Chapter 90

The fourth master sold the house to a rich merchant up from the south and made a tidy windfall. Then he turned round and bought a plain house on the west side of Yanjing to live in.

The west side of Yanjing was never much to speak of, but Chen Siniu went there anyway, careless of it all. He never knew that the house he'd sold passed from hand to hand and came at last to his own nephew.

He was never a clever man. Only Qi Qian'er, for the old dread his past dealings had left in her, still kept a wary eye on him. Chen Dasheng and his cousins had long since stopped counting him a man at all.

Time ran fast, and in a blink the Waking of Insects came round in the third month. That morning, early, the old lady took a houseful of women and drove the family carts out to the manor.

By the old rule, on the Waking of Insects you had to curse the sparrows. That meant rising early and walking the banks of your own fields muttering curses at the birds, warning them that if they ate your grain come autumn, their mouths would rot and their bellies too.

Once the old lady had set off with her great train, Qi Qian'er couldn't sit idle either. She had Ding Yuniang, Zhang Wanru, Lu-shi, Madam Cheng, and the little grand-aunt all come to the house to sacrifice to the White Tiger, an old rite to guard against gossip and cut down slander.

Once the sacrifice was done, the household mistresses of the several houses still had no rest. They had to take the servants and scatter quicklime along the outer side of every threshold in the house, to drive off the hundred insects. This too was a rite for the spring thunder that wakes the hundred insects.

With the insects driven off, there was still no idling. The mistresses had to stand at their own stoves and brew a drink to clear the liver and cool the fire, and only so welcome the year's first spring thunder. A dozen days more, and the spring plowing would come.

Qi Qian'er was well practiced at these rites. Among women her own age, none did them as thoroughly as she. She knew the three texts, the White Tiger, the Shooting of Insects, the Removing of Filth, a thousand characters in all, backward by heart.

But the old lady was not practiced. She'd gone out with four or five carts and a score of women and came home only in the afternoon, her voice cursed to a crack.

The old lady was rather put out. She lay half on the kang with a kerchief over her head and forced the words out through her hoarse throat. "Oh, all the gods in heaven, there's no end to it. Qian'er, our land's too much. This autumn there'll be sparrows for sure."

The family had several manors. However could the old lady curse them all?

Qi Qian'er saw she meant it and coaxed her. "Granny, why not go and pray to the Bodhisattva again?"

The old lady had been low a moment before, but she brightened at that. "So it is. See how I've gone soft in the head. I've the Bodhisattva to guard me, and I clean forgot..."

With that the old lady went off glad to make her arrangements. But the Waking of Insects had passed and the spring plowing had come, and the mistresses of every house had no leisure. Ask round as she might, she found only old Madam Jiang up the mountain, and the next day the two of them went off together to do rites at the Qingque Nunnery.

That same day word came to Chen Dasheng from home, and he came out of the palace to collect two great food-boxes Jixiang's wife had sent.

Glad of them, he carried them to Dongming Hall and quietly had his father called out to drink the cooling drink with him. They hadn't drunk many mouthfuls when the Emperor called out from inside the hall.

"What are you father and son eating there? And behind my back?"

She Qingling drank off the lotus-seed soup at once and waved Chen Dasheng away hard, signing him to go quick.

Chen Dasheng ran well off, and She Qingling went in to answer the Emperor. "Reporting to Your Majesty, isn't it the Waking of Insects? The weather brings on an inner heat, and my daughter-in-law sent a lung-moistening drink for the season. You can't take food from outside, but the Empress will surely have made you some too..." He looked round the old lords' faces, rather pleased, and went on. "The old lords' houses will surely have it as well."

The Emperor was marking memorials. He checked his brush and lifted his face with a soft laugh. "You mean that funeral-wailing daughter-in-law of yours? Sent you a Waking-of-Insects drink?"

