Chapter 66

The lard slid across the hot griddle. A chopstick whisked it away again. The batter was thick, melon shreds and beaten egg worked into flour. A dainty bronze ladle scooped it up and spread it over the iron griddle. It hissed softly. The good smell went flying at once all over the courtyard.

"Smells good, doesn't it? How's the taste? I told you, you Yanjing folk have never eaten the like. Good, isn't it?"

Chen's old lady sat by the low couch in the courtyard. She'd lit a charcoal fire and was making melon-cakes with her own hands. She added a ladle of batter to the iron griddle, looked up to show off, and asked She Qingling, who was eating a cake, whether it was good.

It was hot weather, so they'd set the low couch out under the osmanthus tree in the yard. They lit the charcoal there and made and ate the cakes on the spot. It counted, too, as a bit of rustic fun.

She Qingling chewed slowly. Only when he'd swallowed did he set his chopsticks aside and answer, smiling. "Mother's skill is rare, and the flavor is just right. It's truly delicious. Yanjing has nothing like this cake, that's for sure."

Seeing that he liked it, the old lady was glad and started to say something more. Then, from outside, came a crackle of firecrackers, a beat of gong and drum, and the clamor of a crowd.

Today was the sixth of the ninth month. Tong Jintai, refined a hundred times over into gold at last, had finally married a wife and brought her home from the lane next door.

Most of the gentlemen of Guard Lane had no kin. So they'd begged the one person they valued, the one they held in their hearts as kin, Attendant She, to come no matter what. And She had come. But he'd hidden himself away here at the old lady's and would not go out. He meant only to hear a lively wedding from a distance.

Why? Every soul in this world has a knot in his heart. The old lady's knot was the next-door Madam Qiao, who'd borne a son and grown insolent on it. She Qingling's was this: all his life he'd dreaded other people's great occasions. Weddings and funerals, marrying and burying, he shrank from all of them, because none of them could ever fall to his own kin. So he'd come, but he did not show himself at the wedding. He only counted it as leaving the palace to walk off a mood.

And why did the Chen family not go? They'd held a great funeral of their own only a few months before, eight coffins buried at one go. Everyone was in mourning now, even the court ministers, and no one made a point of it and no one minded. But still, one had to be considerate. Tong Jintai would marry only once in his life, and it would not do for the whole family to go out and bring bad luck on him.

The wedding outside was done up handsomely, on the strength of help from every quarter. Guo Qian, the Assistant Commissioner-in-Chief of the guard-garrison, and Zeng Anbang, the Left Vice-Minister of the Board of War, stood in as the groom's family-elders. Zheng Aman, Liu Daya, and the rest of the friends they went about with had all come and ran to and fro lending a hand.

Tong Jintai and the rest had made a good many friends in Yanjing these few months.

The mood in the courtyard was a delicate one. Chen Dasheng circled his wife round and round, but Qi Qian'er simply would not notice him.

These two months, Qi Qian'er had in fact left nothing undone that the house needed doing. She only would not notice Chen Dasheng, that was all. She felt something guilty in him, that he was surely hiding some deed he couldn't speak of. She'd questioned him closely several times, and Chen Dasheng would not tell her. So the young couple had fallen, plain for anyone to see, into a cold war.

Chen Dasheng did not want to tell his wife the ugly things, so he was in a sore fix.

Everyone could see the young couple was out of sorts. But were these two ordinary people? These two fated but ill-matched souls each had a frame of iron and steel that no one else had. They simply would not make it up, which worried a good many people around them.

Qi Qian'er held a handful of little jujubes and waited out another burst of firecrackers before she spoke. "Granny, tell me, where were the lot of us this time last year? How fast it's flown by. And here's Jintai married already."

The old lady flipped the cake over with a practiced hand and thought a moment. "Who remembers that? We were on the road the whole way, in a rush and a fright, only fleeing for our lives, only thinking of the next bite. I'd never have dared dream there'd be good days like these now. Go out and look at the fields. With this year's harvest, our Liang stands on solid ground. Ai, look at this fine, kindly weather..."

At that she raised the bamboo strip and rapped Chen Dasheng's reaching hand. "This is for your dad. You stinking boy, you wait!" Then she turned to Attendant She, all doting. "Son, eat slow now. They're all yours, every one!"

