Chapter 78: The Bow-Step Measure

On the thirteenth, at the Mao hour, they settled the bill at the inn. The shopkeeper took the wooden sign off the wall, turned it over, and chalked a mark, then said two nights. Xu Yan counted out four pieces and set them on the counter: two a night, four for two nights. The shopkeeper slid the four into a stack and put them away.

The mule cart was already hitched in the yard. The road out of the city was still damp, last night's dew pooled in the ruts, and when the wheels rolled through it, water splashed up onto the cart sides. They reached Luoxia Town at the Monkey hour, took the mountain path up from the town gate, and arrived at the mountain gate at the You hour, before the sky had fully darkened.

Jiang Wan sat on the topmost step, a cloth spread across her lap with the sword's guard resting on it, wiping it with the corner of the cloth, bit by bit.

Xu Yan climbed the steps and told her what had been settled at the office: "A land survey. The Chen hour on the fifteenth, starting from the Chixiao mountain gate. Both sides present."

"On the fifteenth, who goes up the ridge?" She didn't look up.

"Qi Qi."

"Bring one more."

Xu Yan stopped.

"Qi Qi's fast on his feet. If something happens, he's the only one who'd make it back." Jiang Wan said. "We also need someone who can hold his ground."

"The only one who can hold ground is Shi Po."

"Shi Po's ribs just finished mending. Elder Cheng won't let him up the ridge." She turned the guard over and examined the other side. "Bring Huo Qing."

Xu Yan didn't answer right away.

"He's like me." She said. "He can stand there without saying a word, and people still have to watch him."

"And you?"

"I'll be at the mountain gate."

The lamplight shone through the west wing's window paper. The door was open a crack, and Du Xiaochuan was grinding ink inside. Huo Qing sat on the plank bed, his sword laid flat beside his leg. The cloth wrapping on the wooden scabbard had come loose at one end, and he was winding it back with his left hand, loop after loop.

"We go up the ridge at the Mao hour, day after tomorrow." Xu Yan said.

Huo Qing pressed down the end of the cloth. "Bring the sword?"

"No." Xu Yan said. "It's a survey. No sword."

"Mm." He finished the last stretch of wrapping, bit the cloth end to tie the knot, then stood the sword against the wall, hilt toward the inside.

Before dawn on the fourteenth, Qi Qi went down the ridge. He came back at the You hour. The moment he stepped into the Accounts Room he picked up the water bowl and drank; only when he finished did he speak.

"The stele's still west of the spring source, the weir's still there, the channel still runs east. Two Red-Robed Men on guard. I squatted for half a day, and they didn't move a step."

"What kind of men?"

"No blades at their waists." Qi Qi thought for a moment. "They take turns standing. One at the weir head, one sitting on a rock sunning himself."

"How's the water in the channel?"

"Not full. The weir holds back about half. The rest runs east, and half a li on it just disappears, soaks into the ground." Qi Qi set the bowl down. "On the way back I passed through town and ran into the Rank Evaluator at the street corner. Two clerks with her. One had a long wooden bow slung across his back, as tall as a man; the other was holding a register with a wooden case tucked under his arm. She went into the Luoxia Inn, the innermost room. The shopkeeper said she paid full price, not one coin short."

Xu Yan answered with a sound, then opened the ledger and added a line: Fourteenth day, Qi Qi up the ridge. Stele and weir undisturbed.

After the lamps were lit, Qian Duoduo set three packets of flatbread on the threshold of the Accounts Room. A He was behind him.

"Three packets." Qian Duoduo said. "One for the road up, two for the road back. Don't skimp. If there's any left when you return, toss it on the stove to warm up."

A He poked half his head out from behind him. "Sect Master, can I go?"

"No."

"I won't go up the ridge. I'll turn back at the fork in the road."

"Not even the fork."

A He shut his mouth, held it a moment, then pulled the words out again. "Then tell me about it when you get back."

"I will."

Shi Po stood in the courtyard, one hand braced on a veranda pillar, holding it in for a long while before forcing out a sentence: "You can't bring me?"

"Elder Cheng says those two ribs of yours are new."

