Chapter 84

Having handed the Zhou brothers off to his man at the Board of War, Chen Dasheng turned and left.

The little clerk at the Board was a quick one. A glance at Chen Dasheng's eye and he knew how to see to it. The lord Recorder had put in no extra word, so he'd only look after them by the ordinary rule, to the full allowance, and the cost needn't even run past a hundred strings.

A small thing, a small thing!

Even so, the Zhou brothers were full of gratitude, and saw Chen Dasheng clean to the mouth of the Board of War street before they turned back.

Off the Board of War street, Chen Dasheng dared not ride through the market, and could only lead his horse. He was in good spirits today, and led the horse on purpose the long way round through the busy streets.

Yanjing before the New Year was a lively place. Just as his father had said, give the people one warm breath and it wanted no long time before you saw all things come alive again.

Once Chen Dasheng had not understood this world. Look as he might, he saw no deeper sense in it, only whether folk were many or few, whether it was lively or not. But it was different now. He could look at a stall's bolts of cloth and reckon the cotton market, look at the run of goods and reckon how clear the canal was running.

Let the canal run clear, and the price of tea, of grain, of cloth all evened out.

Every shop the Emperor had wished for stood open now. Leather-shops, felt-shops, glutinous-rice shops, mutton-shops, sprout-tea shops, wine-shops, wine-towers, noodle-shops, silks and sundries, a good few hundred of them, a few hundred kinds of goods. And even so, his father said, the Yanjing the books told of a hundred years back, with overseas merchants come inland to trade, had been a grander sight still, past all matching.

The overseas men who came to trade were unlike them. Their hair, their eyes, were of every color, and their faith and their rule of state more unlike still... His father longed for such a flourishing age. But he feared too that once the commercial tax was raised, the ways of the people would slowly change. Scholar, farmer, artisan, merchant, that was the order, and let the merchant come forward and the people grew mercenary, and to weigh men by profit was to go against the Way. The profit his father sought was the profit of "the right is the harmony of profit," a profit balanced across all under heaven, the fitting harmony between one thing and another, and only such harmony was the fitting harmony, and only so could a true profit be won... Oh, these were deep questions of the realm, the sort all the old lords must trouble their heads over. He'd only learned the words by heart. He didn't understand them yet. It would take slow thinking to work them clear.

He walked the streets in his plain cloth robe, easy in his heart. Only the great black horse he led drew the eye, and now and then some idle rogue would fall in a step or two behind, and then see the Guard mark on it and take himself off quick.

Mm. Yanjing's peace was a poor thing. Let too much go wrong, and the Emperor would come down on people again... And why did he trouble himself over that? At the thought Chen Dasheng shook his head with a wry laugh. There was no telling when it had begun, but the angle he looked at things from had come to be like the old lords' at court. He'd too much time on his hands, that was all.

He walked straight to the main street and stopped at last, and looked back at the lively market-wards, and thought of his father's words. So great a country, and one civil war, and everyone longed to be settled and steady. But how were these common folk to know that in truth the country had never once been at peace.

In the first month the governor of Nansiqin Commandery had brought on a revolt with his cruelty. In the second, a mutiny in Ningzhou. In the third, the border-tax inspector Gui Ben ran riot and stirred the people to rise. The fourth month, the fifth, the sixth, down to now, a flood here or hail there, earthquakes great and small every month, not one settled day at court. Those things the opera-scripts made such a to-do of, gaveling the table and all, were the smallest matters of all, and the Emperor would hardly so much as look into them.

Seeing the road clear ahead, Chen Dasheng set his foot in the stirrup and mounted, and heard from up the way a clangor of street-clearing gongs.

"Feilian! Brother Feilian! Here, here...!"

Old friends. One was Kang Rui of a collateral branch of Duke Kang's house, and one was the Emperor's foster-son, Grand Tutor Li Zhang's grandson, Li Jinggui. That Kang Rui had only fallen in with them the latter half of the year. He ran with Li Jinggui, half friend and half follower.

Chen Dasheng smiled at them, drew rein, crossed the street, dismounted, and handed the reins to the manager come out to meet him, and asked: "Many people upstairs?"

The manager bowed again and again, and said with a smile: "Not many, not many. The two young lords came first thing this morning, and let no strangers up."

Hearing it, Chen Dasheng was willing to go up.

This was one of Yanjing's four great streets, and a wine-tower on the street served not only for drinking but for watching the show below.