She was all smiles, easy and happy ones.

He'd come to the house this time meaning to have it out plainly with the old lady. He'd turned over a great many things to say on the way. He'd even thought, since the old lady loved money, that if it came to it he'd offer a good price and haggle it out with her slowly. Who could have foreseen it? The old lady heard him out and gladly agreed. He'd never meant to find himself a mother. The old lady had made herself his adoptive mother, of her own accord.

Even when She Qingling made it plain that he was a eunuch, the old lady had said this: even missing an arm or a leg, a living son is a living son.

Truly, one was so lonely and the other so forlorn, and when a fated tie comes, no one can bar it. She Qingling was well-favored, born with a tender, winning face. If he set his mind to winning someone over, even the fallen dynasty's Benighted Emperor hadn't escaped him. How much less a country old lady? In under half a day the old lady had brought out the newly-cast griddle, determined to make her adopted son the melon-cakes of her old home, right there in the yard.

She Qingling took the tea Qi Qian'er brought over to cut the grease. He looked up and smiled at the little wife, but Qi Qian'er awkwardly turned her head away.

Master She had a good appetite today. Once he'd drunk his tea, he took up a fifth melon-cake to eat. Seeing him eat so many, and fearing it might sit ill on him, Chen Dasheng nagged. "Dad, we let you go first. How about we rest the belly a bit? Take a couple of turns round the yard?"

The cakes weren't large, in truth, but the flavor was a marvel. So Master She rubbed his belly, nodded, and gritted his teeth to finish this one before he strolled.

When this Chen old lady set her mind to indulge someone, she indulged them to the death, as a rule. Her own sons were gone. The fourth Chen was alive but worse than dead. Now that she'd got this one, at last half-claimed as her own, whatever good thing was in her hands she put straight into She Qingling's mouth. And besides, ever since the day she'd sent him quilted socks and warm things, even in a downpour in the capital he'd send someone round to ask after her. Was the old lady cold? Mind she add a layer. Was she keeping well? Did her food taste sweet to her? It's raining and the roads are slippery, so best not go out, let the temple wait a few more days.

The old lady relished all this. Her four sons were gone. Give her a little kindness and she'd fall to fretting over you and cherishing you.

As for what a eunuch was, or that a certain younger sister had once been sent to the Jiaofang quarters, none of this troubled the old lady. In her eyes, coming through this war alive at all was hard enough. Of the thousand hardships of the world, was there any harder thing than being a living soul? Have good, and cherish it. Be grateful, and live it out well, and chant Amitabha together, and give thanks to every god and Buddha under heaven.

Now that a She Qingling had come at last to call her mother, that little knot in the old lady's heart was drawn out of her. But the hardest part was this. Both were clear-eyed people, and both knew the other for a false thing. And yet both smilingly deceived the other, and each played the other for a true mother and a true son.

"Sheng'er's dad, I'll tell you. Last time I went to the Guanyin temple, I asked the Bodhisattva Guanyin to watch over you, I truly did. And when I went to the Daoist temple, I said the same to Lord Laojun, and the same at the Granny temple too. Every time I'd say it. Look at you, isn't your color a deal ruddier than the time you came before? One look, and it's plain you've a god's grace shielding you. You've surely been watched over!"

Master She smiled to hear it, lifted his face, and thanked her, all sincerity. "Is that so? So that's the way of it. I said to myself, this half-year and more I've slept the night through to the dawn. You don't know it, but since the New Year I've felt that whatever I want, I get, and everything goes smooth. So the reason of it was here with you all along!"

The old lady was pleased on the instant and slapped her thigh. "Would I say a false thing? I tell you, of the twenty-odd old temples and Daoist houses round about, it's the Qingque Nunnery that's the most powerful of them all. I never go there without chattering a few words to the Bodhisattva, asking her to watch over your every affair..."

She hadn't finished before another clamor rose outside. The old lady looked up, all envy. "Oh, that'll be the new bride coming in at the door?" Then she cut Chen Dasheng a look. "In two years' time, when the two of you consummate, we'll do ours just so, too."