"I can carry."

"Carrying and enduring aren't the same thing. This trip doesn't need carrying."

Shi Po pressed his lips shut.

Cheng Banshan came over from the Medicine Hall, a lamp in one hand, and walked between the two of them. "He's right. You stay on the mountain and move medicine. The wind knocked down one of the two bamboo racks behind the Medicine Hall used for drying herbs this morning. Someone has to pick it up."

Shi Po let go of the pillar and walked off.

At the Mao hour of the fifteenth, the sky was still dark. The lamp in the kitchen was already lit; Qian Duoduo hefted his carrying pole and circled out from behind the kitchen, heading south down the mountain to the market. Three people went east out of the mountain gate: Qi Qi in front with three packets of flatbread on his back, Xu Yan in the middle, Huo Qing last, his back empty, the sword left on the mountain.

Three li down the east fork lay the spirit field. The crack in it was still open; a night's dew had formed a white crust along its edges, which would melt as soon as the sun came up. Higher still, the creek bed held nothing but stones, a month of sun having bleached them stark white.

By the halfway ridge, it was light.

The spring source lay in a recess in the rock face at the ridge's top, water seeping from the stone cracks into a stone hollow. The weir was built at the spring's outlet on the east, stones laid one against the next, the mud in the seams gone dry. The channel spilled over the weir and ran east; the bottom seeped, leaving a ring of damp along the earth on both sides.

Two Red-Robed Men stood on the rocks by the weir. One standing, one crouching. Hands empty, no blades at their waists.

The three of them cut around below the channel. The two watched them pass, and neither said a word.

Qi Qi quickened two steps forward, his voice low. "No blades."

Xu Yan didn't answer.

He stopped below the channel and looked into it. The channel was freshly dug, the walls still yellow-brown earth, a thin layer of mud at the bottom. Water spilled down from above, over a grass-rope-tied block at the weir's mouth, before running east. He looked twice, then moved on.

Huo Qing went last, crossing on the stone steps below the weir, neither fast nor slow.

Over the ridge, the road sloped down. By the Chen hour, the Chixiao mountain gate came into view: a three-bay gate tower with twenty-some stone steps, above the lintel a plaque whose characters had once been traced in gold, the weather having worn the color away in patches. The threshold was a single unbroken stone, a shallow hollow worn in its middle by passing feet, polished bright. In front of the gate tower, a row of hitching stones ran on either side, six of them, each worn smooth.

Wen Su was already there. She stood two paces outside the threshold, her back to the gate, facing the western road. Two clerks waited behind her: one with the long wooden bow slung diagonally across his back, iron-capped at both tips, and a short spade hanging from the back of his waist, its blade wrapped in cloth; the other holding a register, a flat wooden case tucked under his arm.

Ge Song came out through the gate. Chixiao's land deed was wrapped in a square of blue cloth, cradled in both hands against his chest.

Cao Hu stood below the steps on the right with two Outer Disciples. The knife at his waist still had its brass clasp; his hands hung at his sides, his eyes on Xu Yan's group approaching. When he saw Huo Qing's back was empty, he shifted half a step aside, opening a space on the steps.

"Everyone's here." Wen Su said. She turned to the threshold. "Where does the measuring begin."

"The mountain gate." Ge Song said.

"The outer edge of the threshold." Xu Yan said.

Wen Su listened to both statements before she spoke. "The outer edge of the threshold."

Ge Song lifted his chin a little. "The mountain gate is this gate tower. The plaque hangs here, the gate stands here."

"The deed says the mountain gate." Xu Yan said. "A gate has a gateway. A person coming from outside, his first step lands on the outer edge of the threshold."

"Is the ground inside the gateway not Chixiao's ground?"

"It is Chixiao's ground." Xu Yan said. "But what's being measured is the road. The road is measured up to the gate; it isn't measured from inside the gate outward."

Ge Song seemed about to say more, but Wen Su raised a hand to stop him. She squatted down at the threshold and ran a finger along its outer edge. "Here." She stood. "Clerk, mark it."

The clerk with the register took a stub of charcoal from his robes, squatted, and drew a black line along the stone where she'd pointed, then made an entry in the book.

