Talents Come Gathering
Ma Dai had come over to us, and still there were not enough capable men. A few sought me out on the strength of my name, but whether my standards simply sat too high, not one of them came up to the mark.
There was, in truth, a very simple way to solve the problem. I could leave Chengdu. Follow Father to Ba Commandery, and the talents I had long been lying in wait for would be there waiting. I remained in Chengdu for two reasons.
The first was that I refused to leave the impression I had leaned on my father's shadow. Liu Bei had put his foot down hard, and between the siege of Luocheng and the relief of Hanzhong I had done enough that, for the present, no one breathed suspicion or complaint against me. The future was another matter. Before long I would turn fifteen, take my courtesy name, and be counted an adult, and I would still be painfully young. Better not to hand anyone a pretext.
The second was the family on the road from Jingzhou. Father had already departed for his post in Ba Commandery, but the rest had made their nest in the safety of Chengdu. Mother and my younger sister were coming, and with them my two elder brothers, who had set up households of their own and whose faces I had seen only a handful of times.
I had wrongs to answer for, so this time I meant to go out and meet them myself. Mother would scold me and understand me in the same breath. What worried me was Yeon-i. I had told her I wasn't going, then up and vanished into Shu, and by Ban Jun's account she had cried for nearly three days straight.
This is a real disaster.
I would have to go to Ba Commandery again before long, and how to soothe Yeon-i worried me more than the command I still had to organize.
Time passed. When word came that the family was nearly at Chengdu, I went out beyond the walls to meet them myself.
That alone, it seemed, fell far short of cooling their anger. Yeon-i would not even greet me. She whipped her head aside and radiated, for all it was worth, the air of I am furious with you, and even Mother spoke in a colder tone than usual.
"Chasing merit is only human, and I can allow you that. But you must never set it above people. And there is certainly no need to lie to your own family in order to win glory."
I had told Yeon-i I wasn't going to war, then marched into battle after battle. Even with two mouths I would have had nothing to say. It was a piercing rebuke.
"I—I never thought it would turn out like this..."
I opened my mouth to make some excuse, and Mother only drew her brows tighter and cut me off.
"Lan-ah. Excuses are no good. If someday you lead soldiers out and lose, will you make excuses then, too?"
"...I have no face to show you."
"Yeon-i is very angry. Her brothers left home, so she hardly knows them, and she followed you closely—and then even you left her alone. How lonely she must have been, how forlorn. I hear you too will follow your lord father to Baxi Commandery, but until you go, spend your time with her."
"I will take it to heart..."
"Have you paid your respects to Bao and Shao?"
"No. I came to you first, Mother."
"Good. Go to them now."
"Then I'll come back in a little while. Yeon-i, I'll be back soon, all right?"
"Hmph! Liar..."
She was sulking in earnest. Once we reached Chengdu I would take her round the market and feed her something good.
Yizhou, where Chengdu stood, would one day be called Sichuan and grow famous for spicy, pungent cooking, but in this age sweet dishes lavish with honey and malt sugar were the fashion. There were plenty of sweet snacks a child like Yeon-i would love.
After greeting Mother I stepped down from the carriage, and Zhang Shao, who had been riding alongside, spoke with a light smile.
"Yeon-i is not ordinarily this put out."
"No, she isn't. Have you been well, Second Brother?"
"I am always well. It is our eldest brother who worries me. I keep thinking it would have been better if he had stayed in Jingzhou."
Zhang Shao, the second son, was a civil official, but blood will tell, and he had a remarkably hardy constitution. I went without saying, and Yeon-i too, inheriting Father's blood and Mother's, had never once been sickly. Only the eldest, Zhang Bao, was unusually frail, and the whole house worried over him.
In truth, even when Father was assassinated by traitors, Zhang Bao died early and Zhang Shao succeeded him, so the worry was not idle. This was not a problem I could solve. It pained me, but there was nothing to do but watch.
Zhang Bao, like Mother and Yeon-i, rode in a carriage of his own. After that brief talk with Zhang Shao I stepped into it, and found him lying on the seat with my sister-in-law tending him.
"Eldest Brother."
"Ah... Lan? It has been a long time."
His face drained white, Zhang Bao raised himself with his wife's help.
"Please, stay lying down."
"No. It does me no good to do nothing but lie here. I have heard of you all along."
Speaking at length seemed to cost him. He drew a breath and went on.
"Toward you, I feel nothing but regret."
"What?"
"Through my own inadequacy I have laid a heavy burden on you. Born the eldest son, even if I cannot blaze with martial renown as you do, I ought at least to contribute some small part to the great work, as Shao does... cough, cough."
He had spoken too much. His wife, long accustomed to it, brought him a cup of water.
"If only you had been born the eldest son..."
"Please don't say such things."
Zhang Bao seemed to realize he had let something slip, and turned the talk aside.
"When we reach Chengdu, you will tell me your stories, won't you?"
"I will. Think of nothing but getting well, Brother."
"Yes. I have kept you too long. Go on. Yeon-i will be waiting."
"Convalesce in Chengdu, and something good is sure to come of it. When you recover, I'll come see you."
"Thank you."
I exchanged a brief farewell with my sister-in-law and left the carriage.
