Chapter 132 — Meeting

Song Yan was helping his mother take stock of the summer rents delivered from the family's estates, and had no intention of going to see Gu Yu.

"Brother Tianci, are all your affairs settled?" With the Jiang family in trouble, the Songs could hardly shirk their duty to lend a hand. Gu Yu had gone to the palace several times to see his aunt, and Empress Wan had warned him not to act rashly, telling him that the Songs would surely have to grease a good many palms, and that he should not go looking for Song Yan for the time being, lest he see something he ought not to see and only plant a seed of estrangement in the Songs' hearts. If Song Yan needed his help with anything, he would send for him. Only then had he stopped dropping by every few days as he once had.

Now that the Jiang family affair had drawn to a close, he naturally had no more scruples.

"More or less settled." Song Yan went with him into the adjoining reception room. "What brings you here today?"

Gu Yu had first studied letters and martial arts under Song Zhiren. The change in him had made people sit up and take notice; after the Earl of Yunyang came in person to thank the Song family, he had taken Gu Yu home and hired tutors for him there.

"I told them I was coming to see you." Gu Yu sat down on the arhat bed without ceremony, picked an apple off the small table beside it, and bit into it with a loud crunch. "Where did this fruit come from? How is it so awful?" He promptly called out loudly to his page, "Baique! Go home and fetch that basket of pears I carried off from the palace a few days ago." Turning back to Song Yan, he said, "Newly in season, autumn pears—not to be had on the market yet. Not very sweet, but plenty juicy. A touch better than these dried-out things of yours."

The fellow was a past master of eating, drinking, and making merry, and Song Yan could not be bothered to squabble with him. He called a page to go with Baique to the Earl of Yunyang's residence to fetch the pears.

Gu Yu leaned over at an angle and asked Song Yan in a low voice, "Still no word from the Prince of Liao?"

"My father and the Third Imperial Son-in-Law are deliberating the matter," Song Yan said.

Gu Yu gave a dismissive snort. "If you ask me, there's no need for your uncle to step in at all. You and I can just go to Liaodong ourselves. The two of us standing there—so what if he's a prince now? If he won't give us face, we'll black both his eyes just the same. Who's afraid of whom?"

Song Yan thought much the same.

But his father was running himself ragged over it, and he could hardly throw cold water on the man's efforts. Even his mother said, "It's rare to see your father so intent on a thing—let him try. There are several of your maternal grandfather's old subordinates over there; when your uncles go, they'll look after things more or less. You just keep your eyes open. If nothing comes of your father's efforts, it will be no great loss for you to go to Liaodong yourself. Your uncles will likely be a month or two on the road—not so swift as you riding hard, who could reach Liaodong ahead of them."

This, however, was not something he could say in front of Gu Yu. He said only, "Is this a matter fists can settle? Don't forget—it was the Emperor who issued the decree!"

"True enough!" Gu Yu frowned. "Even my aunt finds it strange. She says the Emperor was never such a suspicious man before." He glanced this way and that, and seeing no one about, lowered his voice even further. "Yesterday the Emperor suddenly pointed at my aunt and asked, 'Who are you? How did you get into my palace?'"

Song Yan's heart gave a lurch.

He had long heard that the Emperor's memory was failing. But to not even recognize the Empress...

"Who told you this?" His voice was a little tight.

Song Chu was rather cold by nature, and Gu Yu did not notice. "My aunt, of course! She's worried sick. She says it's one thing for him not to recognize people now, but if he can't even remember what he himself has said when the grand secretaries hold their council, then we're in real trouble!"

So Empress Wan was using Gu Yu to pass word to their family?

Song Yan nodded. "So you'd best lie low for a while too." He changed the subject.

Gu Yu shrank back a little. "I was thinking the same!" Then he sighed. "That fellow the Prince of Liao is the clever one. He could have stayed away from his fief, yet off he bolted like a shot, leaving the Crown Prince behind to be picked at by the Emperor every day."

"Jade unpolished is no gem. The Emperor's love is deep, and so his reproof is sharp!"

"That kind of love I can do without." Gu Yu waved a hand, losing interest in the topic. "When are you going to finish going through these accounts? The Duke of Jing has finally petitioned to have Zhang Zongyao made heir. His family has hired Zeng Chusheng of the Guanglian Troupe to perform at their house. Shall we go and watch the opera there?"

Once the imperial decree came down, the Zhangs would surely celebrate.

Something stirred in Song Yan at the words. Zhang Yuanming's wife was a Wei of the Jining Marquis household...

Without betraying a thing, he said, "Who else have they invited?"

"I don't know." Gu Yu never paid attention to such things; he feared no one's presence and had no scruples. "It'll be the same crowd as always, coming and going."

"All right then. Come fetch me when the day comes!"

Gu Yu left in high spirits.

Song Yan sent word to the office that handled social engagements for the various households, and when the day arrived, he took the invitation the Zhangs had sent and went with Gu Yu to the Duke of Jing's residence.

Both households were ducal establishments, laid out according to regulation, much the same in scale and structure. The difference was that at the Ying Duke's residence one entered upon the main hall, with the principal chambers behind it, the garden on the eastern route, and everyday living quarters on the western. At the Jing Duke's residence, one entered upon the garden, with the main hall on the western route, the principal chambers behind it, and everyday living quarters on the eastern. After paying their respects to the Duke of Jing on the western route, they went straight to the garden.

The stage had long since been set up, and the performance had not yet begun, but the gambling tables in the hillside rooms nearby had been going for some time already. Voices surged and clamored, and every so often a burst of cheering rang out, making the stage side seem rather quiet by comparison.

Gu Yu laughed. "This has to be Zhang Jixian's doing!"

Zhang Xuming, styled Jixian, was the husband of the Grand Princess of Ningde's granddaughter—a distant relation of Song Yan's, connected by a thread a thousand li long.

"I don't think you came to hear the opera at all," Song Yan said. "You came to gamble."

Gu Yu chuckled and whispered in Song Yan's ear, "The money's plenty and the fools are many. If I didn't sit down and win myself a little pocket money, I'd be the biggest fool of all!"

Song Yan laughed despite himself, but caught hold of him. "Today is Zhang Zongyao's big day. We ought at least to offer our congratulations to the man himself. Come with me to see Zhang Zongyao first."

At gambling tables like these the stakes rarely exceeded a thousand taels or so, nothing Gu Yu thought worth noticing. If he wanted to gamble, he would go to the capital's largest gaming houses and play against the salt merchants from Yangzhou and the traveling traders from Guangdong. But here everyone was of much the same station; the stakes were small, yet there was a different sort of pleasure in it, and he greatly enjoyed standing by to watch the play and stir up a little cheering. Still, now that Song Yan had come, of course he would keep him company.

To pass by a gambling table without joining—Gu Yu grabbed a page and asked where Zhang Yuanming was.