Chapter Twenty: Poetry and Preparations
Wei contemplates Man's place in Epic History; Shu contemplates how to properly put on an embroidered wedding robe.
The gardens of the Wei palace at twilight were undoubtedly matchless in their beauty and grace. A team of very talented architects, gardeners, and engineers had strived over a period of several years to breathe life into the series of sketches and designs of a pleasure ground fit for the gods themselves. The numerous intricate bridges and stone paths, exotic flora imported from all four corners of the Celestial Empire, and man-made lakes and mountains all stood testament to their grand vision and hard work.
Yet Lord Xi, pacing aimlessly across an artistically carved path, noticed none of the splendor surrounding him. How long had it been since Xi Tian had left for the uncertainties and potential danger of the Shu camp? Time seemed to have trickled down to a standstill ever since duty had called his third daughter away from the safety of his sphere of influence.
However, on that particular evening, Heaven appeared disinclined to allow Lord Xi to lament for too long. As the stately old gentleman stopped in the middle of a small white bridge, there floated to his ears a series of melodic, carefully-chosen words, spoken in the quiet, cultured tones of a youthful voice whose owner couldn't surpass two and ten years in age.
"O so vast, O so mighty," a young man recited, "The Great River rolls to sea."
Lord Xi stopped, and listened in appreciation, as the lines of poetry continued to tumble from their composer's lips at a slow, reflective pace.
"Flowers do waves thrash; Heroes do sands smash," flowed the next couplet. "When all the dreams drain."
Here, the poet paused, apparently at a loss for what the following line ought to be.
Lord Xi smiled to himself when he detected this uncertain stretch of silence, before crossing the remainder of the white bridge and generously offering the next line as he did so: "Same are lose and gain."
The mysterious poet looked up, surprise flashing across his soft brown eyes for a brief moment, before making way for a look of admiration at Lord Xi's skill with words.
He was, as bespoken by his voice, quite young for an officer of Wei—Lord Xi estimated the boy's age to be around that of his own daughter Xi Tian's. Reasonably tall and exceptionally good-looking, with long dark hair neatly pulled back from his face and smooth, winsome features, the young man immediately drew down in a respectful bow upon recognizing Lord Xi as one from an older generation, and thus automatically to be respected.
"Da Ren(1), I hope my clumsy lyrics didn't disturb your walk?" he asked in the careful, courteous manner of one who's never been lacking in a fine education.
Lord Xi smiled benevolently in return, and gestured for the boy to straighten up.
"On the contrary, I am overjoyed to discover a fellow scholar in these chaotic and ruthless times," he reassured the youth. "I was hoping you would continue your poem. It would be a shame to leave such promising work unfinished."
The young man smiled modestly, before taking a few steps and making up the next couplet as he did so.
"Green mountains remain," he recited quietly, calmly, "As sunsets ingrain."
"Hoary fishers and woodcutters," Lord Xi stepped up to the challenge, providing the following verses, "And some small rafts and calm waters."
A stretch of silence followed his words, while the younger of the two poets pondered over how to follow up the lines provided by his elder. He never had a chance to demonstrate his verbal proficiency, however, when a new voice spoke up from behind the two.
"In autumn moon, in spring winds; By the wine jars, by porcelains."
The young man who emerged from behind a fragrant awning of jasmine vines was sinisterly handsome, possessing the cold, arresting beauty of a high-ranking aristocrat. His slender upper lip curved slightly in a half-smile, as he strode forward with his hands held behind his back and provided his audience with the finale of their collaborative poem.
"Discuss talk and tale; Only laugh and gale," the newcomer finished with a flair of majestic drama.
"General Sima Yi." The young officer saluted his superior, clasping his hands together by means of polite greeting.
"General Jiang Wei," the one thus addressed elegantly acknowledged his subordinate, before nodding in Lord Xi's direction and remarking, "I see you've been entertaining our honored guest, Lord Xi Wen Qing."
Hearing this particular name, nineteen-year-old Jiang Wei of Tianshui turned to the old gentleman and bowed low to show his respect. At the same time, he murmured reverently, "Then you must be the famous Xi Da Ren, from Jingzhou City."
