Chapter 89

On the seventeenth of the first month the men of Guard Lane were each to go back to their posts. The morning they left, the lane was packed with people and jammed with carts and horses.

The old lady heaped things onto her sons' and grandsons' carts, chattering at She Qingling as she went: "Son, and your next time home, when will that be?"

He was loath to leave home too, and knew he couldn't say when he'd be home again. He looked at his old foster-mother's head of silver hair and said at last: "Mother, I'll have them set the Yanjing house in order, and if I miss you I'll send to fetch you over to stay a few days. How's that?"

The old lady knew at once what he meant. She patted him, fond and scolding, and smiled: "Ai, I'll not go. My days here are good, I eat well and sleep well, and the whole street's folk I know. What would I do in Yanjing, where I know no one? Don't fret over me, only go and see to your business."

She Qingling nodded. Easier at heart now, he turned at last to look at his daughter-in-law standing all smiles at the door.

Mm. All this day he'd hardly dared look at her. It was as if the house kept a hornet's nest that had turned into a spirit, raised for who knew how many years. On ordinary days it looked harmless enough. Who would have guessed that once it broke open, it was a disaster big enough to blot out the sky, the kind that scared the cold sweat out of anyone.

After he'd learned of this young wife's great scene in Yanjing, She Qingling felt his decades of wisdom and statecraft all in ruins.

Could a thing even be done like that?

The young wife was as small as ever, in a goose-yellow cloak, her little face as small as ever, her grape-round eyes showing an unbound, easy smile.

She'd made her great mischief with no fear in her at all.

Just such a slip of a thing, and a dozen-odd women came rushing out of the Duke Zheng's residence and still couldn't catch her, couldn't drag her back. When they pressed too hard and ringed her too close, she and her band of mourners skimmed off like kites on a string.

And she scattered spirit-money round the Duke Zheng's residence, and this Scabby was no good bird either, so between the two of them they'd worked the whole Zheng house into a state fit to hang half itself on the spot.

One great uproar of a funeral-wail, and it muddled clean away the game he'd laid a year and more in secret. Well, ahem, the Duke Zheng's residence had had its face slapped swollen for it.

No one had told them the old master was living, then?

No, no one had told her the old master was all right.

Qi Qian'er of course knew what her father thought, and bared her two rows of little white teeth at him in a smile.

She Qingling sighed helplessly and looked at the young wife, past all understanding of her.

This person might well be called the first shrew of Yanjing's great-lady circles, the thickest-faced of the age, and the first to tell a barefaced lie with a straight mouth and never a blush.

What was to be done? His own ancestral graves and the Chen ancestral graves, the two lines joined, and up out of the five-colored smoke they'd conjured this one back?

He pointed at her at last: "Still laughing? Only think, from now, when the good houses hold a tea-party, who'll dare send you a card?"

At that Qi Qian'er tossed her head, well pleased: "Listen to Father. Rest easy. Does the world judge who it keeps company with by their virtue? Plenty of people who fawn on whoever's on top will come crowding to our house, and I won't care to go. So long as you hold power one day, and my man can prop the house up for me, what do I want with a few cards?"

Just listen to her. Only fifteen, and how had the Huo house raised a daughter like this?

She Qingling could have dug up this family's graves and hauled out eight generations of her ancestors, just to ask where she got this gift for tearing a man's face open with such an open, honest heart.

He couldn't out-argue her, so he turned to look at his son, meaning to have him rein her in. But Chen Dasheng dared not cross her. He could only pretend not to see, lift the skirt of his robe, squat down, and scrape mud off a cart wheel with a stick.

"Whose work is this? So slovenly, the whole axle-hub's caked with mud..."

Qi Qian'er silently gave her man a thumbs-up, and Chen Dasheng, daring to cross neither side, made two faint noises of agreement. He was so craven it was painful to watch.

"The good-for-nothing!" She Qingling flung his sleeve in a temper, and let the little eunuchs help him into the carriage.

Qi Qian'er came down the steps, lent a hand, helped her father into the carriage, and said: "Listen to Father talk. With the eye you have, could your son be a good-for-nothing? He has plenty in him."

That knocked a cold breath out of She Qingling, and he could only sit still and complain: "Whether he has anything in him, you'll never see! And you, tomorrow I'll have a good hand of the court physicians look you over, and mix you a few good doses to set you up. The two of you are past saving, and my grandchild's not to be left in your hands after all."

Never had the like been heard, a daughter-in-law wailing a mourning like that. He'd worked as a hired bruiser himself once and seen brides enough, but never one like this.