Chen Dasheng nodded, over and over. Qi Qian'er wouldn't so much as look at him. She only lifted her face to the sky and nodded. "Mm, this very hour it is. The Zhang house is a decisive lot. Not a moment lost, out with the bride, and no delaying it."

The old lady cut her a side glance. "She's four-and-twenty, and would her house dare delay? For our Jintai's looks and quality, she's more than well matched. A few days back old Madam Tao was nagging at me, saying her own girl would suit better, younger at any rate, and I spat clean at her. It's not that I look down on people. But I tell you all, whoever's daughter it is, it won't be hers. She showed me her true roots long ago, and I've no eye for her house.

"It's no praise of mine, but that Wanru, four-and-twenty as she may be, only look at Madam Dong's own character. A virtuous woman who holds the whole house, inside and out, in one grip. See the mother and you know the daughter. And then look at that bellyful of scheming in old Madam Tao. As if she'd do? If Jintai married her girl, and it's not that I haven't seen through her, in under three years there'd not be so much as a root-hair left for the children. Marry her daughter? She can dream on..."

Of late old Madam Tao had gone near frantic. To get her daughter married into Guard Lane, she'd have knocked her head to the ground before the old lady. A pity a body has no eyes in the back of her head. She'd been seen clean through for a long while.

She Qingling smiled and made a show of following it all, though in truth he hadn't the faintest notion who old Madam Tao was. He braced his belly and stood, and the servants at his side hurried to put his shoes on and support him off for a stroll round the yard.

His stroll done, he said to the old lady: "Adoptive mother, this courtyard of yours is a touch small. Let me fetch you tomorrow to our Yanjing courtyard, to rest there a few days. I've a garden over there whose scenery's worth a look."

At that a thought came to the old lady at once, and she brandished her bamboo strip at Qi Qian'er, resentful. "I'll not go! What would I go for, to beggar the family? Last time this spendthrift lightning-struck thing put out a thousand taels at one stroke. Go, and wouldn't she come along after? I daren't go. No, no!"

Qi Qian'er, without a shred of shame on her face, tipped up her chin and laughed aloud. When she'd done, she said to the old lady, "But I didn't spend your grandson's money. Yet all day long it's only me you catch hold of to nag at. How stingy you are, to have nagged me over it for months on end."

Every time the old lady thought of it, her heart and liver went to pieces. She hated it past bearing and would by no means forgive it. She scooped up a melon-cake on the bamboo strip and flicked it at Chen Dasheng.

Slap. The cake landed square and steady in the plate before him. She signed to him to eat it quick while it was hot.

"Even if I die, I'll never let this go. You dared spend a thousand taels? How is what's yours not still my Scabby's? How are you two separate families now?"

Chen Dasheng, all ingratiation, held up the plate and offered it to his wife. Qi Qian'er took it and ate the cake there before the old lady, and still would not notice the woman's grandson.

Having eaten, she was hard-mouthed still, and said, fierce on purpose, to the old lady, "You just play favorites. How many days has this Scabby waited on you? Play favorites a bit more, and mind, tomorrow your grandson goes off and I'll pack you straight up the mountain. Ai, dig a hole and toss you in it, and we'll see whether you're sorry or not!"

The old lady had someone to back her today. She raised the bamboo strip and pointed it at Qi Qian'er, meaning to lodge a complaint with Chen Dasheng. But out there rose another clamor.

The clamor drew nearer and nearer. Over the wall came flung several handfuls of grain and beans, and a great many copper coins besides.

This was the scattering of grain and beans, lucky things meant to hold down and quell the killing-god. Knowing the family couldn't come out, Tong Jintai had likely had the yin-yang master fling them over the wall.

One look and the old lady was glad. She cast the bamboo strip aside at once and stood up to go gather them. She heard Tong Jintai bellow from beyond the wall. "Granny! Teacher! Big brother! Little sister-in-law! I'm out here with my wife, and we knock our heads to you all!"

Outside went quiet, and the people in the yard went quiet too. After a moment they heard old Madam Xu call out there. "Aiyo, you silly child, what do you want, kowtowing so hard? Aiya, you've split your very brow open. Up you get now. Your granny and your sister-in-law don't want this kowtow of yours. Live well tomorrow, and be good and filial to your granny..."

Outside came a great laugh, and then the crowd bore him off.

