Sons

XX

THEN THE GOLDEN WINDS of autumn blew clear out of the west and over the land once more, and the farmers reaped their harvests and the full moon swung once more to its height and the people rejoiced in the coming of the mid-autumn festival and they made ready to give thanks to the gods for these goods, that there had been no great famine and only a crop or two scarce, that the robbers had been put down once again, and that wars had not come near their region.

And Wang the Tiger took account of himself where he was and how much he had achieved and he found he was better this year than last. Yes, he now had twenty thousand soldiers under him quartered in the town and in its suburbs and he had altogether nearly twelve thousand guns. Moreover, he was now known and reckoned among the lords of war, for the weak and unready ruler whom the war had left still sitting in his place had sent out a proclamation of gratitude to all those generals who had helped him to remain when the generals of the south had tried to end his government, and Wang the Tiger’s name was among the others to whom he gave thanks and titles. It is true that the title given to Wang the Tiger was not high and it sounded longer and better than it was, but still it was a title, and for this honor he had not entered a battle or lost a gun.

There remained to him this one great difficulty and it was that at the time for the feast, when it is a time of reckoning for all who lend or borrow, Wang the Merchant sent word that he must receive the money for the guns, for others pressed him for payment. Then Wang the Tiger grew quarrelsome and he parleyed with his brother and sent a man to say that this time he would not pay for the whole of the guns he had lost and he said to his brother through this messenger,

“You should have warned your agents not to turn the guns to the first who came for them.”

To this Wang the Merchant answered with reason,

“But how did I know that the ones who brought my own letter for proof and used your name for a sign were not your men?”

This Wang the Tiger could not answer, but he had the power of his armies to use for an argument and so he said back again in great anger,

“I will pay half the loss and no more and if you do not agree to this I will pay nothing, and I do not need to do in these days what I do not wish to do.”

Then Wang the Merchant, being a man prudent and full of philosophy if he could not mend a thing, agreed to it and he bore his half well enough because he could raise the certain rentals he had and he put the interest up somewhat in a place or two where he knew he could not be refused and so he did not hurt himself.

But Wang the Tiger at first scarcely knew how to get the sum that he must pay, because he needed so much for his vast army that although a stream of silver ran into his hands every month and even every day yet it all ran out again, too. He called his trusty men into his own room and said to them in private,

“Is there any revenue we could have which we do not have now?”

And his trusty men scratched their heads to warm up their brains and they looked at each other and here and there and they could not think of anything. The harelipped man said,

“If we make the revenues too heavy on foods and goods the people must have every day they may turn against us.”

This Wang the Tiger knew was true, for so the common people have done always if they are too pressed and must turn or else starve, and although Wang the Tiger was by now very well entrenched in that region, still he was not great enough to be wholly careless of the people. So he must think of something new and at last he thought of a chief industry in that town and of a tax he could put upon it, and it was the tax of a copper coin or two on every wine jar made in that region.

Now the wine jars of that region were famous, and they were made of a very fine pottery clay and glazed blue and when the wine was poured into them a seal of the same clay was put over the mouth and stamped with a sign, and that sign was known everywhere for a sign of good wine in a good jar. When Wang the Tiger thought of this he slapped his thigh and shouted out,

“The pottery makers grow richer every year, and why should we not make them share a tax with the others?”

All the trusty men agreed to it as a very good thought, and so Wang the Tiger laid the tax that very day. He laid it courteously and he sent word for the heads of the business and told them he protected them for he protected the sorghum lands where the cane grew for their wine, and if he did not there would be no wine for their jars, and he said he needed money to protect the lands, and his soldiers must be fed and armed and paid. But behind all this courtesy were the glittering weapons of his thousands and although the pottery makers met together secretly and grew very angry and talked of a hundred ways and of rebelling and of many things, they knew in the end they could not refuse for Wang the Tiger could do what he liked and there were many worse than he, and this they knew.

They were willing, then, since they must be, and Wang the Tiger sent his trusty men to estimate what the output of the jars was and every month there was a good full sum of silver given to Wang the Tiger, and in three months or so he paid Wang the Merchant. Then, since the pottery makers were used by this time to the tax, Wang the Tiger let it come on into his hands and he did not say the need for it was not so sharp as it had been. Indeed he did need all he could secure, for he had a long road yet before the end of his ambition was come, and he was restless with his ambition and he busied himself in many things.

