Chapter 91

Chen Dasheng didn't remember how he ran out of the small court. He ran for the palace gate like a madman. He fell several times on the way and didn't feel the pain, got up, and ran on, until a long line of guards trailed after him in fright.

He crossed the long palace road and watched with his own eyes as the palace gate swung slowly shut. His leaving-token for the day hadn't been made out yet.

Chen Dasheng stood there dazed. Through the daze he heard Wan Chunyang say: "Aiyo, little ancestor, going out at this hour's no use anyway. Look at your knees, all broken like that. Isn't that just asking our old ancestor to fret over you?"

Chen Dasheng started and bent his head. Only then did he see that the cloth was gone at both knees, and the bare knees were a mess of blood and flesh.

She Qingling looked at his son, and shook his head slightly: "Go clean yourself up."

Chen Dasheng nodded and let the little eunuchs lead him away. Once he'd gone to the bath-house, She Qingling sighed, looked at the darkening moonlight, and said: "Home... ah!"

With that, he drew his sleeves together and watched the sun set and the moon rise, and the sky go dark.

Bathed, Chen Dasheng lay with his hair loose in the folding chair, his two legs propped on the footrest, and let others handle him.

Wan Chunyang knelt to put medicine on him. It was a long while before Chen Dasheng said: "Father, it was my fault..."

She Qingling didn't look up, only studied his son's knees with care: "A bit rash, that's all. Father and son, one house, it's nothing. The Emperor sent to ask just now, and I put him off. But you, how were you so careless?"

The knees stung at last. Chen Dasheng drew a breath, sat up, and looked at the layers of scraped skin: "Father, did my third cousin say anything more?"

She Qingling took a white cloth from the table and handed it to Wan Chunyang. He looked at his son's face, saw him working to stay calm, and said at last: "He said that after the flood in the last Hongshun year, your whole clan set out together to flee the famine. In less than three months the bandits' troubles split you into two streams, your household one way, the rest of the kin another. Setting your own household aside, those kin who lost you wandered half a month without choosing a road. Then, seeing that times were too broken and there was no way to make a living, they talked it over. Going out meant death anyway, so better to go back to the old home and wait for death together..."

Chen Dasheng went blank, and looked at his father, hardly believing: "They, they went back? But, but my old home..."

Was still under the water.

She Qingling felt the news was too cruel, but had to tell him the truth: "Yes, your old home's still under the water. There was the soldiers' scourge too, and press-gangs everywhere. Your kin had no choice. They went up the nearby mountain together to hide from the war."

She Qingling stood, came before Chen Dasheng, and said: "So, except for the old and weak who didn't outlast the famine, many of your kin were saved. They're in two groups now. One still lives on the mountain by your old home. The other, on Princess Fuhe's fief, is your household's distant blood. The land there wanted no more owners, but it wanted farmers to work it, so Princess Fuhe's steward went out recruiting tenants far and wide. Your third cousin didn't make clear how this branch of your kin ended up there, because he still had to go find your eldest cousin. He's gone on ahead, and he asks you to meet him at the Ten-Mile Pavilion tomorrow."

The sudden news broke Chen Dasheng's thoughts to pieces. He opened his mouth, and a long while later smiled bitterly: "So you're saying, if we hadn't been split off, we'd have gone back home with the kin, and hidden in the mountains and outlasted the war?"

She Qingling drew a long breath, waved the room empty, and when all had gone, patted his foster-son's shoulder helplessly: "Son, sometimes a man must bow to his fate. On one great road, left is life and right is death. A hair's breadth off course and you're a thousand li astray, and you must own it! Own it though your heart breaks! Your cousin also said that because your old home is all marsh, no army ever fought over it, and through the several wars your kin knew how to hide, and in the end were never touched... and, and the ancestors had virtue too, and sheltered some of the blood after all."

Chen Dasheng tipped his head back, drew a breath, and laughed a few dry laughs. Then he ground his teeth till they creaked, the veins on his neck rising and sinking, and after holding it in a long while said with effort: "This, this is... good news, is it? Eh, Father? It's good news, isn't it!"

