Chapter Twelve
A Prayer in the Wrong Dialect
Brother Hui came at the dusk drum.
He had walked, by his own slow account at the inner door, from his brick-kiln hut at the edge of Anhua Ward to her gate by the back lanes, in the time the dusk drum took to sound the four quarters of the eighth ward and then the four quarters of the ninth. He had reached her gate at the third quarter of the ninth. He carried, at his left sleeve, a wrapped square of pale yellow oilcloth; at his right, a small lamp-bowl of the kind a hut-dweller of the southern wards carried for his own evening reading, the wick trimmed to a single thumb's height.
Nanny Zhou took the lamp at the door. She brought it to the writing-room. She did not, this evening, ask whether the brother had eaten.
Wanjun was at the writing-desk.
She had been there since the half of the seventh hour, drafting in her own hand the second copy of Little Pomegranate's petition — a clean copy for Pei's quiet hand, with the patron's name omitted, to be lodged in a different file than the prefecture's, in the way her father had once taught her, in the autumn of 738, to keep a second account against the day the first account was destroyed. She had finished the second copy at the third quarter of the eighth hour. She had set it under the brass weight beside the first.
She had not, this evening, opened the lacquered letter-box.
She had set it, however, on the corner of the desk nearest her right hand.
She had set it there at the seventh hour without explanation to herself and had not, in the hour and a half since, moved it.
Brother Hui sat at the second stool. He did not look at the box.
"Sister."
"Brother."
He laid the wrapped oilcloth on the desk between them. He unwrapped it slowly — three folds, the way a man unwrapped a sutra-fragment he had been entrusted with by an abbey that did not yet know whether it would lend the sutra back to him a second time. Inside the oilcloth was the folded scrap of waxed Liangzhou parchment they had taken from the cuff at Bashang.
He set it flat.
"I have read it."
"In what light."
"In the lamp of the brick-kiln. I read it once, sister, in the slow patience of a man who did not yet know whether he was reading the script of a copy or the script of a hand. I read it a second time in the slow patience of a man who had decided it was a copy. I read it a third time in the slow patience of a man who had decided it was a copy made by a hand that had been trained at a different school from the school that had made the original."
"Tell me."
He inclined his head. He took, from the right sleeve, a clean piece of paper, on which he had set in his own neat Han hand the script of the scrap and, beneath it, a translation in three columns: the Sogdian characters, the Manichaean liturgical phrase they spelled, and a brief note on dialect.
He turned the paper so she could read.
She read.
It was a Manichaean prayer. It was the second line of the Bēma litany — the litany Manichaean lay-cells recited at the half of the fifth watch on the day of confession. The line was Lord of Light, hear the lay servant of the seventh order.
She lifted her eyes.
"Brother."
"Sister."
"This is the prayer of a Manichaean lay-cell."
"It is."
"You will tell me what is wrong with it."
"Three things, sister."
He set his finger at the first character.
"The first, sister, is the dialect. The Manichaean lay-cells of Chang'an are, by the imperial registry, twelve in number. Of the twelve, eleven are of the Bukharan dialect of Sogdian and recite the Bēma in the form Lord of Light, hear the servant of the lay seventh. The twelfth, sister, is of the Loulan dialect, and recites in the form Lord of Light, hear the lay servant of the seventh order. The twelfth, by my own counting at the eastern records office in the autumn of 748, has at this hour four members, all of whom are men over sixty, and none of whom keep a Sogdian household-maid."
"The dialect of the scrap is Loulan."
"It is the dialect of the Liangzhou Manichaean cells. Not the dialect of any cell in Chang'an. The scrap, sister, is a Manichaean prayer in a Manichaean dialect that does not exist, in this city, in any house that would have placed it in the sleeve of a household-maid."
"The second."
"The fold."
He turned the scrap, with great care, on its waxed face. He pointed at the fold-crease.
"Sister. A Manichaean prayer-amulet, by the discipline of the cells, is folded before the script is set. The faithful do not write on a flat sheet and then fold; they fold the paper first along the four cardinal lines, and then they write, on each of the four sections, the four lines of the appointed prayer. The crease is set under the script. The script crosses the crease only where the discipline allows."
"And this scrap."
"The crease has been set after the script. The script is unbroken at the crease. The crease has been laid down on a sheet on which the four lines were already written. The crease, sister, was made by a person who had seen a Manichaean amulet once and had not, on the seeing, asked the cell-master how the amulet was folded."
