Chapter Nineteen
The License Revoked
The summons came mid-fourth hour.
It came not by Pei's deputy and not by Brother Hui but by a junior clerk of the Censorate in the plain dark blue over-tunic of a Yushitai functionary, who walked the lane behind Yongchong with the unhurried civic step of a man who had been on the city's payroll since the autumn of 742 and had not, in eight years, knocked at the gate of a Han widow's compound in his own ward without the prior courtesy of a runner.
He knocked at the front gate.
Nanny Zhou took him.
He stood at the inner door in the unhurried half-bow of a Censorate clerk who had been told, at the dawn drum, that the lady of the inner door would be at the inner door mid-fourth hour and would, by his reading of his master's instruction, expect his bow.
"Mistress Cui."
"Mister."
"By the order of Censor Lu Zhongming midway through the third hour of this afternoon, the lady is summoned to the Censorate mid-fifth hour. The summons is for the lady's writing-desk and not the lady's grey. The Censor has named, in the order, that the lady will, at the Censorate's outer hall, be received mid-fifth hour by Censor Lu Zhongming in the presence of the senior clerk of his office and the junior clerk of Vice-Censor Pei Yu's office."
She inclined her head a finger's width.
"Mister."
"Mistress."
"mid-fifth hour."
"At the half, mistress."
"The summons."
He drew, from the inner cuff of his over-tunic, a folded slip of the prefecture's plain paper. The slip bore the small red seal of the Censorate's outer office and was signed, at the lower right, by the senior clerk of Lu Zhongming's office in the careful prefectural-grade Han hand that had set, four nights ago, the second-month broadside of 749 onto the prefecture's plain paper as the confession of one Anpan of the Manichaean lay-cell of the second southern ward.
She took the slip.
She did not, at the inner door, read it.
"Mister."
"Mistress."
"I will be mid-fifth."
He inclined his head. He stepped back from the inner door. Nanny Zhou took him to the front gate and bolted the gate behind him.
\ \ \*
She walked, in the inner court, to the cistern.
She did not, in walking, set her hand on the writing-desk. The lacquered letter-box was at its corner. The wax tablet of yesterday's seven words was at the corner beside it.
The cistern, mid-fourth hour, was at the upper third of its standing — the morning's rain had stopped at the second watch and the afternoon had been the dry warm air of a late spring at its turning toward summer. The eastern lip of the cistern was, by the dry afternoon, dry.
She stood at the cistern.
She set her hands at the rim and held them there for perhaps ten breaths.
The summons was the summons she had not yet been given in eighteen months.
The summons in eighteen months had been the small courtesies of a junior clerk's visit to her late husband's writing-desk in the second hour of the autumn afternoon of the funeral, in the small careful errand of a clerk who had been told to receive, from the widow, the seal of her late husband's office. The seal of her late husband's office had been the small carved jade-and-bronze seal of the second tier of the Yushitai's junior censors. She had given it to the clerk in the lacquered box in which her late husband had kept it. The clerk had inclined his head a finger's width. The clerk had taken the lacquered box. The clerk had not, at the front gate, named her late husband.
This afternoon's clerk had not named her.
This afternoon's clerk had named the writing-desk.
She held her hands at the rim.
At the cistern she did not allow her hands to register the fact that the writing-desk the clerk had named was the writing-desk at which her late husband had drafted, in the autumn of 748, the second paragraph of his Hexi circuit-letter, in the careful private hand of a junior censor who had read the customs-office filings of the third arcade and had set, in his own hand, the kiln of Hexi against the pigment-imports the customs office had filed.
The writing-desk in the slip was her writing-desk.
The writing-desk in the slip was the writing-desk that had, since the autumn of 748, been her late husband's writing-desk in the careful private idiom of the lacquered letter-box at its corner.
She lifted her hands from the rim.
She walked to the inner door and called Nanny Zhou.
"Nanny."
"Mistress."
"The half-mourning."
"At the second cabinet, mistress."
"The half-mourning, Nanny, at the writing-room."
Nanny inclined her head and walked, in the unhurried steady step of a woman who had not been, in fifty-seven years, on more than three errands the mistress had ordered in the same hour, to the second cabinet behind the cistern. She took out the cotton half-mourning Wanjun had worn to the inner study of Master Zhang Cong two days ago. She set it on the writing-desk.
Wanjun took it. She walked to her own room and put it on.
She was, by mid-fifth hour, at the front gate.
