Chapter Twenty-One
What Anaxa Knows
She walked to the caravanserai the seventh hour half-spent of the next evening.
She walked in her grey.
She had folded the half-mourning at the bottom of the second cabinet behind the cistern at the noon-drum. She had set, beside the half-mourning, the small bronze pin at the inside of the cuff. She would not, in this season, take the half-mourning out a second time before just past the dawn drum of the morning of the sixteenth day, when the small clay jar of the daughter of the laundress would be at the gate of the south hall of the southern Buddhist hospital.
She wore, on top of the grey, the long unbleached shoulder-shawl a Daoist nun of Yongchong wore in the lane after the dusk drum by the middle of the fourteenth day of an unfinished case.
She walked the back lanes west.
The avenue at the second arcade was at the late summer-light of a fourteenth day at the turn of the spring toward the early summer. The shutters of the silk-shops at the third arcade were half-drawn at the dusk-drum approach. The Sogdian apprentices at the upper stalls of the third arcade were at the patient careful work of pulling in the day's hanging silks. The smell of the avenue was the smell of new lacquer at the third arcade and old felt at the fourth and the slow patient cooling of camel-dung at the second-arcade corner's western stable, in the unhurried civic way the Western Market's southern wards smelled half-seventh of a late spring evening.
She walked.
She did not, in walking, look at the silk-shops.
She walked the western quadrant of the Western Market at the lane behind the fourth row. She walked the corner west to the second arcade of the caravanserai district. She walked the lane behind the second arcade to the inner gate of the An caravanserai compound.
Ah-Sa was at the inner gate.
He stood in his unhurried unmoving stillness in the dark grey under-tunic of a household guard at the third watch, with the small carved wooden token of the inner gate at his right hand and the long dark wooden staff of a Sogdian guard at his left.
He inclined his head a finger's width.
"Lady."
"Ah-Sa."
"The master is at the office."
"At the office."
He stepped back from the gate.
She walked through.
\ \ \*
The office the seventh at its half-mark was the office at which she had not been a second time since the autumn of the eleventh day.
The room was the room. The double poplar lath on the north wall. The desk at which he sat with his hands flat on either side of the morning-drum cup. The brazier at the south corner with the small kettle on it. The small carved wooden bowl of dried apricots his sister had not, in seven months, sent him.
He stood when she came in.
He stood at the desk in his weather-grey under-robe with the dark cotton over-robe of a caravan-master deep into the seventh hour and a small linen wrap at his ribs at the third-day count of the stitches.
"Lady."
"Gongzi."
"You came."
"I came."
"Sit."
She sat at the second stool. At the stool she did not lift her grey from her shoulders. She held the unbleached shoulder-shawl at her arms in the careful slow posture of a Daoist nun of Yongchong at the second stool of the office of a Sogdian caravan-master the middle of the seventh hour of an evening on the fourteenth day of an unfinished case.
He sat.
He poured tea.
He poured, into two celadon cups, the barley tea from the kettle at the brazier. The pouring was the unhurried pouring of a man whose hand had been at the kettle of his own office for eleven years and had not, in eleven years, varied the height of the second cup against the first.
He set the kettle down.
He did not lift his cup.
"Gongzi."
"Lady."
"I will not, this evening, drink."
He inclined his head a finger's width.
He lifted his own cup. He drank. He set the cup on the desk at the angle the brazier's light reached.
"Lady."
"Gongzi."
"You have come on the third confirming."
"On the third and on the fourth."
"The fourth."
"midway into the seventh of yesterday afternoon, at the second house of the south hall of the southern Buddhist hospital of the third southern arcade, the laundress at the second house gave to a Daoist nun of Yongchong in the cotton half-mourning of the eighteenth month the picture of a man at the gate of that hospital in the second moon of last year. The man at the gate, by the laundress's reading, had been a man at the bedside of the laundress in the seventh moon of 738, in the small careful Han of a junior silk-clerk who had not yet, at twenty-five, the seniority of his own writing-desk."
"Lady."
"The man at the gate, by the laundress's reading half-seventh of yesterday, was, in the spring of last year, the man at the gate. The man at the gate was the father of a daughter who had been set, at the spring of the year of her twelfth birthday, at the inner court of the An clan."
"The daughter."
"The daughter was Aroka. The father, gongzi, was Master Zhang Cong."
At the desk he did not lift his eyes.
He set his right hand on the desk where his cup had been.