The old lady stood there and waited a good while, then turned and said, all smiles. "How fine, Jintai will have a baby to hold by next year..." Then she pointed at Qi Qian'er. "A pity these two lightning-struck ones will keep a body fretting another two years yet. Ai, well, I'll go in and hunt you out a purse each, one to hang at either waist. This coin is lucky..."

With that she hurried into the room. Chen Dasheng looked at Qi Qian'er, and Qi Qian'er rolled her eyes at him.

There was no help for it. Chen Dasheng could only follow the old lady in. And the old lady was cast down again, because his three cousin-brothers had all spoken for wives in the provinces, not wedded yet but settled on. Not that they were unfilial. They too wished to have the old lady over, but the places they were garrisoned were too far off. The old lady had had her fill of travel, and said that to the day she died she'd stay hereabout and not stir one step further.

When grandmother and grandson had gone in, Qi Qian'er sat down before the griddle at last. Spreading a cake with the bamboo strip, she said to Master She, who'd come over, "The truth is, if you hadn't come today, I meant to go to the capital to see you."

Master She nodded, and sat down on the edge of the low couch, watching the charcoal fire. "You're angry, but is it over their seeking marriage-alliances with the households of the Six Boards' officials?"

Qi Qian'er pressed her lips together, flipped the cake over, and nodded to Attendant She. Sure of it.

She'd done so much. Chen Dasheng ought not to have hidden it from her.

She Qingling lifted his face and looked toward the room. The lattice of the window over there eased quietly open, and Chen Dasheng and the old lady poked out their heads, worry all over their faces, and looked at Qi Qian'er.

Meeting her adopted son's eyes, the old lady pointed at Chen Dasheng's head, then at Qi Qian'er, signing to him to smooth it over between them and not leave the young couple at odds.

Master She wanted to laugh but held it in. He coughed, and, looking gravely at the cake-pan, nodded. "I think Sheng'er saw that the several factions of the capital could no longer be reached, and so hit on a way like this. Mm, he did put some thought into it. Not bad at all, he's come on again."

Qi Qian'er was struck. "It wasn't you who arranged it, then?"

Master She nodded. "Of course it wasn't. Had I arranged it..." He thought a moment in earnest, and, there was no telling what he thought of, began to laugh again. "Had it been me, for the sake of his future, the people I'd have picked would each have had to be stronger than you, never mind ability, just by birth alone. My Sheng'er's notion is a cunning one. It took me by surprise. What, did you fear I'd meddle and pick him a high-born, virtuous wife instead?"

Qi Qian'er's face went red of a sudden, and it was a good while before she said, "What would I fear! It's only that I hate that he won't tell me, however much I ask."

She Qingling was greatly puzzled to hear it. He turned his tender face to Qi Qian'er. "This old man knows little of the loves and fondnesses of the young. But if it's as you say, then it's he that's in the wrong. Next time I'll speak to him of it, and you're not to be angry with him. Is that well?"

Qi Qian'er nodded, then shook her head. "I don't rightly know how to put it. At first I didn't think much of it, and I did my best to arrange it as he asked. But afterward, the more I turned it over the more it seemed off. I ask him and he won't say. Why must it be the old dynasty's officials? And why a place like the Censorate, of all places? My heart's not easy over it. I keep thinking, we're a small, humble house, and I fear he'll go stirring up trouble the family can't hold."

Chen Dasheng, hung at the window, wore a look of dawning at last. He reached up and gave himself a silent slap, and the old lady straightway gave him another.

Master She let out a slow breath. "You've overthought it, after all. There's no disaster in it, but it's true they have some small designs. A man with a design in him isn't open about it, and no wonder he dared not tell you, perhaps he was ashamed of it himself. Shut in the back-courtyard, you don't know the front. Up there in the court everything is knotted and tangled past telling...

"As it stands, though Sheng'er and the rest have the Emperor's favor, they came to his side late, after all. Our new dynasty is but newly set up, and the great amnesties and enfeoffments are past and gone. The ties around the Emperor are already many and tangled. Rather than go in and be used as another man's knife, they'd do better to gather a little strength, slowly, from the bottom up, nurse it well, and help one another plant their feet firm in Yanjing. Because otherwise, even I, even the Emperor, we too will grow old in time, and die..."