Li Jinggui ran down himself to meet him, and seeing Chen Dasheng laughed: "A lucky day. I've caught an idle Chen Feilian for once."

Chen Dasheng laughed too: "The New Year's nearly here. Don't you help at home? What are you doing running out?"

At that Li Jinggui made a face: "I'm not like you, brother. I'm not wed yet! I've it better than most, they don't nag me much. Do you know, Aman went into the palace yesterday, set on sponging a New Year there." He scratched his head, and a boy's shame showed: "It's the old business, you know it well enough. None of us were raised at home, and still they'd manage us this way and that. I just chafe sitting at home. I don't like to watch my mother weep, so I got out of it. And you?"

Chen Dasheng said with a smile: "My father's alone in the palace. I couldn't rest easy at home, so I thought I'd go and look in on him."

Li Jinggui took the sense of that at once, and nodded: "True. With Attendant She's temper, it's you and no other." That said, he laughed, and pushing open the private-room door asked: "How's the house? Are the old lady and your good wife well?"

Chen Dasheng went in: "Kind of you. All well. Our New Year's a simple thing, not like your great house..."

The words weren't out when a clangor of gongs came from the market-ward. He stepped quickly to the window, and saw, far off up the street, a long line of prisoner-carts come on.

Li Jinggui half sat on the sill, looking off at it, and sighed: "It's but the first year, and already a founding marquis has fallen. What was Gui Yisheng thinking?"

He was the Emperor's foster-son, and had seen much of such things, and spoke coldly. Whoever rose against the Emperor deserved to die, and that was all.

But Kang Rui said, a little sadly: "Ai! Once the New Year's out and school's in, there'll be a group fewer. Gui Xiang and the rest weren't bad, good-tempered, well-read, could turn out verses too, a hundred times better than me. The masters were forever praising them, not like us few, that the elders call not worth a dog's fart."

Chen Dasheng watched the row of standing-cages pass below, watched until the women's carts came, and then his voice went with the mourning-like weeping below: "The Emperor didn't want it either. It's that they left themselves not the least room. Why else take the knife to them in the deep of the twelfth month? The old Dowager keeps her fast and her prayers at the temple day in and day out, and there's nothing she likes less than this sort of thing."

Li Jinggui asked without turning: "You knew of it long since, brother?"

Chen Dasheng watched the street below and nodded lightly: "Mm. I knew in the sixth month. The Gui house's road ended in death, and no one could save them. There was one Gui Ben of theirs first stirred a revolt, and it dragged Little Flower off there on short notice and held up the putting-down of the rebels besides. The Emperor and the old lords of the Board of Punishments were furious then. Much came after that I can't tell you now. If you're curious, go ask Wei Xuanhe..."

The words weren't done when the door behind was pushed open again, and in came a man of six or seven and twenty, wrapped in fox fur, a hand-warmer in his arms, dressed most finely and got up most plain of face. He came in muttering: "Don't ask me, don't ask me. The Board of Punishments hasn't the whole of it this time. My father's said not a word at home, and daren't. I only learned of it just now, and, thinking you'd be here, came in a rush."

Seeing Chen Dasheng, he smiled: "Oh! A rare sight. I was just thinking, by their years they can't call me by my name, but you can, that's proper."

Chen Dasheng glanced at him, made his courtesy, and said: "Not on duty today?"

The man was named Wei Xuanhe. In the second month of this year he'd gone into the Office of Transmission to build seniority. He was the second legitimate son of the house, and his father was Wei Jitai, Minister of the Board of Punishments.

Wei Xuanhe handed the warmer to the boy who'd followed him in, waved him out, and said: "On duty, aye. Only a sesame-seed like me, no one minds whether I'm at my desk, so I slipped off. I thought they'd be here, and never guessed you would too. Don't lay this at my door, no one saw it coming! The Emperor had no help for it. The day before, a good hundred came quietly up from the provinces and got to the Grievance Drum and beat it an hour and a half. Such a stir! Heh! No one can cover it now. The Gui house won't get through this New Year! Ask me, and I don't know either. It's the Board of Punishments, the Court of Judicial Review, and the Censorate together, and it reaches so wide our chief has to go make up the numbers now and then. Oh, and Meng Dingchen's Jiusi Hall. In a word, it's a muddle, a muddle!"

