Chapter 83

"Is it hard for you?" The old lady watched her grandson, careful.

There were many in the old lady's room, and for once all of them her own.

Chen Dasheng was back from old Madam Tao's, and had told the old lady the day's business. Hearing her ask, he pulled off his outer robe and handed it to Chunfen, and thought it over in earnest. For Zhou Jizong to get a captain's set of armor and a warhorse through the Board of War by the proper channel was, before him, a thing almost too small to name.

He knew few people at the Board of War. The one he was closest to was Zeng Anbang, and after him Guo Qian. And it so fell out that Zeng Anbang had charge of the Board's Carriage Bureau, which meant, laid out in full, the imperial escort-trains, the horse-administration, the carriages, the postal relay, and the weapons. He needn't even speak to Zeng Anbang direct. He'd only send Guan Si'er to the Board to have a word with some petty clerk over weapons, and the issue would come through the ordinary way.

But this ordinary way most often came to nothing. As in the Tan army, the share that should have been his he never knew of and never saw. A commander provided a great deal for his own men out of his own purse, and if a man had the means, it was ordinary enough to spend his own money to guard his own life.

Arms were always a great cost, and horses came in grades. For the Zhou brothers to have warhorses that could run a long road and go into battle wanted a mount of thirty strings at the least. Add the common tack at one string three hundred, a plain bow and ten arrows at two strings, and one suit of the lowest iron armor at twenty-eight strings five hundred, and it came to ninety-three strings six. No wonder his father frowned the moment he saw the Board of War's outgoings-list.

The Zhou brothers had asked only for armor, but there was armor at a thousand strings a set, and armor at a hundred, and the fear was to slip and put someone else in your debt by mistake, which would not do.

Seeing her grandson lost in thought, the old lady asked again: "Scabby? Is it hard?"

Chen Dasheng came to himself, and shook his head at his granny with a smile: "It's not hard."

"Ah." The old lady was easy at last, and sighed: "I don't understand these things. I only feared you'd be put to trouble. But if it's not hard, then lend a hand where you can. So many years now. She keeps her face, and her days are hard, and grasping though she is, there's no help for that. It's the ones with money to spare who can't be bothered to scheme. Our house has all come right, and who'd have thought her turn would come round again. What a run of bad luck. How is it always her fate?"

She forever wished everyone at peace. Out of sorts as she and old Madam Tao had been, she'd not have her go through the same losing of a son.

Chen Dasheng nodded: "Ai! Don't fret over it. I'll think how to do it by and by. Leave it to me, it's no great matter."

He sat by the old lady and patted her hand with a smile. But the old lady muttered, adrift: "Two good-for-nothings, and at their age too, kicking up this sort of nonsense. What does their mother want with them chasing after such useless things? They've no gift for it. Even farming would be better, at least it's steady."

Chen Dasheng said nothing, only patted the back of her hand to soothe her. He was a child who said little before his elders, and what he did now and thought now was more unlike his cousins than ever, and he'd not have the family see it, and would say it less still.

Qi Qian'er, though, sat there rather adrift, turning a few words over in her head. Zuoliang Pass? Zuoliang Pass? Was it Zuoliang Pass, of all places? All at once she dared not hold it against old Madam Tao. A year or two more and Zuoliang Pass would be the deadliest ground in all Great Liang, and the men who went would go nine parts to their deaths.

How was it that Chen Dasheng was safe now, and Guan Si'er and the rest need not die, but it was old Madam Tao's sons instead?

It was too strange a thing. In spite of herself she shivered, and said of a sudden: "Tell me. The realm's at peace at last, hard won. But when will the frontier ever be at peace?"

It would never be at peace. From the oldest times it had never been at peace.

Even the old lady, who couldn't read, knew the people of the grasslands beyond the passes were forever wolfish, and had come deep into the heartland several times these last years while Great Liang was torn within, burning and killing and looting, so that even on the famine road there was no end of hearing of it.

The old lady seemed to remember something. Her eyes went up, and she caught Chen Dasheng's hand, looked at him, looked at her grandsons, and said at last in a threatening tone: "We're not going! Do you hear? Not for a mountain of gold and silver! We've given our loyalty already, we can give no more, hear me! There's none left! I've only this little left to me. If any of you dares run such a risk, and go trading it for wealth too, then I tell you, one and all, it's rank unfilialness!"

