Sons

  Now one evening as the young man walked near the back of the house where his love lived, he saw the small gate of escape open, and the maid servant who carried her letters, squeezed through, and she beckoned to him to come. He came faltering and fearful, yet driven by his own heart, and when he was come, there inside the little court by the gate, stood his love, and she was very determined and willful and full of plans. Yet now that they were face to face their words did not come easily either, and not nearly so easily as words upon paper, and the truth was the young man was much afraid lest he be discovered there where he ought not by any means to be. But the maid was willful, and being learned, she would have her desire and she said,

  “I will not heed these old ones. Let us flee together somewhere and when they see us gone, for very shame they will let us wed. I know my father loves me, for I am his only daughter and my mother dead, and you are your father’s oldest son.”

  But before the young man could match his ardor to hers, the chief of police stood suddenly there at the door of the house that gave upon the court, for some servant that bore ill will to the young girl’s maid had told for revenge, and the chief of police shouted to his attendants,

  “Bind him and put him in gaol, for he has taken away my daughter’s honor!”

  Now it was a very unlucky thing for Wang the Landlord’s eldest son that his love’s father was chief of police and could throw whom he liked into gaol, for another man would not have had such power and must have paid money to have him imprisoned. But with the word the attendants hauled the young man away, and the maid shrieked and hung herself upon the young man’s arm, and cried she would not marry any other and that she would swallow her rings.

  But that calm old man, her father, turned to the serving maids and said,

  “See to her, and if she is left alone and by any chance does what she says, I will hold you for her death.”

  And he went away as though he did not hear her moans and cries, and the serving maids did not dare to leave her, being afraid for themselves, and so the young girl had no choice but to live on.

  As for the chief of police, he sent word to Wang the Landlord that his son was in the gaol because he had attempted the honor of his own daughter and having sent this message he sat in his hall and waited. Then was the household of Wang the Landlord in the greatest confusion and Wang the Landlord was completely distracted and did not know what to do. He sent a good bribe immediately of all the silver he had about him, and he struggled into his finest robes and went to the chief of the police himself to apologize. But that man was in no mood to have the thing so easily settled, and he sent word out to the gate that he was ill from so much worry and could see no one, and when the bribe was brought in he sent it back again saying that Wang the Landlord had mistaken his character and he was not such an one as to be tempted thus.

  Then Wang the Landlord went groaning back to his house, and he knew the bribe was too small, and since it was just before wheat harvest he was very short of silver, and he knew he must ask his brother’s help. There was his son in gaol, too, and he suffered for that, and he must send food and bedding lest he suffer there. When this was done and Wang the Merchant called, Wang the Landlord sat in his own room and waited, and his lady forgot all usage and in her distress she came in where he sat leaning his head on his hands, and she called on this god and that to witness to all she had to bear in this house.

  But for once Wang the Landlord sat not moved more than he was, for all her cries and reproaches, for he was frightened to his heart’s bottom to have his son like this in the power of the chief of police. But Wang the Merchant came in very collected and he made his face smooth as though he did not know what was wrong, although the tale was flying everywhere, and being so good and nasty a tale, every servant knew it already and his wife knew it and had told him all and more than all, and she had said with greatest relish, over and over,

  “Well I knew no good would come out of that woman’s sons and their father so lustful as he is, too.”

  But now Wang the Merchant sat and listened to the tale as it came from the young man’s father and mother, and they made his crime very light, and Wang the Merchant looked judicial and as though he took for granted the young man’s innocence and thought only of some wily way to free him. Well he knew his elder brother wanted to borrow a vast sum, and he planned deeply as to how this could be avoided. When the tale was told and the lady was weeping freely at the end, he said,

  “It is true that silver is very useful when dealing with officials anywhere, but there is one thing better still and it is power of arms. Before we spend all we have, let us beseech our brother, who is now a very high general, that he exert himself and use his influence in the provincial court and have a mandate sent down from above to our magistrate here who will command the chief of police to release your son. Then a little silver may be used here and there to help the cause.”

  Now this seemed a wonderful and good plan to them all and Wang the Landlord marvelled that it had not come to him, and on that very day and in that very hour he sent a messenger to Wang the Tiger and thus it was that Wang the Tiger heard of it.

  Now Wang the Tiger besides the duty he had to help his brothers, saw it was a very good chance to test his power and influence. So he wrote a proper, humble letter to the general of the province and he prepared gifts and he sent all by his trusty man and a guard to keep the gifts safe from robbers. Now that general when he received the gifts and read the letter, pondered awhile, and it seemed to him that here was a useful way to bind Wang the Tiger to him in case of a war and if he did this favor, Wang the Tiger would feel an obligation and it seemed a cheap way to secure this favor by letting a young man out of gaol and he cared nothing at all for so small a fellow as the chief of police in a single town. So he sent the word that Wang the Tiger asked, and then he told the ruler of that province, and the ruler sent a mandate down to the magistrate of the county, who sent his mandate down to the magistrate of the town where the House of Wang lived.

