Qiao’er
I had known Young Master for nearly nine years.
That should have made him easier to understand.
Until recently, it usually had.
There were habits a person acquired when serving the same man for so long. I knew which robe he would choose before he opened the chest. I knew when he was pretending to sleep because he did not want to receive someone. I knew how much wine he could drink before becoming unreasonable, and how much more he could drink before becoming convinced that unreasonable ideas were excellent ones.
I knew he disliked mornings.
I knew he disliked work.
I knew he disliked being told what to do.
And I knew, with considerably greater certainty than any of those things, that Young Master hated horses.
The cart moved over a rut.
I put one hand on the box beside me before it shifted.
The household records were still there.
Some of them, at least.
A few had been lost when we abandoned the first residence. Others had been left behind when the road became unsafe. Three weeks ago I would have worried about exactly which ones.
Now I found it difficult to care.
Outside, soldiers rode beside the convoy.
There were far more of them than the eight Lady Song had originally sent with me.
Two of those eight would not be returning.
I looked down at my hands.
The scratches across my fingers were beginning to close.
My shoulder still hurt when I lifted my arm too quickly.
The bruise beneath my sleeve had darkened before it began fading.
Nothing serious.
I had told Young Master that.
He had looked at the bruise anyway.
I moved my sleeve lower.
A group of soldiers had been talking for most of the morning.
They were not trying to be quiet.
There was little reason to be. Everyone in the convoy had heard some version of what happened at Xin’an by now.
The problem was that no two versions were exactly alike.
One man said, “You are mixing the two attacks. The first withdrawal was planned. The wagons came later, after the forward force pressed farther than expected.”
Another answered, “I was there.”
“So was I.”
“You were with the reserve.”
“And you were pushing a cart full of dirt.”
Several men laughed.
“It was grain when we left the fort.”
“It was dirt by the time you broke the axle.”
“That was the point.”
“No, breaking the axle was the point. Filling the sacks with dirt was because nobody wanted to waste grain.”
A third man joined them.
“You are both missing it. The wagons mattered because the road was already too narrow once the enemy pushed through. If they had room to turn around, none of it would have worked.”
“They still had room.”
“For men, yes. Not for carts. Not with cavalry trying to come through behind them.”
The first man clicked his tongue.
“That is what I said.”
“That is not what you said.”
“It is what I meant.”
Their argument continued.
I listened without appearing to.
That, too, was a habit.
People spoke differently when they believed a servant was only a servant.
I had learned more in corridors than Young Master had ever learned in council rooms.
At least until recently.
The soldiers moved on to arguing about whether one of the coalition officers had been killed before or after the wagons burned.
I looked out through the opening of the cart.
Fields passed slowly on either side.
The road west was crowded.
Carts.
Pack animals.
Families.
Servants.
Soldiers.
Officials who had suddenly discovered reasons to own more boxes than anyone should reasonably need.
Lady Song’s household was only one among many moving away from Luoyang.
That should have explained everything.
It was the most reasonable explanation.
Young Master had wanted us west for weeks.
He had counted grain.
Asked about carts.
Asked what could actually move and what merely existed on a register.
He had worried about roads before anyone around him seemed to understand why roads might matter.
So perhaps Xin’an had been about that.
The road east had become dangerous.
The army at Xin’an blocked movement.
Young Master had helped remove it because the household needed to pass.
Simple.
I almost accepted it.
Then I remembered that the army had already been there before my guard reached him.
Young Master had known.
He had not done anything.
According to Xu An, he had spent that morning arguing about transport animals.
I looked outside again.
One of the soldiers was speaking now in a lower voice.
“The general wanted to pull back once their front came too far. I heard the order myself.”
Another man said, “He should have.”
“Maybe.”
“You saw how many there were.”
“I saw.”
“So why did he stay?”
There was a pause.
Then someone said, “Because the Young Master asked about the road.”
The words were not spoken with reverence.
That made them harder to dismiss.
One of the men laughed quietly.
“I thought he had lost his mind.”
“So did half the officers.”
“He asked whether two wagons could pass.”
“Then three.”
“And everyone was standing there waiting for whatever brilliant military wisdom was supposed to follow.”
“What followed was us dragging wagons backward.”
Another laugh.
“At least we understood the wisdom after.”
They moved farther ahead.
I remained where I was.
Young Master asking how many wagons fit on a road sounded exactly like something Young Master would ask.
That did not make the rest of it easier to understand.
I knew the man who counted carts.
I knew the man who hated horses.
I knew the man who had arrived at Yanshi with blood dried across both palms.
Those three men should not have been the same person.
For years, Young Master had been simple in another way.
He liked beautiful things.
Fine cloth.
Music.
Wine.
Women.
Especially women.
And he had never been subtle about including me among the last category.
