During those days no one came near him for anything, for his trusty men saw that he was wholly given over to his desire. But they consulted together secretly, for they had heard the rumor and they put their strength to hastening the wedding, so that it could be over and their leader slaked and ready to be himself and lead them on when the need came.
More quickly, then, than Wang the Tiger even could hope, the feasts were prepared and the wife of the gaol keeper stood for the woman and the courts were thrown open to all such as cared to come and see and feast. But few men of the city came and fewer women, because they were afraid. Only the homeless ones and such as live nowhere and have nothing to lose came in as any may come in to a marriage and ate heartily and stared their fill at the strange bride. But when they went in to fetch the old magistrate and bring him to a seat of honor on such a day, as Wang the Tiger had commanded should be done, he sent out word that he grieved he could not come for he had a flux and could not rise from his bed.
As for Wang the Tiger, throughout the day of his wedding he moved in a dream and he scarcely knew what he did except that the hours of the day moved so slowly that he did not know what to do with himself. It seemed to him that every breath he drew lasted an hour and that the sun would never crawl up the sky to noon, and when it had, that it would stay forever. He could not be merry as men are at their weddings, for he had never been merry, and now he sat as silent as ever, and there was not one to joke at his expense. He thirsted exceedingly all that day, and he drank much wine, but he could eat nothing, for he was as full as though he had eaten a mighty meal.
But into the courts of feasting men and women and the crowds of poor and ragged and the dogs from the streets came in by scores to feast and to eat and to pick the bones that were left, and in his own room Wang the Tiger sat silent and half smiling as in a dream and so the day wore on at last to night.
Then when the women had prepared the bride for the bed he went into her room and she was there. It was the first woman he had ever known. Yes, this was a curious, unheard-of thing, that a man could come to be more than thirty years old and be a soldier and a runaway from his father’s house since he was eighteen, and never had he gone near a woman, so sealed his heart had been.
But that fountain was flowing free, now, and naught could ever seal it again, and seeing this woman sitting there on the bed, he drew his breath in sharply, and she hearing it, lifted her eyes and looked at him fully.
So he went to her and he found her silent but passionate and frank upon her marriage bed, and he loved her mightily from that hour, and since he had known no other, she seemed to him faultless.
Once in the middle of the night he turned to her and he said in a husky whisper,
“I do not even know who you are.”
And she answered calmly, “What does it matter except that I am here? But some time I will tell you.”
And he let it pass, content for the time, for they were neither of them usual folk, and both their lives were not such as are commonly lived.
But the trusty men did not let Wang the Tiger have more than the night, and the next morning at dawn they waited for him, and they saw him come out of his door, calm and refreshed from his marriage chamber. Then the harelipped man said, bowing,
“Sir, and honored, we did not tell you yesterday since it was a day of joy, but we have heard rumors from the north and the provincial ruler has heard that you have seized the government and comes down against you.”
And the Hawk said in his turn, “I heard it from a beggar who came from that way and he said he passed ten thousand men upon the way marching down upon us.”
And the Pig Butcher added his tale, stammering through his thick lips in his haste to speak as he had been told,
“I–I also heard it — when I went out to the market to see how they stick their pigs in this city and a butcher told me.”
But Wang the Tiger was all softened and at ease and for the first time he could not bring himself to think of war and he smiled in his slight way and said,
“I can trust my men, and let them come.” And he sat down to drink a little tea before he ate and he sat at a table beside a window and it was broad day and a thought came to him suddenly, and it was this, that there is a night at the end of every day, and he seemed to know it for the first time, now, so meaningless had all other nights of his life been except this one night.
But there was one who heard what his trusty men said, and she stood by the curtain and looked through a crack of it, and she saw they were dismayed to see their leader sunk in some pleasing thought of his own. When Wang the Tiger rose and went out of the room to go to the one where food was eaten, she called clearly to the harelipped man and she said,
“Tell me all you have heard.”
He was very loath to talk to a woman of what was none of her affair, and he muttered and made as if he had nothing to tell until she said imperiously,
“Do not play the fool with me, who have seen blood and fighting and battle and retreat these five years since I was grown! Tell me!”
Then wondering and abashed before her bold eyes fixed on his and not dropped as the eyes of women usually are, especially when they are newly wed and should be full of shame, he told her as though she had been a man what they all feared and how they were in danger because more men marched against them than they had, and many of their men were untried in their loyalty if a battle came. She sent him away quickly then saying he must beg Wang the Tiger to come to her.
He came as he had never come to any summons, smiling more softly than anyone had ever seen him smile. She sat down upon the bed and he sat down beside her and took up the end of her sleeve and fingered it and he was more abashed in her presence than she was in his and he kept his eyes down, smiling.
But she began to speak swiftly in her clear, somewhat piercing voice,
“I am not a woman such as will stand in your way if there is a battle to be fought and they tell me an army marches against you.”
“Who told you?” he answered. “I will not trouble myself for three days. I have given myself three days.”
“But if they come nearer in three days?”
“An army cannot come two hundred miles in three days.”
“How can you know what day they started?”
“The tale could not have reached the provincial seat in so short a time.”
“It could have!” she said swiftly.
Now here was a strange thing. These two, a man and a woman, could sit and talk of something far from love and yet Wang the Tiger was as knit to her as he had been in the night. He was amazed that a woman could talk like this for he had never talked with one before and he had always thought them pretty children in tall bodies, and one reason why he feared them was because he did not know what they knew nor what to say to them. He was so made that even with a woman paid for he could not rush to her as a common soldier does, and half his diffidence with women was because he feared the speech he must make with them. But here he sat and talked with this woman as easily as though she were a man and he listened to her when she said on,
“You have fewer men than the provincial army has, and when a warrior finds his army smaller than his enemy’s then he must use guile.”
At this he made his silent laugh and said in his gruff way,
“Well I know that, or I would not have had you for mine now.”
She dropped her eyes quickly at this as though to veil something that might show itself in them and she bit the edge of her lower lip and she answered,