She Qingling had no love for that and rolled his eyes a little. "What funeral-wailing? Get that about, Your Majesty, and my daughter-in-law won't be able to live it down. Your word is gold, so spare your mouth. It was all a servant's mistaken message, and still you bring it up? It's no boast, my lords, my daughter-in-law is the most dutiful child there is. She's only young, and hasn't been through much, and she lost her head that day... Isn't that the truth of it, my lords?"

Two full rows of lords stood in the hall, and when they heard Attendant She ask it so, all of them but the Board of Rites men smiled and agreed.

The Emperor was glad to see She Qingling glad, and when the long sheltering speech was done, he set down his vermilion brush and handed a memorial to the waiting Meng Dingchen. "You put it so, and what's left for anyone else to say? A whole household of stubborn donkeys, and the right's always yours..."

Meng Dingchen took the memorial in both hands, glanced at it, and said, "Yes! I'll send men to see to it at once."

He turned to go, but the Emperor spoke at his back. "Fifth, wait. These reading boys in the palace lately grow more and more unseemly. Go call them all in. And don't forget Aman and Gui'er, and his house's Scabby is idle too, call them along. Have them go with you on the business and learn some solid sense. None of them are so young now."

Meng Dingchen assented and went.

Once he'd gone, She Qingling told the lords in detail about the family's drink. How fine his daughter-in-law's hand was, how his old mother kept it in mind, and though it was only a lung-moistening medicine-broth, the taste was of the very first sort, one mouthful and you felt it work at once...

The season had come, and court and country alike wore a look of teeming life. The Emperor was glad that day too, and when the small court let out he went to the Empress's quarters at the back and drank three bowls one after another of the fire-cooling, lung-moistening drink. He meant to boast of it to She Qingling at court the next day, but before he could, that very night his bowels ran loose.

Chen Dasheng was off duty that day too. Since his father had had the drink, he was to carry the rest to the new Long Saber Garrison. But he'd scarcely got with his food-box to the palace's south gate when two guards trotted up and stopped him. They told him to go wait at the Jiusi Hall gate, since the Emperor had business for him.

So Chen Dasheng could only hand off the food-box and, his head full of questions, go out of the palace and ride to the Jiusi Hall.

He came early. At the Jiusi Hall gate someone led him to the mouth of the great back courtyard.

The wind at the start of the third month was still strong, and two through-passages in this great courtyard ran with it. When the bone-cutting wind poured through, a strange sound rose in the courtyard, hard to name, close to a ghost's howling.

Chen Dasheng hadn't stood long when a pale-faced, scholarly figure came out to meet him. He knew this one. It was the Jiusi Hall's North Executive Warden, Xie Wuhao.

Xie Wuhao made his courtesy, all smiles. "Eldest young lord."

That was a strange way to put it. Chen Dasheng and this Xie Wuhao were fellow officers before the throne, and never mind an office title, how was it "eldest young lord"?

Chen Dasheng was blank a moment, then returned the bow, his face blank too. "Executive Warden Xie."

They knew each other but had little to do with each other, and could not be called friends. After a few civil words, Xie Wuhao led him to a sheltered spot in the courtyard hung with bamboo blinds.

Chen Dasheng looked about him and saw it was a whole sheltered through-passage, set with a score and more of tables and chairs, each seating three. He was curious, and turned to ask Xie Wuhao, "Executive Warden Xie, I wonder, is there some other charge, with the Emperor sending me here today?"

Xie Wuhao smiled and shook his head. "Nothing else was said. Our Chief Warden says the Emperor would have the young lords come learn something today. Learn what? The Chief Warden didn't say, and we underlings dare not ask."

Since he wouldn't say, Chen Dasheng could only nod. He found a table off to the side and sat.

Once he'd sat, some men dressed as Jiusi Hall odd-job servants came at once bearing braziers, tea, and four sorts of very ordinary sweets, and set them out.

Before long more sons of the noble kin came in one after another, along with princes' study-companions and a few true-line grandsons of old lords' houses.