There had been an evening, years ago, when he had insisted I pour his wine personally.
Another servant had already been there.
He sent her away.
I stayed because he told me to.
The first cup was ordinary.
By the fourth, I noticed that Young Master was no longer watching the wine.
Every time I leaned forward, his eyes lowered with me.
I changed where I stood.
He frowned.
“Why are you all the way over there?”
“I am beside the table.”
“You were closer before.”
“I can still reach your cup.”
“That is not the point.”
I had looked at him.
He had smiled as though he believed he had said something charming.
I spent the rest of the evening pouring from the far side of the table.
He complained twice.
It never occurred to him that I might have moved because of him.
Another night, my work had been finished long before the lamps burned low.
I told him I was leaving.
He told me to stay.
“Why?”
“I am still drinking.”
“There are other attendants.”
“I do not want another attendant.”
He had been reclining beside the table, already pleasantly drunk.
I asked why it had to be me.
He looked genuinely surprised by the question.
“Because you are prettier.”
As though that settled the matter.
For him, perhaps it had.
I stayed another hour.
He talked about a musician.
I lost sleep.
Young Master never noticed.
That was how he had been.
Not cruel.
Not deliberately.
That had almost made it more irritating.
He wanted something, so he reached for it.
Wine.
Music.
Company.
Me.
Whether the person being reached for wanted the same thing rarely entered the calculation.
Once, when a fever kept me from serving him for several days, his first message was not to ask whether I was recovering.
He wanted to know when I would return because the woman replacing me tied his sash incorrectly.
Lady Song heard about that message.
The second one asked about my fever.
I never learned whether Young Master had thought of the question himself.
At the time I had been annoyed.
Later it became funny.
That was simply who he was.
If I suffered and it disturbed his comfort, Young Master noticed the disturbance first.
At Yanshi, something had reversed.
His comfort had apparently stopped mattering because I was in danger.
I did not like that conclusion.
I closed my eyes briefly.
There were better explanations.
There had to be.
The household.
That was the obvious one.
I had not been alone.
There were guards with me.
Servants.
Workers.
Women and children.
We belonged to his family.
Perhaps Young Master had simply learned responsibility.
It would explain why he came.
Perhaps not the horse, but enough of the rest.
At the next halt I found Xu An near the rear carts.
He was eating something from a small cloth packet while watching two men inspect a wheel.
He saw me approaching and offered me the packet.
I shook my head.
“I need to ask you something.”
He folded the cloth closed.
“What happened?”
“Nothing happened.”
His expression changed slightly.
I regretted the answer immediately.
That was the sort of thing Young Master said.
I started again.
“I want to understand what happened at Xin’an before my guard arrived.”
Xu An studied me for a moment.
Then he nodded.
“What do you want to know?”
“What was Young Master doing?”
“Complaining.”
That, at least, required no explanation.
“About what?”
“Transport records. One list counted animals that could barely walk. Another counted carts without working wheels. He spent most of the morning arguing that owning something and being able to move it were not the same thing.”
“And the enemy?”
“General Duan handled them.”
“Was Young Master worried?”
Xu An thought.
“About the army?”
“Yes.”
“Not especially.”
I looked at him.
“There were thirty thousand men outside the position.”
“He said General Duan was a general and therefore the matter should remain with General Duan.”
That sounded like him.
My chest tightened.
“Did he ask to return east?”
“No.”
“Did he ask General Duan to clear the road?”
“No.”
“Did he discuss attacking them?”
Xu An smiled faintly.
“He avoided discussing battle whenever possible.”
I already knew the next question.
I still waited before asking it.
“When did that change?”
Xu An stopped smiling.
He understood now.
Perhaps not everything.
“When the rider arrived.”
“My guard.”
“Yes.”
“What happened first?”
“He recognized the household colors. Then he recognized the man.”
“And what did he ask?”
Xu An looked toward the carts.
For several breaths he said nothing.
I waited.
Finally he said, “Where you were.”
I had expected the answer.
That did not make hearing it easier.
“Only me?”
“At first.”
My fingers tightened around the edge of my sleeve.
“And the others?”
“He asked afterward. How many guards remained. Who was with you. Whether anyone had been hurt. Where you had gone.”
Afterward.
I turned away slightly.
There were still explanations.
I forced myself to continue.
“What did he do when he learned where I was?”
“He wanted men sent east.”
“How many?”
“At first? Five hundred.”
I looked back.
“At first?”
“General Duan explained why five hundred cavalry could not simply ride through an army. Young Master suggested more.”
“How many more?”
“He reached two thousand before General Duan stopped asking for numbers.”
Despite everything, I could hear that conversation in my head.
Young Master bargaining over cavalry as though buying cloth.
“And then?”
“General Duan explained that nobody could leave while the coalition force remained in position.”
I knew what came next.