Chen Dasheng of course knew how it stood, and nodded: "I've been away these few days and was wondering at it. The Emperor's mind before was to let the Gui house keep one last family New Year, for old times' sake..."

Even as he spoke, a noise rose below. Someone leapt from a prisoner-cart and made to dive into the crowd. It was a woman, but a few officers hauled her back, and, a look showing her a great house's servant-maid, they minded not that she was a woman, but fell to beating her there in the street.

Chen Dasheng went and looked once, then shook his head and drew back to the table. The others, though, were fair excited by it, and leaned at the window watching, not a blink between them.

The Gui house was a great clan, five generations under one roof, and those carts would be a good while passing.

The door pushed open, and the manager came bowing in, a train of boys behind him, and set out the little eight-treasures of mushrooms, and one meat-pot in the middle for looks. In such weather the young lords wouldn't touch the meat, most like. No, not so. Chen Dasheng ate meat and had no love for mushrooms.

When the food was set, Chen Dasheng called to them: "Leave off watching, all of you. It'll be a while yet. Come eat a few mouthfuls while it's hot."

That said, he took up his chopsticks at his ease and ate the meat first.

They watched their fill of the show below, and when the woman was near beaten to death and thrown on a donkey-cart and hauled off, they shut the window at last, loath to leave it, and turned to see Chen Dasheng had eaten half the pot of meat.

Li Jinggui looked at him and complained, half sore: "You're always like this!"

Chen Dasheng laughed: "I'm used to grabbing my share. And what was there to watch? My granny says it well, in the deep of the twelfth month keep clear of unlucky business, or you take the ill-luck on you. And this is..." He raised his cup and tipped it at them across the table, drank it off, and said: "the ill-luck of the ten unpardonable crimes."

Wei Xuanhe hesitated on his seat a moment, then sat steady. He threw a glance at Li Jinggui, and Li Jinggui looked at the door, and Kang Rui set down his chopsticks and went and pushed it open, and stood coughing in the corridor and did not move.

Seeing Kang Rui had the door, Li Jinggui dropped his voice and asked: "Brother? Is it truly so?"

Chen Dasheng was unlike them. He stood outside Dongming Hall the day long, and even when his foster-father told him nothing, he was the best-informed of all the young lords in the city.

Only he never came out to mix, and it drove the rest to distraction.

The Gui house fallen, a great heap of seats stood empty at court. But those seats had men laying claim to them long since, and it would never fall to young lords like Li Jinggui to reach for them. Yet the ten unpardonable crimes, great treason and rebellion, took at the least three degrees of kin, and so the seats standing empty were more still, and the provincial posts above all would fall vacant, many and many of them.

Never mind that Li Jinggui was the Grand Tutor's grandson. His grandfather thought such scraps of meat between the teeth beneath him, and would not speak of them at home, and the Emperor less still would bring his foster-sons into Dongming Hall, and even the princes seldom went there.

Chen Dasheng was well-informed, and willing to tell them beforehand, and that was a sky-high favor. Let the Li and Wei young lords have the word early, and they could set their own men to hold the ground before the sentences came down. Wait till the case closed after the New Year, and it would all be too late.

Chen Dasheng and Zheng Aman were natural rivals, and this word he'd never give Zheng Aman.

Chen Dasheng ate a few more mouthfuls of meat, then smiled, and instead of answering Li Jinggui straight, said: "I came into the city by chance today, and saw this thing by no design. But there's one thing I'll not hide from you. You all know it. I came out of the Tan army, and suffered some there. It's not gone so far as a blood-feud, but, but there's a thing unsettled in my heart yet."

At that a great smile broke over Li Jinggui's face: "I understand. Rest easy, brother. Whoever it takes, we'll not leave the Tan house one crumb!"

A sweetness rose in Chen Dasheng's face at once. He smiled and clinked his cup to Li Jinggui's, and when he'd drunk turned to the door: "Cold as it is, what are you standing at the door for? Come in and warm yourself, quick!"

Kang Rui came in rubbing his hands and laughing: "Heh! The blood-smell's heavy down that street. It's only that I'm soft-hearted..." He came in all smiles, sat, and waited on the lords with their wine, then said: "Do you lords know there's a strange thing about the city lately?"

Chen Dasheng set down his cup: "What thing?"

Kang Rui looked a duke's-house man, but he was a collateral branch's second legitimate son. His own father lived off the eaves-drip of the ducal house, let alone he.

