Movement VII · The Song (Yue Fei's Daughter)

I. The Guardian in the Yue Army

The Southern Song, and half the rivers and mountains gone. In this era he entered the Yue army under his own name, Chenyu, as a guardian who did not stand out — he fought for no credit beneath the commander's banner, and only when Yue Fei rode out to battle did he turn aside the cold arrows and the assassins that came out of the dark. The rule of red bloom for food held as always: in the thick of the killing he stooped and took one drink, and no one noticed.

(On this road, counting from his rebirth in the Western Zhou, he had now been wandering some two thousand one hundred and forty years; and some five hundred years had passed since the last era he had lived through — the Sui and the Tang. After the Tang fell, the Five Dynasties followed one upon another; Zhao Kuangyin took the throne at the coup of Chenqiao and founded the Song, and by the time Chenyu entered the Yue army it was the years of the Southern Song holding its half of the realm, with the Jin pressing at the borders.)

It was the scent that took him into the Yue army. The shame of the Song began at Jingkang — the Jin carried off the emperors Huizong and Qinzong, the Northern Song was overturned, and Emperor Gaozong crossed the river south and set up the Southern Song; and Yue Fei was the one man in that halved realm who would not forget "give me back my rivers and mountains." All the way south from the Sui and the Tang the scent led him, and dropped him into Yue Fei's camp. The first time he smelled it was at the camp gate — a girl crouched on the ground binding a wounded soldier's wounds, the sweat at her temple mixed with that cool, clear smell of a winter river, drifting once in the wind. He went toward the scent and stood at her side, as he did every time.

In the army he met Yinping. She was Yue Fei's daughter, she who in the tales of the common people would one day clasp a silver vase and drown herself in a well; at this hour she was still only a girl who bound wounds at the camp gate. She knew the loneliness at the bottom of his eyes, asked nothing of where he came from, and called him only "Brother Chen." Those he was close to in the camp were He Yuan and Luo Cheng, two brothers of the *beiwei*, who thought this "Brother Chen" a man of few words and a steady hand, a friend to be relied on. On this stretch two old comrades more were at his side, who had followed him through several dynasties — Zhao Hao and Chen Xiu. Both had entered the beiwei; Zhao Hao wielded a lance, Chen Xiu a pair of blades. Like Chenyu, they were shadows beneath the commander's banner who said nothing and yet turned aside blades everywhere.

The first time he saw Yinping was at the foot of the earth bank by the camp gate. The girl was crouched there binding a wounded man, the sweat at her temple mixed with that cool, clear smell of a winter river, drifting once in the wind — he went toward the scent and stood at her side, as he did every time. She looked up at him, and there was no fear in her eyes, only the calm of one long used to wounds, and she said: "Brother, your sleeve is torn. I'll mend it for you later." He was startled: that the girl's first thought should be his torn sleeve, and not who he was. Later he understood — the women of the Yue army had grown up looking at blood, and so knew better than anyone what it meant to see to the person first. That first meeting he said nothing, and only drew the torn sleeve in toward him, afraid she really would mend it — the armour on his back had been drunk into him with the drawing of red bloom, and no mortal needle could patch it. But in that one glance he had already, quietly, written this girl into the string of "like" ones at his wrist.

"Brother Chen," she stopped him once, and there was pleading in her eyes. "When my father rides out to battle, guard him. I beg you."

He nodded. That guarding ran from Yancheng to Zhuxian Town, battle after battle of blood.

The night before they marched, Yinping caught hold of him and pushed a packet of dried mugwort into his pack, saying, "Battlefields reek of blood; this drives off the filth." He took it and held it, and the bitter scent of that herb steadied him more than blood ever had. She said again: "Brother Chen, you guard my father, and I'll guard the wounded — each of us keeps our own." He nodded, and did not say that what he guarded was not Yue Fei alone, but also this girl before him, who had the word "guard" cut into her very bones. That night, for the first time, he quietly wrote "guard her" into his reasons for guarding Yue Fei — as in the Western Zhou, as in the Warring States, once again hiding the one he had sought a thousand years beneath the name of fighting a war.

II. The Great Victory at Yancheng

In the battle of Yancheng, Wuzhu of the Jin came down on them with the Iron Pagodas and the flanking horse. The Yue army "would freeze to death before it tore down a house, and starve to death before it looted," and the beiwei drove straight through the enemy line. Chenyu kept himself hidden at Yue Fei's side, picking out only the fiercest of the Jin captains — stooping in the mêlée to draw their bloom, and sending the man on his way as he did it. He kept a measure in his feeding: one draw at an enemy's throat kept him a day; draining a man entirely was worth three. At the worst hour of Yancheng he had even eaten a human heart still warm, which held off hunger a full week — but he had to swallow the man's dying terror with it, and that was the one way he least wished to use. In that battle Yue Fei broke a host with a handful, and the histories call it a great victory.