She was a clever hand at threatening people with filial duty now.

Seeing the old lady's eyes go a little wild, Chen Dasheng caught both her hands and said, smiling: "Granny! We'd like to go, only our father won't let us."

Her wits cleared on the instant. First she patted her chest, then reached to touch little Lanting in the cradle beside her, and said, smiling: "True enough. Look at me, fretting the day long over nothing. Best no house's children go at all." She nodded down at the cradle and cooed: "Isn't that so, Granny's precious?"

Xique, sitting in the corner playing cat's-cradle, looked up of a sudden, her little face grave, and said to the old lady: "No!"

The cloth was off the child's face now, and a plain scar ran clear across the whole right side of it.

The Board of Rites lane house had been running everywhere pulling strings to make peace, and lately two old lords at court had even dropped Chen Dasheng a word of it. Chen Dasheng gave nothing away. He couldn't so much as look at Xique's face. One look and he was furious. Every child of his Chen house was precious. There was no letting them be bullied so.

Seeing her cousin look at her face, Xique bent her head at once and went back to her cat's-cradle.

Only the old lady laughed alone: "You little imp, you say no and so it's no? Well, let it be. I daren't say a wrong word, I can only say good. Safe and sound is good. In the old days I never dared dream of days like these, heh heh."

The old lady was the only one forever saying she was content. But whose heart these days was without its furrow?

Something came to Li-shi, and she took out a kerchief and turned to wipe her eyes. Chen Dasheng, though, gave his wife's question serious thought, and found that the sense of command he'd felt a moment before all but drained away the moment the frontier came into it.

Seeing everyone downcast, the ever-silent Luo-shi spoke up of a sudden: "My father is a war-priest at the front."

The whole family was faintly startled, and turned together to look at the young woman.

Luo-shi went red to the ears, her needle-hand stopping, and said: "My father says the wild men of the grasslands never make sacrifice, so they're bound to lose." She nodded firmly at the family: "It's only a matter of time!"

The young wife's eyes were round, and her tone all certainty. She was so winning that the old lady was pleased at once, and beckoned: "Come here."

Luo-shi, taken aback, stood and went to the old lady, and Chen Dasheng made room, and the old lady caught her and patted her a few times and laughed: "You're a droll one too, child. Why don't you like to talk? You sit there all day, and only let out a few words when you're pressed. I took you for half a mute! This is better. Be like this from now on, Granny likes you like this."

Everyone laughed, and the old lady pointed at Qi Qian'er: "You're ten thousand times drollier than this stubborn donkey."

That put Qi Qian'er out at once, and she made a face and jeered: "Ten thousand times? You can't count past a thousand, old lady, so when did you learn to count ten thousand? Truly, a new love makes an old one forgot. This isn't like the times you used to kiss me."

The old lady went red with shame, and snatched up something to hand and flung it at her. Qi Qian'er caught it. It was a one-bite crisp, and she popped it in her mouth, and eating it, squeezed in across from them and asked Luo-shi in earnest: "So there's, there's a sacrifice in war too?"

It was the first she'd heard that such a place as a war-priest was in the world.

At that Luo-shi grew eager. She scrambled up and said in earnest to Qi Qian'er: "Of course there's a sacrifice. To the Wind and Cloud and Thunder and Lightning, to the Yellow Emperor and the Horse Ancestor, to the army banners and the war-drums, to Heaven and Earth and Lord Chiyou, all must be sacrificed to. And oh, once the great army sets out, wherever it meets a famed mountain or great river, the temples of the hundred gods must all be well used, wine set out and meat, spirit-money burned and incense lit, and the ranks drawn up in array. My father's so busy, truly! So busy!"

The room went quiet, and then broke into a roar of laughter.

Chen Dasheng watched the womenfolk crowd into one knot, all smiles, and cocked his head at his cousins, minded to slip off.

Chen Dazhong asked his brother low: "What for?"

Chen Dasheng cocked his head: "A bit of game up the back mountain. Coming? These few days I've been so idle I'm growing fur, and the New Year's nearly here."

