Movement VI · The Sui and the Tang

I. The Springs and Winters of the General's House

In this era of the Sui and the Tang he was Li Jing's foster son.

(On this road, counting from his rebirth in the Western Zhou, he had now been wandering some one thousand six hundred and thirty years; and some two hundred and eighty years had passed since the last era he had lived through — the Sixteen Kingdoms. The north and the south were brought together at last by the Sui; the good government of Kaihuang did not last long, and the tyranny of Daye roused every ambitious man in the land. Li Yuan raised his troops at Jinyang; Li Shimin took the throne at Xuanwu Gate and opened the good government of Zhenguan; Wei Zheng won a name in the histories for the bluntness of his remonstrance. When Chenyu came to rest in Chang'an, it was the high noon of the high Tang.)

The flourishing of Chang'an was unlike anything he had seen in all the dynasties he had walked through. On Vermilion Bird Avenue the Hu merchants led their camels; in the Western Market they sold glazed ware and cups that shone at night; from behind the ward walls came the pipa and the drumbeats of the whirling Hu dance. In his first days in the city he felt only that the scent was leading him toward Chongren Ward — there stood a general's house, lances and halberds ranked before its gate, cassia trees in deep shade within. He stood in the shadow of a locust tree across the street and smelled that thread of scent, like a winter river, drifting out of the house, and for the first time felt something very like ease: this time, perhaps, there would be no need to hurry on. But he roused himself quickly — a golden age never stops for anyone, and the scent never allowed him to stop either.

Li Jing destroyed the Eastern Turks and pacified Tuyuhun, wrote *The Military Methods of the Duke of Wei*, and was called "the god of war of the great Tang." From him Chenyu learned the art of war, and learned too the hiding of the edge that kept "merit so high it does not shake the sovereign." In the legend of Li Jing there was the woman Hongfu, who ran to him by night — and the woman Chenyu met in this era was named Hongfu (Hong'er, to her own people), and Wan's soul was in her, her temper the very image of that woman of the legend who dared to love and dared to leave.

How had he come to be Li Jing's foster son? By the scent, as ever. Between the Sixteen Kingdoms and the Song he could no longer remember how many generations had gone by; he remembered only that the scent had led him from the north all the way south, with no fixed dwelling, and that he had searched every city he came to. When he reached Chang'an, the scent settled into a general's house. He found a place there as a personal attendant, and with every propriety stayed. The woman in that house who held the sword was Hongfu.

In those first days in the general's house he would always stand in the corridor at the first faint light, watching Hongfu practise the sword in the courtyard. Her swordsmanship was brisk and clean, not like a woman of the inner chambers but like one born to stand in the wind. Once, when she had sweated through her practice, she looked up and caught sight of him, and laughed: "You're quieter than a shadow, you are." He composed his face and said only, "For those who practise the martial arts, the morning lesson matters." She asked no more — but from then on, at every morning lesson, she always practised one bout the more, as though knowing there was someone watching beneath the corridor, and wishing to be more earnest for it. He saw it, and the string in his chest was plucked once more, lightly: every her he had met on this road was like this, plainly not remembering him, and yet always, unawares, passing a little warmth into his hand.

The days in the general's house went slowly. Chenyu was nominally a foster son, but in fact he served as Li Jing's guard and messenger, going back and forth between the command hall and the stables. Also in service in that house were Gao Xiang and Lin Tao — one kept the stables, the other the paperwork. Gao Xiang, who kept the horses, would always laugh at him: "Brother Chen, a frame like yours, and yet so raw in the saddle." Lin Tao, who kept the paperwork, would often drag him in to help call the roll: "Your memory's good — saves me missing names off the register." The two of them thought this foster son merely a man of few words; they did not know that at every "round of the house" his nostrils were moving, confirming that the scent still rested on Hongfu. Once Gao Xiang laughed, "That nose of yours is keener than a horse's," and he only smiled and said nothing; Lin Tao, for his part, noticed that this Brother Chen always appeared, on every round of the house, at the hour when Hongfu practised the sword, and teased, "Is Brother Chen here for the sword, or for the person?" He still did not answer, and only fixed that thread of scent more firmly in memory.