When the war drums began, the Iron Pagodas were already bearing down like a black cloud — three horses linked as one, the riders armoured and the horses' faces armoured too, proof against blade and spear. Chenyu guarded at Yue Fei's stirrup; he saw an Iron Pagoda's lance coming straight for Yue Fei's throat, and with a touch of his toe he shot out half a rod, turned it aside with the flat of his sword, and knocked the lance wide. Zhao Hao drove in with his lance from the flank, the point picking out the legs of the linked horses — one thrust, one hoof severed — and three riders went down in a linked tumble, their heavy armour falling in the dust like iron-shelled beetles turned on their backs. The flanking horse on both wings closed in to envelop; Chen Xiu met them with her pair of blades, the light of them grazing belly and wrist, and at every pass sheared the weapon out of a rider's hand, holding Yue Fei's flank closed. One fierce captain in the Jin line swung a wolf-tooth club straight at Yue Fei; Chenyu let the blow pass him, spun into the dead angle inside the club's arc, and sent his sword in under the captain's ribs — one pass, and it was done — and in the confusion stooped to draw his bloom, the cold going down his throat, and no one noticed.

He watched Yue Fei standing beneath the banner in bloodstained armour, gazing north toward the old capital, and in his eyes was the fire of taking back the rivers and mountains. Chenyu understood the general suddenly: it was not for fame or rank, it was for those words, "give me back my rivers and mountains." And it was precisely because that fire burned too fierce that history would have no room for him — Chenyu remembered, dimly, that men like this did not come to good ends.

With Yancheng won, Yinping found him in a spare moment from hauling grain and fodder at the rear, carrying an earthen jar of hot congee, and said, "Brother Chen, you never eat. Drink something warm, at least." He took it, held the jar for the warmth, and saw the weariness at the bottom of her eyes — she had kept watch over the wounded day after day, and the skin beneath them had gone bruise-dark. It came to him suddenly that this girl had carried the word "guard" from the sword into a bowl of congee; while he himself had carried it from his wrist onto the battlefield. Two kinds of guarding, a commander's tent between them, and yet the same single vein. He did not drink, and only gave the jar back, saying, "Save it for the wounded" — the wine was warm, the people were warm, and he was afraid that one mouthful would swallow down, along with it, this rare warmth that had not come to him through blood.

Yinping hauled grain and fodder at the rear and tended the wounded; every time he brought Yue Fei back to camp she would stand outside the tent and look once at her father, and once at him, as though fixing them both in her heart.

The night Yancheng was won, Chenyu climbed the wall alone. The north wind drove snow-grit against his armour, chiming on it. He looked into the darkness north of the Yellow River, and thought of those eyes beneath Yue Fei's banner that gazed toward the old capital — that fire was too fierce, history would have no room for it. He stooped and drew once at the throat of a fallen Jin soldier; enough for a day. It was his first food after the great victory, and it was the word "guard" swallowed down into his belly once more, for Yue Fei's sake and for Yinping's. Below, the camp fires brightened and dimmed, and Yinping's shadow moved before the tent; he stood in the dark like a beast guarding a flock, and no one knew that the beast was afraid too — afraid this rare quiet would scatter before the turning of an hour.

Below, Yinping seemed to sense something; she looked up once toward the darkness, then bent her head again over the wounded man she was binding, and took it for the wind. She did not understand what the beast was afraid of, any more than she understood that these winter-river eyes of hers had already lived a thousand years in another person's memory. Chenyu looked at her lowered brow, and a thought rose in him that was very near greed: to go down, and lead this girl out of a city that must sooner or later fall, to somewhere safe. But he had sworn — never to say it outright, never to change history. He could only stand in the dark and press that scrap of greed, together with the Yue banner not yet tied at his wrist, back down into his heart. The north wind tightened; he stooped and drank once more of the enemy's blood, and swallowed the word "guard" down into his belly again.

With Yancheng won, Yue Fei did not rest, but pressed north on the tide of it; Wuzhu would not swallow the defeat, and gathered again thirty thousand of the Iron Pagodas and flanking horse beyond counting, and massed them at Yingchang, meaning to wash out the shame in a single battle.

The day Yue Fei struck camp and marched north, Yinping stood beside the commander's banner and set her father's armour straight, then turned and held out to him that banner with the character for Yue on it — its corner still carrying the warmth of her palm. She said: "Brother Chen, this one is for you. You guard my father, I guard the wounded." He took it; the banner cracked in the wind like a promise that would not fall. On the road north he rode at Yue Fei's stirrup with that banner tied at his wrist, and it came to him that the "her" he had sought all this way was in every life alike, and in every life was not; and yet this girl before him had, in all seriousness, put her life into his hands. That banner went with him a thousand years afterward, and became the one thing, besides the string of "like" ones at his wrist, that he was willing to carry against his skin.

III. The Battle of Yingchang

Yue Fei sent Zhang Xian and Yue Yun galloping to relieve the city; Chenyu, Zhao Hao and Chen Xiu went in ahead with Wang Gui. Before long the Iron Pagodas came down like a black tide — three horses linked, riders and horses in heavy armour, proof against blade and spear, and the dust beneath the walls blotted out the sun. Yue Yun, barely twenty, led the charge with a pair of hundred-pound hammers; where the hammers passed, the plate of the linked horses burst and men and mounts went over. Zhao Hao drove his lance into the gap, the point picking out the horses' legs — one thrust, one hoof severed — and the armoured riders toppled backwards like iron-shelled beetles. Chen Xiu guarded Yue Yun's flank with her two blades, their light grazing the wrists of the enemy riders, and at every pass sheared the weapon out of a rider's hand, so that the boy general had no cause to look behind him.