Qi Qian'er's grip on the bamboo strip loosened, slowly, at last.

Something came to Master She, and he gave a soft laugh. When he'd done, he said to Qi Qian'er, "Sheng'er's gifts are far past the common. Late-awakened as he is, he'll yet rise a thousand steps in a day and mount straight up the clouds. That he could think of this way at all is no small thing, and he's read his books with me only a few days. It's not that he meant to keep it from you on purpose. When he doesn't speak of it, it's because he thought to bear all the hardship of it himself, alone, if hardship came."

Qi Qian'er let out a slow breath. She knew, of course, that Chen Dasheng was clever. For An'er to have come out so bright and quick, he'd surely taken after his own father.

Only, Chen Dasheng had changed too fast. She couldn't get hold of him, and her heart went flustered over it.

To put it plainly, she'd found herself a pretext to pick a quarrel with him this once, to make sure again of where she stood.

And it turned out he'd only feared she'd see the filth of the officials' world. It turned out he'd only meant to shoulder any hardship himself, this dead log of a man. Truly, in two lifetimes he couldn't get one soft word out. Whatever he did, he did it stiff and hard, till it stopped up a body's very breath with vexation.

She Qingling laughed to hear her say it, and, curious about the griddle, put out a hand to try it himself.

Qi Qian'er passed him the bamboo strip, and moved up a stool and sat beside him.

Having flipped the cake over with success, Attendant She said, all smiles, "And who says a thing like this isn't upright? Of the honest officials in the histories, how many does the little lady know?"

Qi Qian'er thought a moment. "I don't know many. Only Sun Shu'ao, and Ximen Bao, that handful."

Master She nodded his approval. "Mm, you've read a few of the histories, then."

Qi Qian'er flushed on the instant. The little drop of learning she had, she truly dared not show off before this one.

She Qingling was always more patient with the people around his adopted son. Slowly he set to explaining to Qi Qian'er. "The honest officials you know are the few and rare ones these past thousands of years have thrown up. Take Sun Shu'ao. He rose to be Chancellor, one man beneath and ten thousand above. His tenure was buffeted about, thrice raised and thrice cast down. His character was noble, and all his life he took no bribe, so that when he died his house was so poor it couldn't even buy a coffin. That's why later ages set him up as the foremost of the incorrupt."

Qi Qian'er nodded. "Yes, that's how the histories have it."

But Attendant She laughed softly. "And yet we who hold office look at a thing differently than you. Incorruption aside, do you know the several policies for the people's benefit that Sun Shu'ao pressed forward at court while in office?"

Qi Qian'er was taken aback, and shook her head after all. Before this one, best not go airing her little store of learning.

Attendant She rapped the griddle with the bamboo strip. "In his tenure Sun Shu'ao pressed for the people as the root of things, for lenient punishment and easy governance, for laying down arms and resting from war, for farming and commerce raised up together. In the matter of water-works especially he did much, and laid up merit for the common folk for ten thousand generations after.

"But we of later times, if we only read and never hold office, will never understand his hard case. His office was a very hard one to hold. Lenient punishment cuts at the dignity of the state. Laying down arms touches the interests of the men of war. In his tenure, over both coinage and water-works, he ground hard against the officials of the Boards of Revenue and Works. That's what gave him that faltering road, thrice raised and thrice cast down..."

It may be he'd truly eaten too much, because at last Attendant She braced his belly and rose again. Strolling round the courtyard, he instructed Qi Qian'er as he would a son. "Holding office isn't the thing you take it for. You've watched too many operas. The honest official, the famous minister, the hero, the mean man, the traitor, the cruel officer, these are all judgments made by later people.

"Do you know how many self-seeking, marketplace souls began, too, with a whole heart of hot blood and a bellyful of the will to do the people good? Whether they enter the Hall of Merit or not, every man who holds office must climb from the very lowest place, one step at a time. Only after despair on despair do they change, little by little. Who doesn't wish his name to shine down the ages? Who doesn't wish to be dear to his emperor? Holding office is a subtle thing. However later people judge it by its outcomes, I think the truest way to judge an official is from the official's own angle.