Then when he took thought and saw that he could not take much more from the people of his lands and keep them content, he cried to himself that he was too great for so small a place and in the next spring time he must enlarge himself far beyond the confines he now had, for this region was so small that if a great famine came, such as might come any year under the cruelty of heaven, he would be undone. He had been protected thus far by his good destiny, for there had been no vast famine yet since he came to this place, and only small ones in this place and that.

Then the winter drew on when there can be no war and Wang the Tiger entrenched himself warmly. He saw to it that so long as the rain and the winds did not beat too bitterly nor the snow fall too deeply, his men went out every day for training and exercise. He himself trained the best and cleverest, and these taught the others. Especially did Wang the Tiger take stock of his guns. Every month he had them counted before his eyes and tallied with his account, both in number and kind, of what he had, and he continually told his men that if there was at any time a gun not there by its tally, he would shoot a man or two or three to keep the proportion what it was. Not one dared to disobey him. More than ever they feared him, for they all knew by now that he had killed even the woman he loved. He could be so angry even as that, and they all dreaded his anger, and leaped if he so much as twisted his black brows together.

Then winter came down out of the bitter north and the dark days came when Wang the Tiger could not go out nor force his men out and he faced at last what he knew was waiting for him and that against which he had been so busy. He was idle and he was alone.

Now did he wish he were like other men who turn, eagerly to gambling or to the drinking of wine or to feasting or to the seeking out of some woman to divert them from any trouble they may have. But Wang the Tiger was not so. He had eaten plain food and liked it better than a feast, and the thought of any woman sickened him. Once and twice he tried to game, but he had not the temper for it. He was not quick at dice or at seizing a chance and when he lost he grew angry and felt for his sword and those who gamed with him were alarmed when they saw his brows begin to twist and his mouth grow more surly than it was and when they saw his big hand fly to his hilt, and they made haste to let him win every time. But this wearied Wang the Tiger, too, and he cried out,

“It is a fool’s game, as I ever said it was!” and he flung himself away furious because he was not diverted nor eased at all.

Worse than the day was the night that must come and he hated it more than the day, for he slept alone and he must sleep alone. Now this loneliness by day and by night was not a good thing for such a man as Wang the Tiger for he had a heavy bitter heart that did not see mirth as some do, who have even more to bear than he, and the lonely sleep was not good either, for he had a strong and craving body. Still there was not a soul whom he could take for friend.

It was true that the old magistrate lived still in a side court with his old wife who was now dying of a consumption, and he was in his way a good and learned old man. But he was so unused to men like Wang the Tiger and so frightened that he could only fork his two old hands together and make haste to say whenever Wang the Tiger spoke to him,

“Yes, Honored — yes, General!”

And Wang the Tiger was wearied of this after a while and scowled at the old scholar so fearsomely that he turned the color of clay and he scuttled out of the rooms as soon as he dared, his faded robes dragging on his thin old body.

Yet Wang the Tiger held back his impatience, too, for he was a just man and he knew the old magistrate did the best he could and often he sent him away quickly before his impatience grew too high lest he might grow angry and do damage to the old man and his hand fly out before he meant it to do so.

There were his trusty men also, three good and true warriors, and the Hawk was indeed a very good warrior and better than a thousand common soldiers in his cleverness of guile. Still he was but an ignorant man and he could only talk of the ways there are to hold a weapon and the ways there are of sparring with fists and of kicking with the right foot and the left in a circle before the enemy can recover himself, and such ways and feints of battle, and when he had told these over and over and told how he had done this and done so in some fight or other he had had somewhere, he had told all he knew and Wang the Tiger wearied of him even while he valued him.

There was that Pig Butcher and he was very able with his great, nimble fists and his thick body that he could throw against a gate and crush it in, yet he was but heavy, stammering company on a winter’s night. And there was the trusty harelipped man, the truest best soul although no great warrior, either and best when sent on some message, and his hissing and spitting when he talked could be no pleasure. Nor would Wang the Tiger stoop to talk with his nephew who was a generation beneath him, nor would he descend to feasting and carousing with his own soldiers, for he knew that if a leader does this and if he lets himself be common and play among his own men and lets them see him weak and drunken, on the day of battle they will not reverence him or hear his command, and indeed Wang the Tiger took great care never to appear before his own men unless he wore his full accoutrements of war and unless he had his sharp sword he had used in such a way that now he loved and hated it too. Yet it was so keen a blade that he could never find its mate in the world, and he used to take it out and look at it and muse sometimes when he was alone and think how if he brought it down upon a cloud even it would cut it in two. Her throat had been as soft as that and so the blade had done that night.