A commander of ten thousand in the Jin line, wielding a wolf-tooth club, saw how Yue Yun fought and came at him straight, the club-wind roaring, meaning to smash man and horse together. Chenyu touched a toe and shot out, let the club's edge pass, spun into the dead angle inside its arc, and sent his sword in under the commander's ribs — one pass, and it was done; and in the confusion he stooped and drew the bloom, the cold going down his throat, enough for a day. The commander fell from his horse and the Jin line wavered. Chenyu's sword did not stop; he took three more Iron Pagodas who came charging, each thrust finding the seam between the plates, so fast the Song soldiers on the wall could not follow the blade. In that battle Yingchang was won, the Jin fell back across the Yellow River, and the name of the Yue army shook the central plain. Yue Yun wiped the sweat from his face and grinned at Chenyu: "Uncle Chen, that sword of yours is faster than my hammers." Chenyu only smiled and said nothing — on this road he smiled less and less, and it was only beside these boy generals that he could still smile at all.

With Yingchang won, Yue Yun wiped his sweat and grinned at him: "Uncle Chen, this one was better than Yancheng!" He smiled, and looked down from the wall — Yinping was leading the labourers with the grain, and when she saw that the Yue banner still stood she made him a gesture from a distance that meant "rest easy." It came to him suddenly that a moment like this was very like dusk in an ordinary house; it was a pity that he was not an ordinary man, and that the moment could not last. Zhao Hao clapped his shoulder: "Brother Chen, when you smile you almost look like a person." He let the smile go — a thousand years of loneliness was not to be melted by one battle won.

With Yingchang won, Yue Fei sent his troops to retake Yancheng; Wuzhu led his main strength back in person, and drew up the Iron Pagodas in a line like a wall.

IV. The Battle of Yancheng

In the battle of Yancheng, Chenyu, Zhao Hao and Chen Xiu went in ahead with Yang Zaixing — a man whose spear had met every spear in the army, and one of the fiercest captains the Yue army could count. The two lines closed; Yang Zaixing levelled his spear and drove into the heart of the Iron Pagodas, and where the point went the linked horses went over one after another. Chenyu guarded his flank, his sword-light seeking the seams, every stroke sending one Iron Pagoda out of the saddle. Zhao Hao broke the horses' legs with his lance, Chen Xiu sheared the weapons out of the riders' hands; the three of them went in like a wedge driven into the thickest part of the Jin line. A Jin commander with a great axe rode straight at Yang Zaixing; Chenyu took half a step in front, and his sword went under the arc of the axe and finished the commander. Yang Zaixing reined in, looked back, and cupped his fist to him: "My thanks." In that battle Yancheng was won, and the Jin fell back again.

The day after Yancheng was won, Chenyu went up on the wall alone and watched the dust of the north not yet settled. He thought of that bowl of congee at Yancheng he had not drunk, and of Yinping's Yue banner, and it came to him suddenly: what he had guarded all this way had never been one victory or another, but one person after another who had the word "guard" cut into their bones — Wan, Heng, Yinping — all gone, one by one, and yet passing that word down, generation upon generation. He stooped and drew once at the throat of a fallen Jin soldier; enough for a day. That mouthful was his food after the victory at Yancheng, and it was the promise he swallowed down into his belly once more on behalf of every such word "guard."

Chenyu watched Yang Zaixing's back, and his heart sank — he remembered, vaguely, that this fierce captain had a very cruel end, beside some bridge or other. He could not change it. He could only watch.

The night Yancheng was won, the camp was quiet for once. Yinping came carrying a bowl of congee, and finding him standing dazed outside the commander's tent, held it out to him: "Brother Chen, you never eat." He took it and held the bowl for its warmth, watching the firelight stretch the shadows of Zhao Hao and Chen Xiu out long behind them. Yang Zaixing rode back from the front of the line and cupped his fist to him, laughing: "Brother Chen, that was a fine fight!" He nodded, but his eyes were heavy — he remembered this captain's end at Xiao Shang Bridge, so near now, and could not force out half a word of warning. That night, for the first time, he swallowed the word "guard" back down into his belly, together with that small mercy he felt for Yang Zaixing; and kept only the warmth of the bowl, mixed with the north wind, in his memory for a thousand years.

With Yancheng won, Yang Zaixing took three hundred horse to reinforce, and on the road met a great body of Jin troops, and was trapped at Xiao Shang Bridge.

The day Yang Zaixing took three hundred horse to reinforce, Yinping stood at the camp gate watching the backs of the riders going hard away, and said softly: "General Yang is always like that, always first into it." Chenyu stood in the shadow, and that dim history in his heart ached faintly — he remembered that this fierce captain had a very cruel end beside some bridge, and could not force out half a word of warning. Chen Xiu passed by, seemed to see through his heaviness, and said only: "Brother Chen, what we cannot guard, we watch." He nodded, and pressed that small mercy, together with the banner at his wrist, back down into his heart.

V. Xiao Shang Bridge · The Death of Yang Zaixing

By the time Chenyu came galloping at the news, the arrows were already flying like locusts. Yang Zaixing's one spear had overturned some tens of enemy riders, and at last he was pierced by ten thousand arrows, and still stood upright and would not fall. Chenyu stood at the bridgehead, the Yue banner Yinping had pressed into his hand gripped so tight his fingertips went white. He wanted to go down — with his strength, saving Yang Zaixing would have been as easy as turning over his hand. But he had sworn: never to change history. That this fierce captain should die for the state at Xiao Shang Bridge was a single stroke in the histories; if he raised a hand, the record of this passage would run off its track. He bit through his teeth, and only watched, watched that spear go down to the ground at last, watched the water beneath the bridge redden, layer upon layer. That night he crouched beside the bridge and understood for the first time: the only thing he could guard had always been those four words, "never change history"; and what those four words demanded was precisely this — to watch the one he should have guarded die.