Chen Dayi put his head in between them and murmured: "Does our house want for these few dishes now?"

Chen Dasheng lifted his chin: "Don't come, then. You can stay and talk needlework with Granny."

The old lady these days, once awake, would have all the children called in. She'd do nothing, only she must look up and see them, and go round counting heads. Sometimes she'd rise at midnight and have herself helped to the courtyard gate to stand a while, and ask the night-watch, they're all here?

The watch would say yes, all here, not one short, all in their rooms, and she'd go back to bed content.

But sitting there day after day was dull past bearing.

Men, when all's said, unable to sit still. They each rose quietly and slipped out. The old lady watched the few of them edge furtively for the door out of the corner of her eye, and made a face at her grandsons' wives, and they laughed again together.

Out in the yard they could still hear Luo-shi holding forth on how busy her father was.

"...our house's sacrifice-texts fill three great chests! My father knows them all by heart, The Sacrifice to the Wind Earl and the Rain Master, The Sacrifice to the Gods of Mountains and Rivers, The Sacrifice to the Yellow Emperor, The Sacrifice to Chiyou, The Sacrifice to the Five Weapons, I can't get through the half of them. The Yellow Emperor and Lord Chiyou are the war-gods, and last time Dayong went to war I prayed to just these..."

"Good, good, we'll pray to them too from now on..."

Chen Dasheng looked at his proud third cousin and said with a smile: "Your little wife's a droll one. There's another good thing she's laid on for our granny."

Chen Dayong laughed. He hadn't been with Chen Dasheng, nor with Dazhong and Dayi. It was well he'd a sister, Dingxiang, who sent word every day telling him to marry quick and not cut off the second branch's line. So he'd cast about near to hand, and found only the old war-priest's family had a girl who could read and write, and had begged his superior to make the match.

His father-in-law had set him no great difficulty either, being a most kindly, decent old soul. But once the wife was home and living began, he found she'd been ruled by her parents all her life and was too meek, a woman with no mind of her own. Out in the provinces it hadn't shown, but come to the capital and set beside the house's four young wives, the youngest was the steadiest, the eldest the frankest, the second the most earnest, and this one of his, mm, had only her softness left.

Nor was that all. When the wife was married and they were to come up to the capital, his father-in-law spoke to him for the first time, saying he was old and could give his son no future, and would trouble him to take the burden on.

With Dingxiang married off, Chen Dayong wanted as much family about him as he could, and so had brought his brother-in-law and wife along too. But Luo-shi had been sick with guilt the whole road, angry at her own parents, feeling she'd saddled Chen Dayong. Come home she dared not speak, and felt herself in the wrong.

Chen Dayong had talked her round these several days, and today at last she'd come along.

He thought: ai, each has his own lot, and let her be soft if she's soft. It's enough that she's kind.

They went out of the courtyard together, and had the pages of their several branches fetch hunting-clothes, bows and arrows, and wine-gourds, and set off by the small path round the back of the hill for Baiquan Mountain.

For hunting, the best time is after snow. Snow puts a limp in the beasts when they go out. But it was strange today. They walked a good way into the hills, and never mind hares and pheasants, they couldn't even see the magpies that were always flapping about.

Chen Dazhong had some experience, and said, looking at the hill: "This hill's wrong today. It's as if the beasts have been frightened off."

Chen Dasheng breathed out a white breath and looked round too, and muttered: "It feels somehow more open up here today."

Look a bit more, then.

So the four of them went on into the hills. But before long they heard a strange wailing cry.

Chen Dasheng checked, put out a hand and caught his eldest cousin, and pointed his chin at the ground.

Chen Dazhong looked, and saw a line of fresh footprints leading off toward the hollow in the hill.

Who could it be?

While they wondered, the cry came again from the hill, like a lone wolf starved four or five days, a howling... ah, ah, ah, and as they drew slowly nearer, a sound too of slapping.

Stranger and stranger.

Rounding the hollow, Chen Dasheng and the rest stood still.

In the dark old wood, in a sheltered nook out of the wind, old Madam Tao's son, the one called Zhou Jizong, sat on the ground against an old tree, wailing.