By now Chen Dasheng understood why Xie Wuhao had called him young lord.

For this was no business errand today. This was a schoolroom come to life.

The young lords each had their own set and came and sat with those they knew. As the crowd grew, Chen Dasheng was left cold-shouldered, with no one sitting beside him, at most a nod and a civil smile.

Zheng Aman and Li Jinggui came latest. Once in, they stood at the mouth of the room looking about, and when they saw Chen Dasheng they came over together smiling and sat by him.

"Does Brother Feilian know? What's the Emperor called us all here for today?" Li Jinggui warmed his hands at the brazier, looked at the few sweets, and knit his brows. His tone was none too good.

Chen Dasheng shook his head. He didn't know. Zheng Aman took out his own kerchief, wiped hard at the table before him, then threw the kerchief away and sprawled boneless across it, his eyes roving the corners of the room. "Told to come, so I came. Look at this crowd. Every soul we know to be sickening is here today."

At that Li Jinggui started and looked hard about him. This one always walked above the dust, chest thrown out like a fighting cock, and looked at people not with his eyes but down his chin.

Chen Dasheng knit his brows and rapped the table. "Listen to you. You've just cursed your own self in with them."

Li Jinggui was abashed, and Zheng Aman laughed out loud. But before they could talk on, more odd-job men came into the courtyard carrying books in their arms.

By the steady, low, rooted way these odd-job men walked, you could tell at once they were of some fighting school, long practiced at the horse-stance.

The odd-job men set the books out on each table, brought brush and ink and paper and stone, and withdrew again without a sound.

Chen Dasheng wondered more than ever. Once they'd gone, he picked up a book. He bent to look, and it was a Twin-Fish Pendant. He set it down and took up another, and it was a Cry of the Simurgh. He turned through the stack idly. Half were talent-and-beauty opera scripts, and the rest were the new books put out since Great Liang's founding.

The few sharp ones among them exchanged a look and fell to reading in earnest. But there were restless ones too. Some brash young lord picked out the talent-and-beauty books, found the plainly steamy parts, and read them aloud, setting a pack of the bold and the wild laughing loose.

They were at their fun when a few clangs of a gong sounded. There was no telling how great the Jiusi Hall's gong was, but a few strokes and the teacups on the tables shook.

Before long the four Executive Wardens of the Jiusi Hall were seated beyond the blinds, grave as a magistrate mounting his bench, and one of them said, "Then, begin."

Zheng Aman, ill at ease, knit his brows and picked up a cake and bit it with a crunch. He was no fussy eater. In the days he'd gone hungry, an unfamiliar dried pig-skin had been a treasure to gnaw on.

The air turned grave, and the young lords looked at one another and quieted at last.

Then someone called out to bring in the accused. Now that was interesting. The accused were the defendants in a case, and those tied to it. Who might these be?

They didn't wait long before the Jiusi Hall's petty wardens began marching the accused into the courtyard.

And a strange sight it was. The accused today were oddly got up, some in opera costume and paint, some teahouse storytellers, some drum-ballad singers from the scent-and-powder houses, and several blind men besides, dragged along crying for help and asking who was there.

One had his opera paint only half on when they seized him, and gagged the whole way so he couldn't cry out, wept in fright till the powder washed off his face in two gullies, a wretched sight.

Besides these there were troupe-heads, brothel-madams, teahouse managers, and even a petty clerk of the Music Office, all dragged in.

Give these people one name, and they were the tellers of stories.

Being tellers of stories, they had ringing voices. Caught by surprise most likely, once they were in the courtyard and the gags came off, they set up a wailing, cries of grievance in every accent north and south, and together the sound was a great din.

The courtyard was big, big enough to walk a horse at a trot and hold three to five hundred people, and in less than the time it takes an incense stick to burn, it was full.

Once all were in, the petty warden at their head reported up, and one of the four Executive Wardens said, "All present. Then beat them."