  Now Wang the Merchant was more tricky than ever, and he was more clever, and he followed each step with enough silver so that every man who touched the affair felt himself rewarded but still not so much that a greedy spirit might be roused to look twice at the source of so much money. In his turn, the chief of police received the command also and Wang the Landlord and Wang the Second watched very carefully for this moment when it came, for they knew a man will not suffer being put to public shame, and so when they knew he had received the command, they went to him with goodly bribes and with many apologies and they begged the chief of police as though for their own sakes, feigning that they knew nothing of all that had passed from above. No, they made obeisances and they besought him as a man of mercy, and at last he accepted the money carelessly and largely as a man will who confers a favor. Then he ordered the young man released and he reproved him and sent him home.

  As for the two brothers, they gave a mighty feast to the chief of police and so the matter was ended, for the young man was free again, and his love somewhat the cooler for the gaol.

  But that maid was more willful than ever and she clamored anew to her father. This time he was somewhat more willing, now that he understood how powerful this family of Wang was, and how strong a lord of war one of the three brothers was, and how much money Wang the Merchant had, and he sent a go-between to Wang the Landlord and he said,

  “Let us wed these two and seal our new friendship.”

  So the matter was carried through and the betrothal was made and the wedding on the first lucky day to be found thereafter and Wang the Landlord and his lady were filled with relief and happiness. As for the bridegroom, although he was somewhat dazed at this sudden turn, yet he felt some of his old ardor return and he was very well content and the maid was full of triumph.

  But to Wang the Tiger the whole affair was of no great moment except for this; he knew himself now for a man of power in that province and he knew that the general held hi
m to be one whose favor he wished to hold to himself, and his heart swelled with pride. When this whole matter was finished, the spring had turned well into summer and Wang the Tiger said to himself that since he had been so busy and the year was now so late, he would put off his planned war until yet another year. He did this the more easily, because he was now sure of his position, and yet more easily, because in the beginning of that summer his spies began to return to him and they said that some sort of war was rumored well to the south, but they did not yet know what war it was, nor who its head. When Wang the Tiger heard this he understood fully the value of his army to the provincial general and why he sought to hold his favor. And he waited then for another spring, to see what it would bring forth.

  And as always he did, Wang the Tiger spent his life with his son. The lad came and went gravely about his duties and it was Wang the Tiger’s pleasure to watch the lad in his silent way. Often he gazed at his son, and he loved to dwell upon his serious face, half child, half youth. Many a time when he thus studied his son’s face as it bent over some book or task, Wang the Tiger was caught by a strange familiar look in the boy’s high square cheek, or in the firmness of his mouth.

  It was not a beautiful mouth, but very firm and fixed for so young a lad.

  And it came to Wang the Tiger one night that his son had his look from his grandmother, Wang the Tiger’s own mother. Yes, Wang the Tiger knew it was his mother’s look, although he could only remember her clearly when she lay dying, and the boy’s ruddy face was very different, too, from her pale, dying face. But deeper in Wang the Tiger than any clear memory was some feeling that told him his son moved in his mother’s slow and silent way, and that her gravity was upon his son’s lips and in his eyes. And when Wang the Tiger felt this vague familiar thing in his son, it seemed to warm his heart the more, and he loved his son more deeply yet and for some reason he did not understand he was knit to him yet more closely.

  XXVI

  NOW THE SON OF Wang the Tiger was such a sort of lad as this; he was faithful in every duty and he did all that he was told to do. He studied to perform the feints of war and the postures that his teachers set before him, and he rode his horse well enough, if not easily as Wang the Tiger did. But the lad did all as though he had no pleasure in any of it and as though he forced himself to everything as a task. When Wang the Tiger asked the tutor how his son did, the tutor answered hesitating,

  “I cannot say he does not do well, for he does all well to a point, and he does very exactly what he is told, but beyond that he never goes. It is as though he kept his heart back.”

  This answer troubled Wang the Tiger very much for it had seemed to him before this that his son had no good hearty anger in him, and he was never angry and he had neither hatred nor desire in him for anything, but only he went gravely and with patience to all he had to do. Now Wang the Tiger knew that a warrior cannot be so; no, a warrior must have spirit and anger and willfulness in him and a ready passion and he grieved and wondered how to change his son in this.

  One day he sat by and watched the lad in the court as he fired at a target under his tutor’s direction, and although the lad stood quietly and lifted his arm quickly and did not hesitate to pull firmly upon the trigger when the call came, yet it seemed to Wang the Tiger that he saw his son brace himself and a look come over his smooth boy’s face as though he hardened himself within, so that he might do what he must, because he hated it so much. Then Wang the Tiger called to his lad and he said,

  “Son, put your heart into it, if you would please me!”

  The lad looked quickly at his father then, the pistol still smoking in his hand, and a strange look stole into his eyes and he opened his lips as though to speak. But there sat Wang the Tiger, and he could not look gentle if he would, those brows of his heavy and black, and his mouth sullen in his stiff black beard even when he did not mean it so, and the lad looked away again and sighed a little and he said in his patient way,

  “Yes, my father.”