"There's no need to bow before a humble soul such as myself," Lord Xi replied, hastening to help the youth up.
Sima Yi, who'd been standing quietly as though engulfed in deep thought, now began to speak.
"General Jiang, our lord has called a meeting concerning future campaigns," he reminded the younger officer.
Jiang Wei nodded, then turned to Lord Xi, clinched both hands together, and formally excused himself: "Xi Da Ren, gao ci(2)."
With these words, he turned to follow Sima Yi to the assembly hall, where the rest of Wei's generals were gathering to discuss battle plans with their king.
Lord Xi stared after the retreating backs of Jiang Wei and Sima Yi, a look of unmistakable admiration in his eyes.
"Who would have thought," he murmured to himself, "that in such brutal times of war as these, there might still be intellectuals in the empire?"
A hundred candles combined their tiny orange and crimson flames, together lighting up the extensive dressing chamber with a warm glow.
Liu Bei stood before a tall, full-length mirror, anxiously debating with himself whether the small crinkling around his eyes constituted as crow's feet. Or was he merely getting paranoid about his age, as the hour to his wedding ceremony with young Sun Shang Xiang slowly approached?
His new pageboy, Ren Er, fussed about him, awkwardly trying to adjust the scarlet-and-gold wedding robes he'd just thrown around his master's shoulders. For a palace servant, Ren Er was doing a pretty miserable job of dressing up his lord, but thankfully for the young lad, Liu Bei was too preoccupied with his own thoughts to notice.
A few yards away, poor Yue Ying wasn't faring much better in attempting to dress up her own lord…although for a vastly different reason. The finely embroidered carmine gown she'd chosen to wear to that evening's ceremony was stunning, lighting up her features with a radiant beauty as only the most exquisite of clothing is capable of doing.
As far as dressing her husband for radiance, however, Yue Ying wasn't having the same luck. Even hours before his master's wedding, Zhuge Liang refused to give up his work. As a result, his harried wife was hard-pressed to find new and creative methods of exchanging his trademark white robe with a red silk one, while he busied himself with annotating a well-worn copy of Sun Tzu's The Art of War.
From the reflection of his mirror, Liu Bei observed the goings-on in the room. With a severe shortage of handmaids, the Shu forces had sadly been left to dress themselves for the wedding to the best of their extent.
Currently, Guan Yu was struggling to disentangle his gloriously long beard from Zhang Fei's braided gold silk belt, Zhao Yun was crawling around on all fours in search of a missing shoe, Huang Zhong had apparently abandoned his toilette claiming he was too old to deal with these womanly fussings, and Wei Yan was nowhere in sight.
A dull headache began snaking its way toward Liu Bei's temples, and he tiredly rubbed his fingers against these, while Ren Er continued to fumble about, making a complete mess of his clothes.
"There's so few handmaids in this palace," he observed, before adding with a self-deprecating snort, "And to think, all these years, I've been underestimating their usefulness."
Ren Er paused in his efforts to make Liu Bei's wedding attire even more crooked than it already was.
"Oh, Lady Sun doesn't keep traditional handmaids, only female bodyguards trained in swordsmanship and archery," the pageboy explained, watching closely for Liu Bei's reaction.
"You must be really eager to marry her now, aren't you?" he added, as he sloppily knotted a sash.
By now, Liu Bei had seen too much of the Sun Clan's craziness to be overwhelmingly shocked by this new revelation.
"If my own strategist can be happily married to a lady educated in the martial arts," he commented, "then I don't see why I can't accept Lady Sun, with or without her warring handmaids."
His pageboy looked pleasantly surprised by this answer, but before he could convey his reaction into words, the heavy red doors to the room creaked open.
Looking up, the officers of Shu saw, to their immense gratitude, an actual female, dressed in the brightly-colored skirts and merry flowers of a handmaid.
"Orchid!" Zhao Yun cried out in relief, at last finding his missing footwear and nearly banging his head on a low teakwood table in his hurry to straighten up and greet her.