But even if Wang the Tiger had had friends in the day there must come the night at the end of every day and he must be alone then perforce and he lay upon his bed alone, and the nights in winter are very long and black.

Through such long black nights must Wang the Tiger lie alone and sometimes he lit a taper candle and read his old books he had loved as a lad and which had first turned his mind to soldiering, the stories of the three kingdoms and of the robbers that bordered a great lake, and he read many doughty tales like these. But he could not read forever. The candle burned down to the end of its reed wick, and he grew cold and he must lie alone at last in the black and bitter night.

Then, although every night he put off this hour, yet the hour came when he remembered the woman he loved and he mourned for her. But he did not in all his mourning wish her living again, for he knew and he steadfastly told himself that she could never have been one whom he could have trusted and the sweetness of his love had been that he had opened his whole heart to her. No, dead he could trust her, but if she had been alive and he had prevented and pardoned her, still he would have been afraid of her always. The fear would have divided him, so that only half his heart would have gone on in his cause and he would never have risen to be great.

So he told himself in the night. Yet he pondered painfully on this, that the Leopard, who had been but an ignorant fellow, risen but a little above his robber band, could have so won the love of the woman, who was no common woman, that even though he were dead, yet did she cleave to him and even against her living love she clave to the dead man still.

For Wang the Tiger could not believe she had never loved him. No, he remembered over and over with hunger when he thought of it how frank she had been and passionate upon this very bed where he now lay. He would not believe that such passion had sprung up where no love was. And he grew wretched and weak and felt that somehow he must be a lesser man, for all his pride and place, than the Leopard he had killed, because his living hold upon the woman had been less than the memory of the dead man in her. He could not understand all this, but only he felt it must be so.

And feeling himself less of a man than he thought, his life stretched ahead of him long and meaningless and he doubted himself that he could ever be great and if he did then for what use, seeing he had no son for whom to achieve greatness, and it would all die with him and what he had go to others. He did not love his brothers or his brothers’ sons enough to struggle in war and guile for them. And he groaned to himself in the dark and silent room and he groaned out,

“When I killed her I killed two, and the other was the son I might have had!”

Then he remembered again and he always saw her now as she looked when she lay dead, her strong fair throat pierced and the bright blood gushing out. When he saw her thus again and again, he could not bear it, and suddenly he could not lie any longer on this bed, no, although it had been washed and painted freshly and the blood stains were gone and the pillow was anew, and although no one had ever mentioned to him what had happened there nor had he ever known where they took her body. He rose from the bed and he wrapped his quilts about him and sat miserable and shivering upon a chair, until the feeble dawn came and showed pale and chill through his lattices.

So the winter nights wore on the same, night after night, and at last Wang the Tiger cried out to himself that this could not be, for these sad and lonely nights were making him less than a man and they were sucking the ambition out of him. He grew afraid for himself because nothing seemed good to him any more and he was impatient with all who came near, and most of all did he grow impatient with his nephew and he said bitterly,

“This is the best I have, this grinning pocked ape, son of a tradesman — this is nearest I have to my own son!”

At last when it seemed he must go mad a turn came in his own spirit and it came to him one night that the woman even though dead was ruining him as surely as she would have done if she had been alive and gone the way she planned. And suddenly he hardened himself and it seemed he spoke to her own ghost to defy her and he said in his own heart,

“Cannot any woman have sons, and do I not desire a son more than any mere woman? I will have a son. I will take a woman or two or three until I have a son. I have been a fool that I do always cling so to one woman — first to a woman I never even knew beyond a few scattered words such as a man may speak to a slave in his fathers’ house and I went sore for that woman nearly ten years, and then there was the one I had to kill. Shall I never be rid of her too and shall I go sore for her another ten years and be too old to beget a son then? No, I shall be as other men are and I will see if I cannot make myself free as other men do and take a woman and leave her again when I please.”

On that very day he called his trusty harelipped man to him and he called him into his own private room and he said,

“I have need of a woman, any woman of a decent kind, and go and tell my brothers that my wife is dead and tell them to find me something since I am busy with the wars that must come in the spring time and I do not care to deviate my thoughts from the wars.”

The harelipped man went gladly on this errand then, for he had seen with jealous eyes at least a little of what his general suffered and had guessed the cause, and he thought this good cure.

As for Wang the Tiger, he could but wait to see what time would bring and what his two brothers would do for him, and while he waited he forced himself to plan his wars and to think how he would enlarge himself. And he schemed how to weary himself into sleep at night