His eyes were full of that broken temple, that pitiful river-flat, that recruit camp, the endless parting of kin from kin, the endless flying blood, the endless wind and frost and snow and rain, and the war-horns forever in his ear...

Gone, left, parted, always losing, farther and farther... and everyone said goodbye to him smiling, and then plunged all at once into the mist under the old tree of the home village... no people to be seen, only now and then the faint crisp ring of a cow-bell... ding-a-ling! ding-a-ling, winding through his dreams.

She Qingling knew how great a blow this was to his foster-son. All his life he had seldom shown a soft side, and did not wish his foster-son soft either. But in the end... he reached out and gathered the boy in, and stroked his head: "My poor son, Father's heart aches. Son, cry then, it's all right, no one sees..."

The shoulders in his arms heaved a few times, and at last a grief near a beast's broke out low...

Early the next morning, Chen Dasheng, his eyes swollen, rode in She Qingling's official carriage out of the palace. The carriage went straight to the Ten-Mile Pavilion outside Yanjing, where the Chen brothers gathered at last.

Chen Dasheng got down leaning on Tong Jintai's hand, his knees stiff.

Chen Dazhong came out of the pavilion and his face tightened. Chen Dasheng saw his brother's worry and made himself smile easy: "Brother, I'm all right. I was walking the road at night and wasn't careful, and took a fall."

Chen Dazhong bent to look at the knees, felt them with his hand, then nodded and said low: "Take more care after this. Does it hurt?"

Chen Dasheng shook his head: "Doesn't hurt. It's good palace medicine. I can ride abreast with you on the road."

With that, he looked around and saw Chen Dayong leaning on a tree, his eyes unfocused. He called out: "Third Brother, these kin you found, which houses are they?"

Chen Dayong started, then looked at him: "Several houses. The head is Uncle Gaoliang of Ninth Grandpa's house. You remember Ninth Grandpa? The one who most loved to sun himself with our grandpa and pick lice."

An old man's face flashed through his mind, and Chen Dasheng nodded: "Then, then is Ninth Grandpa well?"

Chen Dayong shook his head blankly, and reached back to loose the reins: "But for our granny, and Ninth Grandpa's house's two uncles, there's no one over fifty left in our clan."

Chen Dayong swallowed, held it long as though his teeth were breaking, then said: "There are. Well. Quite a few well."

Chen Dasheng heard it and held back too. He looked at him and forced a smile: "Then, then that's good, isn't it, Brother?"

Chen Dayong's lips trembled, and at last he nodded and said, laughing like weeping: "Mm!"

With that, he looked at the knees and asked: "Does it hurt?"

Chen Dasheng shook his head.

Chen Dayong went over, gathered his brother in, and patted his back: "Brother, let's bow to our fate, all right? A man can't have his whole life whole again, can he? Heaven's arranged it all, and it must always leave you short one door, mustn't it?"

A sob came from the pavilion. All of them looked, and saw it was Chen Dayi, his back turned to them.

That the kin were alive was a great blow to the four brothers, and that they'd lived on in such a way was another. Their hearts couldn't help running through every kind of what-if. If there'd been no flood. If they hadn't been split off. If they'd fought back. If they'd been braver... but there was no if, and they must own it.

Chen Dazhong, the eldest, sniffed, tapped his official boot with his riding-whip, and said half sighing, half smiling: "All right, gather yourselves, and let's go. It's not early, and there's two or three hundred li of road."

He was the eldest. He couldn't lead the grieving, so he bore it twice as hard.

So the four brothers took their guards and set out again.

The Waking of Insects had just passed, and all things were coming back to life.

At Jiangzhu Mountain, on Princess Fuhe's fief where Shidong and Shixi counties meet, on a low slope three hundred and twenty li out the west gate of Yanjing, a great crowd of farmers sat at the mountain-mouth of Jiangzhu waiting. They were in rags, their short coats patched and tied, no shoes on their feet, thin as sticks, their faces full of the road's dust.

Only three days had passed between running out as tenants for a mouthful of food and being kin of an official, and those three days off the farm-work had already filled these pitiful field-folk with guilt. The master wouldn't use them anymore. He said he didn't dare use them. Only then did they learn that the grand imperial kin the stewards had always invoked to frighten folk like them with were real after all.