"To judge an officer, one must weigh the measures he took in the place he governed, and weigh them against Heaven, and Earth, and men, every side of it. That's a right judging. Mark you, the sages set it down: Heaven, Earth, the Sovereign, one's Parents, one's Teacher, and the people aren't even named to a sixth place. That shows you the people's bitterness, grief, and hardship. For all his hundredfold striving, an honest official is, more often than not, helpless. When all's said, please the sovereign, and the common folk aren't always pleased. Please the common folk, and the hundred officers of the court aren't always pleased..."

Here Attendant She turned to look at Qi Qian'er's face, and, finding her not bewildered but rather deep in thought, he nodded, well satisfied, and went on.

"To keep to Sun Shu'ao, that honest man. In the Liezi, in the 'Shuo Fu,' it's told that a Huqiu elder once said: Him of high rank, men envy. Him of great office, the sovereign misdoubts. Him of rich stipend, resentment dogs. Rank, power, and stipend are things a man in office cannot get around. Not even Sun Shu'ao himself could escape them.

"And yet, for all his thrice-raised and thrice-cast-down, he still did every last thing he'd set out to do. So I put it to you, besides leaning on his own abilities, what else must he do to bring his ends to pass? And to do those things, the sovereign's trust and favor were far from enough. The truth is, a sovereign's relation to his great ministers is most often one of partnership. And let them once fall to reining in and threatening one another, hmph, then the dynasty is in peril..."

At that Qi Qian'er stood still and thought alone a long while. But she had, after all, spent her whole former life within Quanhou Street, and set to thinking on so deep a meaning, she truly could make nothing of it.

Which was no more than Master She looked for.

Master She sat back down on the low couch, closed his eyes, and listened to the clamor outside, until the people out there seemed to have come into the courtyard. Only then did he open his eyes and take up his tea, and see Qi Qian'er coming slowly over to make Attendant She an earnest bow. "Dad! Your child truly can't work it out. Teach me, won't you!"

What nerve, indeed.

She Qingling sprayed out a mouthful of tea, clapped a hand to his brow, and laughed. He thought: Sheng'er is odd past all measure, and how is it the one he's married is odder yet?

He'd always felt this little wife had a whole air of oddness to her, as though there were no one she thought much of. Never mind that all the glory on her now came off his Sheng'er, still she was righteous as you please, and held that she herself had the ability to master such matters. Even Master She could see it. This little wife, without his Sheng'er, would live well wherever she went. She had real skill in her, and so she had this proud streak too.

And now there was one thing more to add: she was a shameless, brazen fence-sitter besides.

He'd looked into the old Huo family matter in the past too, and try as he might, he couldn't work out what circumstance could have bred up such a person. But good water isn't let fall onto another man's field, after all, and for Sheng'er's sake he hadn't dug into it deep.

He'd come this morning and made everything plain. Chen Dasheng, too, had called him "Dad" at every turn, and the old lady had called him "son" at every turn. Only this stinking girl had made as though she heard nothing. Well. And now she'd come begging his help, and it was Dad she came calling.

His laughter done, Master She pointed at Qi Qian'er. "My Sheng'er's but newly awakened. You're not to bully him from now on. You! You've read too little still, and your roots are thin. From now on, don't read yourself dead over the books. Better be a bit quicker in the head."

Inside, Chen Dasheng and his grandmother, hung over the lattice, saw Qi Qian'er kneel. They looked at each other and slowly let out a breath.

The old lady was cross at heart, and rapped Chen Dasheng's head a good few times, thinking: could this fool not have spoken plainly? Serves you right. Told you to hide it, told you to hide it, and you all but drove that fine grandson's-wife of hers to a divided heart. But it was well now. The storm was past at last, and the family was warmly of one company again.

She Qingling drank his tea in earnest, drew from his sleeve a brocade pouch he'd made ready long before, and put it into Qi Qian'er's hand. "Qian'er, your gifts are no whit below Sheng'er's. Only your temper's too steely, and won't yield. Keep on so, and either others suffer, or you choke on it yourself. From now on you must cherish yourself more, and not go bearing every last thing hard and alone. See, you've got us now, from this day."

That one word from her foster-father hurt Qi Qian'er past bearing. She stood and wiped away a tear. "Mm, I understand, Dad. I'll mend it!"

