Sons (42 page)

Then Wang the Tiger cried out suddenly in the midst of his wonderment, “What—did you starve too?”

And the man answered simply, “Yes, since my people did also, and it is not the first time.”

“But the man they sent out to make truce the first time was fed well enough,” said Wang the Tiger.

“Yes, but they fed him specially from the first,” answered the magistrate, “so that if you would not make truce you would see they had stores left to eat and could hold out longer.”

Then Wang the Tiger could not but approve such good guile as this and he cried out in wonder and admiration of it, and he said,

“But the captain who came out was well fed, too!”

The magistrate answered simply, “They fed the soldiers best and to the last the best they could. But the people starved and many hundreds of them are dead. All the weak and the very old and the young are dead.”

And Wang the Tiger heaved a sigh and said, “It is true I saw no babes anywhere.” And he stared awhile at the magistrate and then he forced himself to say what he must and he said, “Submit yourself to me now, for I have won the right to take that other lord of war’s place over you and over this whole region over which he ruled. I am the ruler now and I add this to my dominion I have already to the north. The revenues shall come into my hand now, and I will demand of you a certain sum fixed and beyond that a proportion of revenues every month.”

This Wang the Tiger said with some few courteous words afterwards, for he was not devoid of such courtesy. The magistrate answered in his weak and hollow voice, moving his dry lips over teeth that seemed too large and white for his drawn mouth,

“We are in your power. Only give us a month or two to recover ourselves.” Then he waited awhile and he said again with great bitterness, “What is it to us who rules over us if we can only have peace and if we can only pursue our business and have a livelihood and nurture our children? I swear I and my people are willing to pay you in all reason if you will only be strong enough to keep off other lords of war and let us live secure in our generation.”

This was all Wang the Tiger cared to know, and now his merciful heart smote him to hear the man’s feeble, breathy voice and he cried out to his soldiers,

“Bring in food and wine and feed him and the men with him!” And when he had seen this done, he called his trusty men to him, and he commanded again, “Go out now into the countryside and take soldiers and compel the farmers to come in with their grains and their produce so that the people may buy and eat and recover themselves again after this very bitter war.”

So did Wang the Tiger show his justice to all the people and the magistrate thanked him, and he was moved with his gratitude. Then Wang the Tiger saw how courteous and gently born and reared this magistrate was for even half starved as he was and his eyes glittered at the food that was set on a table before him, he restrained himself and he dallied and delayed, his trembling hands clasped tightly together, until all the polite and courteous things were said that should be said from guest to host and until Wang the Tiger could seat himself in the host’s place. Then the poor man fell upon the food, and still he tried to hold himself back and in very pity Wang the Tiger at last made excuse that he had some affair to which he must go. He went away then and let the man eat alone, for his underlings ate separately, and afterwards Wang the Tiger heard his men say in wonder that the dishes and bowls needed no washing so clean the starving men had licked them.

Then Wang the Tiger took the sweetest pleasure in seeing the markets of that city fill again and in seeing the food begin to lie in vendors’ baskets along the sides of the streets and on the counters, and he thought he could see day by day that men and women grew fatter and the dark livid hue left their faces and they won back their clear and golden color of health. All through the winter Wang the Tiger lived in that city, arranging for his revenues and shaping affairs anew, and he rejoiced when children began to be born and women suckled babes again, and the sight stirred some deep in his own heart that he did not understand, except that a longing fell on him to return to his own courts and for the first time he wondered concerning his own two women. And he planned to return to his own house at the end of that year.

Now when Wang the Tiger had finished his siege of the city the spies whom he kept out in other parts had come to him and told him that there was a great war waging between north and south and again they came and said the north had won that war once more. Then Wang the Tiger made haste and he sent a band of men bearing gifts of silver and of silks and he wrote a letter to the general of the province. This letter Wang the Tiger wrote himself, for he was a little vain of his learning, since few lords of war are learned, and he set on it his own great red seal that he had now he was grown great. In the letter he told how he had fought against a southern general and had defeated him and had taken this region that ran by this river for the north.

Then the general sent back a very good answer, full of praise for Wang the Tiger’s success, and he gave him a very fine new title, and all he asked was that a certain sum be sent him every year for the provincial army. Then Wang the Tiger, since he knew he was not strong enough yet to refuse, promised the sum, and thus he established himself in the state.

As the end of the year drew near and Wang the Tiger took stock of his position, he found he had more than doubled his territories, and except for the mountainous parts which were bare, the lands were good and fertile producing both wheat and rice in measure, and besides this, salt and oils of peanuts and sesame and beans. Now, moreover, he had his own way to the sea and he could bring in much he needed and he could be free of Wang the Merchant his brother, when he wanted guns.

For Wang the Tiger longed very much to have great foreign guns, and the longing came to him especially because among the things the old robber chief had left were two very strange, huge guns such as Wang the Tiger had never seen before. They were of a very good iron without bubbles or holes of any sort in it, and so smooth that some clever ironsmith must have shaped them. These guns were heavy, too, so heavy that more than twenty men must put forth their utmost strength to lift them up at all.

And Wang the Tiger was very curious about these guns and he longed to see how to fire them, but no one knew how to do it, nor could they find any bullets for them. But at last two round iron balls were found hid in an old storehouse, and it came to Wang the Tiger that these were for the great guns, and he was in great delight and he had one of the guns taken out into an open spot in front of an old temple which had a waste place behind it. At first no one would come forward to try the gun, but Wang the Tiger offered a very good reward of silver, and at last the captain who had betrayed the city came forward, wanting the reward and hoping to gain favor, and he had seen the guns fired once, and he set all in readiness and very cleverly he fastened a torch on to the end of a long pole and set fire to the gun from a distance. When they saw the smoke begin they all ran a long way off and waited, and the gun blew off its great charge and the earth shook and the very heavens roared and smoke and fire streamed out, so that even Wang the Tiger was staggered and his heart stopped for an instant’s fear. But when it was over they all looked and there the old temple lay in a heap of dusty ruins. Then Wang the Tiger laughed his noiseless laugh, and he was struck with delight at so good a toy as this and so fine a weapon of war, and he cried out,

“If I had had a gun like this there would have been no siege for I would have blown the city gates in!” And he thought a moment and he asked the captain, “But why did not your old chief turn them upon us?”

