Thus he comforted himself, and he commanded the lad’s tutor to spare no teaching of this son of his, and not to heed the languors that the boy might have, for these are common to all lads who grow, and they cannot be heeded.
But at night when Wang the Tiger woke up and was restless he heard his son’s quiet breathing in the room and a suffering tenderness filled his breast and he thought to himself over and over,
“I must do more for him—I must think of something more I can do for him!”
Thus did Wang the Tiger spend his years upon his son and he might have slipped all unknowing into age, so engrossed was he, had not a certain thing come about that shook him out of his too great fondness and stirred him up to war again, and to his destiny.
It was on a day in spring when his son was nearly ten years old, for so did Wang the Tiger measure the years now by his son, and he sat under a budding pomegranate tree with the boy. The lad had been rapt before the little flame-like new leaves of the tree and he had cried out suddenly,
“I do swear that to me these little fiery leaves are more beautiful than the whole flower, even!”
Wang the Tiger was looking at them, painstaking in his attention to see what his son saw if he could, when there came a great commotion at the gates and one came running to Wang the Tiger to announce someone coming. But before the serving man could get the words from his mouth Wang the Tiger saw his pocked nephew come staggering in, lame from his swift riding, and he was haggard and weary with his riding by night and day, and the dust had settled into his deep pocks so that he was very curious to see. Words came slowly to Wang the Tiger so long as he was not angry and he could but stare at the young man and the young man gasped forth,
“I came on a winged horse by day and by night to tell you that the Hawk is plotting to divide himself from you and he has set up your army for his own and he has taken for his base the very city you besieged, and he is in some league with the old robber chief who has been itching these years for his revenge. I have known he held back revenue these last months and I feared some such outcome, but I have waited to make sure lest raising a false alarm the Hawk be offended and kill me secretly somehow!”
All this tumbled out of the young man’s mouth and Wang the Tiger stared out of his deep eyes and his eyes seemed to recede beneath his forehead as his black brows drew down more heavily and he felt his good hot rage come up to help him and he roared out,
“That accursed dog and thief—and I raised him up from a common soldier! Everything he owes to me, and he turns on me like the wild cur he is!”
And feeling his good, war-like anger rise higher and higher in him Wang the Tiger forgot his son and he strode to the outer courts where his captains lived and his trusty men and some of his soldiers, and he roared that five thousand men were to prepare to follow him within the forenoon and he shouted for his horse and for his keen and narrow sword. Everywhere those courts, which had lain quiet and at peace with the spring, became now like a turmoiled pool, and out of the women’s courts the children and the slaves peeped with frightened faces dismayed at so much shouting of weapons and war, and the very horses were excited and their hoofs clattered and pranced upon the tiles of the courts.
Then Wang the Tiger, when he saw all was astir as he had commanded, turned to the weary messenger and he said,
“Go and eat and drink and rest yourself. You have done very well and for this I shall raise you up. Well I know that many a youth would have joined the rebels, for it is always in the hearts of young men to rebel, but you have remembered our bond of blood to stay by me. Be sure I shall raise you up!”
Then the young man looked east and west and he whispered,
“Yes, but, my uncle, will you kill the Hawk? He will suspect when he sees you come for I told him I was ill and must go back to my mother for a while.”
Then Wang the Tiger promised in a great, furious voice, and he cried,
“You need not beg me, for I will burnish my sword upon his flesh!”
And the young man went away very content.
Then by forced marching Wang the Tiger led his men out the three days to the new territory and he led out his old and trusted men, and he kept at home those who had joined his ranks from the besieged city and the captain who had betrayed the robber chief lest they betray him also in his turn. He promised his good men that they should have their turn now to loot the city if they were brave for him, and he would give them besides a month’s extra wage in silver, so they marched with good hearts and ready feet.
They did so well that before the Hawk had any idea of such a mishap he heard that Wang the Tiger was upon him. The truth was that the Hawk had no knowledge of how wily and full of clever guile was the young man who was Wang the Tiger’s nephew, for the youth was so merry and his tongue so smooth and his pocked face so full of seeming ignorance except of a jest or of some bit of horseplay among the soldiers, that the Hawk thought all he did unseen. He was very glad when the youth said he was ill of some pain in his liver and that he must go home to his mother, and he planned that now he would put out his proclamations of rebellion and he would discover which men were loyal to him and the others he would put to death. To the men who would rebel with him he promised the freedom of the city for booty.
In these days, therefore, the Hawk fortified himself and he commanded food to be brought into the city, for well enough he knew Wang the Tiger’s temper that he would not be still and let things be, and in great terror the helpless people prepared themselves again for a siege. Even on that very day when Wang the Tiger came into the city gate he saw farmers coming by the score with their loads of fuel upon their poles across their shoulders, and donkeys and mules came with bags of grain crossed upon their backs, and men carrying baskets of squawking fowls or driving herds of cattle and carrying pigs trussed upon poles and squealing furiously as they felt themselves borne along, their heads hanging and feet up. And Wang the Tiger gnashed his teeth to see it all, for he knew that if he had not been told in time of the plot, he would have had a very difficult siege with all this food in the city, and the Hawk was a far greater foe than the witless old robber chief had been, for he was a clever man and very fierce and he had besides the two foreign weapons of war and he could set them on the city wall and turn them upon the besiegers. When Wang the Tiger thought of all he had missed so narrowly, his anger rose until his eyes were red and he gnawed and chewed at his beard. He let his anger rise then as deep and high as it would and he forced his horse on and shouted to his men that they were to go straight to the courts where the Hawk was encamped.
