Jiang stared at him, shocked. ‘But you can’t…’
Jiang stopped. Maybe he could. That was, if he was Tsao Ch’un’s man, answerable to him alone. And that did make a kind of sense. Maybe Steward Ho had got it wrong. Maybe all that money had been spent for nothing.
Jiang took a long breath, then began again.
‘Forgive me, Steward…?’
‘Shao Shu… I am First Steward here. You want to see someone, you get my permission, understand?’
‘Forgive me, First Steward Shao. It is my misunderstanding. Only I wish to see Chun Hua.’
‘Chun Hua?’ The man’s face had a faint flicker of mockery in it that Jiang found troubling. He stroked his beard, as if considering. ‘Well, I don’t know, I…’
‘Is there a problem? She is here, I take it?’
‘Ah yes… only…’
How much? he wanted to ask; only he knew he could not be that direct. Men like Shao liked to wrap their corruption up in the guise of necessity.
‘I understand,’ Jiang said. ‘There are expenses, neh? The preparation of the rooms… the attendance fee for your clerks…’
First Steward Shao smiled. ‘I am glad you understand, General. I will have my assistant draft an agreement.’
‘Oh…’ Jiang Lei frowned. ‘I thought maybe…’
‘We have your details, General. You have only to authorize the payment.’
Jiang blinked. The bastard was tipped off. He knew I was coming.
But what could he do? Turn about and march away from there? Leave the odious little prick without his ‘fee’ ? But that would mean he’d not get to see Chun Hua, and that was worth a great deal to him right now.
He waited. Five minutes passed. Long, wordless minutes that stretched his patience, and then finally the clerk appeared.
As one of the younger servants knelt, his head bowed, to make a back for the document to be rested on for signature, Jiang looked to Shao Shu again. Shao was watching him intently now, to see how he’d react.
Even forewarned by that, the figure written on the sheet shocked Jiang Lei.
Fifty thousand yuan!
The involuntary intake of breath he took betrayed him. Even so, he kept his face blank, signing his name in both Mandarin and English, then appending his thumb print over Shao Shu’s chop.
Another of the First Steward’s men took the document at once and whisked it away. He was gone in a moment.
It was a full month’s salary. And though he could afford it, even though he was willing to pay twice that to see his beloved wife and daughters, Jiang was angry now. It was a clear abuse of Shao’s position.
The junior stewards stepped back to allow Jiang passage, while First Steward Shao, all charm and smiles now that he’d been paid, bowed low and put out an arm, indicating to Jiang that he was to step through.
Inside, beyond the security gate, five whole levels at the very top of the stack – First Level as it was known – were occupied by a massive three-storey mansion built in the northern style. Its steeply sloping red tile roof was lit from overhead by panels that resembled the open sky. That was an illusion, of course, but it was a striking one, strengthened as it was by the call of birds in a nearby copse of trees, the branches of which swayed gently in the artificial wind.
Jiang caught his breath. The house and its surrounding gardens were beautiful. He could imagine Chun Hua and the girls enjoying life here.
‘Come,’ Shao said, walking towards a doorway to their right, which was accessible by a short flight of pale grey steps. ‘I will have them brought to you.’
Inside it was opulent, with an elegant, almost luxurious decor. The high-ceilinged rooms – all of them in a traditional Han style – had a spotless look to them.
‘Through here,’ Shao said, steering Jiang through a doorway framed with black lacquer, and into a small suite of rooms that were slightly more informal than those he had just passed through. ‘Take a seat,’ the First Steward said. ‘We will attend you shortly.’
As Jiang sat, he frowned, noticing how the furniture in these rooms had a much less elegant, more worn look to it than elsewhere. The massive rugs seemed frayed, the wall hangings older, dowdier, cheaper than outside.
His heart was beating fast now, his palms damp. He sat, then stood again, needing to pace, rehearsing in his head what he would say. Only he knew that the mere sight of her would make him wordless. It always had. And he the poet of his age.
As the door at the far end of the room creaked open, he started forward, then took a step back as six dark-cloaked Han – scribes or clerics of some kind – entered the room and, without acknowledging his presence in any way, took their seats on either side of the room.