\ \ \*
The Censorate's outer hall mid-fifth hour was full in the way the Censorate's outer hall was full at the dusk hours of the fifth day after a noted case had been closed — the senior clerks at their writing-desks in the second alcove, the junior clerks at the long bench at the eastern wall, the door-keepers at the inner door, the petitioners in their plain cottons at the outer bench. The petitioners did not, this afternoon, lift their heads when she came in.
A door-keeper inclined his head.
"Mistress Cui."
"Door-keeper."
"The Censor is at the inner hall."
He stepped back. She walked through.
The inner hall was the inner hall at which her late husband had, in the autumn of 747, taken the second-tier office of the junior censors of the Yushitai. The walls were the white plaster of a Tang official building of the third tier. The eastern wall was the high windows of a hall built to take the dawn-drum light at the second hour of the rising. The lacquered floor was the dark cypress of a hall set in the second decade of the building's running.
Lu Zhongming stood at the writing-desk at the centre.
He was a man of perhaps thirty-eight, half a head taller than her, in the dark blue over-robe of a censor of the second tier, with the small black-and-white silk badge of a senior censor at the breast and the long thin queue of a Han official whose hair had not, in eight years of service, fallen below the third vertebra. His hand was on the writing-desk on a roll of paper. His senior clerk was at the second writing-desk at his right. The junior clerk of Pei's office was at the third writing-desk at the eastern wall.
Pei was not in the room.
"Lady Cui."
"Censor."
"You came."
"I came."
He did not, at the writing-desk, lift his eyes. He lifted the roll of paper instead, in the careful prefectural-grade movement of a man who had set the roll out at the dawn drum and had not, in the eight hours since, set his hand to it for a second purpose.
"Lady. The matter, this afternoon, is not a long matter. The matter is the licence of your late husband. The licence, lady, by which you have been, in the eighteen months since the autumn of 748, drafting petitions for the women of the Pingkang and the vegetable-sellers of the southern wards and the courtesans of the second arcade, was the scrivener-of-grievances licence of a junior censor of the second tier. The licence, lady, was not, in the autumn of 748, transferred to your name at the office of the Yushitai. The licence, lady, was extended to your hand by my predecessor in this office on the discretionary courtesy of a junior censor's widow at her eighteenth-month bereavement. The discretionary courtesy, lady, is, by my reading of the Censorate's standing schedule, not a licence."
She did not, at the inner hall, allow her hand to lift from the inside of her sleeve.
She held her sleeve at the writing-desk.
"Censor."
"Lady."
"The licence."
"Has been, by my hand at the dawn drum of this morning, formally rescinded. The order, lady, is at the desk of the senior clerk at my right. The order is, by the Censorate's standing schedule of rescinded licences of the second tier, to be read into the public register near the dusk drum this evening. The lady will not, by the public register, be a scrivener of grievances of the second tier from the dusk drum of this evening forward."
She held the registering against the inside of her chest in the place she kept the day's registerings.
She inclined her head a finger's width.
"Censor."
"Lady."
"By what reading."
"By my own, lady. By the reading of a senior censor who has read, in the past eleven days, the picture of three petitions filed in the Pingkang in the lady's hand and one slip of intercession filed the middle of the third watch of the morning of the fifth day on the matter of an arrest at the Manichaean lay-cell of the second southern ward. The petitions, lady, are the practice of a scrivener of the second tier. The slip of intercession is the practice of a censor."
"The slip of intercession."
"Was set, lady, midway into the third watch, in the careful hand of one Brother Hui of Anhua Ward, by a runner of the prefecture's clerk's house who had been at the gate of this office at the dawn drum of the fifth day with a private fold of paper in the lady's own hand. The fold, lady, was a brief sentence asking the senior clerk of this office to register the broadside of the second month of 749 in the public register mid-fourth hour against the lay-cell's confession. The fold, lady, was not signed."
"The fold was not signed."
"It was not. The fold was in the lady's hand."
He inclined his head a finger's width.
She did not, at the inner hall, lift her gaze.
She had, in the dawn drum of the fifth day, not sent a fold to Lu's senior clerk. She had sent a request to Pei for the loan of the broadside. She had, at the dawn of the fifth day, not yet read the confession. Lu had set a fold, in her hand, in the senior clerk's filing of the fifth-day dawn drum, against which Lu had built, this morning, the order of rescinding.
The fold in her hand had been written, by a hand that had been at the senior clerk's writing-desk at the dawn drum of the fifth day, in a private copy of her own hand.
She held the registering at the inside of her chest.
She did not give it to her face.
She did not give it to her hand.
"Censor."
"Lady."
"The order."
"Will, lady, be entered at the dusk drum."
"At the dusk drum."
"well into the dusk."