When Yang Zaixing's spear went down at last, he leapt from the bridgehead — not to save, but to gather up. He picked the spear from the ground; the shaft was still warm, and he set it in the bank beside the bridge, as though raising a wordless stone for this fierce captain. When the Jin drew off he fished Yang Zaixing's body out of the water and buried it where it lay, then sat back down beside the bridge until the daylight dried the blood to dark red. On this road he had seen too many he should have guarded and could not: Wan, Heng, A Niu, Yang Zhi… every one of them taught him the one sentence, "never change history." But this time, for the first time, he hated those four words, hated them until his fingernails cut into his palm. He thought of what his master Lü Shang had said of "waiting" — so the cruellest waiting was not waiting for victory; it was waiting for the one you should guard to die, and not being able to reach out a hand.

With Yang Zaixing dead, the Yue army struck camp and pressed north; the urgent reports of victory after victory went rolling toward Lin'an, and the camp had a moment's quiet — and in that quiet there were several things worth setting down.

VI. In Camp · A Few Quiet Hours

Yinping · A Promise Beneath the Banner. Once, Jin outriders raided the camp gate by night, and stray arrows came like rain. Yinping was binding a wounded man when an arrow flew at the small of her back; Chenyu shot out, the flat of his sword knocked the shaft down, and he drew her behind him in the same motion; Chen Xiu cut down the outrider who had loosed it. Yinping's wits had not yet come back to her, and still she did not run, only looked at him and said: "Brother Chen, my father says that a man of the Yue army dies beneath the banner even when he dies. I am only a woman, and still I hold to that." She pushed a little Yue banner into his hand: "This one is for you. You guard my father, I guard the wounded — each of us keeps our own." Chenyu held the banner; its corner still carried the warmth of her palm, and it came to him suddenly that the "her" he had sought all this way was in every life alike, and in every life was not; and yet this woman before him had, in all seriousness, put her life into his hands.

Cooksmoke in the Field. In the quiet hours of the front, Chenyu would often sit on the earth bank outside the commander's tent and watch the wounded drinking congee around the fire. Yinping would come and sit beside him and hand him a bowl: "Brother Chen, you always sit alone." He took it, and did not drink, only held the bowl for its warmth. Off in the distance Chen Xiu was teaching the recruits the blades, and Zhao Hao was wiping down his lance, and the firelight pulled the shadows of the few of them out long behind them. It came to him suddenly that a moment like this was very like dusk in an ordinary house — it was a pity that he was not an ordinary man, and that the moment could not last. Yinping seemed to understand, and said softly: "To be able to sit like this is enough." He lowered his head; the fire was reflected in the bowl, and in it his own face, for the first time in a thousand years something like a person's face.

In Camp · Practising Characters by Lamplight. Once, Yinping was practising her characters by lamplight in the tent, and what she wrote was the four words "give me back my rivers and mountains." Chenyu stood beside her and watched; her brush-strokes were young and yet stubborn, like that unyielding strength in her father. She looked up and laughed: "Brother Chen, my father says that a man's characters are his bones. If the bone is hard, the character will stand." He looked at those four words, and it came to him suddenly that this girl had carried the word "guard" from the sword onto paper, and written it into her own bones. He thought of Wan in the Western Zhou mending his dagger-axe bag and embroidering the character "Wan" all crooked, and of Heng in the Warring States handing out winter clothes — every era's her had her own way of writing the word "guard"; and this one before him wrote it most like the person he was looking for. He said nothing, only slipped the sheet of paper inside his coat; it went with him a thousand years afterward, and became the one thing, besides the string of "like" ones at his wrist, that he was willing to carry against his skin.

In Camp · Two Women at the Martial Arts. On a night when the army had leisure, Yinping and Chen Xiu practised together in an open patch of ground in the camp. Yinping used a short sword, Chen Xiu her pair of blades; they broke some tens of passes, and in the play of blade-light and sword-shadow they suited each other remarkably well. Yinping laughed: "Sister Chen, those two blades of yours are livelier than my sword." Chen Xiu put up her blades: "Yinping is a general's daughter, a tigress; there's an unyielding strength in your swordplay — and that strength is like my Brother Chen's." Yinping was silent a moment, then looked across at Chenyu, polishing his sword a little way off, and said quietly: "He always seems to be waiting for someone." Chen Xiu followed her look and nodded: "He has waited a long time. Long enough that I couldn't say how many years myself." Two women stood in the wind at the camp gate — one guarding a father, one guarding a brother — both of them women of the blade, both knowing how heavy the word "guard" is. Once, Yinping saw that Chen Xiu had a new scar on her wrist after sheathing her blades, cut by a stray arrow that day while guarding the grain wagons, and tore a strip of cloth and bound it for her. Chen Xiu laughed and said: "What's a scratch like this — back in the village I took worse than that." But Yinping was serious: "Sister Chen, my father says that if you take a wound seriously, you live longer." Chen Xiu looked at her a long while, then suddenly grew grave: "Yinping, remember this — a blade is for guarding people, not for showing off. If you ever truly go into the line, don't try to be brave; stay close to your father, stay close to us." And she crossed her two blades before her, and showed her the stance that would put Yinping behind her. Yinping stepped back half a pace as she was told, and read in that stance the same stubbornness that was in Chenyu — the stubbornness of putting the other person behind you. From that night on there were two more shadows in the camp, teacher and friend at once, and Yinping's sword took on more and more of Chen Xiu's refusal to give ground. Once, practising by moonlight, Yinping's short sword very nearly slit Chen Xiu's sleeve; Chen Xiu went forward instead of back, caught it with her crossed blades, and laughed: "That fierceness is your father's." Yinping lowered the sword, and her eyes were wet: "My father says a sword is for guarding people, not for showing off." Chen Xiu looked at her, and thought suddenly of herself in the Sixteen Kingdoms, shielding the village children — so in every era there was always a girl who had the word "guard" cut into her bones. She reached out and smoothed Yinping's hair where the wind had blown it loose, as though speaking to her own younger self: "Remember — the one who guards people needs someone to guard her too. On this road I'll guard you, you guard the wounded, your father guards the rivers and mountains — not one of us is to be left alone." Yinping nodded, and folded that sentence, together with the warmth of Chen Xiu's palm, into her heart.