Jiang looked down. So this was how it was to be. Everything tightly scrutinized and written down. Every word and gesture copied into a report.
Fifty thousand yuan, and he was not even to be allowed a private audience. Jiang swallowed bitterly. So this was the new China!
It was First Steward Shao who appeared first, backing into the room and speaking as he did, his voice a rapid murmur which had the slightest edge of annoyance to it.
Shao turned, looking to Jiang, and smiled. ‘General… your wife, Chun Hua…’
The look of shock on Chun Hua’s face could not have been faked. She stared at Jiang in disbelief, then put her hand to her mouth, stifling a cry.
As for Jiang, he stood rooted there, unable to take his eyes from her, his mouth dry, a pain in his chest at the sight of her.
Oh, how she had aged. Like twenty years had passed, not four. But she was still his beloved Chun Hua. Still the woman he loved beyond all words.
Yet even as he put his hands out to her, even as he took a step towards her, so he was aware of his daughters in the shadows just behind her, a stern-faced female murmuring to them before pushing them forward.
Jiang caught his breath. They had seemed so young the last time he had seen them. Now the eldest, Ch’iao-chieh, was a young woman of thirteen, and her sister San-chieh was nine, almost ten. Seeing their father they began to run to him, meaning to rush into his arms, but even as they made to, Steward Shao called them back.
‘Girls! You will approach your father sedately now…’
The girls stopped and, lowering their heads, did as they were told.
Jiang watched them come to him, the moment strangely dreamlike and unreal. As the two stopped just before him and made to bow, so Jiang’s restraint broke. Stepping towards them, he bent down and embraced his daughters to him, hugging them tightly, ignoring the frown on Shao Shu’s face.
‘My darling girls… my pretty ones…’
Tears were in his eyes now, and as he looked up past them at their mother, he saw that she too was crying, sobbing like a child even as her eyes drank in the sight of him; eyes that were filled with an undiminished longing.
Chun Hua, he mouthed. My darling girl. My love.
To either side the clerks wrote furiously. Steward Shao, watching from the corner of the room, gave a scowl and turned away, shaking his head,.
Steward Shao had insisted that they sat facing one another formally, like at a proper audience, on hardwood benches placed a good ten ch’i or more apart. Chun Hua sat centrally, her daughters to either side. A forlorn sight it was, for now that he saw them clearly he saw how their dresses were also frayed and worn. It made Jiang wonder what had happened to all the presents he had sent them over the years. ‘Well?’ he said, smiling determinedly. ‘Do you want to show me your rooms?’
Chun Hua looked down, as if ashamed. ‘These are our rooms.’
‘But I thought…’ He looked about him again, and as he did, so understanding filled him. His girls were prisoners here, given this shabby little suite of rooms while First Steward Shao – and all his extended family, no doubt – had the run of the place.
‘And the gardens…?’
San-chieh, his youngest, made to answer. ‘Sometimes we—’
Shao Shu interr
upted her harshly. ‘You will not speak! Chun Hua… you will tell your daughter…’
Chun’s head went down. ‘San-chieh,’ she said quietly, ‘it would be best if you did not speak.’
Jiang Lei turned, glaring at Shao Shu, stirred to anger once more. He could see it now. See how they were bullied, day in, day out; how miserable an existence they were leading.
‘Steward Shao…’ he began, standing, meaning to confront the man. But even as he did, he saw how Chun Hua looked at him, pleading with him not to make a scene. He sat again, furious and frustrated, his anger making a muscle in his cheek twitch violently.
Jiang bit his lip, drawing blood, knowing he could do nothing. After all, this must be Tsao Ch’un’s bidding.
Maybe so. Only did Tsao Ch’un know what Shao Shu was up to?
It was a stupid question. Tsao Ch’un knew everything. Shao Shu would not have dared act in this fashion unless he had his Master’s blessing. Only what did Tsao Ch’un mean by treating his guests, his hostages this way? And why had Chun Hua not said?
The last was easy to answer. They would have censored every letter she wrote to him; maybe even destroyed most of them. But now he knew. Now he had seen with his own eyes.