A man's weeping is not for the light or for men to see, not to be shown before anyone, so he could only hide to do it, and even as he wept he slapped his own face left and right.

He was muttering something. Listen close, and he was cursing himself, hating himself, at war with himself. He'd curse a while, wail a while, slap himself left and right a while, till the wounds his mother's hand had clawed on his face bled again, red and swollen and split open, and his face was smeared with blood and he never felt the pain.

He wept and wept, till the snot and tears and spittle ran together into two icicles that would not drip, but hung and grew on his face.

So stifled a thing, and so forlorn.

Chen Dasheng breathed slowly out, and drew back, quietly, behind the hollow.

At such a time, leave. The man had never meant to be seen.

The four of them killed nothing, but came down the hill heavy at heart. Coming to the edge of the manor, Chen Dazhong said of a sudden: "The truth is, long ago I was like that too. When the elders of the house were all gone, I was afraid then, truly! Afraid past bearing. I feared I couldn't carry the house, couldn't carry Granny, couldn't carry Dingxiang, couldn't carry you all. And to speak true, I've carried nothing to this day."

Seeing his brother hard-pressed, Chen Dasheng went and patted his shoulder, and walked on half-embracing him.

Chen Dazhong went on with the past: "My heart, it was like a strip of raw meat. One night I couldn't hold it, felt I had to weep for once, that I'd not live if I didn't, so I found a great empty field with no one about..."

He stood and looked back up at the great mountain: "Just like him. The weather cold like this too. They'd just handed out a bit of reward-money, and the fourth uncle came round the moment my back was turned, saying Granny was ill, and there was nothing I could do! So I ran out, and knelt in the empty field in the dead of the coldest days, slapping my own face left and right and howling..."

No one spoke. It was a good while before Dayong asked: "And, and then?"

Chen Dazhong laughed at himself: "What 'then'? Heh. My squad-master thought I'd deserted. I shared his tent, and if one man of a tent deserts, ten to a tent, none of them can hope to get off. By the time I got back they'd all been given a dozen army-canes by the officer, and after, I was beaten too, and when I was well they set me to washing their clothes for punishment..."

Dayong was a simple soul, and asked: "You washed it the whole time?"

He asked it so, but Chen Dayong thought: if my own tent had a graceless fellow like that, I'd set him to all the work, work him to death.

Chen Dazhong let out a long breath: "I didn't wash it many days. At the taking of Huayang city only I came back, and that day I sat in the tent and laughed. I laughed at their foolishness. See there! Dared not come back, did you. The dried meat and good wine they'd hoarded, and the money in the seams of the bedding, were all mine now..."

His brother Dayi didn't wait for the end of it, but went and threw an arm round him: "Come, brother, shall we few have another drink?"

Chen Dasheng nodded: "Mm, another drink. My house's wine is mine to drink as I please. Brother! Don't fret, it's all past. What's a howl? I howled every day back then. Ask Quanzi. In the recruit camp there was me, and there was Chang Little-Flower, and we two could howl from the war-sacrifice clean through to the gathering of the corpses. Set us to the dirty work of burying the dead, and we howled at that too. There's no shame in howling. To live through it is the real skill..."

Chen Dazhong had been low enough, but hearing this shameless thing talk so, he put out an arm, caught his youngest cousin, and gave him a punch: "Get on with you! As if it were something to be proud of, and the face to say it."

So the four brothers went down the hill again, talking and laughing, and went together to Chen Dasheng's house, and sent for Cui You besides.

No need to trouble the kitchen. They fished a whole sheep-carcass out of the fragrant cauldron in the old lady's courtyard, cracked it open, carried a basinful back, and the brothers climbed onto the heated kang of the west wing of Chen Dasheng's main court, and sprawled every which way, drinking and talking idle.

Chen Dasheng dug several new satin quilts out of the kang-chest for them to lean on as they pleased. At home he had that right. However he chose to put his wife out, she never minded, but spoiled him.

Cui You came trotting in, and one look at the scene had him glad past bearing. He worked off his shoes and climbed up too, took up a bone and gnawed at it a while, then scooped up a bowl of wine and drank two down before he said: "Aiyo! Immortals! An immortal's life!"