Now there were already those who had run to tell the Hawk that he was undone, for Wang the Tiger was already upon him, and the Hawk felt despair drop on him out of the skies. He hesitated but a moment to think whether or no he might brazen the hour out by guile, or whether he might rather escape by a secret way, and he had no hope at all that his men would dare to stand by him now, since Wang the Tiger brought so vast an army in. He knew he stood alone. But in that moment’s hesitation he was lost, for Wang the Tiger came galloping through the gates crying that the Hawk was to be caught at any cost and held for him to kill, and he turned himself off his saddle as he shouted and his men swarmed through the courts.
Then the Hawk, seeing his end was on him, ran and hid himself. Although he was a brave man, he ran and hid himself in the pile of grass in one of the kitchens. But what hope had he against the hordes that poured to find him who were fierce with their hopes of promised reward? Nor did the Hawk have any hope from his followers beyond that if one saw where he was hid, he would not tell it. He waited there in the grass, and if he hid, still did not tremble, for he was a brave man.
But he must be found, for they ran searching everywhere for him eager to find him and claim reward, and the gates front and back were guarded and the small gate of escape, and the walls to the courts were very high. So the Hawk was found by a handful of soldiers, and they saw an end of his blue coat in the grass and they ra
n out and clapped the door to, and yelled for others to come, and when some fifty men or so came running they went in cautiously, for they did not know what weapons the Hawk might have, although he was weaponless, except for a small, short dagger, useless against so many, for he had run out in distraction as he sat eating his morning meal. They fell upon him in a heap, then, and pinioned him and led him to their general, and the Hawk went sullenly, his eyes wild and the straw sticking in his hair and his clothes. Thus they led him to where Wang the Tiger sat in the great hall waiting, his sword drawn and shining like a narrow silver serpent stretched across his knees. He glowered at the Hawk from under his dark brows and he said harshly, “So you have turned traitor against me, who raised you up from a common soldier and made you all you are!”
The Hawk answered sullenly and without raising his eyes from the shining thing on Wang the Tiger’s knees,
“You taught me how to rebel against a general, and what were you but a runaway son, and who raised you if not the old general?”
Now when Wang the Tiger heard so rude an answer he could not bear it, and he shouted to the crowded soldiers who stood to see all they could,
“I thought I would drive my sword through him, but it is too clean a death for him! Take him and slice his flesh into strips as they do to criminals and those too wicked to live, to unfilial sons and traitors to the state!”
But the Hawk, seeing his end was come, and before any could stop him, pulled his small short dagger out of his bosom, and he plunged it into his own belly and gave it a great twist and left it sticking there out of his belly, and he stood staggering a moment, and he looked at Wang the Tiger as he died, and he said in his hard and reckless way,
“I do not fear to die! Another twenty years and I shall be born again in some other body—again a hero!” And he fell with his dagger still twisted in his entrails.
And Wang the Tiger, staring at what had come about almost before he could draw a breath, felt his anger ebbing out of him as he stared. He had been cheated of his revenge and yet for all his anger he was remorseful, too, that he had lost so brave a man as this rebel. He was silent for a while and at last he said in a low voice,
“You to the right and left of me, take his dead body away and bury it somewhere, for he was a lone man. I do not know whether he had father or son or any home.” And after a while he said again, “I knew he was brave but I did not know him so brave as this. Put him into a good coffin.”
And Wang the Tiger sat on awhile and sorrowed, and the sorrow made his heart soft so that he held his men back for a time from the looting he had promised. While he sorrowed, the merchants of that city came and craved an audience of him, and when he let them in to see what they desired of him, they came and with courtesy and much silver they besought him not to allow his men to be free in the city, saying that the people were in great terror. And being soft for the time, Wang the Tiger took the silver and promised to give it to his men in lieu of booty, and the merchants were grateful and went away praising so merciful a lord of war as this.
But Wang the Tiger had an ado to comfort his soldiers, and he had to pay them each one a good sum and he ordered feasts and wines for them before they would leave off their sullen looks and Wang the Tiger had to call upon their loyalty to him and promise them some further chance some other time of war before they settled to themselves again, and ceased their curses of disappointment. And indeed Wang the Tiger had to send twice to the merchants for other sums of silver before the thing was settled and the men satisfied.