They weren't allowed to do any work at all. Spring plowing had come, and the master could hire men at high price, but wouldn't let them earn those few coins. There was nowhere for them to go, so they could only sit here and wait.

Chen Quanyin, of the brothers' generation, asked his father Chen Erliang carefully: "Father, do you think they'll come?"

Chen Erliang didn't know if they'd come. He was ashamed, rather, that he'd never done anything for the boys before. Now his own house was hard-pressed while theirs had soared high, and so... to fasten onto them again, wasn't that shameless? Wasn't that making trouble for people?

They were in such a state, wasn't it a shame to the children's faces? Now he regretted going to the river for water that day. He'd carried the jar to the riverbank, and not long after, he saw a troop of officials come along the high road in a cloud of dust, meaning to water their horses too. They dismounted near him.

Chen Erliang didn't dare look, hid himself quickly, and knelt far off.

The officials paid him no mind. They talked and laughed in official speech, the kind only the great could speak, and he couldn't follow it.

Only... as he knelt there, he stole one look, meaning just to get an eyeful to boast of that night in the shed. He saw one of the officials looking at him too, and in the end the official came over, walked slowly right up to him, and Chen Erliang went limp with fright.

The official bent and asked him: "You are? Second Uncle of Ninth Grandpa's house?"

Chen Dayong didn't know the elders' given names, and the village children too had only a milk-name, called till they died. When people were many, everyone went by generation, knowing faces and knowing people. Maybe not until a man died, and only if the house had means for a gravestone, would the kin learn, oh, he'd had a proper name after all.

Chen Erliang couldn't follow the officials' speech, and kowtowed hard, begging pardon: "Spare me, great lord, spare me... I, I didn't mean to look at you..."

But the official raised him with a hand, looked him up and down again, and settled it at last, and said in the home dialect, his voice shaking: "Burned, burned to ash I'd know you. How many years is it, how've you grown a stranger, eh? I couldn't mistake you. I know you. You're Second Uncle of Ninth Grandpa's house. I remember you, called Liang, weren't you?"

Never mind that they were kin. As the old saying goes, when a whole clan of one surname crowds into one village, being too close breeds no closeness at all.

Chen Erliang's house had three brothers: Gaoliang, Erliang, and Sanliang. Sanliang's whole house, though, had starved to death, not many years back.

Chen Erliang heard the home speech and steadied at last. He took courage and looked the official over closely. Such a tender-faced official: skin finer than a girl of fifteen or sixteen, dressed in silk and damask, a scent on him, a great tall horse behind.

The honest countryman didn't know how to meet it, and only kept saying: "Eh? Eh? Eh..."

Chen Quanyin saw his father thinking and not speaking, and asked again: "Father, do you think they'll come?"

Chen Erliang's son Quanyin was twenty-seven this year. Even without flood or trouble his house was poor, and couldn't afford a bride, and they'd only said wait and see. Who'd have thought the world would turn to sword and spear, and a great flood come too?

Now they were poorer still. But for the next generation being a houseful of bachelors, Erliang's brother Gaoliang would never have gritted his teeth and led all the clan's men out to seek a bellyful of food, to struggle on and live.

In the old days, Stinky Shuanzi's house was among the village's better sort. They farmed their own land, and rented only a little, and could afford a bride.

His heart held only dread, not one grain of the joy of meeting kin. Chen Erliang thought of the old days and sighed: "I, how would I know?"

That day they'd owned the kinship and wept a great while. Stinky Shuanzi had gone with him to the manor and seen the whole household of kin. The stewards who used to kick and whip them came hurrying, and before the boys they hung their heads like dung-eating stray dogs and begged him not to lodge a complaint.

How would he dare complain? Nothing sure, nothing settled.

Now the boys were officials with duties on them, and had to leave that night... oh, and even if he'd wanted to keep them there, he couldn't host them. A hundred-odd grubby folk, was he to host kin in a dugout?

A household of men who'd suffered, never once full-fed from birth...

Three days now of eating for nothing, and Chen Erliang grew less and less sure. Over and over he thought, what if they wouldn't own the kinship? What if that day everyone had dreamed it together? Been taken with a fit? The steward might force them to sign as bond-slaves.