A grown woman, laying hands on people like that, stringing up who knew how many of the Zheng stewards in the trees, so that on the fifteenth of the first month the great trees at the Duke Zheng's gate hung not with lanterns but with two rows of stewards.

At that Qi Qian'er's face went red, and she dared not be sharp of tongue now, but chattered instead: "Where in the world is there a father-in-law who talks of such a thing?"

She Qingling threw all to the winds: "There wasn't before. There is now!"

What of it?

Qi Qian'er made a face and chattered on: "Fine, fine, you're mighty, you're first in our house, the old lady ranks after you... And listen, those rubbings Jintai's wife gave you out of duty, I've put them in the butterfly mother-of-pearl box. Your painting stones, the green-stone and cinnabar, and the color powders, I've bundled together with your scent-froth, aloe-elm, and flying-breath incense pills. They're all sealed up in little boxes, so don't let the boys go pawing through them. As for the two jars of old-plum snow you laid up this first month, I've buried one at a tree root for you. The other's in the rear cart, in the black clay jar, so tell them to mind it when they rummage..."

She Qingling took the light quilt his mother handed in and laid it over his legs, nodding and answering at random, the endless chatter still in his ears: "...before, when you were jolted too hard, your belly used to ache cold at night. At home it's well enough, we all know your trouble and can see to it however it comes. But now you're in the palace, we can't. I've had Doctor Cheng mix you some white-thatch scent. It's in the green-figured bundle. If you're poorly at night, have them boil it for you. Remember?"

Never in all his life had he been so chattered over. She Qingling coughed several times, but dared not let the carriage move.

And the two chattering women below the carriages showed no sign of stopping.

The old lady took the sweetmeat-box from the kitchen and passed it into the carriage, still chattering: "Son, these cakes are to keep you on the road. Your mother tells you, however weary you get, fill your belly and you'll mend. Don't shortchange your belly..."

"Ai, I know, Mother."

Qi Qian'er, still not easy in her mind, looked the carriage brazier over once more, and said as she looked: "This time you're back, find a time to ask out the head of Censor Pan's house and stand him a cup of wine..."

The words weren't out when She Qingling said, vexed: "Who's he?"

I ask him? I've never even asked the Emperor!

Qi Qian'er rolled her eyes at him: "Who's he? Our Ma Ergu's brother-in-law. This whole house, inside and out, leans on you, its one elder and father. If you won't decide it, am I supposed to go show my face out in the world myself? It's not that I think little of your son, but with that head of his, a matter this big is beyond him. Turn your back on it and there'll be a reckoning to pay!"

She Qingling thought it over and had to admit the reasoning held. He coughed no more, but nodded steadily and said, with dignity: "Mm! So, I'll see to it when I'm back."

He agreed, and Qi Qian'er was glad. She took the foot-stove a servant handed up, tucked the hand-warmer in for him, and once he was settled, said: "That's the way. How would I know the affairs out in the world as clear as you? This year the house has work in hand. In a few months you'll be a grandfather, and see three generations in the house. You'd still be idle?

"And there's Yougui below, and Erdian, and our Guan Si'er, every one grown now, and you loitering before the Emperor the day long, do keep an eye out for a house of good character. We look for no power of theirs, only a daughter well-schooled who can keep house. Isn't that so?"

She Qingling pinched his sleeve with fingers fine as scallion-shoots, and nodded, elegant: "Mm..."

The young wife raised a brow: "You'll have to see to that too. I'm a daughter-in-law come from outside, and you're the father who props our house's gate. I can ask around the back quarters, but is marrying off a bride really a back-quarters matter? Say the girl herself is fine, but there's a whole string of rotten gourds behind her wanting a reckoning, and your son's ruined!"

That said, Qi Qian'er crisply dropped the curtain and told the eunuch driver: "Go! What hour do you think it is? It's near broad day, and once Yanjing's gates jam up nothing can be done, and still you dally on and on..."

There's no saying who chattered. Anyhow the reasoning was all hers.

The old lady, leaning on First-Moon's and Second-Moon's arms, went down the lane asking each grandson: have you your spring jackets, all of them? Shoes and socks? Everything you need, all packed? She asked her way down the whole row, then went into the old house without a look back. She liked partings less and less now.

She Qingling's ears were full of complaints. Only a good way past Quanhou Street did he happen to look down at the hot cake in his hand, one bite out of it, and burst out laughing. He muttered to himself, low and pleased: "Our house, mm, mm! Ahem, a father who props the gate too..."