To this the captain said, “We did not think of it. These two guns he captured from another lord of war with whom I was once also, and they were brought here but never fired, and we did not know these balls were here and we did not think of these guns as weapons at all, so long they have stood here in the entrance court.”

But Wang the Tiger treasured these great guns very much and he planned he would buy more balls for them and he had them brought and set where he could often see them.

When he had taken stock of all he had done, Wang the Tiger was well pleased with himself and he prepared to return to his home. He left a good large army in that city led by his own old men, and the newest men and the new captain he took back with him. After some pondering, he left in highest command in this city two whom he could trust. He left the Hawk and he left his nephew, who was grown now into a goodly young man, not tall but broad and strong and not ill to look at except for his pocked face which would be marred like that even when he lay dead of old age. It seemed to Wang the Tiger a good pair to leave, for the young man was too young to take command alone, and the Hawk could not be wholly trusted. So Wang the Tiger set them together and he told the young man secretly,

“If you believe he thinks of any treachery, send a messenger to me on wings by night and by day.”

The youth promised, his eyes merry with his joy to be lifted up so high and left alone, and Wang the Tiger could go and be at ease, for a man can trust those of his own blood. Then having done all well and made all secure, Wang the Tiger returned victorious to his own home.

As for the people of that city they set themselves steadfastly again to build up once more what had been destroyed. Once more they filled their shops and set to work their looms to make silk and cotton cloths, and they bought and sold and they never talked except of such renewal, for what was passed, had passed, and Heaven lays its destiny upon all.

W
ANG THE TIGER MADE
haste on his homeward journey, although he said it was to see if his army were peaceful as he had left it. And he truly thought this was the chief reason, for he did not understand himself that he made haste for a deeper cause than this and it was to see if he had any son born to him or not. He had been away from his house close upon ten months out of a year, and although he had twice received letters from his learned wife in that time they were such very proper letters and full of such respect, that the sheet was full of these words, and little else said except that all was well enough.

But the moment he stepped into his own courts triumphantly, he saw at a glance that Heaven was over him still and his good destiny still held, for there in the sunny court, where the south sun shone warm and there was no wind, sat his two wives, and each held a babe, and each babe was dressed in scarlet from head to foot, and upon their doddering little heads were crownless scarlet caps. The unlearned wife had sewed a row of small gold Buddhas upon her child’s cap, but the learned wife, because she was so learned, did not believe in these tokens of good fortune, and she had embroidered flowers upon her child’s cap. Except for this, there seemed no difference in the pair of children, and Wang the Tiger blinked at them amazed, for he had not thought of two. He stammered out,

“What—what—”

Then the learned wife rose, for she was quick and graceful in speech and she spoke prettily always, very smoothly and throwing in a learned phrase or a line from some old poem or classic, and she made a show of her shining white teeth as she spoke, and she said, smiling,

“These are the babes we have borne for you while you were away, and they are strong and sound from head to foot,” and she held up her own for Wang the Tiger to see.

But the other wife would not have it held back that she had borne a son, for the learned wife’s was a daughter, and she rose too and made haste to say, although she spoke seldom because of her blackened teeth and the gaps where she had none, and now she held her lips close and she said,

“Mine is the son, my lord, and the other is a girl.”

But Wang the Tiger said nothing at all. Indeed he could not speak for he had not known all it would be to have something of his own making belong to him like this. He stood and stared for a while speechless at these two minute creatures who seemed not to see him at all. No, they looked placidly at him as though he had always been there like a tree or a bit of the wall. They winked and blinked at the sunlight and the boy sneezed overloudly for his size so that Wang the Tiger was yet more astonished at such a gust coming out of so small a fragment. But the girl child only opened her mouth as a kitten does, and yawned very widely, and her father stared at her while she did. He had never held a child in his arms, and he did not touch these two. Nor did he know what to say to these two women at such a time, seeing that his speech had always been of warlike things. He could only smile somewhat fixedly, therefore, even while the men who were with him exclaimed in joy and admiration at the son their general had, and when he heard these exclamations he muttered out of his deep pleasure,

“Well, and I suppose women will breed!” and he went hastily into his apartments, being too full of joy for his own comfort.

There he washed and ate and he changed his stiff garments of war for a silk robe of a deep dark blue, and when it was all finished it was evening. Then he sat down by the brazier of coals, for the night came on quiet and chill with frost and there Wang the Tiger sat alone and reflected on all that had come about.

It seemed to him that destiny favored him at every point, and so favored there was nothing to which he could not attain. Now that he had a son his ambition took on meaning and what he did, he did for a purpose. As he thought his heart swelled in him, and he forgot every sorrow and loneliness he ever had, and he shouted suddenly into the stillness of the room,

“I will make a true warrior out of that son of mine!” and he rose and slapped his hand against his thigh in his pleasure.

He strode about the room then for a while, smiling without knowing he did, and he thought what a comfortable thing it was to have a son of his own, and he thought how now he need depend no more on his brothers’ sons, for there was his own son to continue his life after him and to increase his domains of war. Then another thought came to him and it was that he also had a daughter. He spent a little time then wondering what he would do with her, and he stood by the latticed window and fingered the hairs of his beard, and thought of his daughter with reticence because she was a girl and at last he said to himself in some doubt,