But Chen Erliang didn't know that the ones they waited on so eagerly had halted their carriages by the high road not far off, and were sitting together in the open country deciding the kin's future.

Chen Dazhong let his horse chew the spring grass, and sat on the camp-stool a guard brought him: "Let's brothers talk it over first, how to settle these kin from here on. It's not a thing to bring a great crowd home in a muddle. They're people, and proper kin at that. To feed them is simple, but to feed them well is hard in the end."

Chen Dasheng was youngest, and too weary to talk. He got down, took a gourd, and drank water while he listened to his brothers.

Chen Dayi thought and said: "Why not set up a manor for them? From now on, whether out working as tenants, or the elders hiding on the mountain as hillmen to dodge the taxes, neither will do. So, I'll put in five hundred strings."

Chen Dayong looked at the silent fourth brother and shook his head helplessly: "It's not a matter of putting out money for a manor. You just say buy a manor, but a manor here, or a manor in the old home? Here we can look after them. But in the old home, I fear they can't hold the property. Think what we were like when we were sold, and what they're like now.

"Under a far sky and a distant emperor, one careless look and it's a heap of foul trouble. You all know what our house used to be. Who could we afford to cross? And what are we? Sesame-and-mung-bean little officials. I fear the local head won't give us face..." He looked up at Chen Dasheng: "Fourth, Princess Fuhe's side? Can we get a word in there?"

Chen Dasheng nodded: "It's fine. The old princess is over sixty this year. Her house eats off this one generation's fief and no more. She's a distant branch of the clan, an out-married old great-aunt at that. Over a matter of a few tenants, she can't make trouble for us. No need to say anything to her house. I've sent word home, and I'll have my wife make ready a rich gift to send over."

Chen Dayong nodded, patted his knees with both hands, stood, and sighed: "Ai, the old home and here, together, our house still has roots. Of one clan, five branches survived. Help or no help, we've first to gather the kin and raise our old Chen ancestral hall. That's the great matter! I don't even know our ancestors' names, and at the festivals I can only start the incense from our grandpa's line. Ai, unfilial!"

Chen Dazhong heard him out, bent his head and thought, then said: "All right! I'll have them ask around nearby, and let it be here. We brothers pool our money. The fields here shouldn't be dear, two or three hundred wen the mu at most, so give each branch a hundred-odd mu, and raise them a house. When the old-home kin are fetched, the hall raised, the ancestors invited, and the root set, we'll not be adrift. Then we'll speak of the rest."

Chen Dasheng handed the gourd to his second brother, sat too and thought, then said: "Money's the small thing. We four spent some years being forced to change our very souls, and learned to cope. But what our grandpa's lot were, these kin are. I don't fear their making trouble. They're a whole houseful of honest lumps who couldn't learn it if they tried. So now, besides the hall, the pressing thing, however small we of this generation are, is to build a school on the manor, hire a teacher, and start them learning. Else, even with us nearby, they can't hold the family property."

Chen Dazhong nodded, and looked at the second brother.

Chen Dayi thought a while, then smiled after all: "Good. Spend where it should be spent! Now it's well. From now my son, when he's born, has a real kinsman to visit. A good thing. It won't show in our generation, but the next can be helped by it."

Chen Dazhong nodded smiling, stood, took up the camp-stool, tucked it in the horse-bag, pulled the rein and swung nimbly up: "So be it, let's go. It'll be well from now. No more lonely wandering ghosts. We've kin at last. Rid of these years of ill luck, our house should come into its own..."

At the mouth of Princess Fuhe's manor, several bailiffs and stewards sat in a sheltered spot, watching from afar the folk whose luck had turned. To tell the truth, every one of them was sick with envy.

Not far off a felt mat was spread, laid full of brand-new clothes and shoes and stockings. But those former tenants dared only fill their bellies with a little food, and dared not so much as touch these new things. They could frighten no one now, still less beat anyone. If people won't have you, what can you do? So they waited with fixed smiles, and set these things out too, that the great folk should see them when they came, that all had been done with care.