"A Han."
"Sister."
"The third."
"The thread."
He turned the scrap to its underside. He had not, this morning at the willow, allowed himself to look at the underside; the light had been too uncertain. Under the lamp of the writing-room, with the wick at a thumb's height and the brazier behind it set with three sticks of pine, the underside showed, at the inner edge, a small line of dried wax — and beside the wax, two pinpricks, perhaps half a finger apart.
He set his finger between the pinpricks.
"The amulet, sister, was attached to the cuff by two pins of fine steel. The two pins were withdrawn before the body was set at the willow. The withdrawing has left, on the underside of the scrap, two perfectly round pinpricks. The pins, sister, are not the pins a household-maid would have carried. The pins are the pins of a Censorate clerk's writing-desk."
She did not, at the writing-desk, allow her face to do anything.
"Brother."
"Sister."
"The prayer is in the wrong dialect for any Manichaean cell in Chang'an. The amulet was folded by a person who had not been trained in a cell. The pins were those of a writing-desk."
"They were."
"It is a Han."
"It is."
She allowed the sentence to sit on the desk between them, beside the lamp, in the air of the writing-room at the third quarter of the ninth hour. She did not, in the air of the writing-room, allow her face to do anything.
She set her hand, briefly, on the corner of the lacquered letter-box.
She lifted her hand.
She did not open it.
"Brother."
"Sister."
"You will, in the morning of the fourth day, take the scrap to Vice-Censor Pei by way of his deputy at the tea-house behind the Censorate. You will not, in the taking, hand the scrap to the deputy. You will hand the deputy, instead, the clean transcription you have set on this paper. The deputy will know — by the slow patience of his own four years at the deputy's desk — that the scrap exists. He will not, in the deputy's small chamber, ask for it. The transcription will reach Pei by the third hour of the morning audience. Pei will read it. Pei will know."
"Sister."
"And the scrap."
"Sister."
"The scrap will, in the morning, go to a place where Lu Zhongming's couriers do not run."
"Sister."
"Lady Wei Wan's courtyard."
He inclined his head a finger's width.
"Sister."
She rolled the wrapped oilcloth. She tied it with a single cord. She set it at the corner of her writing-desk beside the second copy of Little Pomegranate's petition. She did not, this evening, set it beside the lacquered letter-box.
She turned to Brother Hui.
"At the dawn drum, brother."
"Sister."
"At the dawn drum I will walk to Anyi Ward. You will, at the dawn drum, walk to Pei's deputy. You will, at the third hour, walk to my gate. We will, at the half of the third hour, decide what we know."
"Sister."
He rose. He bowed. Nanny Zhou took the lamp from the corner of the writing-room and saw him through the inner door.
\ \ \*
She did not, that night, sleep.
She lay on the lacquered platform of her bed in the inner room, with the curtain drawn against the dawn that would come in through the western window in the second watch, and watched the curtain for a length of time she did not count.
She had, in her hand under the coverlet, a piece of folded paper she had taken from the writing-desk at the third quarter of the tenth hour. The paper was a fragment of one of the wrappers Pei had given her in the dossier on the third day. She had carried the fragment, by habit, in the inside pocket of her writing-sleeve since. The fragment bore three marks. Two were the inverted-comma ink-marks of her husband's flagging hand. The third was a single brown thumb-print.
She had not, in the eighteen months, looked at the thumb-print under a lamp.
She did not, this night, look at it under a lamp.
She held the paper.
She held it for the count of perhaps four hundred breaths.
She did not allow her face to do anything. She did not allow her hand.
She rose at the first cry of the dawn drum and folded the paper and set it in the lacquered letter-box, on top of the name-card she had not, in the autumn of 749, opened a second time.
She closed the box.
\ \ \*
The courtyard of Lady Wei Wan, in Anyi Ward, was the second to the last courtyard on the eastern lane of the ward. It sat behind a plain rectangular wall, painted the dun grey of a widowed minister's house, with a single black-lacquer gate and a single porcelain plaque set above the lintel that read, in the unhurried hand of a calligrapher of the previous reign, The House of Stillness After.
Wanjun had been coming to this courtyard since she was twelve.
She had been coming, in the eighteen months of her widowhood, more rarely. She had not, in the past four months, walked through the gate.
