Chapter Twenty-Five
Seven Doors
On the morning of the eighteenth she did the small civic things.
She wrote to neither Lady Wei Wan nor Pei, and did not light a third lamp.
She set, at the kitchen yard, the small clay water-jar of the second water-jar of the morning, in the unhurried way of Nanny's setting at the brazier.
She walked, in the grey, to the second cabinet behind the cistern and drew out the cotton half-mourning of the eighteenth month. She set it on the bench, at the western edge, in the same way she had set it through eighteen months of widowhood.
She set the carved wooden death-rite token on the bench.
She walked back to the writing-room and set her hands flat on the wood of the desk, on either side of the box. She held them there perhaps eighty breaths. She lifted them. She did not set them at her own face.
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She put on the cotton half-mourning in the heart of the third hour of the afternoon.
She set her father's bronze pin inside her right cuff, where she had set, on the morning of the seventeenth, the folded vial of the third strength.
She set the folded vial inside her left sleeve, where she had set, on the morning of the sixteenth, the husband's letter.
She set the husband's letter inside her under-robe, against the linen wrap of the grey.
Lady Wei Wan's small clay jar — the apothecary's compound of an old friend at the Pingkang, set in the household of a Han wife who had decided, on the evening of an unfinished case, that seven doors might be reduced to six — she did not, this morning, set inside her right sleeve.
She had told Lady Wei Wan, at the bench, that she would walk to the audience and not to the death; that the lesson was the prefect, in mid-second-moon next year.
She set the small clay jar on the writing-desk, beside the box.
She walked, slow, to the inner door.
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Nanny was at the brazier's edge. She had been there since the noon-drum.
She set the small clay water-jar of the morning inside Wanjun's right sleeve. She did not lift her hand to the cuff.
"Mistress."
"Nanny."
"The water-jar."
"The water-jar, Nanny."
"By the dusk drum."
"By the dusk drum, Nanny."
She set her hand at the brazier's edge and held it a few breaths. She did not weep.
"Mistress."
"Nanny."
"At the noon-drum of the nineteenth."
"At the noon-drum, Nanny."
She turned and set the dipper at the rim of the second water-jar. She did not look at Wanjun.
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She walked to the rear gate midway into the seventh of the dusk of the eighteenth.
The avenue beyond the gate was a late spring evening turning toward summer, the light at the upper rim of the western wall already in its second half-hour, the silk-shop lamps of the second arcade not yet lit. The Sogdian apprentices of the third arcade were pulling in the day's hanging silks for the second time, in the slow patient way they had set the inner cloth-frames against the dusk drum for eleven years.
She walked at the slow Daoist pace of a Han widow of Yongchong in cotton half-mourning, on the way to a small private death-rite at the inner door of a second-arcade silk-merchant.
She walked east through the back lanes, the public lane behind the western edge of the third eastern ward, east at the second arcade.
She passed the second silk-shop, the third, the fourth.
The compound stood past the fourth.
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The first door, at the front gate, was the plain iron bolt-and-pin of a second-arcade silk-merchant.
She knocked. She set the carved wooden token at the upper edge of the brass ring.
The porter — a Han boy of perhaps fourteen, in the unbleached cotton of a house-boy at the dusk drum — opened at the second knock and inclined his head.
"Lady."
"Master."
"By the death-rite of the third arcade. the seventh hour at its midpoint."
"By the third arcade, master. the seventh nearing its midpoint."
He stepped back. She walked through.
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The first hall was the clean front hall of a silk-merchant whose silk had run, last autumn, at four hundred bolts a moon.
She took in no more than the upper third of the room — no more than the second cloth-frame of the third silk-bolt at the southern wall.
She walked at the slow Daoist pace.
The porter walked her to the second door at the second hall.
The second door was the plain iron bolt-and-pin of the second arcade. The porter opened it. She walked through.
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The second hall was the inner court of the second hall.
At the second pillar stood, in the unbleached cotton of a death-rite acolyte, the brother of Princess Yuzhen's cousin's abbey.
He was not the brother.
He was Anaxa — in the dark grey under-robe of an acolyte under the unbleached over-robe of a brother, the carved token of an acolyte at his right hand, the small linen wrap of the third-day stitches inside his left cuff.
He inclined his head a finger's width.
"Sister."
"Brother."
She inclined her head without looking up and walked past the second pillar.
He fell in at her left shoulder, at the slow patient pace of an acolyte attending a Daoist nun in cotton half-mourning the seventh hour half-spent of an evening of an unfinished case.
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The third door, at the arcade of the inner hall, was the plain iron bolt-and-pin of the second arcade. The porter opened it. She walked through.
The third hall was the inner hall of the compound. At its upper edge, on the eastern wall, hung a small carved jade panel of the kind the third arcade's silk-merchants had set, in the autumn of 740, on the first pillar of an inner court.
She did not look at the panel.