In that regard it was 50,000 well spent.
As they parted, he held Chun Hua’s hands, smoothing the backs of her palms with his thumbs. Steward Shao had warned him not to kiss her. Such contact had not been agreed in their contract. But it did not matter. Just seeing her again, just holding her hands was enough. Knowing she loved him still. It gave him the strength to go on.
As he bowed to his daughters and they bowed back to him, Jiang Lei saw it all clearly. It was his path to suffer. To be in exile. Even here, where he was loved the most, there was a vast distance about him.
Later, standing there in the lift, descending, the first line of a poem came to him. Crisp and clear, its simple, elegant shape suggesting a second. By the time he stepped out into the great hallway where his litter waited, he had it all, complete in his head. A poem about emptiness and loneliness and fear. A poem that burned with indignation. A poem he could never possibly set down on paper.
That evening, Jiang Lei sat at his desk and cried.
What started it he could not say. He had thought himself inured against it. But how could he be? How could any man who called himself a man escape unscathed from such an ordeal? To have one’s heart ripped out through one’s eyes – it was not possible that such a thing would not affect you!
And so he cried, sobbing his heart out for the lost years and for what he’d seen that afternoon. For his daughters’ anguish and his wife’s tragic bravery.
To be the subject of one such as Steward Shao. Jiang Lei could not imagine it. It would have driven him mad. Or to murder.
All these years he had borne it. Had counted it the cost he had to pay, thinking that he alone was suffering. But now he knew.
He had it easy. He could see that now.
Not that he’d abused his so-called ‘freedom’. He might have had any number of women in his bed, keeping him warm at night, but he had chosen not to. He had been faithful to his darling Chun.
At his lowest ebb he had even thought of suicide, but even death was no escape, for Tsao Ch’un had made it plain that the family of a suicide would share his fate – to the third generation. No. The only real escape was to die in Tsao Ch’un’s service.
Jiang Lei wiped his eyes. It was true what they said – that crying did no good. And yet a man needed to cry sometimes, to purge himself.
Or so he told himself. Because he did not feel purged. What he felt now was unclean. How could he criticize others when he acted as he did? Wouldn’t a truer, more honest man defy his Master?
Perhaps. But it would make that man the murderer of those he loved. And no amount of shifting blame to he who organized it thus – Tsao Ch’un, whom many called a tyrant – could make it otherwise. No. It was simple. To defy the great man would mean the death of Chun Hua and his darling girls. And only a pedant would say that he, Jiang Lei, was not to blame.
What was the phrase the long-noses used? Ah yes… It was a ‘devil’s bargain’.
‘Master?’
Steward Ho stood in the doorway, a bowl of steaming soup resting on the tray he held.
‘Come…’ Jiang said, beckoning him over.
Halfway across, Ho slowed, his face showing surprise.
‘Master? Are you all right?’
Jiang nodded. ‘I am fine now, Ho. Just that the meeting…’
Ho gave the faintest bow, as if he understood perfectly, then set the tray down next to Jiang.
‘And thank you, Ho. You will find your Master grateful for your arrangements.’
Ho kept his head lowered, but he was smiling now. ‘It went well, then, Master?’
‘As smooth as silk. The mansion was… well, everything I imagined it would be.’
‘That is good, Master.’
Ho waited a moment longer. ‘Is there… anything else?’
‘No. You can retire now, Ho. I have a few things to do, then I’ll see to myself.’ He paused, then: ‘If there’s any message from the court…’
‘I will wake you at once, Master.’
Jiang smiled. ‘Good. Then go. And again, thank you, Ho.’
‘I am my Master’s hands…’
Surprisingly he slept well, waking late, to find he had a visitor.
As he dressed hurriedly, Jiang scolded Ho for once. ‘Why did you not wake me, Ho?’
‘Forgive me, Master, but your visitor expressly forbade me to. He was most insistent that you got your sleep. He said he was more than happy to wait.’
‘And where is he now?’
‘Waiting, Master. Pacing in the garden, I do believe.’