Hearing him grumble so, Chen Dayong gave him a kick: "What rot are you talking? What, has our house wronged you?"

Dingxiang was thick at the waist now, and Cui You's mother dared find no fault, and this time Dingxiang's own family had sent a great mansion with her besides, so his mother-in-law dared the less stand in another family's courtyard and rail by hint and by aside. Choked with it, the old woman could only wretchedly bully her own son.

That old woman was small-minded. Every day she'd find a moment to go and peer at the old lady's courtyard, and envy the guests coming and going there, and feel that she too was a guest and the old lady ought to wait on her hand and foot, and ask her over to sit on the kang and be a great-grandmother.

As if. Never mind the old lady, Qi Qian'er wouldn't spoil her either.

So she'd not even sat out the opera before she began to make her mischief, now fussing she'd not eaten well, now that her body was poorly, and in a few days Doctor Cheng had been to the house several times.

Dingxiang was thick at the waist now, thick through and through, and yielded not an inch, and set poor Cui You in the middle to be squeezed from both sides, a pitiful sight.

Another bowl of wine, and Cui You stripped off his coat and pointed at the bruises on his waist to lay charges before his brothers-in-law. This your sister pinched me yesterday, this your sister pinched me this morning... but no one pitied him.

They only poured their sister's husband more wine, smiling.

Three bowls in, Chen Dasheng put out a foot and gave Cui You a nudge: "Come spring, a Director's post falls vacant under the Board of War's Carriage Bureau, over the postal relay-stations. Will you go?"

Cui You started, and the bowl dropped from his hand. Unbelieving, he turned, teeth chattering, and asked this most-made-good brother-in-law of his: "You, what did you say?"

Never mind that a bureau Director was a small thing. The relay-stations touched close on fat berths like the canal transport. Never mind Great Liang, in the old dynasty at its steadiest there'd been a station every thirty li, over two thousand stations.

Of course, the Board of War had its work, the Board of Revenue its work, the Board of Personnel its work, and the relay-stations were a tangled place.

And what? Such, such a fine thing might come to him?

Seeing him so struck, Chen Dasheng gave him another nudge: "What fine thing do you take it for? Not the head. You'd be a sesame-sprout in the bean-heap, helping oversee the Board's postal odds and ends, only the small stuff of the Board of War, and the passing-on of army orders. Will you go?"

Go! Go he would! And even that was no small thing. A relay every thirty li, the horses tended, the couriers fed, the official reports moving, the army orders passed on...

Cui You was wild to have it, his heart pounding like a drum, but he held it in. He knelt himself courteously up beside Chen Dasheng, put out two iron fists, and made to pummel Chen Dasheng's legs for him, soft and coaxing. Chen Dasheng dodged and laughed and scolded: "What's the son-in-law at? None of your fuss, I'm asking, will you go?"

Cui You, still soft and small-voiced, said: "It's, it's no bad thing to go, only such a plum, why, why not let the elder brothers go?"

Chen Dasheng looked at his cousins, who gave nothing away, and sighed at last, helpless: "I'd like to. But so key a place, the brothers have read only a few days' books, and would never hold the seat even if they went. You, now. Rough as you look on the outside, I've seen your yearly marks at the Board of War, and they're all top grade, and with your years of holding troops you've solid merit besides. And it's no place of great weight, so to go first and hold the ground is well enough."

Cui You watched Chen Dasheng's face close, and seeing it no pretense, cupped his hands to him: "If there's truly such a good thing, I'm very willing to go. Then I'll trouble you, brother, to take the pains."

Fat as the post was, he'd not go to line his own pockets. It was that the Carriage Bureau's plums were too hard to work, too many wolves, and one radish to a hole. Once a man sat there, however unsteady, others would have to weigh him well before they'd shift him. He was the Gate Marquis's brother-in-law, a man with backing, so a level transfer was out of the question, and to move him at all they'd have to raise him a grade to make the room. He was junior fifth now, and without backing or a lucky turn he'd have stayed so all his life. But go to the Carriage Bureau over the post-relay, and upper fifth was a settled thing.

Seeing him willing, Chen Dasheng said with a smile: "Then it's fixed. Keep a good New Year first, and once the Lantern Festival's rush is over, go and report."