He held it there.
"Lady."
"Gongzi."
"He killed his daughter."
"He killed his daughter."
"To keep his trade."
"To keep his trade."
He kept his reckoning at his hand on the desk for perhaps fifteen breaths.
He set his hand at his lap.
\ \ \*
"Lady."
"Gongzi."
"I have, in the four days since midway into the fifth watch at the abbey, kept against my own breath a thing I have not, in the four days, said to the lady."
She did not lift her eyes.
She kept his reckoning of his sentence at the inside of her chest in the careful place she kept the registerings of the day. She had known, since the fifth watch half-spent at the abbey, that he had been holding the thing. She had known, by the steadiness of his stillness at the second pillar of the inner hall of the An compound at the third quarter of the seventh hour of the morning of the twelfth day, that the thing he had been holding was a thing the holding of which had cost him the measure of the second-day stitches at his ribs.
That evening she did not, ask him to set the thing in her hand.
She set the thing, instead, at the corner of her own writing-desk before he could.
"Gongzi."
"Lady."
"The ingot."
"The ingot."
"The fanyang stamp."
"The fanyang stamp."
"The garrison of An Lushan."
At the desk he did not lift his eyes.
He inclined his head a finger's width.
"Lady."
"The silver of the household's coercion was the silver of the fanyang garrison. The jade of the household's refusal to carry was the jade of the Khotanese mines. The pipeline, gongzi, was the pipeline of a frontier-army-funded jade trade running Khotan to Liangzhou to Chang'an to Tibet, under the seal of the fanyang garrison of An Lushan, laundered through a Han silk-merchant of the second arcade of the Eastern Market whose silk ran at four hundred bolts a moon and whose seven-doored compound had, by Pei's reading at the alcove of the tea-house of the Sparrow Bridge mid-fifth hour of the thirteenth day, an eighth gate that opened onto the avenue at the third watch."
At the second stool she did not, lift her hand to her sleeve.
"You have been carrying, gongzi, since the dawn drum of the morning Ah-Sa brought you the ingot at in the heart of the dawn-drum hour, the picture that the household of the patriarch was killed for refusing to launder An Lushan's garrison silver into Khotanese jade. You have been carrying, in the four days since the fifth watch at its midpoint at the abbey, what she had kept that the killer was the man whose ledger had set the patriarch's table-grammar at the inner court of the An clan. You have been carrying, in the four days since into the heart of fifth, the weight of it that the killer was Zhang Cong."
"I have been carrying."
"Gongzi."
"Lady."
"You have not, in the four days, told me."
"I have not."
"Why."
At the desk he did not lift his eyes.
He held his hand at his lap.
"Lady."
"Gongzi."
"Because, lady, in the four days I have been carrying also a thing the lady has not, in the four days, asked me to carry. The thing is the slow private record of the fanyang stamp at the ingot. The stamp, lady, by the assayer's reading at the back hut of the Western Market at the third watch of the seventh evening, is not the stamp of the eastern paymaster of An Lushan's command-post. The stamp is the stamp of a private recasting at a kiln Lu Zhongming's clerks do not, in any year, file from. The recasting is the recasting of a man who is moving the silver out of An Lushan's payroll and into the jade economy of the Tibetan border. The man, lady, is laundering the An Lushan economy at a depth I had not, in the autumn of last year, known."
"At what depth."
"At the depth, lady, of a coming rebellion."
At the second stool she did not, allow her hand to lift.
She kept his reckoning against the inside of her chest.
"A coming rebellion."
"Lady. My family came to Chang'an in my grandfather's generation. We are Zoroastrian, by my father. We are Sasanian, by my mother. We are, by the Tang's reading at the customs office of the Western Market, Sogdian. We are not, by any reading, Hexi. I have not been, in the eleven years of my caravanserai office, a man whose silver has been the silver of An Lushan's payroll. I have been, in the eleven years, a man whose silver has been the silver of the spring caravan from Liangzhou and the autumn caravan from Khotan. I have been, in the eleven years, a man whose Persian mother and Nestorian tutor and Han best friend have died, all three, in the small clean order in which the unmarked deaths of the last decade have begun, in the unhurried civic idiom of Chang'an, to gather at the gate of my family. I have been, in the eleven years, a man trying to set my family back out of the city before the unmarked deaths gather at the door."
"Gongzi."