A Last Letter from the Field. In the camp at Yancheng, a wounded man of the beiwei asked him to carry a last letter to the soldier's old mother, saying that if he did not come back, would Chenyu trouble to go down to the village. Chenyu took it, folded it inside his coat, and nodded. The soldier died of his wounds that same night; afterward Chenyu really did seek out the family, and left the letter together with the grain-money he had saved of his own, and did not say who he was. Weeping, the old mother asked, "Was my son well, at the end?" and he answered, "He died a hero." That one sentence he kept back — what the soldier had cried out at the last was "mother," not "hero." And yet the living must sometimes have one good sentence to lean on, if they are to get through.

The Grain Officer Who Came to Kill Yue Fei. After the great victory a new grain officer came to the camp, humble in his speech, and yet always "happening" to come near when Yue Fei took his meal. Chenyu's nostrils stirred: what was on the man was not the smell of grain and fodder but the rankness particular to the Jin camps, mutton fat mixed with raw iron — this was an assassin in disguise. That night, while Yue Fei read the army dispatches, the short blade came out of the officer's sleeve and drove at his heart; Chenyu dropped from the beam, the flat of his sword knocked the blade flying, and his other hand clamped the officer's wrist, while Zhao Hao's lance-point was already at his throat. Under questioning the man confessed that he was a death-sworn sent by Wuzhu. Chenyu drew once at the throat, and with it wiped away every trace of how the man had died; the next day the camp said only that the grain officer had run off with the funds, and no one knew that death had brushed past the commander's tent in the night.

The rest over, the Yue army pressed its advantage as far as Zhuxian Town, forty *li* short of the old capital at Bianjing.

VII. Zhuxian Town · The Hundred Death-Sworn

In the fighting at Zhuxian Town the Jin broke and fell back, and the people came out with pots of broth to welcome the army; Yue Fei turned in the saddle and said to his generals: "Straight to Huanglong, and there we'll drink our fill together, you and I." Hearing it, Chenyu very nearly believed that this road was coming to its end — and yet that dim history in his heart, like something seen through fog, said faintly: those words were spoken too soon.

That night at Zhuxian Town the remnant of the Jin would not accept it, and sent a hundred death-sworn to feel their way into the camp and kill Yue Fei. Chenyu sensed them first, and stood outside the commander's tent with Zhao Hao and Chen Xiu. The death-sworn came surging in; his sword-light ran like a ribbon of silk, and at every pass one man went down soft. Zhao Hao's lance swept two shield-bearing assailants off their feet and its point found their throats; Chen Xiu's crossed blades took one who had leapt onto the tent roof out of the air, and sheared the weapon from another who was climbing the tent pole. A hundred death-sworn, and in less than half a cup of tea they had all fallen silent around the commander's tent; the blood went to Chenyu, and no one disturbed Yue Fei inside. At dawn the camp said only that the Jin had lost their nerve in the night and withdrawn, and Yue Fei never knew that death had brushed his shoulder once again.

The night at Zhuxian Town, Zhao Hao was wiping down his lance outside the tent, and Chen Xiu was re-tying the bandages Yinping had bound on the wounded. Chenyu gazed north, and for the first time there rose in him a presentiment out of all season: the nearer victory came, the more surely disaster was coming. He said nothing, and pressed the presentiment, together with the abstinence of the whole road, back down into his belly.

Dawn at Zhuxian Town, the smell of blood not yet dispersed. Chenyu stood outside the commander's tent and watched the daylight stretch the shadows of the hundred bodies long, and then watched the morning mist swallow them by degrees. Zhao Hao was wiping his lance beside him, saying under his breath: "The dogs — they'd dare to touch even Lord Yue's sleep." Chen Xiu, silently, took the bandage Yinping had bound and wound it one turn tighter, and handed him a water-skin. He took it, and did not drink — his food for the night he had drawn from the throats of the death-sworn, enough for three days. He looked north; Yue Fei's "straight to Huanglong" was still in his ears, and yet at that moment the scent thinned for an instant, unnaturally, as though something were about to be drawn away. He said nothing, only tied the water-skin back at his waist, and waited for the hour he was obscurely afraid of.

