Chapter 426 — The Third-Day Bath

When the child's informal name reached Song Cen, he gave a cold snort in the direction of Zi'ai Peak and said, "Only girls are ever called 'Yuan Jie'; who ever heard of a boy called 'Yuan Ge'? Go and tell him the child's name is to be 'Dong Ge'."

Zi'ai Peak smiled and assented. She returned and reported this to Song Yan, who acted as if he had heard nothing and went on calling the child "Yuan Ge." The servants of Yi Zhi Hall naturally followed Song Yan's lead and said "Yuan Ge," while those of the Yingzhen Duke's household said "Dong Ge" in Song Cen's presence and "Yuan Ge" in Song Yan's.

Chen Yanzhou, ever mischievous, laughed and said, "Normally, the younger the child, the more such names ward off evil and misfortune. But with 'Yuan Ge' and 'Dong Ge' flying about, one slip of the tongue and there'll be trouble. I say call him 'Eldest Young Master' and have done with it. Yuan Heng is the eldest legitimate grandson of the Yingzhen Duke's household, and his great-grandfather is gone, so the title is his by right."

Zi'ai Peak seized the chance to stir the pot. "Then 'Eldest Young Master' it is—it saves no end of trouble."

Someone, eager to curry favor, reported this to Song Yan. His face betrayed nothing, yet he rewarded the old woman with two taels of silver.

At that, the serving women of the household understood which way the wind blew, and began addressing Yuan Heng as "Eldest Young Master," one after another.

Outsiders who heard of it were puzzled. "Then what is your family's Second Young Master to be called now?"

The household servants laughed. "He is still Second Young Master."

The outsiders could not help laughing. "So the nephew has climbed above his uncle's head."

"Hasn't the Second Young Master yet to marry? Once he does, it will be time enough to raise his style of address another rank."

As a rule, the last to hear of gossip is the one it concerns.

By the time Song Han learned of it, the matter had spread through the whole capital and been told as a joke for a long while.

Even so, the formal name Song Yan had chosen for the child, "Mingyi," lasted but a single night—at the third-day bath rite the next day, Wang Ge, newly promoted to Junior Director of the Qianqing Palace, came in person to the Yingzhen Duke's residence to deliver an imperial decree: the Emperor had bestowed upon Yuan Ge the name "He."

Song Yan and Song Cen were astonished beyond measure.

Only in the imperial house, to avoid taboo characters, were such obscure words ever used for naming.

The Emperor was naming Yuan Ge entirely by the rules of the imperial family. And the Emperor was not a man given to fussing over trifles. He could not even recognize all of his own grandsons—how should he think to bestow a name on Yuan Ge? What was more, naming a child had always been the business of the family's elders; before Song Cen had so much as spoken, the Emperor had overstepped and done it for him. It was an unparalleled favor, to be sure, but it had come so bafflingly out of nowhere that it left a man uneasy at heart.

Song Yan received the decree and, together with Song Cen, invited Wang Ge into the small reception hall for tea.

Song Cen asked Wang Ge, "However did His Majesty come to think of bestowing a name on our child?"

Wang Ge had dealt often with Song Yan. Though Song Cen had fallen out of the Emperor's favor these past two years, he was after all one of the five seal-holding commissioners of the Five Armies Command, and Wang Ge counted himself on good terms with both father and son. So he did not stand on ceremony, but spoke plainly: "His Majesty is waiting for this servant to return and attend him, so this servant will not beat about the bush with the Duke and the Heir. Your eldest young master has the Third Imperial Grandson of the Eastern Palace to thank for his good fortune. Yesterday was the Third Grandson's third-day bath, and His Majesty went to the Eastern Palace. Seeing the child plump and fair, eating and sleeping well, His Majesty was delighted and bestowed a name upon him. This morning, when His Majesty rose, it suddenly came to him that your eldest young master is but one day younger than the Third Grandson. Since today was to be his third-day bath, His Majesty instructed the Messenger Office to draw up a decree and sent this servant as imperial envoy to proclaim it at your honored house."

Was that truly how it had happened?

Song Cen strongly suspected that Song Yan had had a hand in it.

But this was no place to probe.

He hastily uttered a stream of "Thanks be to His Majesty's boundless grace" and pressed two handsome red packets upon Wang Ge.

Song Yan, meanwhile, asked Wang Ge in a low voice, "What name did His Majesty bestow upon the Third Imperial Grandson?"

Wang Ge dipped his finger in the tea and wrote a character on the tea table: "Chong."

Chong—the swan soars ten thousand li, and in one flight breasts the azure heavens.

He—the shaft of a feather. Take the great pinions for two wings, and beat them high in flight.

Song Cen drew a sharp breath.

What did the Emperor mean by this?

Was Yuan Ge to be made to support the Imperial Grandson?

Song Sui was deeply grateful.

Whether the Emperor had acted on a sudden whim, as Wang Ge said, or knew that his father was unkind and meant to raise the child up on purpose, with this name bestowed by the Emperor it was as though a talisman had been pasted upon the boy. Anyone minded to make trouble for the child would first have to weigh the cost.

He too rewarded Wang Ge with two handsome red packets, then saw him out. He enshrined the decree in the ancestral hall, and went with Song Cen into the palace to give thanks for the imperial grace.

By then the inner quarters were in an uproar.

Those who had come for Yuan Heng's third-day bath offered their congratulations to Dou Yan one and all.

Dou Yan smiled and thanked each in turn.

The midwife basked in the reflected glory as well. Gazing at the gold and silver ingots, large and small, in the basin, she could not stop smiling. "Oh my, this old woman has had her share of the honor too. When I go home I shall be able to show off before the whole neighborhood."

Suxin and the other maids attending Dou Zhiwei covered their mouths and laughed.

The Fifth Madam could not help sighing. "The Fourth Son-in-law truly has face with His Majesty—scarce three days since the child came into the world, and already a name has been bestowed."

The Sixth Madam nodded, but said, "What is rarer still is that the Fourth Son-in-law is wholehearted toward Shouyuan." Inwardly she felt a lingering chill of fear. Had she set her will against the match and blocked it, would she not have ruined Shouyuan?

It seemed that in future she must be more prudent in both word and deed.

Lady Cai, for her part, could not hide her envy. "The Fourth Young Mistress's luck has always outstripped the Fifth Young Mistress's. When they were small, to be sure, there was no comparison; but grown, even though the Fifth Young Mistress stole her marriage, she still managed to marry into a noble house. Not only did she marry in, she married better than before. A body cannot help but be put out!"

Lady Guo did not know what to say and made no reply. Lady Han, who had always despised Lady Cai's vulgarity, smiled and said nothing either. It was Wen, the wife of Dou Wenchang, who very much wished to ask how Dou Ming was faring now, but seeing that no one so much as mentioned Dou Ming, she swallowed the words on the tip of her tongue and could not help heaving a sigh for her in her heart.

The First Madam of the Song house, however, was bitter at heart.

Now that Dou Yan had borne a son, her place in the household was all the more secure.

That day her remarks about the midwife had been no more than a stone cast to test the waters; she feared there would be more questions to come.

But she truly knew nothing—how was she to answer?