On this stretch of the road the house held two familiar faces more. One was Zhao Hao, the lance-officer who had followed him since the Han camps and now served as a hard soldier under Li Jing's banner, his lance-play steady and heavy. The other was Chen Xiu, Zhao Hao's sworn sister, who had become the woman guard at Hongfu's side, her pair of short blades wielded to the edge of miracle. The drill ground was where the three of them most often gathered — Zhao Hao with his lance, the lance-wind furious, always shouting that he wanted "a bout" with Chenyu, and never once winning; Chen Xiu's two blades moving like a ribbon of silk, so that when she crossed blades with Hongfu's sword there was always laughter in the play of the light. Chenyu joined in now and then, turning both of them back with the sword still in its scabbard; Zhao Hao would grin: "That sword of yours is craftier than my lance." And Chen Xiu would say: "It's the man who's crafty, not the sword." Hearing it, he found that the noise of this general's house was warmer than a thousand years of walking alone. And yet whenever Hongfu lowered her sword and looked at him, he still swallowed the words "I know you" back down — to have said it would, more often than not, only have hurt the more.

In the spring of the general's house the cassia put out shoots, and Hongfu danced with the sword in the courtyard, the blade-light shattering a ground of flower-shadow; in the winter of the general's house snow pressed on the eaves, and Chenyu stood beneath the corridor, watching her breathe white air onto the blade as she wiped it. He had walked through too many springs and winters on this road, too many to remember which dynasty's snow was coldest — and yet of this one house's winter he remembered where every single flake had fallen. Now and then Li Jing would call him into the study, spread out a map and talk of the use of troops, saying, "He who would be a general must first love his soldiers, and only then seek victory." Listening, he thought of this undying body of his, which had never truly loved any man's soldiers, and had only shielded one woman after another who was like her. Li Jing's words were like a lamp, lighting the dark he had walked through.

There were two famous scenes. The first: one night after a feast in Li Jing's house, Hongfu took up her sword and danced. Chenyu stood in the corridor and watched; moonlight lay on the side of her face, her eyes grey-blue as a winter river, and he very nearly stepped forward and acknowledged her. But he held back — on this road he had learned: to acknowledge was not necessarily to be right, and to acknowledge more often hurt the more. He only kept that thread of scent in his heart, the way one keeps a homeland one will never reach. That night he stood beneath the corridor, and the moonlight drew Hongfu's shadow out very long. When she had finished dancing, she tossed the sword to him; he caught it, and the hilt was still warm. He held that warmth, and thought suddenly that in this whole body of his he had never truly held anyone's warmth — the cool hand of Wan of the Western Zhou, the armour of Zhao Heng of Zhao, the banner-corner of Heng of the Han, all cold. Only this sword-hilt was alive, was a person's. Afterwards he would often draw that sword out to look at it when Hongfu was not attending, running his thumb over the weave of the binding-cord as though reading a letter left unfinished. Zhao Hao caught him at it and laughed, "Are you looking at the sword or at the woman, brother?" He only sheathed the blade and smiled without answering. And that night he had a rare dream: in the dream he finally went up to her and acknowledged her. Outside the dream he opened his eyes; the snow of Chang'an was falling beyond the window, and he felt that the dream was truer than waking.

He understood suddenly what Li Jing had meant by "merit so high it does not shake the sovereign" — to hide the edge is not cowardice, it is knowing what should show and what should not. This seeking by scent, this shielding of people — what was it but the hiding of the edge? Once he acknowledged that she was her, he could not help but want to shield her, to keep her; and if he could not keep her, it only hurt the more. And so he hid it, keeping that thread of scent in his heart like the finest of swords pressed into a box that is never opened.

