rooms to sit.

Madam Huang's nerve was loosened now. Her mother-in-law had said she might sit where she liked, so she'd screwed up the courage to plant herself a while at the Chen house.

It was an honor you couldn't beg for. Now, in the whole settlement, what woman didn't defer to the young Lady? They near worshipped her like the goddess in the goddess-temple.

The infirmary camp said it wasn't moving and didn't move. The banner was changed and it counted as a medicine-store now. The fighting was over up ahead too. And the Chen grandmother and granddaughter went about the settlement pasting up slips?

No one was a fool. The Tao house still had a lettered girl hidden away, waiting to marry into a high house!

Once the plates went up and it was fixed as Guard Lane, hearts grew the more anxious, and a few of the older women sat weeping at the old lady's all day.

Seeing Qi Qian'er find her cousins good houses, the old lady claimed Qi Qian'er's reasonings as her own scheme and told them all about it.

At once the whole settlement's women went mad, each going out to ask around. Every house had some connection eating in the army, so word passed and passed and they all came to know.

There were also wives who'd lost touch with the front, not knowing what post their man held, whether he was alive at all. They came crying to the Chen old lady, for heaven's sake, who'd have dared trouble the young Lady then! The young Lady, so fierce, who didn't dodge aside at the sight of her?

But who'd have thought it, asking here and there, the one they could lean on in the end was this fearsome one.

Except that Madam Qiao couldn't get in the gate, in those days, whoever came to beg, the young Lady answered every plea.

The young Lady had patience too, she went house to house laying it out. Those with no news, not knowing where their men were, all took the young Lady's advice, found houses on the right at the back of the settlement, each claimed a courtyard near enough, pasted up slips, wrote where the man served and his name and station.

Those with standing saw it clear now too: the official mansions they'd lived in before couldn't be held, so they chose the kind the old lady lived in and claimed them, each apart.

Late last month came the business of the Emperor rewarding people again, a reward to the Chen young wife alone, and no small gifts, they said, several cartloads! So less than ever could you cross her, you had to hold her up and carry her through life.

From then, the two Chen ladies of Guard Lane were called the old Lady and the young Lady.

But Lady or no, the work that had to be done was not one whit the less.

Seeing the dye in the pot near ready, Qi Qian'er put out the fire, took a lit brand from under the stove, and led Madam Huang to the main rooms.

Madam Huang followed, envious past bearing. Never mind the rest, just the Chen iron pots: a great pot for bathing, a nested pot for cooking, and now, to dye cloth, a pot kept just for that.

Not to be envied at.

Into the east side of the main rooms, Qi Qian'er pushed the brand into the stove-pit, added a few sticks of resinous pine, and in a moment the stove crackled and the room filled with pine-scent, and the house slowly warmed.

Even with rooms of firewood, they couldn't be so lavish as to heat two kangs at once.

Madam Huang stood in the east room, and looking at the double layer of paper pasted on the window, was envious again.

Deep winter, who doesn't want a little light? But the paper at home was for Top-Scholar's writing, so their windows had boards across, the edges stuffed tight with rags against the wind.

Seeing her envy, Qi Qian'er fetched a dozen-odd sheets of paper from the inner room and gave them to her: "You aunties are at your needle day and night, you'll ruin your eyes. Take these, paste your windows, borrow a little light."

Madam Huang wouldn't take them for anything, and said, smiling: "No, no! You need paste for it, and things are good at home now, but we daren't waste grain."

Hearing it, Qi Qian'er's heart ached. She went to the inner room and got her two strips of elm bark besides.

Madam Huang took the bark and admired her to death. She sat on the kang-edge and praised: "The young Lady truly knows how to keep house, everything ready to hand like this."

Qi Qian'er set a pot to boil, and only then settled to talk: "You'll all get straight sooner or later. Things have come from the front now, haven't they? Your days will be all right from here, auntie."

Madam Huang dragged over Qi Qian'er's sewing-basket, dug out some work to help, and, stitching a shoe-upper, said with a smile: "Hai, I'm content, I ask for nothing. My mother-in-law kept us safe, and how many died out there these years? For that alone I'll be dutiful to her. As for the rest, ha, I don't think on it."

Qi Qian'er nodded her approval: "True, think too much and it hurts. Auntie, you went to Yanjing with the old lady?"

Madam Huang's eyes lit up: "Just so! Zhou Chengzong and the rest sent things home, didn't they, and with the old cloth we'd woven besides, my mother-in-law said go to Yanjing and look, sell the cloth! And buy a few things to winter better."

Qi Qian'er was still sorting the old lady's rag-ends, briskly braiding a cloth-plait, and asked as if idly: "And you went? Was the road safe?"

