“How long must it continue?”
Ouyang remembered once believing that grief must have an end, as all other emotions did. Between them on the table the lamp flame swayed and sank, as though his ballooning grief were a cloud capable of extinguishing everything it touched. He said, “I don’t know.”
Esen groaned. “Ah, how much easier life must be without family. Clean. None of these worries, concerns, encumbrances.” Intoxicated, Esen was over-enunciating. Ouyang, staring at him in pain, saw anew the reminder of what he had always known: that Esen had forgotten that Ouyang had come from a family; that once he had been a son, a brother, too. “Better I should be like you, loving only my sword, none of this—this—” Esen gulped the wine.
A corona of tiny insects surrounded the dying lamp flame, their bodies giving off the singed smell of summer nights. Esen was absorbed in his cup, neither noticing nor caring that Ouyang had yet to join him in the drinking. The night watchman passed by outside.
Ouyang poured a refill, but when he handed it over Esen grabbed his arm and said with slurred vehemence, “You. You’re the one I trust, when I can’t even trust my own brother.”
The touch sent a jolt through Ouyang’s hard-won control. The warmth and pressure of Esen’s hand was tempered by nothing but the single thin layer of his inner shirt. Feeling him tense, Esen shook his head and said irritably, “Why must you be so wedded to formality? Haven’t we been through enough together to be familiar?”
Ouyang was abruptly aware of Esen’s physicality, how solid and purely masculine he was. Even tired and drunk, his charisma was powerful. His fingers slackened around Ouyang’s wrist. Ouyang could have broken free in an instant. He didn’t. He looked at Esen’s familiar face, lined unfamiliarly with the pain he himself had put there. He saw the smoothness where the beard of Esen’s upper lip failed to meet his beard below, his strong neck with its fluttering heartbeat. The generous and well-shaped lips. The flesh-and-bloodedness of his body, so much larger than Ouyang’s own. Even in his grief and drunkenness, everything about him seemed like the embodiment of some ideal. Handsome, strong, honorable. Ouyang was faintly aware of a vibration, a distant tickle: the night watch calling the time. He couldn’t look away.
Esen said fiercely, drunkenly, “Baoxiang would never put himself on the line for me, or anyone else. But you, you’d do anything for me, wouldn’t you?”
Inside, Ouyang recoiled from the image: Esen’s mastery, and his own debasement. As if he were nothing more than a dog panting at Esen’s feet for approval and affection. Not a man, but a thing. And yet—Esen was staring at him with a bold intensity that was uncouth in its raw interest, and Ouyang didn’t turn away. Without altering his gaze, Esen slowly reached up and brushed the hair back from Ouyang’s face. He felt the strange, slow drag of calloused fingertips from brow to cheek. He didn’t lean into it, just let it happen. Esen’s hand on his arm, the other hovering next to him in an uncompleted embrace. The air between them seemed to have thickened into a pressure that kept him where he was. The closeness of Esen’s body disturbed a willingness within him that he found deeply unsettling. He knew his face was as blank as always, but distantly he was aware that his breathing had shallowed, his pulse racing as though in exertion or fear.
Esen’s voice took on a note Ouyang had never heard before, low and roughened with potential, as he said, “You really are as beautiful as a woman.”
Later, Ouyang thought Esen wouldn’t even have noticed: the moment his stillness of anticipation flicked into the stillness of shame, as quickly as capping a candle. His blood ran cold; his body burned. It was the feeling of a blade slid gently into his heart. He pulled away. Esen stayed leaning forwards for a moment, then slowly leaned back and raised his cup again.
Ouyang poured himself a cup with shaking hands and downed it. His compressed emotions had exploded into a swarm of stinging hornets. He had betrayed Esen, but now Esen betrayed him. It was incomprehensible how despite everything they had been through together, Esen could still think Ouyang might be flattered by that comparison. How could he be so completely ignorant of the shame that was the core of Ouyang’s being? Burning with an emotion that seemed to contain the agonies of both love and hate, Ouyang thought furiously: He chooses not to know.