The soldiers had repeated it.
I wanted to know whether they had repeated it correctly.
“What did Young Master say?”
Xu An's face became very still.
“He said, ‘Then they can’t remain.’”
No embellishment.
No great speech.
No declaration.
Just that.
I looked down.
The road needed clearing.
But it had needed clearing before my guard arrived.
The household needed protection.
But Young Master had been content to let General Duan hold position until he learned where I was.
The records mattered.
Except before I left, Young Master had told me exactly what to do if danger came.
Forget the inventory.
Come back.
Perhaps the servants explained it.
Perhaps he would have done the same for any of them.
I tried to believe that.
It was possible.
Young Master had changed.
He learned servants’ names now.
He noticed when people were frightened.
He had helped Miss Yue leave Luoyang.
He had worried about Lady Song.
He had even worried about whether Lady Wei could refuse him safely.
The man I served now cared about things the old Young Master would barely have noticed.
Perhaps that was enough.
I asked, “Did he hesitate?”
Xu An did not pretend to misunderstand.
“No.”
Not after hearing where I was.
Not before demanding cavalry.
Not before deciding the army had to move.
I nodded.
“Thank you.”
I started walking away.
Xu An called after me.
“Qiao’er.”
I stopped.
“He asked about everyone.”
I turned.
For a moment I thought he was trying to comfort me.
Then he added, “But he asked about you first.”
I said nothing.
There was nothing useful to say.
That evening the convoy stopped at a guarded waystation.
After food was distributed and the carts checked, I took out the robe I had worn at Yanshi.
The tear near the shoulder could have been left alone.
I had other robes.
I threaded a needle anyway.
The cloth passed between my fingers.
I remembered Young Master looking at the tear.
Then the bruise beneath it.
His expression had changed.
He asked who had done it.
I told him the man was probably dead.
He had looked relieved.
Later, while I wrapped his hands, I saw how badly the reins had torn them.
That should have settled the matter by itself.
Soldiers rode every day.
To them, a horse was a horse.
To Young Master, a horse had always been an argument.
He had avoided riding lessons.
Avoided military training.
Avoided General Lü because General Lü might suggest more riding.
When forced to travel west, he had negotiated until they gave him a gelding normally ridden by a child.
He had returned from that journey walking as though the saddle had personally betrayed him.
I had laughed at him.
He had complained for the rest of the day.
That man learned I was trapped near Yanshi and asked for a horse.
Not a carriage.
A horse.
The carriage was slow.
That was what he had told me.
I stopped sewing.
His hands had been torn because he rode too hard and too long.
He had reached the compound exhausted.
And when he saw me, before anything else could settle, he said:
“You said two days.”
He remembered.
I looked at the needle between my fingers.
I had spent the entire journey searching for a reason that did not mean what it appeared to mean.
The relocation.
The road.
The records.
The household.
General Duan.
The other servants.
All of them mattered.
None of them explained the change.
Before my guard arrived, Young Master had been counting transport.
After my guard arrived, thirty thousand men became a problem he could no longer tolerate.
He asked where I was.
He demanded a way east.
When there was no way east, he helped create one.
Then he went himself.
On a horse.
For most of my life with Young Master, I had understood what he wanted from me.
My work.
My attention.
My patience.
My company when he was bored.
My face when he wanted something pleasant to look at.
He had wanted many things.
I knew how to deal with those things.
This was different.
The thought returned.
I did not push it away this time.
He came for me.
My hands did not move.
There was no pleasure in the realization.
There was too much else inside it.
He was Dong Zhuo’s son.
I was his attendant.
Lady Wei existed.
Lady Song existed.
The household existed.
Years of knowing exactly where I stood existed.
And now one impossible action had disturbed all of it.
Perhaps I was still wrong.
I wanted that possibility.
Not because I wanted him not to care.
Because the world was much simpler if I had misunderstood.
I looked down at the half repaired sleeve.
I could ask Xu An another ten questions.
I could listen to another hundred soldiers.
None of them could answer the only thing left.
Young Master could.
He would not answer directly.
I knew that already.
He would joke.
He would complain.
He would explain that the road mattered.
He would mention the household.
He might even try to convince me that riding through an army had somehow been the easiest option available.
I knew every way he hid when he did not want to say something serious.
So when I returned, I would not ask him whether he had come for me.
I would give him the explanations myself.
The road.
The records.
The household.
General Duan.
All the reasons I had tried to believe.
Then I would listen.
Not only to what he said.
To what he avoided.
To which explanation he chose.
To whether even he could make it sound true.
I had known Young Master for nearly nine years.
If he lied to me about this, I would know.
And if he could not...
I lowered my eyes to the torn sleeve.
He came for me.
This time, the thought remained where I put it.
When I saw him again, I would hear what he had to say.