An Interlude

Zhang Lan's victory was matter enough for talk on its own, but politics lent it wings, and in the blink of an eye it had spread through the whole of Yi Province.

The twentieth year of Jian'an, 215, was a busy year for Cao Cao, Sun Quan, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Liu Bei alike. Cao Cao was busy taking Hanzhong. Sun Quan was busy getting his land back from Liu Bei. And Liu Bei was busy governing Yi Province while still holding Jing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Province.

The quarrel between Liu Bei and Sun Quan over Jing Province had already run up to the very brink of disaster—the standoff at Yiyang. Sun Quan sent Lu Meng, who occupied Changsha and Guiyang, and Liu Bei himself went all the way to Gong'an in Jing Province. It was no small matter. Into that spark-to-tinder hour, word of Zhang Lan's victory arrived like rain on a drought.

Liu Bei saw to it that the rumor traveled. He meant to flaunt their strength and seize the upper hand in the Jing Province talks with Sun Quan. But when had common folk ever listened to rumor while weighing the political tricks of their betters? The age had always been short of amusements, and this troubled age was shorter still. Rumor was their stage, their serial, and their broadsheet all at once, and the people took what they heard, salted it with their own fancy, and carried it diligently from mouth to mouth.

In the regions long harried by the Ba—and by the Yi as well—folk grew all the more eager to throw in with Liu Bei. The Yi, hearing how the Ba had been smashed to pieces overnight, drew in their limbs for fear the same calamity might reach them.

Liu Bei advanced her as if he had made up his mind to push Zhang Lan and no one else. How little time had passed since he named her General of Winged Might before he raised her grade and appointed her General of Radiant Might? He accepted the memorial she submitted in full, and conferred office on every man who had distinguished himself.

General of Radiant Might, Zhang Lan. Colonel of Cavalry, Ma Dai. Colonels of Infantry, Liu Yin and Ju Fu. Army Major, Ma Zhong. And Headquarters Captain, Wang Ping. A single march on Baxi, and Zhang Lan had plucked up talents one after another. Surrendered Ba and commoners who came over at the news of victory joined her army, and it doubled in size, then settled into order without a murmur of discord. Reckoned by salary and by post, the order of precedence ran Zhang Lan, Ma Dai, Liu Yin, Ma Zhong, Ju Fu, Wang Ping.

One might suppose a Headquarters Captain was a general. He was not. Unlike a Headquarters General, Wang Ping's post was no true generalship at all. It meant a deputy charged with command of the commander-in-chief's own troops—Zhang Lan's household force. No one was better suited to lead soldiers of Ba blood, and so making Wang Ping Headquarters Captain was a thing every man could accept. It was a pity, of course, not to have won the place nearest her. But before they were her followers, they were military officers of Han.

Even so, a veiled discontent had begun to show on the faces gathered behind Ma Dai: Liu Yin, Ju Fu, and Ma Zhong.

"I still cannot understand it."

Zhang Lan was not present, and Ma Dai's words were blunt as a club.

"I have always upheld the General of Radiant Might's judgment. This time, though, I cannot help thinking she has gone too far."

"I am of the same mind."

Ju Fu, the last of them to enter her service, nodded at once. Liu Yin, grave by nature, and Ma Zhong, mild, added nothing of their own—but the very fact that they did not check the others laid their hearts bare. They agreed.

Their grievance was a simple one.

"Why should the General herself serve as Wang Ping's teacher of letters!"

Zhang Lan had declared herself his tutor and begun instructing him alone, one to one.

"She has only just become magistrate of Dangqu, and public business already crowds her. How can she..."

"Come now. It is only for the time being, is it not?"

Because the Ba had kept Liu Bei's administration from reaching so far, no magistrate had been able to take up his post in Dangqu. Now that Zhang Lan had brought the Ba to heel, Dangqu, Xuanhan, and the other unsubmitted counties had passed to Liu Bei, and until a magistrate could be sent, Zhang Lan held the office in the interim. To put weight behind Ma Zhong's words, Liu Yin spoke as well.

"And Captain Wang is a son of Dangqu. Might there not be something in that, too?"