The records said he fathered a son named Zhang Zun, so Zhang Bao would reach Chengdu safely and recover at least some of his strength. I made a note to make time for him then, and went back to my sister.
Yeon-i broadcast her sulk for all it was worth, and yet the moment she could she plastered herself to me and would not be peeled off. Because of that I had to ride in the carriage too, but it was a small enough price. There would be time enough later to practice my riding.
Once we reached Chengdu I took her to the market, just as I had planned.
The army's troubles were not wholly settled, but the empty posts could be filled later with men from Baxi Commandery, so for what time remained I meant to give myself to my family.
With Ma Dai's name standing over them, promoting men who had won a reasonable share of merit into the middle ranks was unlikely to draw any serious censure. One of the talents I meant to bring out of Baxi might still hand people a needless excuse to say I had leaned on Father, but what was I to do? Better a little talk behind my back than taking in every stray and hanger-on.
If anything, it might even be for the better to raise men like Zhang San, who had been with me a long time, to command the companies still standing empty.
At any rate, thanks to Ma Chao and Ma Dai my worries had lightened, and I could give myself over to seeing the market with Yeon-i.
"Sister, I want that one!"
"Mm. Shall we go look?"
Young as she was, Yeon-i was still a girl, and her eye went to the ornaments.
What the market sold was a grade beneath what a girl of noble house like Yeon-i ought to wear, but what child needs to fret over that? Unless she later married Liu Shan and became a true empress, she could simply have what she liked.
Ornaments of this age fell largely into two kinds, earrings and hairpins. Hairpins in particular often carried buyao sway-pieces and floral pins, decorations more splendid still, but unlike the gold, jade, and beads of the nobility, most of what the market sold was made of wood.
The pieces that seemed a little dear had silver fittings added, and felt clean rather than lavish.
What Yeon-i was looking at was a wooden hairpin painted orange, with jade worked into the ornament—quite fine quality for something sold in a market.
"Yeon-ah, do you want it?"
"Mmm, no? I want to give it to Sister Chokbaek."
Ah. I had forgotten Chokbaek entirely. After I left in a rush and went into the army to become a general, she had been left utterly out in the cold, and Yeon-i had taken her on as her own maid.
Sorry as I was for having neglected her, I thought I might give her a gift as well. Since Yeon-i had her eye on a hairpin, earrings would be the better choice for me.
But looking round the market, nothing truly pleased me. This was an eye grown used to the twenty-first century, where thousands of years spent chasing beauty had ended in splendor wrought by the latest craft. Wooden earrings of household make were never going to satisfy it.
They said the family jewels had been brought along, so there would be ornaments I had been given and never worn. I would pick something suitable from among those.
After a whole day of shopping and sweet snacks with Yeon-i, she forgot she was supposed to keep up the sulk and chattered as brightly as ever.
When I added the trump card I had prepared, she broke into laughter and forgave me outright.
"Is it good?"
"Yes!"
"Careful when you eat. You'll poke yourself."
My trump card was tanghulu. There was no sugar, so I had used the honey and malt candy common in Yizhou cooking, together with tangerines just then coming into season.
Similar foods existed, but not this way of skewering them one by one and sheathing them in a thin, clear glaze, so in the future the origin of tanghulu might well be me. As I recalled, it was invented sometime in the Song dynasty.
Simple as the method seemed, making them properly, and pretty, was quietly difficult. Born clever with my hands, and with a past life's experience besides, failing was the harder part.
I was watching from beside her as Yeon-i worked her tiny mouth, busily chewing, when a sound shattered that small peace.
From of old, they say, the finest spectacles are a fight and a fire. At the sound of a quarrel the people in the market came swarming.
"Should I break it up?"
"Sister, are you fighting again?"
"Fighting again... No. I'm stopping it. This time."
What kind of image did I even have in Yeon-i's eyes? I hoped I wasn't only the troublemaker sister who did nothing but fight, day in and day out.
Gripping her hand, I pushed through the press, and found several men surrounding one, an instant short of a gang beating.
The larger party wore armor, so they were soldiers, or had been. Good. That would make talking easier.
"Stop. What is this uproar in the market in broad daylight?"
"Huh? What sort of wench—"
Hearing only a woman's voice, the soldier was about to loose a torrent of filth, then saw my face and choked his mouth shut. Right. I was a little famous among the soldiers. A common trooper daring vulgarities at a general—he hadn't known, so I would be magnanimous and let it pass.
So I thought, and was just about to smooth it over, when—
"Ahem. Say, miss, out for a look at the market, are you? A precious young lady has no call to mix into the business of this rabble, so hurry along back. Stick your nose in and put a scar on that pretty face, and then what?"
The wretch flushed and dropped his voice.
Is this really Liu Bei's army? No—even Liu Zhang's men, and he doesn't know me?
Heat climbed my face, shame at myself for having gotten ahead of myself for nothing. Beside me Yeon-i giggled as if something were terribly funny, while her sister failed even to be treated as a general, and for the first time she struck me as vexing.
This sister rented a shop ahead of time and even prepared tanghulu, all to soothe your anger...
I was gathering up that homeless shame and rage to explode them on the soldier who, not content with failing to recognize me, had run a leering gaze over my body, when someone besides me butted in.
"The young lady speaks rightly. There are strict laws. How dare there be a beating in broad daylight?"