She Qingling laughed. "A man has but the one life. Where you can be easy, don't stay choked up. Sun Shu'ao died of illness at eight-and-thirty, in a strange land. His heart, for sure, bore too heavy a load. One ordinary matter of state he handled was a hundred times harder for him than for common men..." He breathed out softly, and went on. "As with my grandfather and my father, theirs were bones of very steel, and they'd sooner be alone than go against their own hearts. But what was my mother's fault in it? What fault did the three degrees of my kin bear?

"Had there been, that day at court, a few more like-minded allies, a few more voices willing to stand up and speak for them, then not even the sovereign would have dared do them wrong. I think Sheng'er is storing up his strength now, and eagerly, because there's surely something he means to bring about. So he hit on a way like this. Only it went and put you out, and maybe even chilled your heart. But grudge him for keeping it from you?"

Qi Qian'er looked at her foster-father, and the whole desolation of his ruined house rose in her, and her heart went sore with it too. He truly did take Chen Dasheng for a son of his own flesh. Maybe he feared, too, that on some day when he'd grown old, and the old-saber-loving Emperor was gone, and the realm at peace and the soldier's standing fallen low, Chen Dasheng and the rest, men with no root or backing under them, would be forlorn indeed.

Feeling something stir in her, Qi Qian'er turned to look at the room, and there was Chen Dasheng, hung eagerly over the lattice, watching her. Seeing her turn, he bared a mouthful of white teeth at once and grinned, silly and shameless.

Qi Qian'er rolled her eyes and glared at him once more, then turned back to her foster-father. "I've faults of my own. But he's no fine thing either."

But She Qingling said, "A child's talk, that. And it's not that I take my son's part, but when a good husband and wife meet with something, what need to waste breath explaining it point by point? It ought to be that one glance tells you the other's mind. The two of you! You've still some grinding-down to go through, and you'd best jump clear of your own narrow bounds, and soon."

Seeing Qi Qian'er drop her head at once and not dare turn her eyes on him, She Qingling smiled. "Nor are you to fret over those few others. For a man to have his small designs is only human, and they've a hard time of it, marrying wives. As for cherishing the woman of the house, it's no praise of mine, but there's not one of them a whit below this fool of ours. Now that the Emperor favors them, and their footing is good, they haven't gone attaching themselves to wealth and power to cheapen themselves for it, and that's a rare thing. Know this: those seven are long since not like other men. They're men who've looked on life and death, and looked on the faces of the world.

"When the mother eagle brings food into the nest, of a whole brood of young it's only the strongest that snatches the most and eats the fullest. That's the cruelty at the root of all things in this world. He didn't want to show you such cruelty, and you had to go and be angry with him for it. Now tell me, is my son wronged, or is he not?"

Qi Qian'er took the teaching, and dropped her head, and said nothing.

Seeing her so, She Qingling looked over at the old lady at the window. The old lady put up her thumb to him and fell to praising him, heart and soul.

Her praising done, she climbed down off the kang and ran into the yard, and hung a lucky coin at each of the two's waists. At the last she took Qi Qian'er's hand and put it into Chen Dasheng's, and scolded, "The pair of you, two worrying lightning-struck things. Full to the brim with little cunning tricks, and how is it you won't turn a scrap of it on your own selves? Have you both turned yourselves into foolish blocks of wood? You're not to carry on so again, do you hear?"

Qi Qian'er made to draw her hand back, but Chen Dasheng caught hold of it and ran.

These two lightning-struck ones went up the ladder at the side of the wing-room and onto its roof. There Chen Dasheng pointed at a stretch of red down the lane. "Don't be cross anymore. Wait but two more years, and we'll make this lane red again too, and, just as you'd have it, we'll get a son and call him An'er. Now say, isn't that good?"

Seeing his wife's cheeks go pink as she nodded, he laughed and scratched the back of his head. "Heh, wife, I'll tell you one more thing. Now, you mustn't be angry. Those months back, when I went out to play with Zheng Aman and the rest, I won a bit of silver by accident. Tomorrow I'll bring it all back to you, and not give it to Granny..."

The words weren't out before a great force struck his side, and Chen Dasheng went tumbling off the roof.