"Dexin, Xiuyan—does this not even offend you? Wang Ping is that Fu Hu dog's—"

"Colonel Ma."

Liu Yin addressed Wang Ping with his post, and with due form. Ma Dai, by contrast, used the personal name, as one does with a man beneath him, and that much Ma Dai might do. What followed crossed the line. Ma Zhong cut him off at once.

Ma Dai found his composure again, said he had misspoken, and shut his mouth. Wang Ping had indeed been Fu Hu's man. But Zhang Lan herself, before the eyes of soldiers and officers alike, had taken her own sword and cut away the guilt that lay across his shoulders. To name Fu Hu after seeing that was as good as defying her majesty. Ma Dai, who had nearly blundered, offered no further complaint, and Ju Fu, who had seconded him so readily, fell silent as well.

Ma Zhong knew, all the same, that their discontent had not been eased. He sighed inwardly.

Ma Dai and Ju Fu are both splendid officers. And yet what they show is not the heat of battle, but the heat of envy. How fearsome a woman our General of Radiant Might must be.

But when he went, as Army Major, to the temporary residence set aside for his attendance on her, and saw Zhang Lan and Wang Ping there alone, his brow creased before he knew it. Realizing that he, too, felt the sting of jealousy, Ma Zhong laughed, hollow.

Ha. So I am no different.

The degree might vary, but in the heart of everyone who followed her, the feeling lay. Whether it was desire or devoted reverence, he could not say. He believed his own was nothing but reverence for the one who had employed him and opened his road to advancement. He wanted to believe it. The tree called Zhang Lan was a giant so tall that climbing it was unthinkable. One would break one's neck merely by looking up.

"Hm? You mean my teaching Wang Ping?"

I tipped my head at Ma Zhong's advice and asked him again.

Fair enough. I had been giving Wang Ping no small share of my time of late. Part of it was the same devotee's fervor I had once poured out on Zhou Yu. Part of it was practical: he was a son of Dangqu, half Board-Shield by blood, and I was leaning on him in all sorts of ways where administration was concerned. The public pretext was that I was serving as his teacher of letters, so I did that as well. Even so, it was not as if I spent most of the day with him.

I was busy, and Wang Ping was busier. He had an army to manage as Headquarters Captain, lessons to take from me, counsel to give on the governing of Dangqu, and his own training besides. Heap all of that together and twenty-six hours in a day would not have been enough. Even so, I understood what Ma Zhong meant. Wang Ping and I were both so pressed that private hours were hard to come by, and yet the time we spent together had not lessened. It was only natural that it should look as if the two of us went about alone.

"Yes, General. From of old it has been common to favor a surrendered commander, and so encourage the enemy to come over in earnest. But when that favor runs to excess, those already in service are apt to resent it."

He was not wrong. There is even a name for it: relative deprivation. We have been together from the start, and then some fellow appears from nowhere and takes all the favor for himself—it would be harder not to chafe. Had there not been discontent from Lord ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Guan, and from my father, when Zhuge Liang first took service in Liu Bei's army? A tale from the Romance, granted. Still.

"It's not as if I haven't been minding Wang Ping more than I ought. Thank you for telling me. I'll be careful."

The important work was more or less done in any case—the household survey of Dangqu, the friction between Ba and Han—and I had already meant to shorten my meetings with Wang Ping. The timing was good. I sank into optimism, telling myself the talk of favoritism would fade of its own accord. It hardly even deserved the name of optimism. After that, I truly never heard another complaint that I was partial to Wang Ping.

But rumor is a living thing, and I had failed to foresee how it might be twisted. Or perhaps the trouble was that I had become the sort of person who turned whatever I did into a public incident. The fuss over my partiality to Wang Ping passed from the officers down to the soldiers, and there it warped into something grotesque.

Truly absurd. Truly baseless.

"Aigoo, my head..."

The rumor had begun with the Ba.

Well, of course. They had swaggered through the Three Ba, sneering at the Han as a soft people, and then those same Han had smashed them before they could so much as squeak. How could that not stick in the throat? They had submitted in awe, yes, but they must still have been hungering for something to take the edge off that defeat. And there was Wang Ping, who had lost and yet put up a fight of sorts, who seemed to have been taken into service by my own hand and showered with favor. He was perfect for their vicarious satisfaction. I could pity them for trying to thin their shame by tying Wang Ping to me. They had still crossed the line.