Jiang finished dressing, then hurried out to greet his guest, wondering who on earth it might be.
And stopped dead, astonished once again.
‘Hsü Jung! I thought…’
Hsü Jung came across and embraced him, then stood back, holding his old friend at arm’s length and looking into his face.
‘But you were under house arrest!’
‘I was,’ Hsü said, his deep voice resonating, ‘but now, it seems, I’m not.’
‘And Pan Tsung-yen?’
‘He too, it seems, is free.’
‘Have they explained why?’
Hsü Jung laughed dryly. ‘You are clearly a stranger to Pei Ching, dear friend. If I had any inkling whatsoever who “they” were, I might begin to understand why. Besides, power does not explain, power simply acts.’
‘But surely you must know who your enemies are?’
‘Must I?’ Hsü Jung smiled a smile of infinite tolerance. ‘Do you know how many factions are at war, here at the centre of it all?’
‘At war?’ Jiang laughed. ‘Your words are surely too extreme, brother Hsü.’
‘Oh no, Jiang… quite literally at war. Assassination is a courtly art, much practised in these parts. In the light of which… well… a mere house arrest… What’s that? It might even have been a friend. Someone who wished to see us protected overnight. To make sure some other faction did not do away with us.’
‘But why should they wish that? What possible harm could you or I do them?’
‘I would have said none… yesterday… but someone clearly thinks you important enough to have you watched closely. And not just Tsao Ch’un. Whoever those guards belonged to, they weren’t Tsao Ch’un’s, nor were they from the Ministry.’
‘Which leaves…?’
Hsü Jung smiled. ‘Too many options to consider. A minor family prince, maybe. Or some rival of yours?’
‘A rival? I have no rivals!’
‘Not that you know of.’
Jiang sighed. ‘This makes no sense, Hsü Jung. No sense at all. It’s all a chasing after shadows…’
‘So it might seem, but consider how much power is concentrated here, at the court. More than half the world is ruled from he
re. All those people. All that wealth. And everyone wants a share.’
‘I can easily believe. But what has that to do with me? I am but a humble general in Tsao Ch’un’s service. I have no influence upon events whatsoever. I can’t even influence the fate of my own family.’
‘And yet your presence here at court has set alarm bells ringing. However mistaken they might be, someone considers you important.’
‘Perhaps Tsao Ch’un needs a poet?’
‘Perhaps…’
Jiang Lei hesitated a moment, then: ‘Hsü Jung… could I ask you a favour?’
‘My dearest friend. Of course. Whatever I can do, I shall.’
‘There is a man, the First Steward at the mansion where my wife is being held. His name is Shao Shu. I wondered… is it possible to find out more about this man? Where he comes from? Who he is allied to? What kind of man he is?’
Hsü Jung frowned. ‘I take it he is Tsao Ch’un’s man?’
‘He reports to him, yes.’
‘Then it might be difficult. To make such enquiries… it could not be done without alerting someone.’
‘Then leave it… if it’s too dangerous. I just thought…’
Hsü Jung smiled. ‘I did not say too dangerous, Jiang Lei. Only difficult. But not impossible. I have a friend… well… enough said… Leave it with me, neh?’
Jiang was about to thank his friend, but right at that moment Steward Ho appeared, breathless from having run from one end of the suite to the other.
‘Master… You are summoned! Tsao Ch’un has sent his craft!’
‘His craft?’
‘Yes, Master. You must pack at once. It seems that you are going to Tongjiang.’
*
Tongjiang was 2300 li south-west of Pei Ching – 1160 kilometres by the old measure – in Sichuan Province.
In the very middle of nowhere, the grey, heavily misted mountains of the Ta Pa Shan dominating the skyline, was an ancient palace. It was the home of Li Chao Ch’in, advisor to Tsao Ch’un and one of his Council of Seven, whose task it was to enforce Tsao Ch’un’s decrees throughout his great City.
Touching down on the massive hexagonal pad, Jiang Lei felt a shiver of anxiety pass through him. What was he doing here? This place was both elegant and brutal, the very thickness of its walls exuding power and privilege. Some ancient warlord must have had this built for him against his enemies.
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