Beat them? Not even try them?

Chen Dasheng and the rest looked at one another, astonished, and then their attention was drawn by the sound of slapping across the courtyard.

The Jiusi Hall's way with a case was past all expecting. No court-ordained instruments were used. Two men behind each prisoner pinned his arms and hauled his hair back to lift his face, so a third man could slap left and right at his mouth.

Chen Dasheng was past twenty now and thought he'd seen something of the world, but he'd never seen so great an array of mouth-slapping.

The Jiusi Hall's executioners were petty wardens, and such force was in their palms that a few strokes slapped the older, weaker storytellers clean out.

Before long the smell of blood rose in the courtyard. The muffled cries and screams were slapped back and swallowed down with the teeth, turning to mouthfuls of bloody water running down their chins.

Not a few fainted, and no cold water was flung to wake them. They were left to lie, and when they'd come round a little and opened their eyes, another great slapping fell on them, over and over, round and round. At first it could be borne. Watched longer, it was truly cruel.

Above all for those who lived by a pretty face, this trade was likely theirs no more.

While the accused were beaten, odd-job men laid a few hand-copied storybooks on each young lord's table.

Chen Dasheng picked one up. It was a book called the Roll of Hot Blood.

He knew this book. It had grown popular in Yanjing at the end of last year. It told of some reign or other, of a benighted ruler with no way in him, so the common folk were scattered and wretched past bearing, and then a band of martial-world bravos rose up with a slam of the table and roamed the world sword in hand righting wrongs.

The book was full of strange men and knights-errant, ran to a dozen and more volumes now, and was much loved by the young people of the capital.

Chen Dasheng looked at the storybook now, thought about this place, and turned to some marked passages. He pondered the plain and hidden meanings worked into them, and understood at last.

He lifted his eyes to Li Jinggui and Zheng Aman beside him and found the two had understood long since. They glared at the accused in the courtyard, eyes red with fury, their bodies shaking with it.

He looked now at the young lords of every house. The ones who understood were of course grave with anger, but they were the few. Some thought crookedly and took it that these people had been too flaunting of late, done too many guilty things, and the Emperor was killing a chicken to warn the monkeys. The soft-hearted hung their heads. The timid shut their eyes and shook. And the baser sort stared at the few women performers, not at their faces but at what showed and hid as they struggled, laughing an ill laugh, tss... Truly the whole run of humankind was on display. Whatever a young lord's birth, one round of slapping watched through, and every kind of man showed himself.

Then Li Jinggui spoke up and cursed, his face twisted. "Their hearts deserve death! Their hearts deserve death! Best beat them dead and be done with it, and what's a few slaps? And it's over? For the Executive Wardens to try a case this way is beneath contempt. This case should go to the Board of Punishments and be dug into and punished to the root!"

The words were scarcely out when the slapping in the courtyard stopped.

The several Executive Wardens seated in front rose, turned, and made the young lords a slight bow together. The one called Xie Wuhao said, a little apologetic, "Don't be angry, my lords. This case is tried and clear. The accused who could be taken are taken, and those who fled are being hunted. These storytellers are all foolish men of no great sense, who talked wild for a few strings of silver to keep their families fed. The Emperor is merciful and has approved the manner of the punishment, and the case is truly not fit for wide noise. Rumor is not to be believed, yet the common world believes nothing but rumor. We beg your lordships' forbearance."

Zheng Aman's chest heaved a few times, and he struck the table at last, furious. "I'll go into the palace and see the Emperor this instant."

With that he turned and went, and Li Jinggui, with a look at the unmoving Chen Dasheng, stamped his foot and followed.

Chen Dasheng bent his head and looked a while more. Then he had the bamboo blind before him rolled up and asked the Executive Wardens, his voice level, "The Emperor will have some further charge, I take it?"

Warden Xie said, "Yes. The Emperor bids the young lords choose, from the opera scripts and stories on the tables, some the common folk ought to see."