With the men of the house sent off, it was Dingxiang's turn to move. Not that Dingxiang wished to move, but her mother-in-law could bear it no longer. This old woman was sour by nature, and held down at Guard Lane by the fierce mistresses of the several houses, her days there truly weren't livable. For when Chen Dingxiang came back to her mother's house, the sisters-in-law left there, all but the half-deaf one, were each and every one a match for anybody, and Guard Lane was a real den of demons.

In that old woman's own words, she couldn't stay another day. Live on there, and she'd go mad.

Cui You couldn't let his own mother go mad. There was no help for it, so he begged a favor of the tenant of his own mansion and got him to clear the rooms, and they moved to the back of Quanhou Street.

Qi Qian'er didn't go over for her sister-in-law's move. If she stood there, whether she spoke or not, the Cui old lady would be sure to say she'd come to bully her again.

So she stood at the mouth of Quanhou Street, leaning on Fourth-Moon's arm, and saw them off along with Wanru, Yuniang, and the sisters-in-law. It took nearly a full hour before the odds and ends of Chen Dingxiang's house were all shifted. Once the cart was out of sight, the sisters-in-law were about to turn back when they saw a few roughly dressed women, propping one another up, carrying shoulder poles, heading for the stream beyond Quanhou Street.

Qi Qian'er didn't know these women, but she knew their dress well. She'd dressed just like that herself once, to earn the family's keep, in a short jacket to the knee and narrow sleeves, easy for coming and going.

She even knew where these women must live, in the very place she'd once lived herself. With no well of their own, and not wanting to beg paid water off the neighbors, they rose quietly before everyone else and went to carry water in the early morning.

The women were dust-covered, every one of them, worn down with toil. When they saw Qi Qian'er and the rest, they made their bows from a distance and turned aside to go the long way round by the chessboard court.

Zhang Wanru, holding her belly, looked at the women too. She saw Qi Qian'er watching them closely and said: "They're some poor souls."

Qi Qian'er turned to her: "These few I've never seen."

Zhang Wanru said: "Such a small thing, how would I dare trouble you with it. This is the last lot to come to Quanhou Street, settled here by the Rear Army Command. Some are war widows, all living in the farm cottages by the hill. When they arrived before the new year, the Command had cottages built for them and gave them a subsidy. I saw you were busy, so I told Jixiang's wife to take a share from our alms money and set them up with some household goods."

Qi Qian'er nodded, easy: "As it should be. They've all had it hard."

Zhang Wanru smiled: "Hai, and not our house alone. The Tang house's household mistress had grain sent over too. Diligent as they are, they'll come through in the end."

The women scattered at the chessboard-court mouth and were gone. Qi Qian'er watched a while, and thought, not entirely easy at heart, yes, she and Yang-shi and Wan-shi were different from what they'd once been. But when had this world ever run short of the toiling and the wretched? There would always be those out of luck. However much she reached out to help, how many could she really help?

The sisters-in-law grew tired of watching and turned back into the lane together. Only once they were somewhere private did Zhang Wanru say: "Sister, have you had the Board of Personnel lane Peng house's card? Ours had one just now, and the Yu house too."

Dani was quick. She made a sign to her mother behind the aunties' talk, and Yuniang, knowing what it meant, held her mouth and laughed.

Qi Qian'er stopped and looked at her: "Oh! You're laughing at me."

Zhang Wanru nodded and owned it, and laughed out: "Just so. Neighbors as we are, someone has to go, and I'll go sit at their house today. Will you share a table with the old lady at noon? Or have Dani and her mother keep you company?"

Ding Yuniang put in that she'd go too, and take Dani and Erni along.

Before, never mind the wider world, the house alone couldn't get through the Six-Board lanes' cards. But since the uproar yesterday, today the cards to the house had dried clean up.

Qi Qian'er wasn't jealous of it, and walked to the old house with Zhang Wanru, saying as they went: "As well. Everyone's gone off, and I'll go grind flour. Ai, tell me, the first month scarce past, what card is it the Peng house sends now?"

Yuniang and her girls stopped at their own gate, and took smiling leave of the sisters-in-law. She'd her own mother-in-law to wait on, and didn't go to the old house to make morning greetings.

Once she'd gone in her gate, Zhang Wanru looked left and right, and murmured in Qi Qian'er's ear: "The Peng house's girl has been chosen into the palace, that one called Ruiniang. And I tell you, her family is said to have pulled strings through the Zheng."

"Ah?" Qi Qian'er was astonished. Of the Six-Board lane houses now she knew some and didn't know others, but in two lifetimes Quanhou Street had truly never sent a consort into the palace.

