At the end of the southern road of two thousand li, inside the gate of Jingzhou (荊州), Liu Biao (劉表) took Liu Bei’s (劉備) hand in both of his own.

Liu Biao’s given name was Biao; his style, Jingsheng (景升); a man of Gaoping in Shanyang. He was counted among the Eight Outstanding (八俊) under heaven, known widely for his learning and his virtue (德). He was fifteen years Liu Bei’s senior.

Holding Liu Bei’s hand in both of his own, Liu Biao spoke in a low voice. “Xuande. That you have reached this walled city today is news most welcome to the house of Han. We share the same royal kin (宗室). Beneath one banner, let us together raise something worthy of it.”

Liu Bei bowed deeply. “Lord Jingsheng. I receive today’s welcome with a full heart. Only — that this body is laid beneath Your Lordship’s shelter is no passing matter, but the work of a long breath. I ask, deeply, that it may be so.”

Liu Biao gave a low smile. “Xuande. That work is my work as well. Beneath the name of Jingzhou, let us raise it together.”

That evening, a great feast (宴會) was held in the main hall of Jingzhou. The four chief names of Liu Biao’s retinue — Kuai Yue (蒯越), Kuai Liang (蒯良), Cai Mao (蔡瑁), and Wen Ping (文聘) — paid their greetings to Liu Bei in turn. Their temperaments were not all of one kind. The two Kuai brothers greeted him warmly; Cai Mao’s bow sank a shade shallow.

There was a reason Cai Mao’s bow sank so. His sister was Liu Biao’s second wife, and her child was Liu Cong (劉琮). Should the favor of Liu Biao’s first son, Liu Qi (劉琦), turn toward Liu Bei, Liu Cong’s standing would be pushed back.

Liu Bei noticed, quietly, that shallow sinking. Yet at tonight’s seat he let no sign of it show. He lifted a cup of wine low and touched it lightly to Liu Biao’s cup.

The feast broke late in the evening. Liu Biao spoke on, low, to Liu Bei. “Xuande. From today, please take up residence at the small walled city of Xinye (新野), and guard the northern boundary of Jingzhou.” Liu Bei bowed deeply. “Lord Jingsheng. I shall receive, deeply, what you have entrusted to me.”

That night, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei entered Liu Bei’s tent. Liu Bei let slip a low word. “Yunchang, Yide. Lord Jingsheng’s welcome today was warm; yet his retinue is split two ways. At the small walled city of Xinye, let us hold our breath, even for a long while, and watch quietly how those two sides move.”

Outside the hall, in a side corridor, Wen Ping stood and lifted his palm toward the great lamp beside the door. His loyalty to Liu Biao was quiet; he leaned neither toward the Kuai brothers’ warmth nor toward Cai Mao’s cold. At tonight’s feast he had bowed to Liu Bei neither deeper nor shallower than to any other guest. In the decades to come, he would hold the fortress of Jiangxia for many months against blades larger than his own. Tonight, he only lifted his palm toward the lamp and walked back to his small residence. Some loyalties are quieter than either warmth or cold.

At the back of the hall, unseen from the main table, Liu Qi, Liu Biao’s first son, watched the evening’s seating. He was nineteen. Without needing Cai Mao’s full intention spelled out, he understood that the guest seated tonight in the southern place beside his father was the seed of a question that would, in the coming decade, demand an answer from him. He did not approach Liu Bei tonight; he only bowed from the back of the hall, unnoticed, and stepped out into the courtyard. A son of a first wife rarely approaches a new seat on the very evening it is first laid. He walked home beneath a thin moon.

Inside a side chamber, Lady Cai, Liu Biao’s second wife, sat behind a thin curtain and listened to the end of the feast without entering. She had not been seated at the feast tonight; Liu Biao had given no formal explanation, and she had asked for none. A second wife, in a house where a first wife’s son has come of age, rarely asks for explanations at an evening feast. She listened to the number of cups lifted. By her count, her brother Cai Mao had raised only two, while the Kuai brothers had raised four, and Wen Ping three. She set the numbers against the report her brother would bring her the next morning. Some households are counted by cups; the counting is quieter than any direct question.

Out upon a small hill north of the walled city, Liu Qi sat alone beneath an old pine and looked south toward the lamps of Jingzhou. He did not know, tonight, that within a few years he would ask Liu Bei’s military counselor for a single short answer to a single question about his own safety — and that the answer would save his life. A young man of nineteen, sitting alone beneath an old pine, rarely knows what will save his life in a later decade. He only sat there and watched the lamps of the walled city until they began, one by one, to go out.

The ninety-second evening of Book 4 deepened, quietly, beneath the lamp of the main hall of Jingzhou. The three characters Gyeongseung-yeong (景升迎, Jingsheng’s welcome) were planted as a seed: two hands clasped, greetings from four names, Cai Mao’s shallow sinking, and the small walled city of Xinye all gathered at a single seat. The step of Day 91’s Hyeongju-ro (荊州路) had, this evening, reached the lamp of the main hall of Jingzhou.

—

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 44초 비추면 기사 전문(사진 포함)이 폰에 저장되어 인터넷 없이도 읽을 수 있습니다.

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