The gatekeeper was the same old man who had been at the gate in the autumn of 738 when her father had first brought her here, with her hair tied in the two upright tails of a magistrate's daughter on her first social call. He was eighty-one. He had been at this gate for forty years. He inclined his head a finger's width at her tally.
"Daughter."
"Father."
"The lady is at the moon-window."
She inclined her head. She walked the four flagstones of the inner court — flagstones she had measured at age twelve as four-and-a-half of her own twelve-year-old paces and, at thirteen, as four of her own thirteen-year-old paces, and had, ever since, walked at the absent unhurried count of one, two, three, four without intending to — and entered the inner gallery.
Lady Wei Wan was at the moon-window of the second hall.
She was fifty. She was in a plain grey winter robe, although the season was not winter, with the silver pin at her hair tied in the loose knot of a widow at her own desk. The desk in front of her held a single open volume of the Wenxuan, the small celadon water-pot her husband had given her at their second-year banquet, and an ink-stone that had been a wedding gift from Wanjun's father. Her hands were thinner than they had been four months ago. Her wrists were thinner. There was, this morning, a slight blue tinge at the left corner of her lower lip — a colour Wanjun's father had taught her, in his last summer, was the colour of a heart that had begun to forget its own count.
Wanjun did not, at the moon-window, allow her face to do anything.
She bowed.
"Mother."
"Wanjun."
"You will permit the visit."
"I have, daughter, been waiting for the visit since the autumn. Sit."
She sat.
Lady Wei Wan turned, slowly, from the moon-window. She did not lift the volume of the Wenxuan. She did not lift the water-pot. She set her hands, very lightly, on the desk, the way a calligrapher set her hands when she had decided not to write.
"You have been at a body in a willow."
"I have."
"You have been at a Censor in the second arcade."
"I have."
"You have not, daughter, in the eighteen months since the funeral, walked into this hall in the early autumn."
"I have not."
"Tell me what brought you."
She did not, at the moon-window, immediately answer.
She had brought, in the inside pocket of her writing-sleeve, the wrapped oilcloth with the scrap. She had brought, in the deeper pocket beneath that, a single sentence in her own hand on a square of plain paper. She had brought the sentence by mistake, by the unthinking habit of a woman who had folded a paper at her desk at the third quarter of the tenth hour and had put it in the wrong pocket and had not, in the dawn, taken it out.
She drew the sentence from the deeper pocket.
She did not, on drawing, look at it. She set it on the desk between them.
The sentence was in her own hand. It said: He did not die of fever.
Lady Wei Wan looked at the sentence.
She did not, on the looking, lift the paper. She did not lift her eyes to Wanjun's face. She read the sentence the way a calligrapher read a sentence she had been waiting eighteen months to read, slowly, once.
She did not speak for the count of perhaps a hundred breaths.
The brazier in the corner of the moon-window was warm. The water-pot on the desk caught the morning sun at its rim. A finch in the garden beyond the gallery sang, once, and stopped.
Lady Wei Wan lifted her left hand and set it, lightly, over the sentence on the desk. She covered it. She did not push it back.
"Daughter."
"Mother."
"You have not yet said this aloud."
"I have not."
"You will not, this morning, say it aloud."
"I will not."
"You will not, this morning, burn it."
"I will not."
"You will, daughter, leave it with me."
She inclined her head.
Lady Wei Wan folded the paper, once, under her hand. She lifted it. She slid it into the inside fold of her own grey robe, against her ribs. She did not, in the sliding, look at her own ribs. She did not, in the sliding, allow her face to do anything.
"Wanjun."
"Mother."
"You will, in the days to come, walk a great deal. You will, in the days to come, sleep less than you sleep this week. You will, in the days to come, be told by men in dark plum robes that the case is closed. The case will not, daughter, be closed. The case will close when you have closed it. You will know — by the count your father taught you in the autumn of 738, at the second flagstone of this inner court — when it has been closed."
"Mother."
"You will, daughter, when the case has been closed, return to this courtyard. You will, daughter, on the returning, bring this paper back with you. We will, on the returning, decide together whether to burn it."
"Mother."
"That is the bargain."
"Yes."
"Drink your tea."
Wanjun did not, in the moon-window, allow her face to do anything.