Madam Huang's thread ran neat, not looking at the needle, not a stitch out of true, and she looked at Qi Qian'er: "That's just it! We'd all seen the man, frightening to death! At first we didn't dare go either. It was my mother-in-law took goods to the post-road to trade, and that's how we learned. The Qingfeng refugees had long since gone off to Yanjing to make a living."

Qi Qian'er's hands stopped short. She asked, startled: "But that's tens of thousands of refugees!"

Madam Huang laughed. She'd truly widened her eyes this trip: "Tens of thousands? Yanjing could swallow hundreds of thousands! Ai, I tell you, truly! That place is huge! And the city gate, so tall!!"

She craned her neck to show it: "You have to look up like this to see the top, it scared us, we didn't dare speak before the gate-lord. It was my mother-in-law who's able, she fears nothing, three big coppers a head and in she went."

Qi Qian'er said nothing, only smiled and bent to her work, but her eyes were full of shock.

She'd made ready several thousand jin of elm bark, meaning these days to grind it to elm powder, mix in a part of coarse flour, and make elm-bark noodles. When the snow got deep, she'd quietly go relieve the refugees, to lay up a little blessing for her An'er.

By Madam Huang's account? Those refugees, wouldn't freeze to death after all? All gone to Yanjing? Wasn't Yanjing only to warm up bit by bit next spring, on the old stores the Emperor brought from the four commanderies.

Madam Huang chattered on: "young Lady, you've no idea! Never mind Yanjing city, there are several counties round it, all rich counties! Most of the city's shops are open, they can't even hire enough waiters and hands.

"The strong fellow who guided us said trade's still poor, but you can't find men for the work, the Yanjing traders have to go out and buy goods, they can't spare a soul for the road, you know."

She smiled at Qi Qian'er, full of content: "And we'd some cloth, and some gauze, hadn't we."

Qi Qian'er teased: "Oh, your house had such fine stuff?"

Madam Huang flushed: "Mm, we did! Our old lady's a capable one. All that road she kept saying: one day it'll steady, we'll eat more bitterness now, and on these cloths we'll raise the house up again. And see, the old lady had the right of it."

Thinking of Old Madam Tao, Qi Qian'er nodded: "That old lady of yours has a quick head."

The old saying goes: three days hungry, a man turns bad. Three months leaning on others, and he turns wicked.

A pack of women jolting along the flight for their lives, those who lived through it were none of them simple. Old Madam Tao had seen much, and grew a scheming heart from it.

Her own old lady, now, she grew a loud voice, and ate her losses in silence.

Qi Qian'er had once envied the winding, nine-turn schemers. But after half a life, she'd worked out her own way: cultivate one breath of open, honest spirit, and every strong city in the world can be broken!

So, blame no one, resent no one. Do your own work well, wrong no one. And if someone comes to provoke you?

Then, stamp it dead!

Like Eunuch Liao, whatever came his way, one quick snap!

Madam Huang didn't know whom Qi Qian'er was thinking of snapping. She was only pleased with herself, and boasted on: "The day we got into the city, folk saw we had half a cartload of cloth, and swarmed us! You've no idea, young Lady, cloth like ours, uncolored, once you could barely sell at three hundred cash, now in Yanjing it's three strings a bolt, and not a price we set, a crowd of shopkeepers pressing round us begging us the figure."

Qi Qian'er teased her: "Then your house is rich!"

Madam Huang's eyes were bright, full of hope: "It'll, it'll do! We've lamp-oil at home now!" And, pleased, the wife set down a shoe-upper, took up a thick insole, and jabbed it through with an awl: "We can work by lamplight at night from now on."

Qi Qian'er set down her cloth-rope, went out and fetched her a bowl of water, and salted it a little.

Madam Huang drank, set the bowl down, and thanked her: "Even the water's sweet at the young Lady's."

Qi Qian'er laughed: "Then come drink it often!"

"Ai! I'll surely come."

That said, she bent to her work with a will, and after a while, hearing nothing from Qi Qian'er, looked up, and saw the young Lady gazing out the window, lost in thought.

A great lady, her thoughts were surely weighty. She didn't dare disturb her.

But she couldn't know how great the question in Qi Qian'er's mind was. How was it, this winter, truly no one need die?

And Qi Qian'er couldn't know that the whole cause of it began with six words.

The flakes grew slowly larger. Madam Huang briskly stitched half a sole, and Qi Qian'er meant to keep her to a meal, but heard Meng Wanquan calling at the gate.

So Madam Huang took her leave, cradling the black bean-paste, and when she was well off, Meng Wanquan said to Qi Qian'er at the gate: "Little sister-in-law, best go over there and see, Chen Siniu's back!"