That girl called Ruiniang, she'd met a few times, and even given her a greeting-gift. As for her looks, well, in fair truth she was a young lady of the very first water.

Qi Qian'er said: "Of course. My in-law uncle and their Lord Peng are of one board, and neighbors besides now."

Zhang Wanru gave a cold laugh: "Not that. To my mind that house has too many notions, always coveting what's in everyone else's pot. There's no end of self-clever nobodies in this world. You don't know this, sister, but they even wanted my mother to stand go-between and marry a girl of their collateral line to our Yougui, and it made me so angry I refused it flat! Hmph, and their house dares say such a thing? Our Yougui's of a grade with their Lord Peng, and by their way of going about things, my father says, hmph, they'll not go far!"

Qi Qian'er sighed: "Glory and wealth dazzle the eye. Her father must be one with a future too, and my father says, with the Emperor's temper..."

She looked round, front and back, made sure no one was near, and said to Zhang Wanru: "The Emperor keeps a tight wall around his harem. These days, if a family gets a daughter made a consort, it costs them their future instead of making it."

Zhang Wanru's mouth fell open, and Qi Qian'er nodded to her, firm: "I don't know what they were thinking. There are plenty of fine young men on our Quanhou Street, and with that Peng girl's looks and quality, whatever house she married into she'd have been the mistress of it."

"True enough!" Zhang Wanru sighed, and spat once without a sound, and said: "Ai, only look at the little eunuchs about our teacher. Not one but has a sharp mind and a bellyful of fine wits, and dealing with them is a joy! Not a word too many, only a look, small as they are, and the thing's done, thorough and neat. That Ruiniang, her looks there's no faulting, only it's that she's got nothing to fault that makes her proud, holding herself above all the dust, with a good word for no one.

"Ai, she's all pretty face and no sense at all. Once she's in there, half-dead is the best she can hope for. No one even needs to move against her. After a dozen years pampered at home, that place alone will stifle the life out of her."

Talking so, the sisters-in-law came to the lane's end, and their steps stopped at the old-house gate. Chen Siniu's house stood wide open, and two men of forty or fifty stood, hands behind them, eyeing the gate-lintel, and a geomancer besides, a compass held out in his hand, pointing here and there.

Qi Qian'er said low: "How dangerous things are in there I can't say, but the Dowager has already sent me two scroll-edicts rebuking me. They came to the house only last night."

Zhang Wanru went pale with fright, and stared at her: "Ah! The Dowager rebuked you?"

Qi Qian'er nodded, unconcerned: "Ah, rebuked. Said I was unworthy."

Zhang Wanru's legs went soft, and she steadied herself on her maid and asked, her voice shaking: "And, and what else did it say?"

Qi Qian'er, afraid of frightening her further, put out a hand and took her arm to soothe her: "Don't be afraid, outsiders don't know. My father quietly carried the edicts off when he left, so take it you know nothing. I ran to their very door to wail a mourning, and they'd still not let their old lady lose her temper? Look there, my fourth uncle and Madam Qiao are likely coming back. Heh! There'll be no end of doings in that house."

Zhang Wanru, helpless past bearing, looked at Qi Qian'er a good while, then said: "Sister, never mind all that. Just tell me, how is it you fear nothing?"

The question stopped Qi Qian'er, and she stood a good while before she said: "Maybe, maybe it's because I've money..."

The words scarce out, Zhang Wanru spat at her: "Pah! With your handful of melon-seeds and dates, money?"

That said, she went off toward the old lady's court, and Qi Qian'er followed, holding her skirts, explaining: "No, don't disbelieve me, the truth is I've a great date-orchard..."

The words weren't done when from the old lady's court came a furious roar: "Get out!!"

In no time, Dame Shi from Madam Qiao's court came scrambling and stumbling out. She saw Qi Qian'er, took a fright, and knelt straight down to make her greeting: "Ma-, madam, good health."

Quanhou Street had two Dame Shis, one of the Yu house and one at Madam Qiao's side. But for quality and skill, Madam Qiao's Dame Shi was of the lowest sort. Cheap she was, and beyond that she couldn't read a room at all.

Qi Qian'er gave a cold laugh: "We were doing very well, and no sooner do we see you than we're not. How've you angered our old lady this time?"

Dame Shi was afraid of Qi Qian'er and dared not answer, only shook with fright, and before Qi Qian'er could press her the old lady called from the room: "Don't go saying more than you need to idlers. In with you, quick."