She inclined her head.
"Censor. The petition for the four of the lay-cell of the second southern ward."
He set the roll of paper on the writing-desk.
"Has been, lady, set in the prefect of Hexi's office at the dawn drum of this morning by the courtesy of a junior clerk of this office whose senior clerk had read, in the late afternoon of yesterday, a private note of Vice-Censor Pei Yu's office on the matter of a thin technical question of jurisdiction. The four, lady, will be at the prefect of Hexi's audience in mid-third-moon of the autumn."
She did not, at the inner hall, lift her hand to the writing-desk.
The four had been transferred. Pei's quiet hand had, by the dusk drum of yesterday, set the transfer. The transfer had been registered by Lu's senior clerk at the dawn drum of this morning. The transfer was what she had kept of three months Wanjun had asked for, at the writing-table of the morning of the fifth day, against the prefect of Hexi's old debt to Pei's brother-in-law.
The licence had been the price.
She inclined her head.
"Censor."
"Lady."
"At the dusk drum."
"deep into the dusk."
"I will, this afternoon, walk to the tea-house behind the Censorate."
"Lady."
"Censor."
"You will."
She turned at the writing-desk. She walked, at the slow Daoist walk of a Han widow of Yongchong in the cotton half-mourning of the eighteenth month, the length of the inner hall.
At the door of the outer hall she stopped.
She turned a half-turn at the door.
"Censor."
"Lady."
"My late husband's writing-desk."
"Lady."
"Is, at this hour, a writing-desk in the writing-room of the inner courtyard of the third house of Yongchong Ward."
He held her gaze for two breaths.
He did not give her a word.
He inclined his head a finger's width.
She turned and walked through the door.
\ \ \*
The outer hall at the dusk-drum hour of the fifth day after the audience was the outer hall of a Censorate that had, by the senior clerks' filings, closed the matter of the An clan of the Western Market mid-fourth hour and had, by the dawn-drum order of the senior censor at the second hour of this afternoon, rescinded the licence of the widow of Cui Yanzhi.
The petitioners at the outer bench inclined their heads as she passed.
She did not look at the petitioners.
She walked to the outer door.
At the outer door Pei was against the outer pillar.
He stood in the dark grey under-robe of a vice-censor at the late afternoon of a fifth day, with the small black-and-white silk badge at the breast and the long thin queue of a Han official whose hair had not, in fifteen years of service, fallen below the second vertebra. His hand was at the inside of his sleeve. His face was the face of a man who had been against the outer pillar since the half-quarter before mid-fifth hour.
She inclined her head.
"Vice-Censor."
"Lady Cui."
"You were not in the room."
"I was not. The order was, by the Censor's reading of the standing schedule, the Censor's order. The Censor, this morning, did not require my presence."
"Did not require."
"Did not."
She held his gaze for two breaths.
She did not give him a word.
He inclined his head a finger's width. He did not, at the outer pillar, lift his hand. He turned a half-turn at the pillar in the unhurried civic walk of a vice-censor who had been at the corner of a pillar for perhaps an hour and was, mid-fifth-and-a-half hour, walking the outer hall back to his own writing-desk.
In the half-turn, his right sleeve passed the inside of her left sleeve.
His sleeve was at her sleeve for perhaps half a breath.
She did not, at the outer pillar, register the passing at her face.
At the doorway she did not lift her hand to her sleeve.
She walked through the doorway. She walked the length of the outer avenue. She walked the corner west to the lane behind the tea-house of the Sparrow Bridge — the small unmarked tea-house at the second southern arcade where, in the eighteen months since her husband's funeral, she had been at the second alcove eleven times in the slow patient errand of a widow taking a brief tea before walking home — and she walked into the alcove and sat.
She lifted her right hand to the inside of her left sleeve.
She drew out, from the inside of the cuff at the careful place a senior clerk of the Censorate had folded a slip of paper into a Han widow's sleeve in the half-pace passing of a doorway, a small folded slip.
She unfolded it.
She read the three lines in the careful private hand of Vice-Censor Pei Yu of the eighteen-year service of the Yushitai:
He has seven doors. The eighth opens onto the avenue at the third watch. The keeper of the dusk drum is at the second cup at the noon of the second day.
She read the three lines a second time.
At the alcove she did not allow her hand to lift to the cup of barley the tea-house's apprentice had set, by the long-standing arrangement, in the alcove at the half-quarter before her sitting.
She held the slip in her right hand at the inside of her sleeve.
She held the lines, in the order in which Pei had set them, at the inside of her chest.
