Libation

There is a reason that none speak ill of the Han. It is the same reason none but soldiers walk armed in Chu-Dien. It is the same reason we flinch when a soldier reaches for their arms, the same reason we tremble when one speaks to us with that northern burr.

Fear.

For we are a freedom-loving people, come from the warm and fertile lands. We love the simple life; we love our comfort, our land, our ever-gentle waters and mountains.

But the Han — the Han are different. Down they came from their windy mountains and lonely plains, like to us in face as one of closest kin, and yet sundered, for they are colder, and they know pain.

They are experts on pain, the Han. And just as they know how to cure it, they know how to cause it. A needle here, a flick there, a different herb in a bowl of tea — that is all they need to create agony, to inflict torture upon their victims, to break them, to kill them.

But those are only the weapons of the ren shi, the men of learning, who were trained in such arts before they marched south from the cities of the North. The soldiers have another weapon, just as terrifying to the Lac, our bane, our death. The heavy Chinese blade. It was just by such a weapon that my brother-in-law would be killed.

He lived yet, Kim said. But for Thi-Sach there was no hope. He was a prisoner of the Duke, that much was known among the townsfolk, for some had seen the soldiers bring him into Chu-Dien, into the upper citadel where the Han lived. No Lac who had entered that citadel came out alive, they said. It was forbidden. But my brother-in-law lived yet, the merchant insisted. Not for long, perhaps, but he lived yet.

That was upon the fourth day since they took Thi-Sach away. Upon the fifth day my sister took ill and lay abed for many hours, suddenly unable to hold down food or walk far.

Upon the sixth day the day the soldiers came. They needed a witness, they told us. One of close kin or friendship to Thi-Sach had to go watch the execution, to carry word back so that all in the household would learn to fear the name of Su-Ting, Duke of Giao-Chi.

My sister was immediately ruled out. The soldiers would like to have taken her, for she was his wife, but they did not know what illness afflicted her, and they did not want to spread contagion among themselves.

One of the soldiers, the leader, pointed at Bao, and then me.

Either of you will do, he said. Bao did not want me to go, because I had to tend my sister and because he shuddered at the thought of me alone among six soldiers.

No, he insisted. I will go.

Then a gnarled hand brushed his shoulder.

I will go, said the Lady Thanh-Ngu. Bao protested; the old woman stopped him with a look. Respect your elders, boy, she said sharply. Thi-Sach is my son. I will go. And that was that. Bracing upon her cane, she followed the soldiers out the gate. Her back was straight and her face lifted proudly against the sun and heavens.

I never saw her again.

All that day the wind blew dry and hot across the fields, a sign of summer. Within the house my sister lay ill while Loan and I tended her with growing anxiety.

Such an evil day, Loan said as she pressed a cup to my sister’s lips.

I only sighed. Loan laid her hand upon my shoulder.

Go outside, Nhi, she said. Breathe some fresh air.

I complied and stepped outside on the back porch. Our house stood upon a low rise overlooking the fields of my brother-in-law’s tenants, who were out there working now, walking unconcerned through this year’s crop. They seemed not to know what was happening to their lord in town, nor to their mistress within the house.

By the doorway where I stood, there hung a banner of gold silk, embroidered with a dragon. It was old but not faded, fraying at the edges but untorn. The work of some ancient weaver it was, made perhaps when the house of Hong-Bang was is its flower of glory.

As I stepped out upon the back porch, the south-blowing wind shifted suddenly and gusted from the east, a cold cutting wind for the briefest time. Beside me the banner rippled. In the distance I could swear I heard the heavy Chinese blade slicing through blood, flesh and bone; the thud of the head as it fell from the condemned, who would need it no more, whether for thought or motion. My brother was dead. I knew, I knew it; Loan knew it, and rushed to my sister with foreboding, but before she could reach her a wail arose from my sister’s bedside, for now she knew it too.

Her husband was dead, gone where not even she could recall him. And my sister broke, and poured forth her grief for Thi-Sach in a libation of tears.