He did not declare himself. He only, from then on, always happened to be standing nearby when Hongfu practised the sword, picking up her blade for her, handing her a towel. Hongfu took this Brother Chen for a silent and dependable man, a good partner, a good friend. She did not fall in love with him, as in every life. Once Hongfu mended his armour for him; the stitches were fine and close, as though she were sewing something that would go a long way with him. He watched the side of her face as she bent her head, and thought suddenly of the women of former lives who had mended his clothes — Wan of the Western Zhou, Zhao Heng of Zhao, Heng of the Han — their hands each different, and yet the scent of each like this one thread. When she had finished, Hongfu looked up and laughed: "Brother Chen, this armour of yours has more to say than you do." He took it; the plates were still warm. Zhao Hao was beside him gnawing a sesame cake, and said thickly: "Sister-in-law has clever hands, brother — you'd better count your luck." Chen Xiu kicked him: "Watch your mouth." And so an ordinary day in the general's house passed gently by, in the sound of the needle through armour-plate and in Zhao Hao's noisy laughter. Chenyu thought that of all the cities he had shielded on this road, none had been so hard as shielding one such "ordinary" day.

Once, when Hongfu's mind wandered in practice, the point of her sword very nearly cut her; Chenyu reached out and turned it aside, and his fingers touched her wrist, and the winter-river scent came so close that his chest shook. He drew his hand back and said only, "Concentrate." Hongfu laughed: "Brother Chen, you're stricter than my old fencing master was." Standing beneath the corridor, looking at the sword he had caught, he suddenly felt that what tormented a man most in a thousand years of following a scent was not failing to find it, but finding it and not daring to say so.

Hongfu knew a little of his past. One night she asked: "You always seem to be waiting for someone very far away." He answered: "I'm waiting. Waiting for her last body." Hongfu asked no more, and only finished mending his armour. As she mended, her fingertips would now and then brush his wrist by accident, and the winter-river scent would come so close that his chest tightened. She did not notice; she only bent to her needle and said quietly, "This armour of yours — mended how many times, and still the same old scars." Watching her with her head bowed, he thought of Wan of the Western Zhou mending clothes, of Heng of the Han sewing a banner — in every life, what she mended was never only a piece of armour, but a thread of attachment that refused to break. Zhao Hao put his head in at the door: "Sister-in-law, you'd better sew the brother's armour good and solid — he's forever throwing himself at the edge of a blade." Hongfu laughed and swore at him: "You and your big mouth." And so the ordinary days of the general's house went by, one after another, as though they would never end. She thought that this era might be a long one — the great Tang was so splendid, it seemed as though it would never end. But what has reached its height must decline; she did not understand it, and he could not bear to say it plainly. He remembered only Wei Zheng's line, "Using a man as a mirror, one may see one's gains and losses" — a mirror can show a man what he gained and what he lost, but it cannot show him how many roads he must walk before he meets that thread of scent again.

In Chang'an there stood a bronze mirror presented by Wei Zheng, set up in the remonstrance bureau, and spoken of as "using a man as a mirror." Chenyu passed it, and stood a long while. He thought that this undying body of his was itself a kind of mirror — it could show the rising and falling of every era, but not which life's encounter had been with the true her. Hongfu had once asked him who he was waiting for, and he had answered, "Her last body"; at the time he had still thought that "last body" lay somewhere very far away. But the scent had led him through the splendour of the Sui and the Tang, and he had gradually begun to doubt: perhaps "wholeness" was never in any one life, but in this "waiting" that would not let go, all the way down the road. He did not say it to Hongfu — some things, once spoken, grow lighter, and growing lighter, grow farther away.