The fourth door, at the inner study's outer corridor, was at the corner of the third hall's eastern wall. The porter opened it.
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The fifth door, at the outer corridor's inner door, was the plain iron bolt-and-pin with the second small iron pin at the lower edge of the ring.
The porter inclined his head. He set his hand at the lower edge of the ring, drew the second iron pin, set it inside his right sleeve, and opened the fifth.
He did not lift his eyes.
Wanjun set her right hand at the lower edge of the inner door-frame and her right thumb against the inside of the iron ring, at the lower edge of the bolt. She held it there two breaths. She lifted her thumb.
She walked past the porter into the outer corridor.
Anaxa, at her left shoulder, did not set his hand at the lower edge. He walked through behind her.
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The sixth door, at the inner study's outer door, was as the fifth.
The porter drew the second pin, set it inside his right sleeve, and opened the sixth.
Wanjun set her right thumb at the inside of the iron ring of the sixth, two breaths, and lifted it.
She walked through.
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The seventh, at the inner study itself, was as the sixth.
The porter drew the second pin, set it inside his right sleeve, and opened the seventh.
Wanjun set her right thumb at the inside of the iron ring of the seventh, two breaths, and lifted it.
She walked through the seventh door into the inner study of Master Zhang Cong, half-seventh and a quarter of the dusk of the eighteenth, in the late spring of an unfinished case.
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The inner study was a small narrow room, perhaps three men's standing across.
The eastern wall held the writing-desk. The southern, the brazier and small kettle. The western, the small cabinet of the back study, its cedar door above, its small brass ring below. The northern held the seventh door, against the eastern wall.
There was no second door to the room — only the inner door at the western wall, to the small cabinet, its brass ring set in the unvaried place of a man whose hand had not moved it in any week.
Wanjun set her right hand, briefly, inside her left sleeve, where she had set the folded vial. She did not draw it; she set her hand in her lap.
\ \ \*
Master Zhang Cong was at the writing-desk. He stood when she came in.
He was in the dark blue under-robe of a second-arcade silk-merchant, on the evening of a small private death-rite arranged at the inner door of his own seventh.
He inclined his head a finger's width.
"Lady."
"Master."
"You came."
"I came."
"And the acolyte."
He did not lift his eyes to Anaxa. He inclined his head, briefly, toward the second pillar.
Anaxa, at her left shoulder, inclined his head a finger's width.
"Master."
"Acolyte."
The silk-merchant laid his hand on the writing-desk.
"Sit, lady."
She sat at the second stool on the writing-desk. She set the carved wooden token on the desk, beside the small jade weight at the upper edge of the inkstone. She did not lift her grey from her shoulders. She set her hands in her lap.
Anaxa stood at her left shoulder in the unmoving stillness of an acolyte at a death-rite.
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The brazier at the south corner was at the second half of its second cup. The kettle stood at the quarter past the seventh at its half-mark.
Two celadon cups waited at the upper edge of the writing-desk.
The silk-merchant lifted the kettle. He poured the first cup, then the second. He set the kettle down. He did not lift his cup.
"Lady."
"Master."
"The death-rite."
"By the third arcade's reading at the dusk drum of the sixteenth. The unmarked Khotanese trader of the upper warehouse of the second arcade."
"By the third arcade's reading."
He touched the inkstone's edge, moved the jade weight a finger's width, and set it back.
"Lady."
"Master."
"The trader's name."
"By the abbess's reading at the dawn drum of the seventeenth, master, the trader had no name. He was the unmarked Khotanese trader."
"By the abbess's reading."
"By the abbess's reading."
He held her eyes a moment. He inclined his head a finger's width. He lifted his own cup, drank, and set it down where the brazier's light reached.
"Lady."
"Master."
"You drink, lady."
She lifted the cup. She did not look at Anaxa. She held it at the level of the upper edge of the inkstone a moment.
She drank the first small swallow of the second cup.
The bitter at the back of the throat was the second-day apothecary's storeroom at the third strength.
She set the cup down where the light reached. She did not let her shoulders lift. She set her hands in her lap.
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The silk-merchant smiled.
He smiled in the careful idiom of a man whose silk had run at four hundred bolts a moon, who had in his own inner study, on the evening of an unfinished case, a Han widow in cotton half-mourning who had — in the careful inner-court idiom of a hand that knew his desk — drunk the second cup.
He had not, in eleven years at that desk, smiled at any second cup of any death-rite.
He smiled.
"Lady."
"Master."
"You knew, I suppose."
"Master."
"About the cup."
He set his hand beside the inkstone. He did not move the jade weight.
"Lady. At the noon-drum of the seventh day you were at this inner study, at the second cup. Your hand at that cup was the unhurried hand of a Daoist nun at a small silk commission. And by my porter at the first door, your hand in the second hour was the careful slow hand of a nun whose second cup had been set inside her left sleeve."
He was quiet a moment.
"And your stray cat in the lane behind your house, lady — by a junior porter of mine at the dawn drum of the eighth — was found dead."