"Seize whoever started the rumor and punish him. And circulate a notice that anyone who spreads baseless talk hereafter will not be indulged."

Whether because the scandal sat as badly with my subordinates as it did with me, they moved at lightning speed. They hauled in the man who had first set the rumor loose and punished him, and fortunately the talk was stamped out just as fast. But the affair had drawn a kind of attention I did not want onto me, just as I was easing into the age when people begin to speak of marriage.

"Does the General mean never to marry?"

It was Liu Yin who asked. Of all the officers under me, he wore the face of the model student, and I had not expected the question from him. I was silent, and he ducked his head in apology.

"If the question was rude, I beg your pardon."

"It's fine. I'm of an age when talk of marriage comes up."

Honestly, I would have been displeased if anyone else had asked. But Liu Yin's manner was so grave that it felt less like curiosity than like a question of politics.

If I had to sketch the rest of them in a line or two: Liu Yin, as I have said, was the student-council sort who walked only the straight path. Ma Zhong was the well-liked one, good-natured and good at everything. Ma Dai belonged to the athletic club—lively, and forever pushing forward. Ju Fu finished his own work in a flash and then went about helping everyone else, an incorrigible meddler. And Wang Ping had the air of the top student in the school, the one with a temper. They were all model pupils, more or less, if one granted the premise. Their gifts and their natures were another matter.

Wang Ping and Liu Yin were alike in how little they spoke. But where Liu Yin stated the orthodox view without ever losing his courtesy, and so was respected, Wang Ping simply threw the ball straight. Ma Zhong and Ju Fu both got on with people. Ma Zhong smiled, let things pass, and only brought the knife down when someone crossed the line. Ju Fu received a man kindly, and if that man blundered, he preferred to show the proper example later and let him come to it himself.

The digression has run long. In any case, I gave Liu Yin his answer.

"If someone who suits me comes along, I might. If not, living alone isn't so bad."

I was the one who had already kicked aside a marriage to Liu Shan, empress's seat and all. Even if, with time, my sense of myself as a woman grew stronger, no ordinary man was going to satisfy me.

"Then what ought the General's partner to be?"

"The one who would be my match? I don't ask for a perfect person. Still, there ought to be one thing at which he excels. In virtue he would have to be my lord. In arms, Lord Guan. In letters, Advisor Zhuge. Wouldn't he?"

It was a way of saying I would never marry. I tossed the words off lightly, without a thought for what they would bring down.

The next day, when I saw every last soldier in the camp throwing himself into drill, I let it pass. Mm. Training's coming along. And when I found Ma Zhong, Wang Ping, Ju Fu, and the others gathered for a reading of the classics, I was simply pleased. Mm. Excellence in both letters and arms does matter. Wang Ping can no longer take lessons with me, so this is them being considerate. Very good to see.

Some time later a letter arrived from my father, and only then did it occur to me that matters might be turning a little strange.

What is this.

It had been twisted on the way to my father, just as that old business with Lady Sun had been twisted—the time she coined the nickname Little Worthy for me. I scribbled out an explanation in a hurry and sent it off to him.

But the very day after I received my father's letter, another missive came flying ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in. This one was from Pang Tong.

No—the man's already married... wait. No. Is this rivalry aimed at Zhuge Liang, his fellow disciple?

By then I was seriously considering just how much weight a remark I had let fall without thinking could carry.

Close on its heels, letters arrived even from Jing Province. One from Pan Jun, and one from Guan Yu. Pan Jun's held much the same matter as Pang Tong's, together with the thread of the talks we had kept up all along. Guan Yu was thoroughly pleased with himself, and had filled the page with kind words—that I had an eye for people, and so on.

But the masterpiece, without question, was the letter Liu Bei sent.

The others had written at endless length upon silk. Liu Bei's letter was a very thin bamboo slip. Few characters will fit on such a slip, and so the contents were shorter still than the bulk of the thing. Spelled out, the meaning came to barely a single line. It chilled me to the marrow all the same.