The Commander
The Prince is waiting at the appointed hour, so we mount and ride off, leaving behind a worried Liang Zhou and a quizzical Shao Ru. The Prince is in very high spirits.
“I don’t know who this guy is, but all this irrigation equipment is absolutely state of the art,” he says excitedly. “I remember my tutor showing me diagrams of these systems back in the Palace. Water wheels and pumps and sluice gates and so on – that means every field’s properly irrigated and the crop yield’s much larger. And with that lake and the water coming down off the mountain, they can cope with any sort of drought.”
I have to smile at his enthusiasm. “According to my information, Lord Zhao used to be a scholar in the capital. He has a wide range of contacts, so I’m hoping he can tell us something about the situation out here on the border.”
We quickly cover the couple of miles to the farmstead, which is more extensive than it appears from the outside. As we ride in through the gate, blue-uniformed men come to take our horses. We’re in a large courtyard. The main house is opposite the gate, with two side-wings consisting of stables, workshops and storehouses. From somewhere I hear the mewing voices of falcons. The Prince is gazing round eagerly.
A man comes out of the main house. He’s tall, copper-skinned and dressed in an unfamiliar style. His hair’s twisted into many plaits ornamented with metal and leather. His face is strong-boned and impassive. Someone from the barbarian tribes, I think. But he bows courteously to us and says in a formal and rather stilted manner, “Lord Zhao is resting. I am his subordinate, Zhao Zhan. My Lord has asked me to welcome you and invite you to rest and refresh yourselves before dinner. Please follow me.”
The whole place looks as if it’s run with military efficiency. The courtyard’s clean and tidy and the people we can see are moving about their tasks with quiet competence. We follow Zhao Zhan into a shady inner courtyard where there are flowerbeds and a fountain playing in a fish-pond. The Prince exclaims in delight, but we aren’t allowed to linger. Zhao Zhan leads us into a large cool room where there are two beds, a screen and a large table with tea-things ready on it.
“My Lord thought his honourable guests might care to bathe before dinner. The bathing pool is through this door and down the corridor. If you wish to change, there are fresh clothes here. My Lord suggests dinner in another two hours. Follow the corridor back to the main door and then walk straight on to the dining room. I will take my leave.”
“A bathing pool?” exclaims the Prince.
He opens the door and dashes off down the corridor. I follow at a more leisurely pace. The corridor leads us back into a part of the house that has been hollowed out of the rock. Through another door we discover a large square pool of heated water. The water flows in at one end and out of the other, constantly renewing itself.
“It must be a natural spring,” the Prince says, investigating. “But how do they heat it?”
“There’ll be a furnace somewhere. I expect Lord Zhao would tell you if you ask.”
“I'll do that. Do you want to go first? I can wait.”
The idea of a bathe seems incomparably tempting after all these days on the road. The Prince disappears back to the guest-room while I shuck off my uniform and all my accoutrements and immerse myself in the warm water. Everything’s at hand: cleaning implements, soap and drying cloths. It’s all immensely luxurious. My curiosity about Lord Zhao intensifies.
This is too good to hurry, so I close my eyes and enjoy the experience to the full. Eventually I get back to the guest-room with bare feet and wet hair, wrapped in one of the drying cloths and carrying my clothes.
“Your turn,” I say and the Prince scoots off happily. There are two complete sets of inner and outer robes laid out for us, so I get dressed and pour myself some tea while I dry my hair. The guest-room leads out to a terrace and the scent of flowers is drifting in with the late afternoon breeze. It’s a far cry from the noise, heat and dust of the encampment. If dinner’s anything like as good as this, then we’re in for a treat.
The Prince comes back full of enthusiasm for the bathing arrangements and scatters all his possessions about as he dries himself. He disappears behind the screen to change and comes out tying his belt and trying to dry his hair at the same time. The robes are a tad too long for him and a tad too short for me.
“Have some tea,” I say, pushing a cup towards him. “It’s still too early for dinner.”
“Lord Zhao must be loaded,” says the Prince. “Think what all this must have cost. And these robes are excellent quality. I wonder where the money comes from.”
“Trade. His lands produce good crops, which he trades for luxury goods from the north, where food’s scarce. He sells them on to the capital. I’d guess that Zhao Zhan has contacts with the northern tribes, while Lord Zhao has contacts in the capital. Some of those caravans we passed on our way here probably were carrying his merchandise south.”
“What kind of merchandise?”
“Furs, ivory, jewels, gold. This place is heavily guarded, so you can bet that valuable goods pass through.”
“Zhao Zhan’s so formal. Is he a relation, do you think?”
I shake my head. “No, he’s probably just adopted Lord Zhao’s family name for convenience.”
The Prince sighs. “I’d love to have a place like this.”
It takes a while to dry our hair and fix it up and then we’re ready to venture out to meet our host. Following Zhao Zhan’s directions, we arrive in a large cool reception room where three tables are set out. Behind one of them, a man’s sitting on a raised seat. Two wooden crutches lie on the floor beside him. He bows as we enter, and says,” “My greetings to the Sixth Imperial Prince and Commander Liao. My honourable guests will forgive me for not rising. The state of my legs does not permit it.”
I walk forward and bow in return, then suddenly become aware that the Prince has fallen behind. Turning, I see he’s stopped to examine a porcelain vase on a stand. He looks up, flushes and dashes forward, bowing to our host. As he raises his head, he smiles and says, “Please forgive my bad manners, my Lord.”
Our host is an elegant man in his forties with a thin distinguished face marked by ill-health. But at the moment, he’s as white as alabaster. His hand goes to his heart, his eyes fixed on the Prince’s face.
The Prince looks at me in alarm. I step forward. “My Lord, are you feeling ill?”
Still looking at the Prince, Lord Zhao says, his voice shaking, “Forgive me, but it was a shock. You are so much like your mother.”
