In the street he heaved a sigh and went back through one of the side streets in the direction of the focus of excitement. On his way there, he happened to look up and saw the face of Clear Rain round an open door. She beckoned him in.
They were sitting side by side on a low stool at the end of the room when he got in. Clear Rain had her little cheng on another stool in front of her and was idly running the tiny bamboo hammers over the strings.
Clear Rain said: “We were preparing for an entertainment at which we shall be present tomorrow. It is very difficult to remember all the songs which a girl is supposed to know.”
Ah Lai replied: “I was passing when I happened to see you. But do not let me interrupt your practice. What was the name of the song?”
Honeysuckle said, smiling: “Gathering Water-Lilies.”
Clear Rain struck the first notes of the song.
Ah Lai interrupted: “On further thought, I doubt if I really have the time, though I should very much have liked to have heard you again. My real purpose in calling (though it might have been a day or two later had I not seen you) was to thank you not only for having so far disturbed yourselves as to pass on the letter which I sent to Winter Cherry but also to thank you for having acted as you did when she was brought here.”
Honeysuckle observed: “It was fortunate from that point of view that you had written the address of our house on the back of the poem, although, if our friend Winter Cherry exercised her mind at all, she could not but find curious the reference in the note beneath the address to the fact that you could not think of her without thinking of water-lilies.”
Ah Lai replied: “I think that your suggestion when I came in, that you were practising the song which is called ‘Water-Lilies’ was rather more tactful than this second, more direct reference to those plants.”
Clear Rain said: “I must go and see Mother Feng about food.” She rose to her feet, put aside the cheng, and went out.
Honeysuckle said quietly: “There is no sense in being frightened of the title of a song. Besides, I find that my memory is getting worse and worse, so that I cannot possibly imagine why the title of the song or the writing on the back of the poem should make you change your face and look as though there were some secret between us. Remember that Clear Rain knows nothing of that secret. Remember also that my memory is bad. Now, tell me the news.”
Ah Lai spoke of Winter Cherry’s recovery, of the priest, of Father Peng and his interest in the fighting and lastly of the expected arrival of a brother for Winter Cherry.
“It might be a sister,” Honeysuckle told him. “But that would indeed be disappointing.”
Ah Lai said: “The Bright Emperor is coming from Cheng-tu on his way to the Capital and will stop at the Peng’s house for one night. He told me to make arrangements. It seems that he wishes to see the place where she died. I shall have to reach Ma Wei before the Emperor arrives.”
“He wants to remember the Lady Yang?” Honeysuckle asked. “Yes, that is like a man. They miss us, afterwards.”
Clear Rain returned, not with food but with three small cups of wine which she brought and set on a small table beside them. “Do you think,” she asked, “that we might come to the farm again one day? You will realise why when you see me raise my cup, so, and drink to Horses!”
Honeysuckle said: “That soreness, like sorenesses of a different sort, passes rapidly. For my part I drink to my poor memory.”
Ah Lai rose to his feet. “And I,” he said, “beg your permission to drink to both of you. I shall certainly do all that is in my power to have an invitation sent to you.”
They both rose and accompanied him to the doorway.
Ah Lai did not feel that he wished to do any more of the Emperor’s work that day, nor did he find it possible to endure the thought of watching the unique ceremonies whose echoes still crept round the corner of the street as he heard the door shut behind him. He walked rapidly towards the house where he was lodging, thinking against his will of the flat, slowly heaving plates of water-lilies.
Han Im came first. He seemed thinner than when Peng Yeh had seen him last. He did not accept Peng Yeh’s offer to sit down but said: “You will forgive me, sir, if I seem brusque and come to my point at once. The Emperor has been pleased to allow me a few days of leisure from my military duties, and I wish, before the near impending arrival of His Majesty to pay my respects to your honourable father, so that he may be not too much incommoded by the ceremonies of Imperial arrival when I greet him.”
Peng Yeh bowed, passed rapid instructions for last minute preparations to Lo Chin, who stood near the door, and bowed them both towards Father Peng’s room. Then he went away and left them.
The old man strained his eyes and came forward.
Han Im unbuckled the sword from his waist, and held it out towards the old man.
“It has served well,” he said, “and no thanks of mine could be adequate. Shall I put it where it always ought to be?” Without waiting for an answer he tied the straps together and hung the sword on the wall.
Father Peng said: “I am glad that it has been of service to you both. I need hardly say that I have missed it. When the rebels came here my hand itched for the scabbard, but I was helpless. You have heard that they killed my grandson?”
Han Im bowed his head. “No news has reached me,” he replied, “I, of all, am qualified to understand the sorrow which you have not spoken, and to offer the sympathy which is of no avail. I think that you will understand me when I say that your granddaughter, Winter Cherry, brought sorrow to my own heart more often than she knew, when she told me that my face seemed to her like her father’s face. And I, poor fool, had then to look at her and make her feel comfort when it was really I whose claim for comfort was the greater.”
Father Peng replied: “To such a sorrow there is no answer; for such a loss there is no recompense.”
They stood without speaking for more than a little while and then Father Peng performed the courtesy of stools.
“My daughter-in-law,” he said, “is in a position to save me from this great ill. But I am not a magician; I cannot, by divining the cracks on a tortoise shell, know whether my tomb will lastly go untended.”
“Let us hope,” Han Im returned. “Now I must go and stand in the gate, for I was only a little in front of the Emperor. It would be gracious of you, sir, and in consonance with the accepted tradition if you would accompany me to that gate.”
Father Peng replied: “Yes. I will put on my robes of ceremonial greeting. Help me.”
They went out together and stood in front of the great central doors which could only be opened on an occasion such as this.
The Bright Emperor came first, alone, on foot. Behind him two men carried a large sandal-wood box, strung from a pole which they bore on their shoulders.
Father Peng and Han Im kotowed. The Emperor stopped them.
“Once is enough,” he said. “Later you will know why. Han Im, tell the bearers to take the box to the gate, set it down and return. They all have their orders.”
Father Peng seemed disappointed, looking along the path by which the Emperor had come. The bearers had set down the box and gone back.
“No,” the Emperor told him, “there are no others coming. Today I come alone. Han Im, go in and see that I am taken, unmet, to the room which I occupied when I was last here.” He turned back to Father Peng. “Sir, if you will, come with me.”
Father Peng, puzzled, followed. He did not seem able to understand why the Bright Emperor’s commands were couched as requests. Han Im was waiting for them.