Then Wang the Tiger prepared to return to his home once more, for he longed exceedingly to see his son, for he had left in such haste he had scarcely thought to plan for him these days he was away. This time Wang the Tiger left his trusty harelipped man to hold the city with the soldiers until his nephew could return and the Hawk’s men he led back with himself, leaving in their place certain tried and old men he had brought out when he came. And as precaution Wang the Tiger took the two great foreign guns with him, for he found the Hawk had had an ironsmith of the city make round balls for them and he had gunpowder to fire the guns, and Wang the Tiger took them so that he need never again fear them turned upon himself.
Now as Wang the Tiger marched back again through the streets of the city, the people looked as he passed and cast eyes of hatred upon him, for a tax had been levied upon every house to make up the vast sum that Wang the Tiger had needed to reward his soldiers and to pay his own cost of the expedition. But Wang the Tiger would not notice these looks, and he hardened himself and he reasoned in his own mind that these people ought to be willing to pay for peace, for if he had not come and delivered them they would have suffered greatly at the hands of the Hawk and of his men. For the Hawk was very cruel and men and women were nothing at all to him, and he had been used to wars from his childhood. The truth was Wang the Tiger felt that these people were very unjust to him, who had these days of hard marching, and they did not perceive they had been saved from anything and he thought to himself sullenly, “They have no gratitude for anything, and I am too soft of heart.” He hardened his heart with such thoughts, therefore, and he was never quite so kind again to common people as he once had been. He narrowed his heart still more, and he took no trusty man in the Hawk’s place for he said to himself drearily that not one could be trusted who was not of his blood, and in this narrowness he leaned yet more upon his beloved son and he comforted himself saying, “There is my son, and he alone will never fail me.” He hastened his horse then, and hurried his march, yearning for the sight of his son.
As for the nephew of Wang the Tiger, he waited until he had heard the Hawk was killed and the news made him very blithe and merry and he went to his home for a few days and there he told everyone how brave and wily he had been, and how he had been too clever for the Hawk, although the Hawk was so clever and wise a warrior, and old enough to be another generation. So he boasted everywhere, and his brothers and sisters stood about him in greatest delight to hear him, and his mother cried out,
“Even when this son suckled I knew he was no common child, for he did pull so hard and lustily at my breast!”
But Wang the Merchant sat and listened with his meager smile fastened upon his face, and if he was proud of his son he would not praise him and he said,
“It is a good thing to remember, nevertheless, that of the thirty-six ways out of difficulty the best way of all is to run away.” And he said, “Good guile is better than good weapon.”
And it was his son’s guile that pleased him most of all.
But when the pocked youth went to his uncle’s court to pay respect to Wang the Landlord and his lady, and he told his doughty tale there, Wang the Landlord was strangely jealous. He was jealous for his dead son, and he was jealous for these other two sons of his whom he admired for their lordly looks and ways and yet for whom he had vague fears, too, that there was something wrong in them. So although he seemed courteous when his brother’s pocked son told his tale, yet he lent but one ear, and while the young man talked in his eager way, the old man kept calling out for tea and for his pipe, and that he was chill now that the sun was down and he would have his light spring fur robe. As for the lady, she inclined her head to her nephew the very least she could in decency of mannerliness, and she took up a bit of embroidery and feigned to be very busy with it, matching this silk to that in the pattern, and she yawned loudly and often, and asked her lord this and that of some matter in the house or about the tenants on the land they still had left. At last the young man saw she was weary of him and he stopped his tale and went away, somewhat dashed. And before he had gone far he heard the lady raise her voice and say,
“I am glad no son of ours is a soldier! It is such a low life and it makes a young man very coarse and common.”
And Wang the Landlord answered listlessly, “Aye—I think I will go to the tea house for a while.”
Now the young man could not know that these twain thought of their dead young son, and he felt h
is heart sore in him until he came to the gate. But there stood Wang the Landlord’s second wife, with her last babe in her arms. She had sat listening to the young man’s tale, and had slipped out ahead of him and she said to him wistfully,
“But to me it is a very good, brave tale.”
And the young man went back to his mother comforted.
Three times ten days did this pocked nephew of Wang the Tiger stay in his home, for his mother took this chance to wed him to his betrothed, the maid whom she had chosen for him a few years before. Now this maid was the daughter of a neighbor, who was a silk weaver, but not a poor and common weaver who hires himself to others. No, the maid’s father had his own looms and he had twenty apprentices and made bolts of many-colored satin and flowered silks, and there were not many of his trade in the city, so that he did well at it. The maid, too, was clever at it, and she could, if the spring lingered on too chill, nurse the silkworm eggs against her own warm flesh until they hatched into worms, and she could feed the worms, as they should be fed to grow, upon the mulberry leaves the apprentices gathered, and she knew how to wind the silk from the cocoons. All such skill she had, a rare skill in that town, for the family had come the generation before from other parts. It was true that the young man she was to wed had no such use for her skill; still, Wang the Merchant’s wife felt it was something for a maid to have such knowledge and it made her thrifty and busy.
As for the young man, it was little to him what the maid could do, but he was glad to be wed, for he was now nearly twenty-four and troubled often with his desires, and he was pleased that the maid was neat and middling pretty and she seemed not to have any great temper of her own, and it was enough for him that she was so.
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