Across from him, Esen’s gaze was already blurred. It was as though nothing had happened. Ouyang realized bitterly that for Esen, perhaps it hadn’t. He owned everything he laid his eyes on, and that included Ouyang. He had merely reached for something beautiful, confusing it for another of his precious things, and when the object of this mild desire slipped away he didn’t even remember it had been in his grasp at all.
* * *
“So you did it,” Shao remarked, meaning Chaghan. They were sitting in Ouyang’s private apartments. Ouyang saw Shao taking in the way the few tables and chairs hung moored in the empty space like boats in a lake. There was something about Shao that always seemed grasping and dishonorable. Ouyang hated that it was Shao who knew his private concerns, and used them towards his own low ends.
“Yes,” Ouyang said bitterly. “Had you doubted I would?”
Shao shrugged as if to convey that his doubts were his own business.
“The Prince of Henan has ordered us to advance our departure,” Ouyang said. The scramble of inked paper on the table between them held the accounting of their army: the men and equipment and gargantuan resources required to get them where they needed to go. “Now that the funds have been released, let us coordinate the logistics swiftly.”
“What of Altan’s replacement? We have to make a decision about that battalion. Jurgaghan”—a young Mongol from the family of Esen’s third wife—“is expecting the position.”
In Ouyang’s opinion there was no functional difference between Jurgaghan and Altan; they and all their peers were entitled young men who had never had a disappointment in their lives. “Give it to Zhao Man.”
They spoke quietly, since window-paper did little to keep voices contained. It did however keep the heat in, and the closed windows made the room stuffy. Shao fanned himself with a round paper fan that seemed to have been borrowed from a woman. A pair of mandarin ducks, boasting of love and marriage, winked at Ouyang from the back. Ouyang supposed even Shao must have a wife. He had never asked.
“You don’t think the Prince will resist having another Nanren in command?”
“Leave the Prince to me,” Ouyang said. He felt a dull rushing pressure: that unstoppable current bearing him towards his ending.
Shao arched his eyebrows in a way that made Ouyang’s blood boil, but he said only, “And where will the rebels be heading this season?”
“Don’t you know?” Ouyang said. “Guess.”
Shao gave him a dark inscrutable look. “Bianliang.”
“Exactly.” Ouyang returned a humorless smile.
“The question is: Will you tell the Mongols that?”
Ouyang said harshly, “You know what I want.”
“Ah, the fate nobody else would want.” Cruelty surfaced in Shao’s voice. The gusts from his fan felt like a series of unwanted touches that Ouyang was rapidly beginning to find intolerable. “I hope you’re strong enough for it.”
Ouyang entertained a brief fantasy of seizing the fan and crushing it. “Your concern for my suffering is touching. But if our fates are fixed, then my strength is irrelevant. Blame Heaven; blame my ancestors; blame myself in my past lives. I have no escaping it.” Unwilling to bare himself further to Shao of all people, he said abruptly, “Prepare the armament orders, and tell the logistics and communication commanders to come see me.”
Shao tucked the fan into his belt, rose and saluted. There was something crawlingly unpleasant about his expression: it lingered between amusement and contempt. “Yes, General.”
Ouyang had no choice but to let it pass. They needed each other, and even if he had to endure slights along the way: when they reached their goal, none of it would matter again.
16
&
nbsp; ANFENG, EIGHTH MONTH
Neither Ma nor anyone else in Anfeng dared mourn Little Guo by wearing white. The only thing to remember him by was the ancestral tablet that Zhu had put up in the temple at Ma’s request, and even that was hidden behind the names of all the other deceased. Little Guo’s men had been given over to the newly appointed Commander Yi. Sun Meng was the only commander left on Right Minister Guo’s side, and Ma hadn’t seen either of them in public since Little Guo’s death.
It was obvious Chen was just waiting to make his final move to destroy the Guo faction, and the only people to survive would be those unequivocally on Chen’s side. Then there would be no one to rein Chen in but a paranoid and malleable Prime Minister. And unlike Prime Minister Liu, Chen’s interest in defeating the Yuan wouldn’t be for the sake of the Nanren people who had placed their faith in the Red Turbans and the Prince of Radiance, but for creating his own world of terror and cruelty.