When Hongfu left the house now and then, he followed at a distance. In the Western Market of Chang'an the Hu merchants cried their glazed ware and their cups that shone at night, and in the wine-shops drunk men sang the songs of Liangzhou. He watched her stop at a stall that sold sword-fittings, pick up a jade scabbard slide and study it a good while, then set it down again — like someone choosing a gift for another, and unable for a long time to settle. He understood suddenly: she was in truth choosing something she could give to "the one who was always there." He drew back into the crowd and kept the sight in his heart, as though receiving a kindness that was not meant for him. The good of a golden age lies not in the palaces, but in a woman like this, willing to pick out a jade scabbard slide for a silent friend. He did in the end take that jade slide — not given him by Hongfu, but bought by himself, quietly, and hidden inside his coat, the one warmth Chang'an left him on this stretch that he could hold without waiting for another life. Many years later, in the museum at West Kowloon, he saw a jade scabbard slide of the Tang, and stood for a long time, and would not go.

The nights of the general's house were always longer than the days. When Chenyu kept the night watch he would often stand in the shadow at the corner of the hall and watch Zhao Hao and Chen Xiu drinking together by a single oil lamp, the two of them talking from the snows of the central lands to the rains of Lingnan, the talk turning this way and that and always coming back round to "home." He did not put in a word; he only listened in silence, and now and then touched the jade pendant of the Western Zhou inside his coat — the one Wan had left him, a thousand years on the road, the notch at its edge still there. One night he spoke aloud again, without meaning to: "Sell Huifeng in '07; in '08, all in Tengxin." Zhao Hao heard him, set down his wine bowl and asked: "What's that you're saying, brother? What's all this feng and teng?" He faltered, and could not himself have explained — those two lines were like something fallen out of a dream he could not remember, stuck to the root of his tongue; he knew only that it mattered, and not why it mattered. He shook his head and swallowed the words back. Zhao Hao did not press; he took it for the same old trouble of a poor memory, and turned back to bickering with Chen Xiu. And Chenyu felt suddenly that this lamp, these two laughing faces, this sword rubbed bright under his thumb, were like that jade pendant — all of them the proofs of this journey that he refused to lose. A golden age will collapse, and people will scatter; but these warmths he gathered up one by one for himself, like gathering the evidence of the road he had walked.

Sometimes he thought: if this life could last a little longer, how good that would be. But he knew better than anyone that his own immortality destined him to stand outside the door and watch such warmth cool, inch by inch. He did not dare to hope. He only lived each day in the general's house as though it were the last — and this, perhaps, was the cruellest lesson of eternal life: to learn, in the very moment of possessing, to rehearse the loss. And so he remembered every one of Zhao Hao's laughs, every time Chen Xiu had gone on tiptoe to tuck the quilt about him and quietly warmed that pot of wine for him, every warm towel Hongfu handed him; all of these he remembered more firmly than his own undying.

II. The Yin Mountains and the Frontier

The frontier troubles of the Sui and the Tang were the bitterest campaigns of this era. Li Jing made a forced march of three thousand horse to strike at Dingxiang, and Chenyu, Zhao Hao and Chen Xiu were all in that army. That night the snow was deep to the knee; the Turkic camp was pitched on the northern slope of the Yin Mountains, its torches few and scattered. Chenyu led a dozen picked horsemen in close. Zhao Hao's lance lifted the Turkic sentry off the watchtower; Chen Xiu's two blades cut the tether-ropes of the camp horses, then shaved down a Turkic picket who came charging and threw their line into disorder; Chenyu went straight for the tent of Jieli Khan, and before the tent a Turkic noble warrior barred the way with a curved blade, the stroke of it like snow and wind together. Chenyu gave way before its edge, turned the curved blade aside with the flat of his sword, borrowed the force and spun; the point went in beneath the warrior's ribs, and the fight was ended in one pass. In the confusion he stooped and drew red bloom; the cold went down his throat, and no one noticed. That night the three thousand horse poured in behind him, and the Turkic camp broke. The Tang army took Jieli Khan, and the beacon fires north of the Yin Mountains went out for a hundred years. On the day of triumph the whole city of Chang'an emptied into the streets; Hongfu stood on the gate tower and watched him, Zhao Hao grinning behind her, Chen Xiu smoothing the hair the wind had disordered on Hongfu's head — and he discovered, then, that he was smiling.