That said, he turned to go, then looked back a few steps on: "Little sister-in-law, just look after the old lady, the rest is no concern of yours."

Qi Qian'er made him a curtsey and said she understood.

As for Chen Siniu, he'd handed over his post, gathered up his years of savings, and, the recommendation letter at his breast, made for home like a man let out of a cage.

A thousand li of hurried travel, and home to meet the snow.

At the settlement he had to ask around, and it was half a day before Chen Siniu learned where the house was. He drove home, knocked at last, and Madam Qiao came running out weeping, sat down at the gate, and set up a wail.

There were no neighbors here, and Qi Qian'er, over at the alley-mouth, didn't hear.

In the driving snow, Chen Siniu stood at his own gate and got an earful of Madam Qiao's ledger of grievances.

The old lady had got Scabby a world-wrecking demon for a wife, and those two had been rewarded by the court, and, most galling, no share for her! The old lady and Qi Qian'er had helped every soul, and dropped Qiao and Xique without a word.

Qiao was a resourceful thing. Unminded, she had her own ways. She'd driven a cart, hauled her goods and Xique, and moved into a courtyard near the old lady's.

Guard Lane was a through-lane, ten houses to the run. But at its head was a T-junction, and the courtyard the old lady lived in, its gate faced Guard Lane, but the house wasn't of Guard Lane's run at all, it was a single-row lane, seven houses to the row, and the old lady's was the middle one, the best of them.

Seeing Chen Siniu now, Qiao wanted at once to live together with the old lady. She wailed for the old lady to hear, signaling toward her door: your gate-holding son is home, won't you come out?

But the old lady never opened.

Chen Siniu stood in the snow listening, dazed. Qiao had moved out from the old lady? The old lady had got Scabby a wife? The old lady looked after all the settlement's outsiders, and wouldn't let Qiao in her gate? This, it was out, it was surely all out!

Chen Siniu's every hope went to ash, and of a sudden he wanted to die.

Qi Qian'er, a food-box in hand, a lambskin cloak on, went unhurried to the lane's end.

Reaching the gate, she saw Qiao alone hauling the beast, calling: "Back, back, back now." Backing a big mule-cart into her courtyard.

Seeing Qi Qian'er come, Qiao gave a haughty snort, and even spat.

Tsk!

Qi Qian'er didn't stand on ceremony. She set down the food-box, bent, scooped up a few handfuls of snow, packed a good solid ball, and threw it at Qiao.

With her strength, Qiao went over backward, and set up a wail.

"Murder! A junior striking an elder!!"

"Tsk!"

Qi Qian'er dusted her hands, took up the food-box, unhurried, and said, an edge of iron in her voice: "Shut your mouth. All that noise, you concubine! See, if she cared, she'd have come out long since."

Qiao climbed up, stamped her foot, walked to the old lady's gate to gather her breath, and just as she made to loose a great wail, she heard that fiend behind her say, unhurried:

"Repay the money!"

Qiao froze on the instant. A good while, and she wiped her face, sniffed, didn't dare spit anymore, and said, as if nothing had passed: "Ah, Xique's crying!"

And she ran off.

Qi Qian'er sniffed too: "Tsk!"

The old lady's gate wasn't shut, so Qi Qian'er pushed it and went in. Into the main rooms, and she seemed to hear the old lady slapping a face?

Whack, whack!

Qi Qian'er looked at the door, slowly parted the curtain a crack, and saw the old lady slapping her own face.

She quickly dropped the curtain, stood where she was, helpless, and sighed without a sound.

The old lady slapped herself left and right till her face was red, weeping to the Chen Siniu who knelt on the floor: "I'm to blame! I've sinned! I never raised you right! I deserve my punishment!! Ah!

"But I remember, when I bore you, you had a human face too. How did one trip out there grow you a wolf's heart."

Sticking out her tongue softly, Qi Qian'er backed to the door and said loud: "Granny! I've brought your food."

The weeping stopped short. A good while, and the old lady said: "Qian'er, set the food in the yard and go on back. I've a word to say to your fourth uncle."

"Ai! I understand!"

Qi Qian'er set the things in the yard, turned, and left.

The three-cart width of Guard Lane lay quiet. Qi Qian'er looked at her own footprints, listened to the crunch underfoot, and inched slowly home.

Nearing her gate, she heard a rush of wind behind her ear. Her back to it, she put out a hand, and caught a snowball. No, half a snowball?

Over the neighboring gable-wall a head rose slowly. Madam Cheng, her face all stove-soot, hair wild and grimy, held up a rice-ladle and smiled at her: "Hey, little girl, you, can you cook?"