After the victory at Zhuxian Town, Yue Fei held a feast in the commander's tent and the generals drank deep. Yue Yun raised his cup and shouted across at Chenyu: "Uncle Chen, this bowl is to you!" He raised his bowl, and did not drink — there was wine in it, and this body of his knew only blood. He looked at the laughter filling the tent, and it came to him suddenly that this moment was counterfeit: the nearer victory came, the more surely disaster was coming. Zhao Hao, beside him, seemed to read his presentiment, and said quietly: "Brother Chen, don't rejoice too soon." He bowed his head and poured the wine in his bowl out, quietly, onto the earth beyond the tent — the wine was warm, the men were warm, and he was afraid that one mouthful would swallow down, along with it, this rare quiet.

Yinping went among the feasters pouring wine for her father, and as she passed him she slipped a piece of dried mugwort into his palm — the same as in that packet the night before they marched; she had kept it, after all. She said softly: "Brother Chen, you never eat. Smell this, at least; it drives off the reek of blood." He held that bitter scent of the herb, and it came to him suddenly that this girl had carried the word "guard" from the sword into a scrap of mugwort; while he himself had carried it from his wrist into one mêlée after another. In a tent full of laughter he watched her moving to and fro, and for the first time there rose in him a hope so faint it was almost nothing: perhaps this time there would be no need of "like" — perhaps this time he could truly keep her safe. And yet the scent thinned for an instant, unnaturally, as though something were even then being drawn away. He said nothing, only folded the mugwort inside his coat and laid it next to the Yue banner.

VIII. The Twelve Gold Tablets · The Wind and Wave Pavilion

Twelve gold tablets, recalling him in a single day.

Chenyu had foreseen this step long before. He knew better than anyone: if Yue Fei did not die, the course of the Southern Song would run off its track, and the abstinence he had kept all this way, the "never change history," would be broken. But knowing was one thing; with the hour truly come, he still hated it until his fingertips trembled.

When the news of the gold tablets reached the camp, Zhao Hao drove his lance-butt into the ground and swore an oath; Chen Xiu bit her lip and drew Yinping behind her. All three of them knew that this "Brother Chen" could save a man and would not — on this road they had seen too often his "could, and did not." Yinping knew nothing of courts; she only felt that the air had changed, and looked at Chenyu, and there was a question in her eyes. He shook his head, and did not say that the three words behind those gold tablets would cost her father his life. That night he stood outside the commander's tent and looked north, and for the first time hated this undying body of his — able to draw the red bloom of a thousand men, and yet unable to carry back the resolve behind a single sheet of gold.

Yinping came running from the camp gate, her face still smudged with the dust of binding the wounded, her eyes all bewilderment — she understood nothing of gold tablets, only that her father was suddenly to be called away, and that this "Brother Chen," who was always there, was calmer than anyone, so calm it frightened her. She caught his sleeve and asked, "Where is my father going?" He looked at her, and in those winter-river eyes his own reflection showed, and for a moment he could not tell whether the girl before him was Yinping, or Wan who had handed him wine a thousand years ago, or Heng who had given out winter clothes beneath the city gate. In the end he said only: "Where he must go." She let go of him, as though the words had burned her — and only many years later did he understand that the letting go was the first time she pushed him out of the place of "good friend" and into the place of someone she could not bear to lose and could not keep. That night he stood outside the commander's tent and watched her run back toward the camp gate, and hated this undying body for the first time: able to draw the red bloom of a thousand men, and yet unable to carry back a girl's clinging to her father.

He could have seized the prisoner; he could have raised what was left of the beiwei and turned against the dynasty — with his strength, it might well have been done. But he had sworn: never to show himself, never to change history. He could only watch Yue Fei locked into a prison cart, watch Yinping run after him out of the camp gate and be held back by the soldiers, unable to cry out. Zhao Hao gripped his lance tight behind him, Chen Xiu bit her lip,

In the days when Yue Fei was held in the prison of the Court of Judicial Review, Chenyu stole once to the outside of the wall. He could hear the general coughing in his cell, could hear the gaolers' footfalls, could even hear that soft, boneless phrase of Qin Hui's — *mo xu you*, "perhaps there was such a thing" — drifting on the wind. He gripped his sword until his knuckles went white — with his strength, breaking the prison and carrying Yue Fei away would have been as easy as turning over his hand. But he had sworn: never to show himself, never to change history. He could only watch this man who would not forget "give me back my rivers and mountains" be bound by the neck and cut down, and watch the last great wall of the Southern Song fall before his eyes. That night he crouched in the shadow outside the wall and hated his own "guarding" for the first time — and only many years later did he understand: what this guarding guarded was not the Southern Song, but that line he was not permitted to cross; and on the far side of the line was the person he had not yet met, on that day in West Kowloon.

At the Wind and Wave Pavilion, Yue Fei was put to death on the three words *mo xu you*. That stroke of the histories he could not, and dared not, alter.