Never mind that they were stewards, they were Princess Fuhe's hereditary house-slaves. And who were the others now? Kin of a great house from this day on.

Princess Fuhe was imperial kin, true, but the Emperor's house had crooked-branch kin past counting. In the clan what was this old princess? A distant out-married old great-aunt whose name the Emperor didn't know.

Her fief was shared down from the clan, and Jiangzhu was no good place, a full three hundred li from Yanjing, a crooked mountain hollow, the land uneven, the water from ditches dug by hand.

And who were these folk's kin? Relatives back at the ancestral home who, for their standing, couldn't come calling of their own accord, yet were all eagerness in their hearts to curry favor. As the head of the house had said, serve them well, flatter them well, ask for no connection, only to make no slip.

This house's most illustrious son was the little ancestor of the palace's eunuchs and women-officials, the roof-tree grandson carrying on the She line, a gate honored by the scholars of the realm, a man the Emperor kept like half a son... The circle of the great is not large, and in a few days Chen Dasheng and the rest had been dug to the root.

The stewards were envying, murmuring low, when they saw those wilted former tenants all at once scramble to their feet.

The stewards sprang up too, came out of the shelter, and saw in the distance a fine grand train of carriages and horses coming.

At the head were a dozen and more tall horses, and the riders all in black cloaks, riding at a run, the cloaks streaming, no common sight.

Besides these, the troop was flanked by a full forty or fifty guards, mounted too and running with them, the black cloaks gathered together, bearing down from afar, a fearsome thing.

Chen Gaoliang, silent all this while, rose slowly, his lips shaking, and came down from the high ground, saying to his brother as he went, still unbelieving: "They, they've really come to fetch us? It's really, really Daniu's house's boys?"

That day he'd taken the children off to dig the ditch, and wasn't on the manor, and had to wait till the ditch was done to go back. Who'd have thought that, worn out after a day's work and just fallen asleep in the shed, he'd be respectfully invited back, and from then on eat his fill?

For a dozen and more years Chen Gaoliang had eaten no meat. In his greed he'd eaten a few mouthfuls too many, and had the runs from it ever since.

And in these few days his brother Erliang had told him over and over, yes, it's Sixth Grandpa's house's grandsons. But how could he dare believe it? Where was there such good fortune?

That crowd from heaven halted not far off, and each dismounted, and Chen Gaoliang, sharp-eyed, looked each one over closely.

He looked at their silk and damask, looked at the officials' caps on their neat topknots, looked at the gold belts they wore. Even the tall horses they rode were decked in gold and silver. And he, he didn't know a single one of them.

At that the man panicked, panicked utterly.

He couldn't bear three days' full meals, and said to the stewards, near weeping, begging off: "No, no, I don't know them, what, what's to be done? We've got the wrong men!"

The four Chen brothers got down from horse and carriage, and walked slowly together toward the great crowd before them.

They didn't know themselves. But the brothers knew them: this dress so familiar, these faces so familiar, strange yet forever rising in memory. Unkempt, dark and rough, careworn, bitter, their brows never a day unknotted, forever pressing toward the middle. Men not yet twenty, with a few furrows worried into their faces too early.

Just like grandpa, like father, like the dead brothers.

Chen Dasheng went dazed again. He searched hard, wanting among those near-alike faces to turn up his own people. Maybe they'd only run off and followed the wrong lot?

Maybe one would see him, leap out glad, and point and shout: "Hey! You daft Scabby! Still know your brother?"

But there was none.

A hundred-odd faces looked over, and not one was from under his own roof.

The two crowds stepped each toward the other and met, one bare-foot, one shod, one strong and steady, one halting and unsure...

When at last they came together, Chen Dazhong reached up, undid the cloak-tie at his throat, and flung it off with one hand. He straightened his robe, then lifted it and slowly knelt to the eldest, Chen Gaoliang, and said: "Grand-uncle, we've come to fetch you home."

Still no knowing them?

Chen Gaoliang rubbed his eyes four times over, and searched their faces hard, over and over, and searching said, near weeping: "You, who are you? You've surely got the wrong men, my lords... an old man can't bear it."

He wept it out, and knelt down too with a thud.