After two months of siege, the resolve of two generals inside a tent at Xiapi (下邳) began to shift.

Their names were Song Xian (宋憲) and Wei Xu (魏續). They were veteran field captains under Lü Bu (呂布), whose breath had grown short as the floodwater rose to their knees. After two months, Lü Bu’s delayed decision had shaken the two generals once more.

That evening, the two conferred in a low voice at a corner of the camp. Song Xian spoke first. “Lord Wei (魏公). If our Lord’s decision does not come tonight, by tomorrow morning the water will rise to our waists. If the decision is delayed further, the water will reach our heads as well.” Wei Xu answered low. “Lord Song (宋公). Such a decision is not ours to make. Yet one path remains: to draw the fragment of the jade seal from our sleeping Lord’s bosom and deliver it to Cao Cao’s main camp.”

Song Xian nodded deeply. “That single move will save our lives. But Zhang Liao (張遼) and Gao Shun (高順) are not of our mind. If they learn our plan, we will be broken inside the tent instead. Tonight, avoid those two men; draw them out and empty their tents for a moment.”

Wei Xu nodded. Through the hand of a young soldier, he sent a single line of a letter beyond the walls to a patrol of Cao Cao. Upon that line was written: “General Cao. Tonight at the third watch (三更), a torch will rise above the western back gate of Xiapi. When it rises, press the gate open at a single stroke. A fragment of the jade seal will be delivered to Your Lordship’s main camp.”

The third watch came. Lü Bu had fallen into a deep sleep behind a cup of wine. Diaochan (貂蟬) lay beside him, yet her sleep was unusually deep that night, so deep that she did not sense the seat beside her. Song Xian slipped his hand quietly into Lü Bu’s bosom. The jade fragment passed into his palm. Wei Xu lifted the haft of the Sky-Piercing Halberd (方天畵戟) and set it against the wall beside the bed.

Song Xian raised a torch above the western back gate. Its light was mirrored upon the water. From Cao Cao’s (曹操) main camp at Xudu (許都), Xiahou Dun’s (夏侯惇) vanguard pressed the western back gate open at a single stroke. The gate swung open without a sound.

Xiahou Dun’s force poured into the walled city. Song Xian and Wei Xu delivered the jade fragment into Xiahou Dun’s hand. Xiahou Dun placed it within his robe. “Tonight this fragment will rise upon the table of the main camp at Xudu.”

Inside the tent, Lü Bu woke. His hand felt the emptiness where the fragment had lain. His eyes opened. The Sky-Piercing Halberd beside him leaned against the wall at a slight angle. Lü Bu looked long into that angle. “Tonight, a decision has laid itself in place of my delay.”

Meanwhile, Chen Gong (陳宮) woke inside a separate tent and learned of the two generals’ betrayal. His mouth moved, low. “My Lord’s resolve was one of delay; the resolve of two generals has stepped in behind that delay. The last breath of our cause has been laid down tonight.”

Outside the western back gate, in the darkness between the lamps, the young soldier who had carried the letter at evening now stood beside Xiahou Dun’s banner. He was fifteen. He did not look back at the gate he had just passed through. A courier of fifteen who has carried a line of betrayal between a lord’s tent and an enemy’s patrol rarely looks back at the gate in the hour he crosses it. He held the reins of his small horse; the horse shifted one hoof into a soft patch of mud; the soldier stood still. Somewhere behind him a bird — an owl, perhaps — called across the water of the plain. He did not turn his head. He would not turn his head until, days later, he reached the camp at Xudu.

Inside Diaochan’s chamber, the lamp had not been lit. A servant of the household had given her, at evening, a cup of wine that carried a thin measure of a sleeping draught. The servant had handed the cup in silence; a month earlier, that servant had been paid by a sleeve of coins passed through Wei Xu’s hand. Diaochan drank without suspicion. A woman whose days have been arranged for many years by larger men rarely suspects a cup within her own chamber. The sleep ran deep; tonight, that sleep was what allowed the jade fragment to cross out of her husband’s bosom without her waking.

The seventy-third night of Book 3 deepened quietly above the western back gate of Xiapi. The three characters Songwi-ban (宋魏叛, the betrayal of Song Xian and Wei Xu) were planted as a seed: the deep sleep behind a single cup of wine, the crossing of a jade fragment, the rising of a torch, and a single sigh all gathered at one seat. The delay of Day 72’s Iwolsik (二月息) had, this night, been answered in Lü Bu’s place by the resolve of two generals.

—

WIA Code 스캐너로 비추면 인터넷 없이 발행 사실과 위·변조 여부를 확인할 수 있습니다.
휴대폰 기본 카메라로 찍으면 스캐너 안내 페이지가 열립니다 — 기사 바로 열기

움직이는 코드는 스트림입니다 — WIA Code 스캐너로 약 34초 비추면 기사 전문(사진 포함)이 폰에 저장되어 인터넷 없이도 읽을 수 있습니다.

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