Outside the Wind and Wave Pavilion he stood all night. When the lamp in the pavilion went out he heard the general's last breath, and heard the four words "Heaven and sun bear witness," like a great hammer blow landing on the "never change history" he had kept for a thousand years. He could have seized the prisoner, he could have turned against the dynasty — with his strength it might well have been done — but he had sworn. He only gripped the sword-hilt until his knuckles went white, and let the fire in the pavilion cool inch by inch into ash. At dawn Yue Fei's body was carried out, and he watched from a distance, and thought for the first time: what he had guarded all this way had never been victory or defeat, but one man who would not forget "give me back my rivers and mountains"; and history never has room for such men. Zhao Hao said quietly behind him: "General, it isn't only him we couldn't guard." He did not answer — what he could not guard was also the girl outside the pavilion, even then running toward the well.

Of Yinping's ending, the common people tell it thus: she clasped the silver vase she had carried since she was a child and drowned herself in a well, unwilling to live on alone in a world that had wronged her father. When Chenyu reached that well, Zhao Hao and Chen Xiu had followed — they stood at the well's rim like two stones that would never age. She looked at him, and actually smiled once, as though she had recognized something, and as though she had said nothing at all.

That smile was the same warmth as when Wan of the Western Zhou had handed him wine outside the cooking tent, as when Heng of the Warring States had given out winter clothes beneath the city gate — plainly not knowing him, and yet always putting the other person ahead of herself. He looked at her, and the jade pendant at his wrist, and the bronze belt-hook, and that Yue banner, all at once went hot, like three dynasties of "like" ones recognizing their kin beside this one well. He very nearly reached out his hand to pull this girl back out of the well, as he had wanted to do after the fires at Muye, and before the walls of Handan came down — what he had wished to do countless times and never once done. But he had sworn: never to say it outright, never to make them his own kind. He could only watch the smile fade, watch her hand open, watch the last "like" her of this whole road go down into the well. In that instant he understood suddenly: what he guarded was not Yinping, but those winter-river eyes of every era — and those eyes had never belonged to him.

He knelt at the wellside, and for the first time on this road he wept without a sound. In that moment at the well the loneliness very nearly swallowed him whole. He held her body, still warm, and a thought rose in him so selfish it frightened him — to turn her too into his own kind, to keep her for himself, to have her at his side forever. But he stopped himself at once: that was not love, it was the greed of an undying thing filling up its own hollow. She should go cleanly, into the unknown next stretch of the road, and perhaps in the end meet the one who was truly hers. He had indeed broken that oath afterward, for the sake of others, but never had he laid a hand on "them" — this was the last line he kept for himself.

IX. Fried Qin Hui and the Little Horns of Songxi

With Yue Fei dead on a false charge, the name of Qin Hui became the hatred of everyone under heaven.

Going through the markets, Chenyu saw an ordinary food — two strips of dough twisted into the shape of a man and fried golden in the oil, which the people called "fried Qin Hui," *you zha gui*, or else *youtiao*, the fried dough stick; they said it came of the hatred for Qin Hui's betrayal of Yue Fei, the dough pinched into a man's shape and fried so as to "eat" the traitor. This cleverness of "eating" an enemy was cut from the same cloth as the men of Zhao chewing "Bai Qi's flesh" in the Warring States — in both cases people with no weapon in their hands turning the hatred of a nation onto the tips of their chopsticks.

In the south he saw too the "little horns of Songxi" — a thing held to be an inheritance of the province, from Songxi in Fujian, once named "slicing Qin Hui": minced pork rolled in egg skin and steamed, meaning to hack the traitor Qin Hui into ten thousand pieces, and a traditional offering made for Yue Fei. Chenyu looked at the warm rolls in the steamer and understood suddenly: in the end, the thing by which the man he had guarded all this road, and guarded her life after life, was best remembered might not be his merit or his blame in the histories, but a food passed down like this — the common people using "eating" to win back justice for a hero.

He stood before a stall frying dough sticks, and watched the two lengths of dough twisted into a man's shape tumbling in the oil, and thought suddenly of the men of Zhao chewing "Bai Qi's flesh" — a thousand years apart, and the people's hatred was still the same pot. He bought one and bit into it: crisp outside, soft within, and he could taste nothing at all. And yet watching the old woman who sold them mutter, "That'll fry the treachery out of you," he felt that what this mouthful "ate" away was not Qin Hui alone, but that scrap of dignity which the weaponless win back for themselves. Many years later this fried dough would be handed on as *youtiao*, until it was in every street and lane; and Yue Fei's wrong would live on the lips of generation after generation by means of this food that was handed down. He understood suddenly: the histories grow old, and merit and blame grow faint, and only the hatred on the tips of the common people's chopsticks stays faithful longest.

X. The Brothers of the Beiwei · A Mouthful of Blood Repaid

After Yue Fei died on the false charge, there was still an old account to settle. A brother of the beiwei, badly wounded at Yancheng — a man who had once turned a spear aside for him in the rout, and so counted as the one who had saved his life — gripped his hand as he lay dying and begged to live. Chenyu owed him that life; his heart softened, and he passed blood into him and turned the man into his own kind — this is "the turning," and it was one of the times he broke the oath he had sworn in the Han. Who could have known that once the man had an undying body, and could not be killed, a separate purpose would grow in him: he meant to carry the old soldiers of the Yue army with him, to raise troops and set himself up, and so change the course of the war. What was more frightening still was that the man's mildness of temper faded day by day. Chenyu's memory of the history of the Song was hazy at best — two parts in ten of it remained — and by the time he noticed, the record of Zhuxian Town had very nearly been altered. He found the man and finished him with his own hand, then quietly smoothed away every trace he had left. In the histories, the Yue army remained the solitary host that marched home under a wrong. The correction had been made once more without his intending it — to turn one of his own kind, and in the end to wipe it out by his own hand. In the eyes of that brother of the beiwei as he died, the light about to go out was the very same as A Niu's, and Sima Xian's, in those years — once a man has an undying body, his mildness of temper fades day by day, as though something had drawn the soul out of him and left only a shell that could not be killed. As he wiped away the man's traces, he was glad for the first time: Yinping, Wan, Heng — never had he laid a hand on them. If they too had come to this, there would truly have been nowhere left on this road for him to go. And it was for this same reason that he would rather they went cleanly, into the unknown next stretch, and perhaps in the end met the one who was truly theirs.

