Loyal Souls of the Nation
"Who has come from Suyang?"
At Bai Jingyan's question, Mama Jin's face had gone grim.
"Only two of them... Young Master Nuya, the Crown Prince's contemporary and born of a concubine, and another born of a concubine. Just the two of them came."
A wind sharp enough to flay skin swept up the white snow and whirled it about. Snow that had settled on the roofline slid down along the eaves, and the white lanterns hanging in the corridor swayed in the gust.
Bai Jingyan pressed her lips inward and held her silence for a long while.
By Bai Jingyan's generation, the Bai clan of Suyang and the Bai family of the Zhenguo Duke Estate had drifted beyond the five degrees of mourning kinship—the bounds of close relation. And yet the reason the Suyang Bais had been able to hold their position so firmly all these years was precisely the protection of the main family. Whenever the main family sent festival gifts to Suyang each year, the legitimate line of the Suyang Bais would all but trail after the bearers all the way back to the Duke Estate. They were people who burned with desperation to draw close to the main house at any cost.
And yet, now that the Bai family was holding its funerals, they had sent only two concubine-born sons. It was not quite as shameless as trimming one's sails to the wind—but even so, it was a cold and heartless gesture.
To seek advantage and shun harm was human nature, and Bai Jingyan told herself she could understand it.
And yet the bitter taste in her mouth was another matter entirely.
"Grandmother has only just taken her medicine and gone to sleep," Bai Jingyan answered in a low voice. "Later."
Mama Jin gave a small bow of her head, offered her courtesies, and hurried away.
Bai Jingyan took Bai Jinse's hand and led her to the courtyard, where she knelt before the memorial tablets alongside her mother, her aunts, and her sisters.
Madame Wang looked like a woman who had lost her soul. She lay draped over Bai Jindong's coffin with no intention of rising, and no amount of coaxing could move her.
The first to arrive were Old Taijun Dong of Dengzhou and Bai Jingyan's two uncles. Nearly the whole Dong family had come together, and Dong Zhangyuan, after completing his rites, looked upon Bai Jingyan as she returned his bow with tears welling in both eyes, his heart seeming to rend in two.
Even at this moment, Bai Jingyan could not yet be certain how the Bai family's fortunes would fall—and so she suspected it was not by chance alone that the Suyang Bai clan had sent only two uncles.
Every official in the court had done his utmost to avoid this place, and not even the natal families of Bai Jingyan's aunts had sent mourners. And yet here were the common people, packed tight before the gates of the Duke Estate, weeping their hearts out.
The Bai family's funeral laid bare, without mercy, the coldness of officialdom.
After paying her respects at the memorial hall, Old Taijun Dong pulled Lady Dong aside to a secluded corner and asked in a low voice what she intended to do from here.
"Yesterday, your eldest uncle—the Minister of Personnel who is close to him—told your father-in-law that it would be wise for him to keep some distance from the Bai family. He warned him that His Majesty means to tear the Bais out by the roots on this occasion, and urged your father-in-law to conduct himself accordingly! So I have been thinking. The moment we return home, I will announce that I have fallen ill. And then we will let it be known outside that Ayan and Zhangyuan had long since been betrothed. A wedding held during mourning, yes—but if we say it is done to chongxi, to bring joy and dispel this old woman's illness, no one will be able to say a word against it. You should ask the Grand Princess for a letter of marriage proposal as well. Let us return to our Dengzhou. We must save as many as we can—even if it is only one!"
Old Taijun Dong spoke rapidly, as though the decision had long since been made before she ever set out.
The Bai family was on the verge of collapse. She had to throw this old body of hers into the breach to save her daughter and her granddaughters!
At her mother's words, Lady Dong's heart pounded violently.
"Mother, is that certain? Did the Minister of Personnel truly say so?"
The Minister of Personnel could read His Majesty's mind better than any man alive.
"Why would I lie to you, of all people!"
Gripping her daughter's hands tightly, Old Taijun Dong continued in a voice thick with tears.
"I know well that you are a woman of deep affection and loyalty. But this is not the time for it! First we pull you and Ayan out of this quagmire—then we will try to save the people of the Bai family, one by one! As for the Grand Princess, I believe you need not worry. She is His Majesty's own paternal aunt. He cannot do anything to her!"