Only the lad was lucky. He was mad for wrestling, and so was Li Jinggui, and muddling along he'd fetched up at Li Jinggui's side and become his man, and so begun to show his face in Yanjing.

What he had was a quick eye and a knowing way, news of all the walks and trades, and the sharpest reader of a face there was.

Seeing Chen Dasheng ask, Kang Rui said: "A few days back there was a five-thousand-string game at the West Market's hidden house. Do you lords know of it?"

At that the cup in Chen Dasheng's hand stopped. He set it down, took a mouthful of monkey-head mushroom, and when he'd eaten said: "My wife gives me five hundred cash a month. Where would I hear of a five-thousand-string game?"

Seeing them all interested, Kang Rui warmed up. He sat and said: "Heh! Each has his own lot. I only heard of it after too. Do you lords know one Wu Xiu?"

At that Li Jinggui looked straight at Chen Dasheng.

Chen Dasheng nodded, face blank, and sniffed: "I know him. Used to see him about, but I've had no word of the fellow lately. Tan Weitong's brother-in-law. Wasn't he said to be finished?"

Kang Rui sighed: "Finished? He's struck it rich again. Lords, I tell you, this thing's queer, it's marvelous, as good as a storybook... Ai?"

Wei Xuanhe reached over and rapped him: "None of your dithering, get on with it. What's this queer and marvelous?"

Seeing Wei Xuanhe grow impatient, Kang Rui gave a sheepish laugh: "Hai, some while back this Wu Xiu came by a treasure, didn't he, a broad girdle of gold set with gems, jade, and coral, an heirloom of his house, old-dynasty imperial-made..."

Chen Dasheng, drinking soup just then, choked on it.

Li Jinggui laughed too, and patted Chen Dasheng's back as he scolded: "What broken thing, and they call it a treasure? That fool goes tearing round after that broken belt every day, I've seen him at it half a dozen times, an heirloom treasure? Their boasting, you believe it."

But Wei Xuanhe said: "Dongli, don't muddle things. What's your seat? What you call a broken thing, take it outside and it's another man's household treasure. My father was saying only the other day, the list the Emperor means to reward this year, my father's near the top, and you and Little Flower and the rest at the tail, and your things and ours aren't the same, yours are all imperial-made without a thought. I recall the first time I went to your rooms, those qin in your music-room, do you remember them?"

By the Rites of Zhou, one honors the East with the green gui tablet, and Li Jinggui's courtesy-name was Dongli, East-Rite.

Li Jinggui was blank a moment, then asked: "You mean those modern qin?"

At that Wei Xuanhe spat his scorn: "Modern qin! And you the Grand Tutor's grandson! Never mind the rest, one of them is called Riding-the-Moon, and it's written of in the old books. One look and I had a fright, and seeing you cared nothing for it I feared to show my own ignorance and said nothing, but I've been meaning to ask you ever since. Where did you get it?"

Here he tossed his head, well pleased: "The Emperor doesn't know either. It's just these two chests of broken stuff he gave..."

Chen Dasheng reached out and stopped his mouth, and cocked his head at Kang Rui.

Kang Rui sprang up and went to look down the corridor again.

Chen Dasheng said: "Want to die, but don't drag me in. Say these things somewhere safe after this. In this you're not Aman's match. There are things Aman would let rot in his belly and not let out one word of."

Li Jinggui pressed his lips, reached out and clinked cups with Chen Dasheng, and laughed: "Heh, sometimes I truly hate these days. You can't speak your mind at home, and can't outside either... never mind..."

He lifted his face to Kang Rui: "Come back. Go on about that heirloom belt of his."

Kang Rui shut the door and said to Li Jinggui in earnest: "A broad girdle of gold set with gems, jade, and coral, old-dynasty imperial-made. That Wu Xiu took it out a few times, and a rich out-of-town merchant took a fancy to it. First he offered three hundred strings, Wu Xiu wouldn't sell, and he raised it a step at a time to a thousand..."

Chen Dasheng's hand, lifting a fine mushroom, went a little heavy.

The more he thought the angrier he grew. He loosed the hide satchel at his waist and flung it on the table, as a man throws his whole stake in, and said sourly: "That's enough. This round's mine!"

Li Jinggui didn't know why Chen Dasheng was angry, but to pluck a hair off an iron cockerel was the merriest thing in the world. All smiles, he reached over and took the satchel, opened the gilt clasp, tipped it upside down, and out spilled a heap of copper cash.