"During the survey, both sides stay outside the measure." Wen Su said. "Whoever speaks, whoever steps into the path, I record them. Wherever the measure reaches, a call is made, an entry is kept."

"The measurer is from the Branch?" Ge Song asked.

"The Branch's."

"Is the bow accurate?"

"The Branch's bow is used every year to measure the official roads." Wen Su said. "Steward Ge, step outside."

Ge Song moved two steps to the side, clutching the blue-wrapped deed tighter. Cao Hu gestured at his two disciples, and they withdrew to the step below the bottommost one, standing in a row.

The clerk with the bow unshouldered it and stood it upright for all to see. The bow was the height of a man, horizontal rungs notched in rows along its back, both tips shod with iron and pointed toward the ground, biting into the soil when they landed. He set his left foot on the black line at the outer edge of the threshold, braced his hand on the bow's back, and let his right foot come down at the other end. The iron point clanked against the stone.

He lifted his back foot, flipped the bow forward another step, and clank again.

The clerk with the register walked behind and to his side. Every flip of the bow was one count. He counted to ten, then started over. At three hundred and sixty, he looked up and called: "One li." Then he made an entry.

Wen Su walked three paces ahead of the bow measure, holding nothing. Ge Song followed behind it, deed clutched to his chest. Cao Hu and the two Outer Disciples walked last. Xu Yan, Qi Qi, and Huo Qing walked along the other side of the mountain road, their feet all outside the measure.

The first li lay on flat ground outside the gate and went quickly. On the second li the road began to climb, and the bow wouldn't sit level. The clerk had to probe the ground with his toes; flipping the bow forward, his front foot landed half a chi lower than his back one, so he nudged the bow forward half an inch before setting it down. Things slowed on the slope.

The sun rose behind them, and the shadows of the bow step by step crept west.

By the third li, Ge Song had shifted the deed to his other hand once.

At the fourth li, an Outer Disciple of Chixiao brought a bowl of water to Wen Su. Wen Su glanced at the bowl. "Leave it." The disciple set it on a rock by the road and withdrew. No one touched it after that, and a film of dust settled on the water's surface.

At the fifth li, the road curved around the ridge's north slope. The rocks were loose here; the clerk flipped the bow, his foot slipped, and he caught the bow's back, retreated half a step, and began the step again. Ge Song opened his mouth behind him. Wen Su didn't turn; she only raised a hand. Ge Song shut his mouth.

When the call for six li came, the Chen hour was nearly spent. Qi Qi behind them had just counted to six when he suddenly laughed and then clamped his mouth shut. Wen Su looked back at him, and Qi Qi dropped his head.

The seventh and eighth li ran along the ridge's spine, slopes on both sides. The wind came up, and the corner pages of the register flapped wildly. The clerk with the book pinned them down with his chin.

Midway through the eighth li, a gully half a chi deep, washed out by rain, cut across the road. The clerk stopped the bow, unstrapped the short spade from his back, unwrapped the cloth, and shoveled soil into both ends of the gully, tamping it firm with his feet before standing the bow up again. That li was called later than the one before.

The ninth li was cut into stone steps, rising step by step. The bow couldn't sit level on steps; the clerk laid it along the stairs at an angle and measured a full bow-length down, his toe landing on the edge of the next step. The clerk with the register still recorded one count. Ge Song's throat moved as he walked this stretch, and he glanced back at the gate tower down the mountain. It was already as small as a brick.

Huo Qing moved steadily up the stone steps, his feet landing without a sound.

Qi Qi counted to ten, then stopped, tucking both hands into his sleeves.

The call of ten li rolled down from the slope, half of it torn apart by the wind.

The sun had climbed to just east of overhead; when the call for eleven li came, the sound of water rose ahead. A stream spilled from a crack in the rock, running east along the channel, loud enough to hear across half a slope.

Xu Yan had counted along step by step to this point. One li remained.

Ge Song stood holding the deed, saying nothing.

The clerk with the register flipped to a fresh page, scraped his brush tip against the edge of the inkstone, and waited for the last li.