Xi Tian almost collapsed with laughter when she saw the pitiful states of dress that the men were in—Zhuge Liang with one arm stuck in his robe and the other still holding stubbornly onto The Art of War, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei tangled up in their embroidered finery, Liu Bei cutting a picture of the most bedraggled groom in matrimonial history, courtesy of his bungling pageboy, Ren Er.
"Lady Sun chased me away when I was sent to help her get dressed for her wedding tonight," Xi Tian explained as she stepped into the room.
She produced a small lacquered comb from her rose sash, and, standing up on tiptoes, began to smooth down Zhao Yun's tousled hair. Finding this position tiring after a while, she motioned for the warrior to sit down on a nearby stool, while she combed his hair down and pulled it back into a neatly-brushed ponytail.
"Can't you all get ready without my help?" she added laughingly as she continued her work, playfully pulling a lotus blossom from her hair and sneaking it between Zhao Yun's dark locks.
Huang Zhong caught her movement and lifted one eyebrow reprovingly, but when the young handmaid mischievously put her finger to her lips in the universal gesture for secrecy, the veteran general smirked and gave a slight nod of his head to indicate agreement.
Before somebody else could notice the blatantly pink flower now adorning Zhao Yun's hair, and say something to alert the young warrior, Sun Ce strode purposefully into the room, the Overlord held in a firm grip in his hands. Closely at his heels was his brother Sun Quan, while further behind, Zhou Yu was solicitously escorting Lu Xun, who was unable to walk at any pace faster than a snail's, lest his peaches come tumbling out of his dress.
Sun Ce proudly drew himself to his full height, and pointed one of his tonfas toward the king of Shu.
"Lord Liu Bei," he declared, "I'm afraid the wedding cannot proceed unless we finish the last tournament of our duel."
A sudden silence descended upon the room, before Zhang Fei had the stupidity to bawl out, "Since when did the South develop such a ridiculous custom?"
Sun Ce's face lit up.
"I'm glad you asked, General Zhang," the prince chirped happily. "You see, ever since the old days of Xi Shi and Wang Zhao Jun…"
"That's quite all right," Liu Bei hastily broke in. "We believe you!"
Sun Ce looked disappointed at this cruel denial of his opportunity to spin yet another tall tale about ancient beauties, as Liu Bei dutifully marched across the room to retrieve the Gold Moon Dragon.
Not one to dwell too long on setbacks, Sun Ce turned and motioned at Zhou Yu.
The handsome strategist proceeded to leave Lu Xun's side for the moment, unsheathing his Elder Sword at the same time that his sworn brother declared, "For my partner, I choose Gongjin."
Liu Bei froze. He'd forgotten that the fifth tournament of this ridiculous brother versus groom duel involved team fighting! A tangible spark of tension crackled through the air following Sun Ce's words, signaling that Guan Yu and Zhang Fei had also remembered.
Before the two Tiger Generals could renew their rivalry, however, a young, unexpected voice spoke up.
"If it's not too bold of me to say this, I would be honored to fight alongside Lord Liu Bei."
All eyes turned to the speaker, whose identity momentarily shocked chattering voices into silence.
"Ren Er?" Liu Bei gasped, staring wide-eyed at the young pageboy who'd stepped up to his side.
Sun Ce laughed confidently, exchanging scornful looks with his younger brother and Zhou Yu, before said younger brother crowed, "Don't be foolish boy; what weapons do you have that you may use?"
Ren Er glared daggers at his second prince, then yanked off his loose servant's coat in a single snapping motion…
…Revealing a pair of gleaming, silver-and-gold chakrams hidden underneath.
"I will be using my Sol Chakrams in this duel, Great Prince!" the little squire spat out triumphantly.
1. A title of respect when addressing someone of higher rank or seniority than you. Literally translates to, "Great Person."
2. A formal way of bidding adieu.
A/N: The poem that Jiang Wei, Sima Yi, and Lord Xi recite is actually the opening song of the Three Kingdoms drama series. As for Sun Shang Xiang's false name when she's masquerading as Liu Bei's pageboy, the Ren part is derived from her name in the RTK books (in the novel she's called Sun Ren), while the Er part is, as explained in an earlier chapter, a common suffix attached to youngsters by way of nickname.