The first line was a confirming. The seven doors of Master Zhang Cong's compound were the seven doors she had walked at the noon-drum of the eleventh day. The first line was Pei's confirming, in his own private hand, that he had read what she had read, and that the seven doors of the second arcade's eighth shop were the seven doors of a Han with too many doors.
The second line was a piece of intelligence.
The compound, by Pei's reading, had eight doors. The eighth was a hidden gate that opened onto the avenue at the third watch. The third watch was the watch of curfew. The avenue at the third watch was the avenue at which to be on the avenue was, by the Tang Code's chapter on ward-curfew, a flogging at minimum and an execution at the run.
The eighth gate's opening at the third watch meant that the keeper of the dusk drum and the Gold Bird Guard of the western quadrant had been, in the days of Zhang Cong's compound's standing, in the cooperation of a private arrangement.
The third line was the cracking of the cooperation.
The keeper of the dusk drum was at the second cup at the noon of the second day. The noon of the second day was the noon-drum of two days hence. The second cup of the noon of the second day was the second cup of the wine-shop the keeper of the dusk drum took, in the loose idiom of the third arcade, at the noon of his second day off-shift. The keeper was, at the noon of the second day, drinkable. The keeper was, at the second cup, bribable.
Pei had told her, in three lines, the killer (Zhang Cong, by the seven doors), the breach (the eighth gate at the third watch, on the cooperation of the Gold Bird and the drum-keeper), and the lever (the drum-keeper, at his second cup, at the noon of the second day).
She folded the slip a second time at the three folds.
She set it at the inside of her left sleeve.
She did not lift the cup.
\ \ \*
She walked back to Yongchong near the dusk drum.
The public register had been read near the dusk drum.
The criers at the third arcade had not yet had time to walk the cry from the Censorate to the wineshops of the second southern arcade — the public register near the dusk drum was the weight of it by which the criers, in a half-hour, would set the cry against the cry-bell at the corners of the eastern wards. By the dusk drum of this evening, the wineshops of the second southern arcade would know. By the dawn drum tomorrow, the courtesans of the Pingkang would know. By the noon-drum of the second day, the kitchen-boys of the prefecture's clerk's house would know.
She walked.
She did not, in walking, look at the criers.
She walked the slow Daoist walk of a Han widow of Yongchong in the cotton half-mourning of the eighteenth month whose licence had been, near the dusk drum, registered into the public lists as a rescinded licence of the second tier.
She walked east at the second arcade. She walked the lane behind the bakery of the second eastern ward at the dusk drum. She reached her own rear gate into the heart of the first watch of the evening.
Nanny Zhou took her at the gate.
"Mistress."
"Nanny."
"The licence."
"Was, this evening, by the public register, rescinded."
Nanny did not, at the inner door, lift her eyes. She inclined her head a finger's width. She bolted the gate.
\ \ \*
The writing-room by the middle of the first watch was the writing-room of a Han widow of Yongchong whose scrivener-of-grievances licence had been rescinded an hour before.
She sat at the writing-desk.
The lacquered letter-box was at its corner.
That evening she did not, lift it.
She set the folded slip of Pei's hand at the centre of the writing-desk.
She drew, from the inner drawer, the wax tablet of yesterday's seven words. Below The licence she set the bronze stylus and added two lines.
The eighth gate. The drum-keeper. The noon of the second day.
She read the nine words back in the light of the second lamp.
At the writing-desk she did not, allow her hand to lift to the corner of the box.
She rolled the tablet at the wax.
She set the tablet on the desk beside the lacquered letter-box.
She rose.
She walked to the inner court.
A small swallow at the kitchen eave was at the fifth course of the nest, in the patient tidy work of a swallow who had in the heart of the first watch of the evening of the twelfth day decided that the fifth course was the fifth course.
She sat at the bench by the cistern in the dark.
She held against the inside of her chest the slow private record of the licence and the eighth-gate plan and the measure of the drum-keeper at the second cup at the noon of the second day.
She held also, at the same inside, the half-turn of Pei at the outer pillar of the Censorate mid-fifth hour, and the picture of half a breath at her left sleeve.
She did not weep.
She rose and walked to the kitchen door.
Nanny Zhou had set, beside the brazier, a small clean clay jar of the boiled water cooled to the inside-of-the-wrist temperature. She drank.
She walked back to the writing-room.
That evening she did not, light a third lamp.
She set her hands flat on either side of the lacquered letter-box.
She held them there for perhaps a hundred breaths.
She did not open it.
She rose.
She walked, slow, to her bedroom.
She lay at her own bed in the cotton half-mourning.
She did not sleep.