Setting the Board
Standing beneath the eaves, Bai Jinchi clenched her fists and arched her brows. Then, letting out a long breath, she spoke in a voice faintly flushed with indignation.
"Grandmother truly is remarkable! The clan head and elders of the Suyang branch may be dull-witted, but this is beyond dull. Even Nanny Zhang knows the propriety they've failed to grasp!"
Bai Jingyan fingered the jade pendant at her waist and answered with cold eyes.
"That's why they're called petty men."
Petty souls had no sense of loyalty. Blind to the matters that truly mattered, they always staked their lives on trivialities. They endlessly dwelt on the smallest favors they had ever done, while never once breathing a word about what they had taken from others.
It fit the Suyang clan perfectly.
Even Nanny Zhang understood what they did not. The Suyang clan knew neither what they were relying on as they raged about, nor how to think for themselves. They likely believed that the Bai ancestors were still watching over them, and that this was why the Bai family of Dadu enjoyed such glory.
They had forgotten entirely whom they had counted on when they first came rampaging through Suyang. They should have held tight to the Dadu Bai family. Above all, they should never have given the Dadu Bais cause for resentment. Only then could the Suyang clan have survived, secure and unchallenged, for generations to come.
Instead, they had lost all judgment to the profit right before their eyes. They had tried to plunder the family estate while the Bai family of Dadu was in mourning, and seized the ancestral residence by force.
The Dadu Bais were the true orthodox line of the Bai clan — a century-old house that had heaped up wealth and honor, a great military family at that. Such a household would never be easily broken, even if only women remained, and those women were hardly the sort to be trampled underfoot by a grasping clan.
Listening to Grandmother's dry, unhurried voice, Bai Jingyan thought of another move.
"Jinchi."
Bai Jingyan turned to her sister with a smile.
"Grandmother has begun her performance. So it's your turn to stir up a storm."
Light flashed in Bai Jinchi's eyes. She grasped Bai Jingyan's meaning at once.
"Understood, Elder Sister! Leave it to me — it's exactly the sort of thing I do brilliantly!"
Nuo Ping, who had escorted the people in, heard the clan members inside the hall weeping and begging for forgiveness.
Seeing Bai Jingyan and Bai Jinchi standing beneath the eaves, he approached and bowed.
"Elder Miss! Fourth Miss!"
"Thank you for your trouble, Ping Su."
Bai Jingyan nodded to him.
Nuo Ping went inside and dragged out the elders who had been wailing and pleading their case.
The Grand Princess's order to throw them out confused them even more than Lady Dong's had done the day before.
The moment the dragged-out clan elders caught sight of Bai Jingyan standing beneath the eaves, they cried out in haste.
"Zhenguo Commandery Princess! The blood of the Bai family flows in your veins — you are a daughter of the Bais! Yet will you simply stand by and watch a century of the Bai clan's glory come crashing down?"
Bai Jingyan did not spare them so much as a glance, her eyes fixed instead on Nanny Zhang emerging from the hall.
Bai Jinchi's face hardened as she spoke.
"The Bai clan's century of glory is not ending. You are what's ending, Elders."
"I'll be off, Elder Sister. Goodbye, Nanny Zhang."
With a bow to Bai Jingyan and Nanny Zhang, Bai Jinchi strode out.
"Fourth Miss—"
Nanny Zhang gave a start, then turned to Bai Jingyan.
"Elder Miss, where on earth is the Fourth Miss going?"
"Grandmother went to the trouble of laying out the board for us. The least we can do is make full use of it."
Bai Jingyan replied. Nanny Zhang nodded. Her teeth ground together at the thought of the clan, who had overstepped every last line.
"The Grand Princess asks that you come in, Elder Miss."
Nanny Zhang hurriedly drew aside the screen for Bai Jingyan.
Bai Jingyan circled around the folding screen, paid her respects, and took the seat placed just below the Grand Princess.
"Now is not the time for you to leave the clan. I know well that you don't care for reputation. Even so, it weighs on me. It will weigh on your mother as well."
Bai Jingyan looked at the Grand Princess — at her slightly stooped back and her white hair combed neatly upward — and nodded.
"Then when does Grandmother think it would be best?"
"I've heard what you did in Suyang. But do not forget — people always pity the weak. The clan hoped the Dadu Bais would use their power to pressure the Suyang magistrates. They meant to attack the strong through the strength of the weak.
Soon word will spread that the Grand Princess vomited blood and collapsed. After that rumor has spread, when our Bai family confesses its fault to the ancestors and withdraws from the clan, the world will surely condemn the Suyang Bais instead — saying they were so insolent and reckless that the Dadu Bais had no choice but to make such a decision."
The Grand Princess laid it out with perfect composure.
"But there is more than one road for the Bai family. Return to Suyang, and in your capacity as Commandery Princess, build the ancestral shrine. Then cast out those who committed the crimes! Seat as clan head someone who understands propriety, judges right from wrong clearly, and holds a measure of awe toward you. Then, when you have need of them, you will be able to make use of the clan. Even petty men have their uses, in their own petty way. Wield them shrewdly, and it will serve the Bai family well."
It was not that the Grand Princess begrudged cutting the clan loose. Since the remaining women of the Bai family would have to return to Suyang eventually, it was far better to leave behind people who might prove useful than people who bore them a grudge.
"I share that thought."
Bai Jingyan nodded as if in agreement.
"The clan is full of petty men. Most of them weigh only profit and harm others through sly and sinister means. Only by sweeping them out cleanly will we be spared future trouble. The Dadu Bais have not yet secured their footing in Suyang — if we drive out the worst of them and unsettle those clansmen worth keeping, they will fall into conflict with one another. And when that happens, we will have breathing room to attend to other matters."