The rule of feeding upon red bloom was not broken in this era either. In the midst of broken armies he cut the enemy down, stooped and drew their bloom; the Tang troops only said of him that he "bore cold and bore fighting well." But he knew in his heart as well: every battle he fought in this golden age was only keeping a few days more of peace for the history books.

In the ninth year of Zhenguan, Li Jing was given command of the campaign against Tuyuhun, and Chenyu, Zhao Hao and Chen Xiu were all in the army. The road ran west, past Lake Qinghai — called the Bohai in those days — the grass turning from green to yellow, the wind carrying the taste of salt and snow. Fuyun, khan of Tuyuhun, burned the grass and fell back, meaning to trap the Tang army where there was no water; Li Jing divided his force in two and ordered Chenyu to lead a troop of light horse straight at the city of Fuqi. Before its walls a fierce champion of Tuyuhun couched a long lance and charged; Zhao Hao's lance-point took the horse in the eye, and the champion came down. Chenyu swept past, sent his sword in beneath the champion's ribs, ended him in one pass, and drew bloom in the confusion — enough to last a day. Chen Xiu's two blades held the Tang flank, cutting down the stray arrows aimed at the commanding general. In this battle the Tang army broke into Fuqi; Fuyun was defeated and died, Tuyuhun came to an end, and the western marches of Longyou were at peace. On the road home Zhao Hao hummed a little tune in the saddle, and Chen Xiu laughed at him: "Win once and you forget yourself." Chenyu looked out over the water of the Bohai and thought suddenly that of all the wars this undying body had fought, there were very few fought for "peace" rather than for "holding on."

The night they broke camp for home, the three of them rested around a fire. Zhao Hao pulled a strip of wind-dried mutton from his coat, broke it in half and held it out: "That sword of yours today, brother — beautiful." Chen Xiu re-bound his bracer for him, muttering, "Always throwing himself at the edge of a blade — serves him right." He looked at the brother and sister, the firelight on their three faces, and thought suddenly that the most extravagant moment of this undying life was not drawing bloom and living, but this — someone remembering how much you had done that day, someone binding your wrist tight for you. He bent his head and shovelled in a mouthful of cold rice, and did not say thank you; but that meal he remembered for a long time.

With the Yin Mountains won, the remnants of the Turks still raided about Lingzhou. Li Jing sent Chenyu, Zhao Hao and Chen Xiu with light horse for a night attack. They marched by night in snow, the horses' hooves wrapped in cloth, and the three of them slipped up to the camp of a Turkic patrol. Zhao Hao's lance lifted the Turkic soldier off the watchtower; Chen Xiu's two blades cut the tether-ropes and scattered their horse-herd; Chenyu went straight for a Turkic centurion in his tent. The centurion brought a curved blade hacking down; he gave way before its edge, turned the blade aside with the flat of his sword, borrowed the force and spun; the point went in beneath the centurion's ribs and ended him in one pass, and he drew bloom in the confusion. Three hundred light horse poured in behind them, and the patrol camp broke. Small as this battle was, it kept the peace for tens of thousands of lives about Lingzhou for a whole winter. When they rode back to camp the sky was about to lighten, and Zhao Hao grinned in the saddle: "Brother Chen, this kind of fighting suits me better than sitting in headquarters." Chen Xiu laughed at him: "That's all you ever say."

