“I insist,” Peng answered.
Ah Lai repeated the poem and added a line.
Father Peng rose to his feet and bowed.
“Sir,” he said, “I am in your debt. After this I shall never dispute that literary ability is inherited.”
Ah Lai laughed. “I am only my uncle’s nephew,” he answered. “And now I must leave you, for I have the Emperor’s horses to see to.
Indeed, as he was making his last ceremonial bow to Father Peng, he heard the confused noise of men and horses, and knew that the Emperor was within bowshot. Hastily he ordered Lo Chin to throw open the great central gate and unlock the store houses. Then he went to stand in the road and appear to be ready. He was conscious of a gnawing at the pit of his stomach, which told him, if he needed the telling, that he had not eaten for many hours. But this gnawing was soon only at the back of his mind, for he had never yet seen an Emperor’s Guard in all the splendour of their tossing plumes and red kneecaps, the slung bows and the high proud action of the horses, the bright glint of sun on steel (for it was the hour of the serpent, and again his stomach reported its presence to him) and the shouting round the single carriage in the midst of all these horsemen.
The Captain of the Guard and General Tung rode up together, dismounting at the gate. Peng’s wife had come up beside Ah Lai, and he could see that she was searching the figures before her for that of her husband. As Ah Lai watched her, Peng Yeh himself galloped round the flank of the horsemen and dismounted beside her. The horse on which Peng Yeh had ridden was sweating.
Peng Yeh cried in a loud voice: “Welcome to my poor house. All is the Emperor’s to command, as all land is the Emperor’s, and all men his.” He went on in a quieter voice: “My wife, get out of the way. This is no place for women. Busy yourself elsewhere.”
Ah Lai saw, too, that the Lady of the Tapestry did not resent these brusque words—if indeed she had heard them—but that her eyes were filled with relief that her husband had returned safely to her. Ah Lai marvelled again at the sense of values which women exhibited on the strangest occasions. He would soon be able to eat a meal.
Then the Emperor’s carriage drove up, without halting at the gate, and swung to a standstill in the main courtyard. Some of the guard rode in beside it. They all kotowed as the Emperor descended from his carriage.
He asked: “Where is Kuei-fei?”
There was a murmur amongst those of the guard nearest. General Tung and the Captain of the Guard looked at each other. Then Yang Kuei-fei came from the women’s quarters and kotowed too. The Emperor seemed to forget the others, and went to her at once. Han Im, coming from outside the gate, stood near.
This time Ah Lai heard quite clearly the remarks which the Captain of the Guard made to General Tung behind his hand.
“Lovebirds watched by a freemartin!” he whispered.
The day ended. The troops had been dispersed to barns, storehouses and other buildings in the nearby village. Only the Emperor and his suite, with General Tung, the Captain of the Guard and a small number of trusted men shared the security of the farm. The gates were shut and guarded: the last long light of the sinking sun fingered down the slope of Ma Wei and picked out the inequalities of the walls of mud bricks, the shadowed recesses by the gates, the red, tiled roofs of the buildings within.
In the Hall of Audience the Emperor, Han Im and Yang Kuei-fei sat over a meal.
“Peng is a patriot,” Han Im was saying. “I believe that he would have placed the Hall of Ancestors at our disposal if we had asked for it. You can picture him saying: ‘My ancestors served you while they lived: dead they can still serve you by providing a roof for your Majesty’.”
Kuei-fei added: “But he would not have welcomed me to his Hall of Ancestors. He looks at me as if I were not there. Do you think he can be wholly trusted?”
Han Im observed: “He can be trusted to serve the Emperor and therefore to serve you, not directly, perhaps, but to serve you nevertheless. His servants can cook well.” He eyed a plover’s egg on his chopsticks, then put it into his mouth. “Very well,” he ended.
The Emperor seemed pensive. “I am tired,” he said, “but not too tired to wonder what General Tung will decide to do. He, also, does not like to have women about.”
“I am sure that there is still danger,” Kuei-fei said. “Sometimes I think it would have been better to have stayed at Chang-an.”
“If you had done that, I should have stayed also,” the Emperor told her. “They dislike you, Kuei-fei, because they attribute to you such military defeats as we have lately had. To you and to you, Han Im.”
Han Im replied: “They may so attribute defeats, but their thinking (if thinking it be) is the thinking of a man who sees geese flying into the setting sun and believes that the sun is flying from the geese. There are other eunuchs who have dabbled in politics, but not I. To me, politics are a distasteful form of activity, for I have no desire to rule others.”
“Tung says we shall go to Szechuan,” the Emperor said. “I wonder how long he thinks it will be necessary. This rebel, An Lu-shan, will he gain or lose adherents? A Hun . . . my people will not willingly follow him.”
Han Im ceremoniously held out to the Emperor the dish containing plovers’ eggs.
“These,” he observed, “are good enough to prise our minds from our difficulties.”
In the Women’s Rooms, the Lady of the Tapestry picked up her rice bowl, spooned it half full of rice, added two pieces of fried bean-curd and a bunch of bean-sprouts, dipped her chopsticks in the sauce-boat, and then paused pensively.
“I was keeping those plovers’ eggs for your father,” she said.
Her younger daughter, Pen Mooi Tsai, stopped eating. “You did not put them all out,” she said. “Besides, we can get more. I think that the Captain of the Guard is very handsome.”
Her mother replied: “Possibly. But you have only seen twelve summers, and you are affianced to a boy in Lo-yang, so you must not think of such things. I wonder where your elder sister is.”
“Still at Chang-an, I suppose,” the girl answered.
The Lady of the Tapestry frowned. “How many times,” she asked, “must I remind you that you have but one other sister, your sister Mei? It is true that there was another, but, as you say, she went to Chang-an, and she is no longer your sister, really. Besides, I said ‘elder’, not ‘eldest’, so you should not have made the mistake. Where can she be?”
Mooi-tsai replied: “The Emperor must be a great strong man to want such a number of girls. I wish you had let me see him, instead of keeping me in here. I think I hear my sister Mei outside the door. She seems to have someone with her.”
Peng Mei, a little taller than her younger sister, came in and said: “There is a girl here who came with the Emperor’s men. She had nowhere to feed, so I brought her in. She does not speak.”
Mooi-tsai went on eating, but she turned her head to see who it was.
The Lady of the Tapestry looked at the girl as she stood within the doorway. Then the Lady of the Tapestry rose to her feet. Her voice was calm.
“Come with me to my room,” she said. “Mooi-tsai, when you have finished your bowl, bring mine and another for our visitor. Do not forget the chopsticks, nor the sauce. Mei, start your meal.” She led the way to the adjoining room. When they had gone in she put her arm round Winter Cherry’s shoulders and said: “Do not tell me, if you do not want to. Now, now, crying will do you no good. Still, my jacket is an old one. Put your head here. You must finish before Mooi-tsai reaches the bottom of her bowl. There, there!”