The Grand Princess stopped turning her prayer beads and looked at Bai Jingyan with faintly clouded eyes.
"Other matters?"
The hand Bai Jingyan had hidden in her sleeve clenched tight. She nodded.
"Master Su came to our residence today. The white tea we were shipping from Suyang to the Yang Kingdom was plundered by bandits, and he petitioned the Crown Prince for aid — but His Highness said that Yeonwo is suffering famine, and that with the Yang Kingdom moving troops, war could break out at any moment, so the court has no strength to spare for bandits right now.
When I went to Suyang, the local magistrate offered to send men to escort me all the way to the capital, saying it was dangerous — that bandits run rampant in the region. Quite a few people have been robbed of late, they say. Even the son of the Suyang clan head.
I worry that if this goes on, the bandits will harm more and more of the common people. To prepare for the unforeseen, we must train the people into soldiers ahead of time. If the court regains the strength to crush the bandits, so much the better — but even if it doesn't, drilling the common folk into soldiers would improve their health besides. The court may lack the means, but I cannot simply stand by and watch bandits torment the people."
Bai Jingyan's tone was perfectly courteous.
The Grand Princess studied her granddaughter for a long moment with deep eyes, then nodded. The rims of her eyes grew damp. This granddaughter, so like her late husband Bai Weiting, regarded the protection of all the people under heaven as her life's charge.
Bai Jingyan knew that her grandmother still harbored a measure of vigilance toward her. That was why it was better to confess now than to let her grandmother discover later that soldiers were being raised and worry over it.
Those accustomed to arranging the board from on high always believed themselves extraordinary. So she had to reveal this matter to her grandmother in advance, and let the Grand Princess — enthroned in her lofty position — labor under the illusion that she held everything in her grasp. Only then could she preserve the old woman's trust, and only then would that vigilance loosen.
But if one day the truth came out — that she had raised a private army under the pretext of bandits — and if her grandmother came to learn that those soldiers would never be turned against Great Jin, then the two of them would face each other in their most hateful aspect.
Both of them wanted only to protect the Bai family. Yet her grandmother wished for the Bai family to remain whole beneath the imperial throne of Jin.
"Jinse takes after you a great deal, I think."
Watching Bai Jinse kneel before her and declare, head high, that she would remain in the capital to study medicine under Nanny Gao, the Grand Princess found herself recalling Bai Jingyan as a child. A child sharp to the ways of the world, clear in her own convictions, gifted with both wisdom and daring.
"All the children of the Bai family resemble one another — sons and daughters alike."
Bai Jingyan answered.
The Grand Princess nodded with a faint smile. The marks of the years showed heavily upon her face, and her eyes, somehow, looked sorrowful.
"Yes, all the Bai children are alike! Your grandfather, your father, your uncles, and Xiao Chou. And now all of you."
Not one of the children she had borne after marrying into the Bai family had survived.
The Grand Princess did not try to hide her age from Bai Jingyan. Her hair was drawn back neatly with a headband, baring her forehead. Her dignity and commanding presence remained intact. Yet once the clan had withdrawn and she let her body relax, her weariness and worn appearance became plain to see.
"The imperial physicians will arrive soon. Ayan, help me to the inner chamber."
The Grand Princess held out her hand to Bai Jingyan.
Bai Jingyan rose with reverence and supported her grandmother into the inner room. There she undid the Grand Princess's headband and attended to her until she could rest at ease.
* * *
Bai Jinchi raised her voice at the gates, loud enough to shake the street. Stripped down, her account went thus: the Bai clan, abandoning all conscience, had dared to threaten Grandmother and Elder Sister. Their shameless young men had committed murder, seized property, and violated innocent women — and now, imprisoned for it, they had demanded release, leveraging the exalted ranks of the Grand Princess and the Zhenguo Commandery Princess to strong-arm the Suyang magistrates. And the distress of it all, Bai Jinchi proclaimed at the top of her lungs, had made the Grand Princess vomit blood and collapse — at which point she launched into a stream of curses.
By the time Bai Jinchi finished bellowing, everyone on the street knew the whole story.
Only yesterday the clan had kicked up a riot at the Commandery Princess's residence, and the Commandery Princess herself had thundered that the clan was too low to even warrant her attention, that they had failed even their basic duty as kinsmen.
But today, someone passing the gates claimed to have seen the dignified Nanny Zhang respectfully ushering the clan head and elders of the Suyang Bais inside. And those people had so enraged the Grand Princess that she vomited blood?
Was that not arrogance beyond all bearing?
"There isn't a soul who doesn't know our Bai family's bereaved kin will soon return to Suyang — and the moment the ancestral residence was repaired, they moved to snatch it away. Does that make any sense at all? My Elder Sister didn't want a falling-out with the clan, and was worrying over where our whole great family was to lodge — and what are the Elders doing now? Coming all this way to demand, on the strength of our Elder Sister's rank as Commandery Princess, that she pressure the Suyang magistrate into releasing their people!
Our Dadu Bai family cherished the common folk as our own flesh and blood. Whoever committed any disrespect against the people, we punished — every last one! I myself once cracked a whip over commoners in front of this very residence, and was disciplined for it in full military court! So if the sons of the Suyang Bais have killed a man, how could we possibly forgive that? A life taken must be paid for, and a debt owed must be repaid — that is propriety!
All this while, our Dadu Bai family has done right by the clan to the very last measure. We owe them no shame before anyone! And what have the clan done to our bereaved kin in return?"