The thought should have filled Ma with dread. Most of the time it did. But that evening, as she came down the temple steps in her red wedding dress and veil, she found her worries washed away by a new lightness. She’d spent her whole life anticipating marriage as a duty, never dreaming for a moment that it could be an escape. But someone impossible had given her something that shouldn’t exist. Her veil tinged the world red, and for once the color reminded her of good fortune instead of blood. Through her veil she marveled at the small red-gowned figure leading her down the steps by the scarf tied between them. She had no idea what her future held—only that in this life, it could be different.
Zhu reached the throng of well-wishers at the bottom of the steps, then suddenly came to a halt and bowed. Ma, struggling to make out details through the veil, came up beside her and stopped just as abruptly.
“Master Zhu,” Chen greeted, approaching through the crowd. On all sides bodies bent towards him like stalks under the wind. “Or I suppose it must be Commander Zhu, since you’re married now. I barely recognize you out of those gray robes! Congratulations.”
Smiling, he handed his gift to Zhu. “And I see your bride is the beautiful Ma Xiuying.” Even with her veil as protection, Ma shrank from the piercing regard of his tiger eyes. He said to her politely, “I’d wondered if it would be Commander Sun’s turn to have hot tea poured on him, since he’s a good-looking young man. But I knew you were a smart girl. Good choice.”
He turned back to Zhu. “The Prime Minister sends his congratulations. He thinks well of you, Commander Zhu. He often mentions his wish that the other commanders’ forces emulate your men’s discipline and humility. Commander Yi, for instance, has inherited a force which is particularly lacking, due to his predecessor’s faults.” Chen’s tone was relaxed, but his attention on Zhu reminded Ma of a collector’s pin poised over an insect. He said, “Your second-in-command, the tall one with the short hair. Was he a monk too?”
If Zhu was as concerned as Ma, she hid it well. “Minister, Second Commander Xu was also an ordained monk of Wuhuang Monastery.”
“Perfect,” Chen said. “Why don’t you second him to Commander Yi for the next month? That should be enough time for him to have a positive influence. Teach a few sutras and the virtues of humility. What do you think?”
Ma’s dread swept back in, erasing every trace of the lightness she’d felt moments before. By taking Zhu’s best friend hostage, Chen was making very sure she had no choice but to support whatever he was planning against the Guo faction.
There was no chance Zhu hadn’t realized that, but she only bowed. The black scholar-style hat she had worn for the wedding matched Chen’s perfectly, so that together they resembled a classic image of master and disciple. “This unworthy commander is honored to oblige. If the Minister is so generous as to allow it, this servant will send him around after the wedding banquet this evening.”
Chen smiled, the vertical creases in his cheeks deepening until they looked like knife cuts. “Of course.”
* * *
Zhu and Ma’s new home as a married couple was a plain room in the barracks, though Zhu saw it had been haphazardly decorated with red streamers that looked like they had been part of a military banner in a past life. Daylight flickered through the gaps in the rough wooden walls, giving the place the secret feel of a children’s hiding spot in a bamboo forest.
Ma took off her veil. Her dangling hairpin decorations chimed softly against each other as she sat next to Zhu on the bed. Zhu noticed she positioned herself further than a woman might sit from another woman, but closer than she would to a man. As if instead of being like Zhu Chongba, Zhu belonged in the same category as the eunuch general: neither one thing nor the other. The thought sent a judder of uneasiness through her. She had known that exposing her secret to Ma had increased, by some unknown amount, her risk of being recognized as the wrong owner of that great fate. It was the unknown part that worried her most. A risk is only a risk, she reminded herself. If it’d been a certainty, she would never have done it. She tried not to think about that ominous feeling of momentum that had troubled her after Jiankang. Risks can be managed.
She forced herself out of that line of thinking and into a cheerful demeanor. “Well, thanks to Chen Youliang, this isn’t quite the romantic mood I’d always dreamed of for my wedding.”
Ma hit her on the arm. The stiff white makeup didn’t suit her; Zhu missed her bare-faced liveliness. “What are you talking about! Monks don’t dream about their weddings.”
“You’re right,” Zhu said, mock-thoughtfully. “Look at Xu Da. I’m sure it’s never even occurred to him to wait for marriage—he goes right ahead and does it.”