She held the second cup of the eighteenth evening where the light reached. She did not lift her eyes.
"Master."
"Lady."
"The cup."
He set his hand beside the inkstone, moved the jade weight a finger's width, and set it back at the upper edge, in the unvaried idiom of a man whose hand had never moved it elsewhere.
"Lady. At the second cup of the seventh day, the bitter at the back of the throat was the slow compound of the second-day storeroom, at the first strength. A junior cup, you might say."
He was quiet a moment.
"At the second cup of the eighteenth, lady — on the evening of a death-rite at the inner door of my own seventh — the compound is at the third strength."
She did not reach for her sleeve. She held the knowledge of it at her chest.
The bitter at the back of the throat was, by the brother's reading at the brick-kiln on the seventeenth, the slow Sogdian compound of the second-day storeroom at the third strength.
The brazier burned in its level small way. The kettle held the second half of its second cup. The jade weight sat at the upper edge of the inkstone.
She set her hands in her lap.
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"Master."
"Lady."
"You poured the second cup, master, a fifth past the seventh."
"A fifth past the half-seventh, lady."
"You drank the first cup at the quarter past."
"At the quarter past, lady."
"And the half-hour past the seventh at its half-mark."
"The half-hour past."
She did not let her shoulders lift, nor look at Anaxa.
She set her right hand, briefly, inside her left sleeve, where she had set the folded vial that morning. She did not draw it; she set her hand in her lap.
"Master."
"Lady."
"The compound."
"At the third strength, lady, in six hours, the compound at the back of the throat is the compound."
"In six hours."
"In six hours, lady."
"At the dawn drum of the nineteenth."
"At the dawn drum of the nineteenth."
She gave him no Persian word, and no Han one. She set her hands in her lap and held his eyes a moment.
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"Lady."
"Master."
"You came to my inner study, into the heart of the seventh hour of the eighteenth, under the cover of a Daoist nun in the half-mourning of the eighteenth month. A cover built — by three runners of Princess Yuzhen's abbey since the noon-drum of the sixteenth, by an abbess's slip at the dawn drum of the seventeenth, by an unmarked Khotanese trader, by an aunt of the third house of Yongchong who has never set foot at the second arcade — a sound cover, lady."
"By the cover, master."
"By the cover, lady, you came the middle of the seventh hour, and drank the second cup at the quarter past."
"At the quarter past, master."
"You drank it. And by my own patience at this desk, every market-day, the jade weight at the upper edge of the inkstone is the measure of the bitter."
"By the bitter, master."
"By the bitter."
He held her eyes. He did not smile a second time.
"Lady."
"Master."
"You came knowing the bitter."
"I came knowing the bitter, master."
He did not lift his eyes from her.
"And you drank."
She held his eyes a moment.
"I drank, master."
He was quiet a moment. He inclined his head a finger's width.
"Lady."
"Master."
"You drank knowing the bitter."
"I drank knowing the bitter, master."
He held her eyes a longer moment.
"Then we will have, lady, at this writing-desk, a small private hour — six of them — before the dawn drum."
He set his hand beside the inkstone, moved the jade weight a finger's width, set it back, and laid his hand in his lap.
"Lady."
"Master."
"You will hear, in those six hours, what a silk-merchant of the second arcade has been carrying."
"I will, master."
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He sat.
He did not lift his cup a second time.
He laid both hands flat on the wood of the writing-desk, on either side of the jade weight, and held them there a long moment.
He set his right hand on the desk.
"Lady."
"Master."
"The household of the patriarch."
"The An clan of the western quadrant of the Western Market."
"The An clan."
"The An clan, master."
"By the setting of the jade weight at the upper edge of the inkstone, in the autumn of last year, lady — the household of the patriarch was the household whose head had, that spring, weighed his own inner kitchen against the small Khotanese stones I had set at the bottom of his second cellar."
"By the second cellar."
"By the second cellar, lady. The household whose hand at that cellar had been the hand at the quiet smuggling of Khotanese stones."
He was quiet a moment.
"The household had been pressed, last autumn, to carry the stones. It had refused."
"By the unhurried idiom of a Sogdian patriarch whose hand had never carried stones at the second cellar."
"By the unhurried idiom, lady."
"And by the household's refusal, master."
"By the household's refusal, lady, the household was killed."
She did not lift her eyes, nor weep. She set her hands in her lap.
She held against her chest the bitter at the back of the throat, and the half-hour past midway into the seventh still to come, and the folded vial inside her left sleeve, and the husband's letter inside her under-robe, and the six hours.
She set her hands in her lap. She lifted her eyes.
"Master."
"Lady."
"The household."
"The household, lady, was killed by a man whose hand had never carried stones at the second cellar."
"Master."
"Lady."
"The household was killed by you."
He held her eyes a moment. He inclined his head a finger's width.
"By me, lady."
She did not weep.