In the middle years of Zhenguan the Xueyantuo held the northern desert and raided the frontier again and again. Li Jing sent Chenyu, Zhao Hao and Chen Xiu out beyond the passes with the army. At Qikou ten thousand Xueyantuo horse came on like a tide, the dust blotting out the sun. A valiant captain of the Xueyantuo swung a long axe and charged; Zhao Hao's lance-shaft caught the axe-haft, and his lance-point slid along it into the captain's ribs, ending him in one pass. Chenyu swept into the depths of the enemy formation; where his blade-light went, several riders fell without a sound, and he drew bloom in the confusion, enough to last a day. Chen Xiu's two blades held the Tang banners and drums, cutting down the stray arrows aimed at the commanding general. In this battle the Tang army broke the Xueyantuo utterly, and the northern desert was quiet for a time. On the way back to camp Zhao Hao watched the dust receding at the edge of the sky and said with a grin, "This lot's worth boasting about for half a lifetime." Chenyu looked at the far gravel desert and thought suddenly: this undying body had fought its wars for several thousand years, and in the end what it had shielded was only a few villages along the border, a few turns of local speech.

In the Zhenguan years Tuli, brother of the Turkic Jieli, raided the frontier and took Jingzhou. Li Jing sent Chenyu, Zhao Hao and Chen Xiu with the army to its relief. Before the line a Turkic commander of ten thousand couched a curved blade and charged; Zhao Hao's lance-point took the horse in the eye, and the commander came down. Chenyu swept past, sent his sword in beneath the commander's ribs, ended him in one pass, and drew bloom in the confusion. Chen Xiu's two blades held the Tang flank, cutting down the stray arrows aimed at the commanding general. In this battle the Tang army retook Jingzhou, and the frontier troubles ceased for a while. On the road back to camp Hongfu watched him from the carriage and said with a smile, "Brother Chen, that sword of yours always shows itself exactly when it should." He smiled and did not answer — the moment it should show itself was the moment he should not; and yet in a broken age he could never help himself.

In the last years of Zhenguan Li Jing was old and ill, and kept to his house. Chenyu went now and then to see him. The old man would spread out a map and run his fingers over this battlefield and that, and say, "I fought all my life, and at the end of it what I miss most is the lamp that night at Bashang when I first saw Hongfu." Chenyu started — so this god of war had someone he was "waiting for" too. Li Jing laughed at him: "You're carrying someone in your eyes as well, I'd say, young fellow." He neither denied it nor admitted it, and only went over that thread of scent in his heart once more. After Li Jing died, he stood before the coffin and thought suddenly: every general and minister he had shielded on this road had a lamp of his own to keep; and the lamp he kept was burning in West Kowloon, more than two thousand years away.

In the years when the wars had died down he would sometimes go up to a thatched retreat in the Zhongnan Mountains to stay a while. No one in those hills knew what he was; they only said that this silent staff officer liked to sit at the cliff edge until dark. He would look out over the lamps of the Guanzhong plain and think of the wars this undying body had fought — from Muye to the Yin Mountains, victory and defeat rising like the tides, and yet what truly remained was never who had won and who had lost, but the few who would stand shoulder to shoulder with him, and the few words anyone had been willing to say to him. Only then did he understand Li Jing's "first love your soldiers, and then seek victory": to love your soldiers is not a slogan, it is being willing to stake your life on the people beside you. He had in fact been learning this lesson all the way down the road; it had taken a god of war in the high Tang to name it for him.

III. The An-Shi Rebellion

But the high Tang ended after all. The An-Shi rebellion rose; the war-drums of Fanyang came shaking the earth — An Lushan rose in revolt in the fourteenth year of Tianbao with the troops of three commands; Tongguan was lost; the Emperor Xuanzong fled in panic to Shu; before Mawei Slope the Lady Yang was strangled, and the army's heart settled at last.

An Lushan took Tongguan, and the Emperor Xuanzong fled in panic to Shu. Chenyu went with the surviving kin of Li Jing, shielding Hongfu as they travelled, falling back all the way onto the road to Shu. Before Mawei Slope the imperial guard mutinied; when the news came that the Lady Yang had been strangled and Yang Guozhong executed, Hongfu faltered, and said only, "So a golden age is as brittle as this." Chenyu stood in the rain outside the post station and thought of what Li Jing had said, years before, of "merit so high it does not shake the sovereign" — Yang Guozhong's merit was not high, and yet it had stirred a ruler's jealousy; above every golden age there always hangs an unseen blade. Hard as the road to Shu is, it is not so hard as keeping one person alive in a broken age. He drew Hongfu's horse up for her and said quietly, "Come — let us stay alive first." Hongfu looked at him, and that grey-blue in her eyes shone in the rain like a lamp that would not go out.