Lady Dong bowed her head and marshaled her thoughts with speed. Second Miss Bai Jinxiu was already married, and Bai Jindong would soon be of an age for marriage herself. But Fourth Miss Bai Jinchi, and the fifth, sixth, and seventh misses, were all far too young. And her fifth sister-in-law was still months away from her confinement...
"Wanjun!"
Old Taijun Dong seized her daughter's hands.
"Listen to your mother!"
After a long silence, Lady Dong looked up at her with reddened eyes and managed a smile.
"Mother, when I married into Qishan's house, I made him a promise. If I abandon the Bai family now, how will I ever face Qishan when I go down to the world below? And how could I bear to show the loyal souls of this nation, before all the people of the world, a family torn apart?"
At last, Old Taijun Dong could hold back no longer, and she struck her daughter's arm in her distress.
"So you would have this mother watch her child go to her death before her? What crime have you committed? And what crime has Ayan?"
"Mother, at first I meant to quietly set aside the match with Zhangyuan if Ayan did not want it. But the situation has changed now, and I must persuade him by any means to wed Zhangyuan. If the Bai family can weather this storm safely, then all is well—but if we cannot, then I entrust Ayan to you and to sister-in-law from this day forward."
When she finished speaking, Lady Dong knelt before Old Taijun Dong and performed a full, formal bow. Then, choking back sobs, she spoke again.
"Ayan will fulfill my filial duty in my place. I swear it."
Old Taijun Dong turned her head away, pressing her handkerchief to her mouth, weeping without cease as she struck her aching breast with her fist. Her daughter had resolved to die alongside the Bai family. What mother could keep her heart from tearing apart! She had raised this girl from infancy, cherishing her above all else. It felt as though flesh were being carved from her own body.
When her daughter refused again and again to rise, Old Taijun Dong had no choice but to help her to her feet. Her sobs only grew louder.
"You were honest and full of heart from the time you were small. Before you were even married, you promised to honor the old friendship between our families and took Jinlang as a son-in-law! And now... and now..."
Old Taijun Dong could no longer contain her tears. Forcing down the flood of emotion, she pulled Lady Dong into her arms.
"If you say you will live or die with the Bai family, then our Dong family will stake its very lives on protecting the Bais—by any means, at any cost. Let us only pray that Heaven, seeing my daughter's heart, seeing the loyalty the Bai family has shown, will not forsake them too cruelly!"
"Mother! Mother...!"
Lady Dong clutched tightly at her mother's garments and buried herself in Old Taijun Dong's embrace, drenched in tears, calling for her mother over and over.
Lady Dong was a woman of iron will. Once she had wept her fill, she set herself at once to seeking a way of survival for the people of the Bai family.
After the funeral rites, the children had to be sent out of Dadu by any means necessary. If calamity did indeed fall upon them, at the very least some might survive. And if the Bai family should emerge from this affair safe and whole, why—then the children could simply be brought home again, and it could be said they had merely been sent abroad to gain experience, as sons of martial houses often were.
Mother and son, holed up in Qingming Courtyard, sent servants to the courtyard of mourning at every opportunity, hoping to pry out news. When they learned that it was only the natal family of Crown Princess Dong who had come, while the natal families of the other ladies had not dared send so much as a single mourner for fear of the Emperor, they fell into deep despair.
Bai Jingxian lay prostrate on the brick bed beneath the guttering candlelight. His wailing and clamor at the men's gate that day had been nothing short of hurling himself into a pit of vipers.
"Xian'er, gather our valuables—we must flee, and quickly!"
The woman spoke, her voice trembling with anxiety.
"Look at what is happening to the Bai family—it truly seems the Eldest Miss Bai was right, that they are all done for! If the decree of clan extermination truly comes down, you and I will have to die with the Bais! Another chance will come. Once the Bai family has quieted down, we need only return! You are the last blood of the Bais—when you come back, you will be the Duke of Zhenguo, looked up to by all men, and everything your uncle enjoyed, his wealth and glory, will all be yours!"
Bai Jingxian turned over and over in his mind the manner in which King Xin had regarded the Bai family, and after a long while, he at last nodded as though reaching a decision.
"Very well. Let us gather the things first. The men of the Bai family are all dead, and they are too consumed with these vast funerals to spare us any thought. Go find the things that will fetch money and get them out, hide them well—and by the time my body has fully healed, I will leave this place!"