"Lady. The ingot at the back hut at the third watch of the seventh evening is the measure by which the unmarked deaths have, this season, gathered at my own door. The ingot is the silver of An Lushan's payroll. The jade is the jade my own clan has been pressured, in the autumn of last year, to carry. The household of the patriarch was killed for the refusal. The household of the second-tier of my clan is, this evening, the next household."
She held his eyes for three breaths.
At the second stool she did not, lift her hand.
"Gongzi."
"Lady."
"You have been, in the four days, holding the measure of An Lushan."
"I have."
"Because the picture of An Lushan is what she had kept by which the household of the second tier of your clan is the next household."
"Because, lady, the weight of it of An Lushan is the slow private record by which the lady, on hearing it, would, by her own quiet patience, withdraw."
She did not lift her eyes.
She held his sentence at the inside of her chest.
"Gongzi."
"Lady."
"You have been holding the picture of An Lushan because you have been deciding whether, at the holding, the lady will withdraw."
"I have."
"And the lady."
"The lady, gongzi, will not withdraw."
At the desk he did not lift his eyes.
He set his hand on the desk where his cup had been.
He held it there for perhaps ten breaths.
\ \ \*
"Lady."
"Gongzi."
"I am, this evening, not asking the lady to withdraw."
"Gongzi."
"I am, this evening, asking that the lady allow me to walk into Zhang Cong's compound with the lady at the third watch of the night the lady walks in."
"Gongzi."
"Lady."
"You will, this evening, ask the lady to withdraw because the measure of An Lushan is at the door of your clan."
"I have."
"And the lady has not withdrawn."
"She has not."
"You will, this evening, not ask a second time."
He inclined his head a finger's width.
At the desk he did not lift his eyes.
"Lady."
"Gongzi."
"Lady. If the lady will not withdraw, I will not, at the third watch of the night the lady walks in, leave the lady."
At the second stool she did not, lift her hand from her lap.
She held his sentence at the inside of her chest in the careful place she kept the sentences of a Sogdian caravan-master of the second tier of the An clan whose Persian mother had died at the spring of the year of his eighteenth birthday and whose Nestorian tutor had died at the autumn of the year of his twenty-fourth and whose Han best friend had died at the autumn of his twenty-seventh.
She did not give him a Persian word.
She did not give him a Han one.
She set her right hand, briefly, at the inside of her own left wrist, where the cotton of her grey at the cuff was the cotton she had set, the evening of the half-mourning at the western edge of the laundress's platform-bed, at the inside of her sleeve when she had drawn the unmarked household silver from the inner cuff.
She set her hand at the wrist for perhaps three breaths.
Then she set her hand back at her lap.
"Gongzi."
"Lady."
"You will not, at the third watch of the night I walk in, leave me."
"I will not."
\ \ \*
He rose at the desk.
He did not, in rising, lift the celadon cup.
He walked to the corner of the small inner court the office's north wall gave onto. He stood at the threshold of the inner court for perhaps five breaths.
At the threshold he did not turn.
"Lady."
"Gongzi."
"The friend, lady."
At the second stool she did not, allow her shoulders to lift.
She kept his reckoning of his sentence at the inside of her chest.
"Gongzi."
"Lady."
"The friend whose name I have not, in the eleven days since the well, said in the lady's hearing. The friend, lady, whose Han friendship of the third decade of my caravanserai office at the spring of 745 was the friendship that, in the autumn of 748, brought me the small folded slip in his careful Han hand of the first reading of the Hexi customs-office filings on the matter of the prefectural kiln of Hexi. The friend, lady, who was the man on whose writing-desk in the inner court of the third house of Yongchong Ward I sat, in the evening of the third moon of 748, in the small private idiom of a Sogdian caravan-master who had not yet, at twenty-six, told his Han best friend that the Sogdian sister at the fanyang garrison was the sister of an An clan that had been pressured, by an unnamed Han principal, to carry stones for the patron. The friend, lady, who in the autumn of 748 read the customs-office filings and set the picture of the kiln of Hexi against what she had kept of the pigment-imports, and who, in the second paragraph of his circuit-letter of the autumn of 748, wrote the weight of it for himself and not, in the writing, for me. The friend, lady, whose name the lady has not asked me, in the eighteen months I have been at her writing-desk, to say."
He did not turn at the threshold.
"The friend's name, lady, was Cui Yanzhi."
She did not lift her eyes from her lap.
She did not give him a word.