  Then Wang the Tiger looked with vague pain at his son, and for all his stiff hard looks his heart was soft, but he did not know how to speak out of his heart. And after a while he sighed and he watched in silence until the lesson was over. Then the lad looked doubtfully at his father and he said,

  “May I go now, my father?”

  And it came to Wang the Tiger that this lad of his went often away somewhere alone and many times he slipped away and Wang the Tiger did not know where, except that he knew the guard he had appointed to follow his son wherever he went followed him doubtless. But Wang the Tiger on this day looked at his son with a question in his mind, whether the lad went where he should not, and he saw him that he was a child no longer, and smitten with a sudden jealousy, Wang the Tiger made his voice as gentle as he could and he asked,

  “But where do you go, my son?”

  The boy hesitated and hung his head and at last he said half afraid,

  “To no one place, my father. But I like to go outside the walls of the city and walk about the fields awhile.”

  Now if the boy had said he went to some bawdy place Wang the Tiger could not have been so taken aback and he said astounded,

  “Now what can be there for a soldier to see?”

  And the boy kept his eyes down and he fingered his little leather belt and he said in a low voice, in his usual patient way,

  “Nothing—but it is quiet and pleasant to see now when the fruit trees are abloom, and I like to talk with a farmer sometimes and hear how he plants his land.”

  Then Wang the Tiger was completely astonished and he did not know what to do with this son of his, and he muttered to himself, that here was a strange son for a lord of war to have, who had hated from his youth up the ways of farmers upon the land, and suddenly he shouted out more angrily than he meant to do, because he was somehow disappointed and yet he did not know why he was,

  “Do what you will then, and what is it to me?” And he sat on awhile heavily, for his son had slipped, swift as a freed bird, away from his father.

  Wang the Tiger sat on and he meditated painfully, and yet he did not know why his heart was so sore, either. At last he grew impatient and he hardened himself somewhat and he told himself that with such a son he ought to be content, since the lad was not profligate and he did what he was told, and so Wang the Tiger put the matter away from him once more.

  Now during these several years there were rumors of some new great discontent shaping itself up into a war somewhere, and Wang the Tiger’s spies brought back tales of young men and young women in the schools of the south shaping themselves in a war and they brought tales of common folk upon the land shaping themselves for war and such things had never been heard of before, because such things are the trade of lords of war and have nothing to do with common people. But when Wang the Tiger in astonishment asked why they did battle and in what cause his spies did not know, and Wang the Tiger told himself it must be some school or other where some teacher did a wrong, or if it were the common people it must be some magistrate too vile and the people could not endure him more and they rose to kill him and put an end to what they could not bear.

  But at least until he could see how new war shaped and how he could fit himself to it Wang the Tiger waged no wars of his own. No, he conserved his revenues and he bought such tools of war as he wished. Nor did he need to ask his brother Wang the Merchant to help him for Wang the Tiger had now his own port at the river’s mouth which he owned and he hired ships and smuggled his own weapons in from outer countries easily enough. If there were those above him who knew it they were silent for they knew he was a general on their own side and every gun he had was a gun for them in the struggle that must come one day, since peace cannot last forever anywhere.

  In such ways did Wang the Tiger strengthen himself as he waited, and his son grew and came into his fourteenth year.

  Now these fifteen years and more that Wang the Tiger had been a great lord of war he had been lucky in many ways
and the chief way was that there had been no great whole famine in his regions. Small famines there had been in one place or another, for thus it must ever be under a cruel heaven, but there was no famine over all his regions together, so that if one part starved, he need not press hard upon it, but he could raise his taxes in some other part where the people did not starve, or at least not so bitterly. This he was pleased to do, because he was a just man and he did not willingly take from dying people the little they had as some lords of war will do. For this the people were thankful and they praised him, and many throughout his region said,

  “Well, and we have seen worse lords of war than the Tiger, and since there must be such lords, it is lucky we have this one who only taxes us for his soldiers and he does not love feasting and women and the things that most such men love.”

  It was true that Wang the Tiger took care to be just to the common people as much as he could. To this day no new magistrate had come to take the old one’s place in that court. There had been a certain one appointed, but hearing how fierce a man Wang the Tiger was he delayed his coming, saying that his father grew old and that he must wait until the old man died and was buried before he could come. So until he came Wang the Tiger very often dispensed his own justice in the court and he heard people who came before him and he defended many a poor man against a rich man or a usurer. The truth was that Wang the Tiger did not need to fear any rich man, and he would clap the rich man into gaol if he did not pay what Wang the Tiger would have of him, so that it came to be in that town that landlords and usurers and such people hated Wang the Tiger very heartily and they went to great lengths to avoid bringing a case before him. But Wang the Tiger cared nothing for their hatred, since he was powerful and did not need to be afraid. He paid his soldiers regularly and well and if he was harsh sometimes with a man who committed some liberty too great, still he paid them their monthly wage and this was more than many a lord of war did, who must depend upon a looting to keep his men about him. But Wang the Tiger was not driven to a war for the sake of his men, and he could delay if he pleased, and his position in that region among the people and among his own men was very good and secure by now.