(Only Zhao Hao and Chen Xiu were different — Zhao Hao was the one Chenyu had given blood to in those years out of the wish for company, and Chen Xiu was the one he had turned with his own hand in the Sixteen Kingdoms; both were kind of his own making, taken on of his own will, and after several hundred years their tempers were unchanged, and they had become, on this road, the exceptions he was willing to stand shoulder to shoulder with and unwilling to wipe away.)

He carried the silver vase Yinping had left behind — only later did he learn that the name Yue Yinping came from it — and followed the red thread north. Zhao Hao and Chen Xiu went with him. On the next stretch he would meet Tolui, son of Genghis Khan, and an army of qiongqi that ought never to have existed — an army that came close to changing the colour of the blood of the whole world. But that is another story.

XI. The Gap · From the Song to the Yuan

After Yinping went into the well, the gap that followed was a hundred years and more to a mortal; to him it was a road on which he watched a halved realm rot away inch by inch. Zhao Hao and Chen Xiu went with him; the three of them with packs on their backs followed that thread of scent through the last years of the Southern Song.

In the last years of the Song that thread of scent drifted wildly. Jia Sidao ruined the state; Xiangfan fell; the palace walls of Lin'an grew lower day by day. He saw the surrender memorials in the halls of government, he saw the blood and tears of the students of the Imperial College, and he saw Wen Tianxiang write in prison, "Since the beginning of time who has not died? Let a loyal heart shine in the annals" — that poem he could read, and could not guard the man who wrote it. Through the years of the gap he still lived on war for food: the Mongols came south, the flags on the walls changed, and he mixed among the ranks and stooped to draw bloom in the thick of the killing, and no one noticed; when the wars died down he shouldered his pack and wandered, and watched this dynasty he had once guarded walk inch by inch into the sea wind at Yashan.

That day at Yashan the sea wind was brine-rank. Lu Xiufu took the boy emperor on his back and went into the sea, and a hundred thousand soldiers and people followed, and the dead lay on the water thick as reeds. Chenyu stood on a reef in the distance, Zhao Hao and Chen Xiu behind him — none of the three spoke; they only watched that sea swallow a dynasty clean away. He thought suddenly of the fire in Yue Fei's "give me back my rivers and mountains": that fire had burned a hundred years, and in the end it never burned its way back to Bianjing; it burned only into a handful of ash on the sea floor at Yashan, ash that would go on cooling forever. Chen Xiu said softly: "Brother Chen, on this road the dynasties we have guarded have all of them gone." He answered: "What we guarded was people, not a dynasty. While the people remain, the dynasty still remains in their hearts." And yet he knew clearly enough that he said it more for himself than for them.

In the years when the Song fell, the four of them turned back once to Lin'an. Chenyu stood a long while at the well Yinping had gone into — the water in it dark and still, mirroring this face of his that had not aged in a thousand years. Chen Xiu said behind him: "Brother Chen, don't look." He did not move, only took the Yue banner out from inside his coat and spread it once along the well's rim, as though letting Yinping see, in his place, the city her father had never come back to. In that instant he understood suddenly: the "her" he had sought all this way was in every life alike, and in every life was not; and yet each "like" her, once she was gone, left one thing behind — Wan's jade pendant, Heng's bronze belt-hook, Yinping's banner — to teach him to remember that he had once, so near, guarded a person.

They stayed some days more in Lin'an, and watched the stalls for "fried Qin Hui" set up in the wards, and watched the people chewing their hatred into the oil — this cleverness of "eating" an enemy, cut from the same cloth as the men of Zhao chewing "Bai Qi's flesh" in the Warring States. Chenyu stood before the stall and understood suddenly: these people he had guarded, in the end the thing they were best remembered by might not be their merit or their blame in the histories, but a food passed down like this. Zhao Hao took a bite beside him and smacked his lips: "Better than blood on a battlefield." Chen Xiu smiled and said nothing, and first slipped a strand of hair from the wellside where Yinping had gone in quietly into her pouch — on this road she was always gathering up for him the farewells he had no time to gather; then she untied the Yue banner from Chenyu's wrist and spread it along the well's rim, as though letting Yinping, in her place, see at the last the city her father had never come back to.

The wind at Yashan blew for a hundred years, and that Yue banner at his wrist had long since been washed pale, and still he carried it against his skin — as though Yinping were still there, keeping for him those words, "give me back my rivers and mountains."

At the end of the gap, the Mongol banners stood over all the central plain. They went toward Tolui's army — and in that army was a host of qiongqi that ought never to have existed, and that came close to changing the colour of the blood of the whole world. But that is another story.

*The end of this movement. Continued in Movement VIII · The Yuan (Tolui · The Undying Army).*