Hearing that, Chen Dasheng thought of the few opera plays his house had had at its good-fortune cauldron, took up the brush, dipped it, and wrote a dozen and more titles on the paper.

Once he'd finished, he lifted his face and asked, "Are these to go before the throne?"

Warden Xie said, "Yes."

Chen Dasheng nodded and wrote at the end of the paper: I hope the able writers of the court will write out more scripts for the people to use and pass round.

Only these few words. What did he understand, a dull man who'd read but one year?

With that written, Chen Dasheng left and went straight to the palace. The moment She Qingling saw his son back, he smiled and said, "What? My son didn't go make a scene before the Emperor after all?"

Chen Dasheng took off his outer robe, handed it to a eunuch, and went straight to the dishes set out ready for him. He sat, took up his chopsticks, and said, "I came out of the Tan army. My ground isn't as righteous as the two lords'. Only the man who wrote the Roll of Hot Blood, his heart does deserve death. This reign it's no matter, but the fear is that later men will study it as true history, and then the poison runs on with no end."

She Qingling nodded, came to the table and sat, laid a few of his son's favorite dishes in his bowl, and seeing him eat with relish, smiled. "It's no more than that the martial world, seeing the Emperor's dislike of them, found a good hand of a writer to make up this ghost-tale, in plain words, to bind the court with public talk and squeeze out a little heed. But rumor is a fearsome thing after all."

Chen Dasheng swallowed, thought of the Emperor's manner that day, and raised his brows. "To my eye the Emperor wasn't angry."

She Qingling laughed softly. "It's a small matter. Beside it, the Emperor's rather more troubled that the money for dredging the canal this year won't stretch. And with the spring plowing at hand, never mind the common folk, this year the Board of Works can't get the material out in time for the farm-tools the garrison-farms need. Great Liang is newly founded, and to let the people rest and grow is the great matter of state. The rest is a few weeds on a thousand-fathom peak. They blow over of themselves..."

Mm. So it was.

Chen Dasheng thought of the blood-faced accused and shook his head after all, then took up his bowl and put down three great bowls of white rice.

Not until his meal was done and his mouth rinsed did She Qingling smile at him. "The truth is, just as you were leaving today, your third cousin came."

Chen Dasheng was blank. "My third cousin? Wasn't he off inspecting the garrison-farm lands?"

She Qingling nodded, grave. "Just so. Only, on the round to the fief of Princess Fuhe with his superior, he saw your clan-kin."

That one sentence set Chen Dasheng's ears ringing, and his whole head held nothing but the two words. Clan-kin, clan-kin, clan-kin...

He went blank a long while, then shook his head and looked at She Qingling, his voice shaking. "Father, Father, what did you say?"

She Qingling patted his shoulder to soothe him. "Don't be alarmed, son. Your third cousin says that on the round with his superior to Princess Fuhe's fief, he saw by chance your clan-kin working as tenant-farmers on her manor. A good many of them, a hundred or more."

Could this be true?

Chen Dasheng backed away, again and again, his muddled head shaking, unable to believe it, his lips trembling, his throat choked dry, unable to say anything.

His whole head was filled with the look of the old home. The great water coming, house after house crashing down, both ears full of wailing... and his tree, his village, his clan-kin, all before his eyes...

When he was small, with no shoes to his feet, he'd made mischief and run round the village, his mother chasing him with a stick, and he'd fled the whole way wailing. All along that way the clan-kin called out, smiling,

"Aiyo Scabby, riled your mother again?"

"Third Sister-in-law, don't hit him, what does a little child understand?"

"Come here to Ninth Grandpa, good boy, let's see your mother dare come hit you in my arms."

"Old Third's wife, he's a simple thing, why hit him so? He's a grandson of us old Chens..."

"Scabby, run, your mother's caught up!"

"Brother Scabby! Up the tree! Scabby up the tree, up the tree and your mother can't reach you..."