She lifted the small celadon cup. The tea was a thin pale Henan green. It was the tea of Wanjun's father's house, brewed by a hand that had been brewing the same Henan green for forty-five years. She drank one mouthful. She set the cup down.
Lady Wei Wan, at the moon-window, in the morning sun, with the Wenxuan open on her desk and a piece of paper folded against her ribs, did not lift her tea.
"There is one further matter."
"Mother."
"The Sogdian."
She did not, at the cup, allow her face to do anything.
"Mother."
"You will, daughter, not yet decide what you know of him. You will, daughter, not yet decide what you do not. You will, in the eighth day, when the case is closer to closing, allow yourself to decide. You will not, daughter, decide before."
"Mother."
"I have not yet met him."
"Mother."
"I will, daughter, meet him in the eighth day. You will, daughter, bring him."
"I will."
"Drink your tea."
She drank a second mouthful.
She did not, in the second mouthful, allow her face to do anything.
\ \ \*
She walked back from Anyi to Yongchong by the back lanes, not by the avenue. She had asked Lady Wei Wan's gatekeeper, on departing, for the bay; the gatekeeper had inclined his head and said the bay was at the second stable of the second lane, and Wanjun had not, on hearing, asked which boy had walked it there.
She walked.
She had, in the inside pocket of her writing-sleeve, the wrapped oilcloth of the scrap. She did not, in walking, allow her hand to go to it.
She had, in the deeper pocket where the sentence had been, an empty fold.
She had, at the bottom of her own chest, an old quiet weight she had not, in the eighteen months, been able to put down. The weight was lighter, this morning, than it had been at the dawn drum. It was not gone. It had been received by a woman in a grey robe whose ribs were thinner than they had been four months ago, and the woman in the grey robe had, in receiving it, taken from her own hand the count of one of her own remaining breaths.
She did not, in the back lanes of Anyi at the half of the second hour of the morning, allow her face to do anything.
She walked.
A barber's daughter, sitting at the door of her father's stall, called a single greeting to a friend across the lane. A cart passed her, drawn by a mule. A baby cried somewhere over a wall, and was hushed. A camel, stabled three lanes away, groaned at its tether in the deep voice camels used at the half of the morning when their second feed had not yet come.
She reached her own gate at the third hour.
Nanny Zhou was at the inner door.
"Mistress."
"Nanny."
"Brother Hui is at the second pillar of the outer hall."
She inclined her head. She walked past the inner door and into the outer hall.
Brother Hui was at the second pillar.
"Brother."
"Sister."
"Pei."
"Sister. The transcription has been delivered. The deputy received it at the third hour of the morning audience. The deputy, sister, by his own quiet acknowledgement at the tea-house, has read it. The deputy has, by the half of the third hour, set the transcription in the hand of Pei's senior clerk for the inner reading. Pei, sister, will read it at the half of the fourth hour."
"And Lu."
"Sister. Lu has, this morning, named at the second-day audience three Manichaean lay-cell elders. Of the three, one is the proprietor of a Sogdian wineshop in Pingkang. Madam Khorshid, sister, has been at the Cool Vine since the dawn drum. She has not, this morning, been called by the Censorate."
"Yet."
"Yet."
She inclined her head.
She did not, in the outer hall, allow her face to do anything.
She walked, briefly, to the inner court, and washed her hands at the cistern. The water was cool. She held her hands in it for the count of perhaps ten breaths.
She lifted them out.
\ \ \*
She did not, at noon, eat.
She sat at the writing-desk and drew, on a fresh wax tablet, a single diagram. The diagram was a horizontal line. At the left end she set a small character for Liangzhou. At the right end she set a small character for Chang'an. At the centre she set a single dot, and beside the dot she wrote, in the careful flat idiom of an evidence ledger, three words.
Han hand. Loulan dialect. Censorate pin.
She drew, from the dot, a single line down. At the foot of the line she did not write a name. She set a single small empty circle.
She held the wax tablet in her hand for the count of perhaps a hundred breaths. She did not, in the hundred breaths, fill the circle.
She set the tablet down.
She did not erase it.
She set it on the corner of the writing-desk, face up, beside the lacquered letter-box, and walked out of the writing-room to the courtyard, where Nanny Zhou had laid, on the stone bench by the well, a single bowl of millet rice and a single cup of barley tea.
She sat at the bench.
She lifted the cup.
The afternoon had not yet begun to turn.