Chen Dasheng looked at the heap of copper, drew a deep breath, reached out and scooped a dozen or so back: "Leave me a few."

The whole room roared. Li Jinggui, past bearing, stuffed the cash back on Chen Dasheng and hung the satchel at his waist for him: "Brother, they're all yours! I'll not take a coin of yours. What a life you lead, ruled by your little sister-in-law into such a shape, daren't wear silk, daren't spend money. What are you? The ox in your house that's beaten and cursed and yoked to the plough? It's too hard on you!"

Chen Dasheng glared at him: "What rot are you talking? My wife's no such woman. My wife's good to me!"

He reached out, loosed his girdle, lifted the skirt of his robe, and showed off the fine purple sable within: "See there? My wife put it on the inside of me."

They had eyes. One look at the fur and they knew it no common thing. There's black sable enough, and white, and yellow, and grey-black, but one purple sable pelt is hard to come by, and a top purple sable rarer still, and the very best, from the autumn-and-winter moult, is not to be had in this world.

And here he was with eight pelts at the least sewn inside, the color and the very fur-tips so even it was frightening, as if flayed off one great sable-spirit.

They looked, struck dumb. Wei Xuanhe, the greatest stickler of them all, was fit to burst. Had he such sable, one pelt of it he'd have taken to the finest maker and had worked into a lovely neck-piece to show off through the whole city. And this one, if you please, had sewn the lot inside.

But he didn't know these few purple sables were no palace gift, nor She Qingling's subsidy to his son. Qi Qian'er often went walking on the back mountain when she'd nothing to do, and these she'd hunted herself.

A wife who knew how to keep house never bought a dear thing in the city. What needn't be spent, she never would.

And not the sables alone. Her house had fox fur, wolf-skin coverlets, bear-hide cushions. Tiger-skin she'd not dared bring out, too showy. In a word, once winter came and the beasts had moulted their good coats, she'd been busy at it.

Wei Xuanhe put out a hand and covered Chen Dasheng's robe: "Mm, your wife loves you, we know it, and we don't want to hear more, and don't you go showing anyone else after this!" That said, he turned to Kang Rui, all despair: "Get on about your belt! That old-dynasty imperial-made broad girdle of gold set with gems, jade, and coral!"

Kang Rui was laughing past bearing, and when he'd done laughing told out the Wu Xiu business slowly.

It went that Wu Xiu had this heirloom girdle he was forever taking out to show off, and a rich merchant of the city took a fancy to it. The merchant tried several times to buy it, and Wu Xiu wouldn't sell, and so the merchant laid a game, and found White Peony of the Yanchun Tower to be the hook.

Even before the belt business, Wu Xiu had been stuck fast on this White Peony. So the beauty crooked a finger and Wu Xiu was in the snare. A few days back there was the game opened at the market-ward wrestling-house, and Wu Xiu went, and that day had White Peony to sit by him, and the merchant came and called for her too, and the two fell to matching each other, the stakes climbing higher and higher, till in a temper they set a wager.

Wu Xiu put up his heirloom girdle, and the merchant put up this year's tea-cakes brought in from the provinces, both priced at a thousand strings. It was a hidden house to begin with, and the merchant had laid the game and waited for Wu Xiu to bite. Heh! But as luck would have it, the game had scarce begun when the guild's patrol came round on its rounds, and that was the merchant's bad luck.

Just as the state has its Office of Justice to hold the prisons and the law, the merchants, to keep things fair, have their own patrols.

Wu Xiu's eye was dull, but the guild patrol saw at a glance it was crooked. After, Wu Xiu lost, and the patrol said, we're all out here to trade, and you can't be laying a game to snare a man's goods the moment you fancy them. Do that, and there'll be no games left to open in this city, it's a thing that cuts at the root.

It made a great stir. The guild would strike the tea-merchant's license to trade in the capital, and after the merchant worked many connections and took the fine, and so the guild ruled the game-stake paid back to Wu Xiu fivefold. And so Wu Xiu came into a great windfall of five thousand strings.

Kang Rui, telling it out, was all envy: "Each has his own lot, and it fell to him to strike it rich. And the fellow's canny too. These few days he's buying a great mansion in the city, says he'll set up a house of three thousand strings at the least. Aiyo! There's no coming by such luck... that fellow..."

His envying was not done when a great shout came up from the street below: "Help! Someone's robbing the prisoner-carts...!"