Zhang Wanru saw the Chen house had a matter on and withdrew at once. She made her greeting to the old lady only through the window, and slipped away with her maid, soundless.

Once she'd gone, Qi Qian'er went in, and saw the old lady holding Xique and weeping. She saw Qi Qian'er and said: "This year and more I've fasted and prayed to the Buddha day in and day out, and how is it I've no good days? That heartless son of mine, he's not coming back to me."

Qi Qian'er looked at the old lady, then looked at the several loads of gifts on the floor. On top she could see some eggs, middling gift-cakes from a gift shop, and some silk and cloth. Oh, so this pair had actually brought themselves to spend money on their elder this time?

She couldn't believe it. She crouched down and turned the gifts over, and sure enough, apart from the passable things on top, underneath it was all propped up with wooden boards.

Qi Qian'er couldn't hold it in and laughed. She admired that pair to death. Playing the petty schemer to such a pitch was a rare thing in this day and age.

The old lady had been low enough, but when she heard Qi Qian'er laugh, she craned her neck and saw the boards under the loads. She went blank, blank for a good while, and then, past helping it, laughed too in the end.

What else was there for it but to laugh? Was she to weep?

She drew a breath: "Well, that's how it is, past saving, no saving it! He's done a guilty thing and dares not face the nephews, and means to sell this house here and buy in Yanjing. Just now that woman came saying he's short of money in hand, and would I help him out. I sent her packing."

Qi Qian'er was struck at once. She stood blank a moment, went and sat by the old lady, put an arm round her shoulders and rocked her, whining: "Granny!"

The old lady patted her hand: "Mm?"

Qi Qian'er wheedled: "I'm short of money too."

The old lady knew she was coaxing her to a smile, but her eyes went red with grief after all: "What virtue have I lacked? I've done no wicked thing..."

Qi Qian'er said: "Don't fret. What's the meaning of it? Has the fourth uncle truly sold the house?"

"Ai! Sold it!" The old lady took First-Moon's handkerchief, blew her nose, wiped her eyes, and smiled bitterly: "I'm his mother, do I not know his little schemes? He's heard, most like, that your Scabby's got the brothers all fat berths, and he's leaning on me."

Qi Qian'er changed the old lady's handkerchief for a fresh one, signaled to Second-Moon to go fetch Doctor Cheng, and once everyone had withdrawn, she said: "And will you lean back and prop him?"

The old lady stroked Xique's hair and sighed: "A mother is the grass that stands up first, and one wrong move and her children hate her for it. Never mind! He squeezed us hard enough before, and still wants me, his mother, to be go-between and prop up the elder's dignity for him. Heh! What fine dream is that? Your old woman's no fool now. Why should I hold my good children back just to keep putting up with that rotten one, sores on his head and pus running from his feet?

"I'll not! He'd sell the house, then let him. As the old saying goes, out of sight, out of mind! Anyhow, these old bones of mine are set here, and if he'll not come with his wife to see me, that's unfilial of him. It's not that I didn't know the reasoning before, only let them bully me. Never mind, I'll think of it no more..."

She said she'd have no more of it, but grieved for all that, and, not wishing to weep, stroked her granddaughter's hair, one stroke and another: "The children won't even take her over. Is she given up too?"

Xique understood, and stood up to put out a hand and wipe the old lady's eyes, and held her own granny fast without a word.

Xique too had only her granny to lean on now.

Before long Doctor Cheng came, took the old lady's pulse, and prescribed no herb-medicine, but fitly sent her a jar of aromatic pills worked up with honey of costus, clove, patchouli, lingling-grass, betel-nut, nut-grass, official-cassia, musk, and nutmeg, a thing best for easing the qi and settling the middle, and easier to swallow than herb-medicine, most fit for the old.

Never mind that Guard Lane was a whole lane of fighting men. There was a great talent living among them, Doctor Cheng. At looking at a sickness and setting a dose he was middling, but at aromatic medicine none could touch him.

Only he didn't care to show the skill outside, and used his scents on the folk of Guard Lane alone.

Even when She Qingling left, what he carried most of was Doctor Cheng's scents of every kind, so you may know how good the thing was. It counted as a thing even the palace didn't have.

Once the old lady had taken the aromatic pill and settled into sleep, Qi Qian'er led Xique out, and at the door, her face dark, told Jixiang's wife: "Go to the capital and find the little fourth master. Say the fourth master's selling the house, and find out who the buyer is. Whatever the buyer's ties and standing, Guard Lane isn't what it was. Father moved in at year's end and word got out, so from now on we can even less afford outsiders spying on us. This house is better kept in our own hands."