At her son's decision, the woman nodded again and again.
"This mother will go and prepare at once!"
Madame Wang, who had always seemed so frail, was made strong by a mother's resolve to guard her son's coffin, and no pleading could pry her away from it.
Lady Dong, herself a mother, understood Madame Wang's heart a hundred times over. So she did not press her further, but ordered the servants to set braziers beside her and to drape thick padded robes over her shoulders.
It was only after Madame Wang finally collapsed from exhaustion that Lady Dong gave the order to carry her inside to rest.
Deep in the night, Bai Jingyan sent her mother and aunts in to sleep, and she kept vigil through the dark hours kneeling before the memorial hall alongside her sisters. She had sent men to bring Bai Jingxian, but he had refused to come, claiming his high fever would not break and his wounds had festered.
The fifth, sixth, and seventh misses were still young, yet they bore their grief and pain with remarkable strength. The children knelt before the memorial tablets, waiting for the souls of their grandfather, their father, their uncles, and their brothers to come home.
The hour before dawn was darker and colder than any other. Though she wore thick padded robes, the chill kept seeping into Bai Jingyan's back, leaving her waist aching.
The flickering candle gave a soft pop. Seeing the seventh miss, Bai Jinse, nodding off where she knelt, Bai Jingyan could bear it no longer—she drew the sleeping girl into her robes and gathered her into her arms. After tucking Bai Jinse's body snugly into the padded folds, she bade Chun Tao stoke the brazier's fire higher.
Bai Jinxiu, too, gathered the fifth miss, whose eyes kept drooping, into her embrace, and after calling for a cotton quilt, spread it over the fifth and sixth misses both.
"Jinchi, you are wounded as well. Go and sleep."
Bai Jinxiu said to her.
Bai Jinchi knelt on her cushion and shook her head in silence. The men of the Bai family were all dead—even their bodies could not be found. How could she possibly sleep in peace?
Everything Bai Jinchi felt was written plainly across her face. Seeing her like this, Bai Jingyan's eyes reddened and her chest ached. Then, lowering her head, she spoke in a quiet voice.
"The fact that the bodies of the other uncles and our brothers have not returned means there is another possibility. Perhaps this... may yet be hope."
Bai Jinchi, tears streaming down her cheeks, looked up at her eldest sister and wiped her eyes with her sleeve. At the first glimmer of light, strength surged back into her. She nodded through her tears.
"Yes!"
As dawn began to break, the common people gathered once more before the gates of the Duke Estate and bowed toward it in mourning. Others came merely to watch, to see what official, if any, would appear at the Duke Estate today.
Morning sunlight broke through the mist and poured down over the snow-white rooftops.
Xiao Rongyan's guard set a footstool on the ground and steadied him as he descended from the carriage.
Xiao Rongyan gathered the hem of his robes and mounted the steps of the Duke Estate with unhurried composure. Then he passed his padded outer robe to the guard standing close at hand. Bai Jingyan gave him a faintly curious look, and Xiao Rongyan performed a deep, reverent bow before the more than twenty spirit tablets of the Bai family.
Lady Dong led the children in returning his bow.
This dignified, refined gentleman wore a white official's robe, yet he seemed to radiate an aristocratic distinction all his own, and the air about him was anything but ordinary.
He looked upon Bai Jingyan, then calmly offered his mourning tribute to Lady Dong as well. His gaze was gentle and profound.
"Duke of Zhenguo, Crown Prince, and all the sons of the Bai family—they are heroes of this nation. Even I, a man of Wei, cannot help but feel the deepest reverence. Crown Princess, I offer my condolences for the departed. The loyal souls of this nation will never depart from the hearts of the people."
At those words—the loyal souls of this nation will never depart from the hearts of the people—Lady Dong could hold back no longer, and tears spilled down her face. Then she offered Xiao Rongyan a formal bow of gratitude.
"I thank you for your consolation, Young Master Xiao."
Xiao Rongyan bowed once more, then straightened and let his gaze fall upon Bai Jingyan standing behind Lady Dong.
"Eldest Miss Bai, my condolences for the departed."
Bai Jingyan kept her back perfectly straight and offered a light bow of mourning. Her eyes were lowered, her lashes fanning into soft curves. To outward appearance she was gentle and delicate—yet within that gaze lay a keenness no other could see.