She held, at the inside of her chest, the slow private record of her husband at the writing-desk of the inner court of the third house of Yongchong Ward in the evening of the third moon of 748, with a Sogdian caravan-master of the second tier of the An clan sitting at the second stool beside his desk.
She had not, in the eighteen months since the body had come back from Hexi, known he had been at the second stool.
She kept his reckoning of the evening of the third moon of 748.
She set it, briefly, in the place she kept the evenings of the third moon at the inner court of the third house of Yongchong Ward.
\ \ \*
She rose.
She walked to the threshold of the inner court at the north wall of the office.
She did not, at the threshold, look at him.
She stood at his left shoulder at the threshold for perhaps eight breaths.
"Gongzi."
"Lady."
"You have been carrying, in the eighteen months since the autumn of 748, the picture of my husband at his own writing-desk."
"I have."
"You have not, in the eighteen months, named the friend."
"I have not."
"Gongzi."
"Lady."
"The friend, gongzi, was the man whose lacquered letter-box has been at the corner of my writing-desk in the inner court of the third house of Yongchong Ward for eighteen months. The lacquered letter-box, gongzi, has not, in the eighteen months, been opened."
"Lady."
"By the dusk drum of the morning after I walk into Zhang Cong's compound, gongzi, the lacquered letter-box will, by my own hand, be open."
He did not turn.
He inclined his head a finger's width.
"Lady."
"Gongzi."
"I will not, at the third watch of the night the lady walks in, leave the lady."
"You have said."
"I am saying, lady, a second time."
She held his sentence at the inside of her chest for perhaps four breaths.
She set her right hand, briefly, at the inside of his left sleeve at the cuff.
She did not look at his eyes. She gave him no Persian word.
She held her hand at his cuff for perhaps three breaths.
At the cuff she did not allow her thumb to lift to the inside of his wrist.
She held her hand.
Then she lifted it.
She walked past him out the threshold of the inner court at the north wall, through the inner gallery, through the small inner court of the An caravanserai compound, through the inner gate where Ah-Sa stood at his unhurried unmoving stillness in the dark grey under-tunic, into the back lane near the dusk drum of the fourteenth day.
She did not turn.
She walked east.
\ \ \*
She walked the back lanes to Yongchong at the dusk drum.
She walked alone. He had not, this evening, walked with her. She had asked him, in the careful private idiom of the right hand at the cuff of his left sleeve, not to.
She walked at the slow Daoist walk of a nun returning to her ward in the dusk hour.
She reached her own rear gate into the middle of the first watch of the evening.
Nanny took her at the gate.
"Mistress."
"Nanny."
"The Sogdian."
"The Sogdian, Nanny."
She walked, in the grey, to the writing-room.
She set the unbleached shoulder-shawl on the bench by the cistern.
She sat at the writing-desk.
She set her hands, palms flat, on the wood on either side of the lacquered letter-box.
She held them there for perhaps fifty breaths.
She did not open it.
She drew, from the inner drawer, the wax tablet of yesterday's lines. Below He killed his daughter to keep his trade she set the bronze stylus and added one line.
The friend was Cui Yanzhi.
She did not allow her hand to lift to the corner of the box.
She read the line back in the light of the second lamp.
She rolled the tablet at the wax in the way her father had taught her.
She set the tablet on the desk beside the lacquered letter-box.
She rose.
She walked to the inner court.
The swallow at the kitchen eave had finished the fifth course of the nest and was, as it neared its midpoint the first watch, at the first feeding of the small chick of the second.
She sat at the bench by the cistern in the dark.
She held against the inside of her chest the measure of her husband at his own writing-desk in the evening of the third moon of 748 with a Sogdian caravan-master at the second stool.
She held also, at the same inside, the picture of her own right hand at the inside of the Sogdian caravan-master's left sleeve at the threshold of the inner court at the north wall of his office near the dusk drum of the fourteenth day.
She did not weep.
She rose.
She walked back to the writing-room.
That evening she did not, light a third lamp.
She walked to the kitchen door, where Nanny Zhou had set, beside the brazier, the small clay water-jar of the boiled water cooled to the inside-of-the-wrist temperature.
She drank.
She walked back to the writing-room.
She stood on the writing-desk and set her hands, a second time, on the wood of the desk on either side of the lacquered letter-box.
She held them there for perhaps twenty breaths.
She did not open it.
She lifted her hands.
She walked, slow, to her bedroom.
She lay at her own bed in the grey.
She did not sleep that evening.