The night the rebel army entered Chang'an, the firelight spread from the palace gates. Chenyu, Zhao Hao and Chen Xiu shielded Hongfu and the kin of Li Jing and broke out by the back gate of the general's house. The lane was narrow; the rebels came swarming with torches; Chenyu's blade flashed again and again and the three men in front fell without a sound. Zhao Hao's lance-shaft swept across and forced a mounted soldier, horse and all, back — the lance-point at his throat ended it. Chen Xiu's two blades turned over and over, cutting down the stray arrows flying at Hongfu, and with a backhand stroke took off the sword-hand of a rebel soldier. Hongfu was kept in the middle of the three; sparks had caught at her skirts, yet she did not falter a step, and in her arms she still held tight the young grandson of Li Jing. Zhao Hao covered the rear, fighting a troop of pursuers alone — lance lifting the arrows down, lance-point finding the throat — and by main force held the pursuit at the mouth of the lane, telling the other two to go first. They cut their way out of the encirclement and fell back into the Zhongnan Mountains — behind them the fire of Chang'an burned for three days. Chenyu stood at the mouth of the pass and looked back, and thought suddenly: most of the cities he had shielded in this life had burned like this. However splendid a golden age, it is no match for a single fire.

With the An-Shi rebellion risen, the war-fires burned from Fanyang toward the two capitals. Chenyu went with the loyalist armies of Guo Ziyi and Li Guangbi and took back lost ground the whole way. He saw the tears of the routed soldiers at Tongguan, saw the ash of the palaces after Chang'an fell; and once, outside the walls of Suiyang, he saw the misery of Zhang Xun holding out for ten months and the city breaking when the food ran out. That night he stood by the ruined ramparts of Suiyang, smelling blood mixed with smoke, and for the first time felt the four words "do not change history" weigh almost more than he could carry — Zhang Xun's death was what the history books should have; but the living people in that city should not have perished like that. He wanted to go down among them; but he had sworn an oath. There were only a few children who had got out, and he quietly sent them into a temple in the southern hills, and asked the monks to take them in. This was the very little — so very little — that he could keep for a broken age, within the seams of "not changing."

That night he carried a thin small child on his back over two ridges and put him into the hands of an old monk at the temple. The boy had cried himself out, and fell asleep clutching the corner of Chenyu's coat; the warmth of that small palm softened his heart more than any battle ever had. Standing outside the temple gate, listening to the scattered watch-drums in the mountain wind, he thought suddenly that this undying body of his had lived longer than the ancestors of that child, and yet had never truly kept safe a single person who was "his own." What he guarded was always another's child, another's city, another's golden age — and all of it must in the end be given back to time. And still he carried, still he sent, still he guarded; because apart from these he had nothing.

After they fell back into the Zhongnan Mountains, Hongfu's fever eased a little, and she could sit propped on the couch and drink half a bowl of congee. Chen Xiu kept the night watch; Zhao Hao went into the hills hunting every day, and always came back saying, "The pheasants in these hills are fat — sister-in-law should eat some and build herself up." Chenyu watched the brother and sister busy about, and thought suddenly that even in a broken age there was still this one place where no disguise was needed. One day Hongfu looked out at the snow beyond the window and said softly, "If the golden age were still here, I should have gone with you to the frontier to see the snow-fields" — she said "you," counting Chenyu, and Zhao Hao and Chen Xiu, all as her own people. Only then did he know that in this life's "good friend," she had never once taken him for an outsider. And precisely because of that, her going hurt the more: she had kept a place for him, and he could not so much as give it a name.