A wedge of unpowdered skin along Ma’s hairline went scarlet. “You and he—?”
It took Zhu a moment to realize what she was asking. “Buddha preserve us!” She felt a moment of true horror. “With women! Not with me.”
“I didn’t mean the business of rain and clouds,” Ma said crossly, although of course she had. “But he must know.”
“Well, I never told him,” Zhu said, ignoring the taboo feeling of saying it out loud. “But he knows more about me than anyone. He’s my brother.” At the flash of guilt in Ma’s eyes, she added, “It’s not because of you that Chen Youliang is taking him hostage. You might have come from the Guo household, but Chen Youliang won’t think that’s enough to tip my loyalties over. He’s just taking precautions. He’s a smart man, and he doesn’t want any surprises when it comes to the crunch.”
Ma’s face was very still under her makeup. “Loyalties. You would have helped him anyway?”
Zhu remembered Ma’s attachment to Sun. She said gently, “I know how you feel, Ma Xiuying. I don’t like Chen Youliang any more than you do.” But the cold, pragmatic side of her saw the strength of his position.
Groups of men tromped by outside, their shadows falling through the gaps in the wall and onto the swept dirt floor. From next door came burbling sounds, and the intense porky odor of boiling offal. Ma suddenly said, low and desperate, “Don’t do it. Don’t help him. Pledge your allegiance to Right Minister Guo and Sun Meng; get them to act before you have to give up Xu Da—”
Ma’s hope was like seeing the world through the iridescent wing of an insect: a glowing, soft-edged version of itself in which the arc of history could still trend towards kindness and decency. Ma always felt so much, and with such a foolish, beautiful intensity, that witnessing her emotions made Zhu’s own internal landscape seem as barren as a cracked lake bed. Regretfully, Zhu shook her head. “Think. Even if I had time, how many men do I have? Nowhere near enough. Sun Meng might have more than either of the other commanders individually, but against them together—”
Tears welled up in Ma’s eyes. No doubt she was remembering Little Guo’s death, and imagining the same for Sun Meng. But then she startled Zhu by saying savagely, “No, you think. If you take Chen Youliang’s side and help him put down Right Minister Guo and his supporters, you’ll be setting your own men against other Red Turbans. Do you think
your force will come through the same, after that? It’s one thing to kill a Yuan soldier, but it’s something different to kill another rebel. Have you thought about that?” Her tears didn’t fall.
Zhu paused. Chen’s eventual victory over the Guos was so obvious that she hadn’t ever felt like she was choosing his side, but was just taking the only available path. And because it was the only path, she had always thought of its unpleasant repercussions as something she would have to manage as well as possible when the time came. It had never occurred to her that they might be unmanageable. She frowned. “Better to have men with damaged morale than no men at all.”
“They follow you because you built them up—because you earned their trust and loyalty. But force them to turn on their own, and you’ll lose all that! They’ll see you for what you are. Not their leader, but someone who’s using them. And when that happens, they’ll only be following you out of self-interest. Then how long do you think it will be before Chen Youliang takes them away? All he’ll have to do is make them an offer.” Ma said bitterly, “Just like he did to Little Guo.”
Disconcerted, Zhu remembered Commander Yi’s gleeful assumption of power. Nobody, not even Zhu herself, had noticed Yi’s monstrous self-interest. But Chen had. “I—”
Ma cried, “Listen. Isn’t this why you wanted me, so I could tell you what you don’t see? If you don’t want to be witness to a world of nothing but cruelty and suspicion and paranoia, then find another way.”
Zhu closed her mouth. The monks had taught that empathy and compassion were gentle emotions, but Ma’s cracked wedding makeup reminded her more than anything of the harsh, unyielding faces of the monastery’s all-seeing Guardian Kings. The sight of Ma’s judgment caused a wrenching contraction in the pit of her stomach. The feeling pulled her out of joint: she was pierced by the keenest sense of pity she had ever felt, simultaneously suffused with tenderness and aching with some mysterious longing. She stared at Ma’s crumpled, defiant face, and the ache intensified until she thought she might have to press her fist into her chest to relieve the pain of it.
She Who Became the Sun Page 27