At that his cousins were amazed. Surely it was too easy?

Chen Dayi sat up, patted Chen Dasheng's back, and asked: "Just like that?"

Just like that, an upper-fifth-grade post settled?

Chen Dasheng sat up too, leaned on the quilts and explained to his cousins: "Hai, you've not been in the capital. Once you're settled you'll see, it's a thing everyone knows. The way it stands now, every board is short of people everywhere. The old dynasty's men they daren't use, and most of our own Shaoshang men can't be lifted to it. For a key place like this, if there's three or five in the running, the few old lords of the Six Boards would still have it that the old Commandery-Office men come first, the old Shaoshang men come first."

He pointed at Cui You: "He fits. Fits anywhere! It only wanted someone to drop a word to the man in charge that there was a fit man to be had."

Cui You nodded and nodded: "Just so. Why else does the old saying go, it's good to have a man at court?"

That said, he laughed, and when he'd laughed said to Chen Dasheng: "Brother, we're your own family, so no more of the mincing words. From now, just tell me what you'd have me do. Up a mountain of knives or down a cauldron of oil, at one word from you."

Chen Dasheng lifted his eyes to him and nodded: "Be good to my sister."

Cui You nodded: "She's my own ancestor to begin with. I'll be so good to her I'll set her on an altar."

Everyone laughed. An old husband and a young wife, Cui You was not wrong.

Chen Dasheng raised his bowl, clinked it against Cui You's, and said: "The mountain of knives you needn't. Our house has only just come into the Yanjing circle, and to keep our heads down at everything and stay steady is the great thing. In your seat I've but one demand. Keep your feet plain on the ground, no tricks, only hold it steady. Whoever would move you, you're not to go, not even for a grade's promotion. And if they force a transfer on you, come to me. I'll see who dares touch you."

Cui You didn't follow, but nodded in earnest and said yes.

Seeing him agree, Chen Dasheng raised his bowl and clinked it again and drank it off: "I've a great use for that seat. Within ten years, I've a great use for it."

So the few of them sat up drinking till the dark came down, and Chen Dayi said a rare thing at last: "It's not that I'd spoil the mood just now. But look at the days we live now." He tipped his head up at the roof, and said, a little sore: "Look at this house, look at the things we eat. When our whole family was sold off, I've never dared forget it. Sometimes I shut my eyes and it's as if it were yesterday."

The words put Chen Dasheng in mind of something, and he asked Chen Dazhong: "Brother, that rich house that cheated our family, do you still remember what it was called? I was small then, frightened out of my wits, and took nothing in."

At that everyone was struck still. Chen Dayong looked at the two above him, said nothing, tipped his head back and drained a bowl, then put out a hand and dashed it to the ground.

It was a good while before Chen Dazhong bared his teeth, patted his shoulder, and said: "Brother, leave this one be. Your three elder brothers are all alive. I'll go first. You get on with your own business."

Chen Dasheng looked at his cousins, who seemed to have some pact of old between them, and nodded and said nothing.

That night again the wine was drunk grim, drunk to drown themselves in. For all the good days now, none of them could take the good into their hearts. It sat in them like guilt, as if one mouthful more were owed to someone.

Next morning at full daylight, at the lane-mouth, old Madam Tao's Top-Scholar, his book-bundle under his arm, was just going out. He pushed open the great gate, and at one glance saw the great person from Guard Lane, a horsewhip in his hand, leaning across the street eating an oil-cake.

The old Chen house keeping its good-fortune cauldron had drawn no end of little shoulder-pole peddlers into the street to do a trade. And the wall across from old Madam Tao's had been taken by a man frying oil-cakes.

It was a droll thing. The oil-cake man had barely got his pan going when a grand customer came, a whole pouch of copper cash on him, who tethered his horse against the wall and bought oil-cakes to eat.

This one had a great capacity. The first ball of glutinous flour went into the oil, and as each cake came out he bought it, and ate it, and bought another.

Seventeen or eighteen cakes down, the gate across the way pushed open, and the grand customer smiled. The oil-cake man heard him call out, all smiles, toward the far door: "Little Top-Scholar, go call your fourth uncle. Tell him it so happened I went to the capital, and today I've got his business done..."