In the days when Hongfu lay ill, the air of the general's household grew suddenly cold. Chen Xiu kept watch at her couch; Zhao Hao quietly laid out Chenyu's armour for him before every time he rode out. In her fever Hongfu would now and then hum a line of a Liangzhou song, the tune breaking off half-way, like this life of hers, which never finished what it was singing. Chenyu stood outside the curtain and listened to the broken line, and thought of Heng of the Han, of Zhao Heng of Zhao — they too, before they went, had each a sentence left unspoken. And then he understood completely: what he sought had never been one particular person, but the warmth inside the likeness that would not break, all the way down the road. When Hongfu's hand grew cool, he took it in his, as though taking hold of every "one step short" of a thousand years.

Hongfu died of the plague that ran along the roads. At the end she caught his hand, the grey-blue in her eyes seeming to dissolve into mist: "Brother Chen ... you always seem to be waiting for someone. But it isn't me you're waiting for." He held on tight, and did not dare to answer. She did not remember him — in no life had she ever remembered; she knew only that she had met him for the first time in this general's house, and had never set eyes on him in all the years before, and so was certain that the one he waited for was not herself. In that moment he understood completely: in every life they were only "like" — the scent close, and yet they had never truly remembered him; what he sought had never been the fate of being remembered, but the warmth inside the likeness that would not break, all the way down the road. This was a sentence it took him a very long time truly to swallow — that after walking more than two thousand years, what he had met had never been a "reunion," only one gentle "misrecognition" after another.

IV. The Going

The Sui and the Tang ended. He took with him the armour-plates Hongfu had mended, and went toward the Song.

On the road falling back toward the next stretch the red thread drew him down, he counted what he had gained on this stretch and what he had lost: gained the warmth of the general's house, the shoulder-to-shoulder of Zhao Hao and Chen Xiu, the warmth of that one sword of Hongfu's; lost the golden age, lost Hongfu, lost another who was "like her." He touched the armour-plates Hongfu had mended, inside his coat, and thought suddenly that these plates were heavier than his own undying — because the stitches in them were a mortal woman's, sewn and sewn again for him.

The red thread ran on ahead, and for the first time a presentiment rose in him: a few eras more, and perhaps the day of true "wholeness" would come. And that thread of scent would still be waiting for him in the next city, by the next well, to meet him all at once. On this stretch he understood the word "guard" better than he had before. The snows of the high Tang, the fires of the An-Shi, had taught him one thing: he could shield Hongfu for a while, but he could not keep a golden age from falling; he could shield one city, but not one history. And still he walked, and still he waited — because that thread of scent was waiting for him in the next city.

On this road he had gradually come to understand one thing: what he sought had never been the "whole" her, but that warmth inside every "likeness" which would not break. The cool hand of Wan of the Western Zhou, the armour of Zhao Heng of Zhao, the banner of Heng of the Han, the sword of Hongfu — each of them her own fate, and yet on each of them hovered the same thread of scent. He shielded every one, as though shielding one facet of that scent; and when he could not shield them, he folded their relics into his coat and carried them into the next life. From then on the armour-plates of the Sui and the Tang lay together with the jade pendant of the Western Zhou and the broken arrow of Zhao — all of them the proofs of this road that he refused to lose.

What this post station of the Sui and the Tang taught him was not killing, but "letting go." He let go of one person after another who was like her, and swallowed that warmth, together with the unwillingness, down into the long night of eternal life. He touched the jade pendant inside his coat, that armour-plate, that broken arrow, and thought suddenly that what he had guarded, all the way down this road, had never been one person, but the proof that this thread of scent would not break — in every life she was only "like," and what he guarded was precisely that warmth inside the "likeness" that would not go cold.

The red thread drew him on, from the Sui and the Tang toward the Song, to meet Yinping beneath the banners of the Yue army, the hundred death-sworn at Zhuxian Town, and that one cup of poison at the Wind and Wave Pavilion.

*The end of this movement. Continued in Movement VII · The Song.*