Suspicion [Zhou Yu/Sun Quan]
Riding back from the hunt, Sun Quan dropped back from the rest of the party, gradually slowing his horse and letting his men overtake him. After all the excitement of the kill, surely none of them would notice. The retainers were wholly preoccupied with marvelling at every inch of the tiger; it wasn't every day that they could see one at close range, although it was bloodied, quite battered and strung up by the paws on a bamboo pole, like a roast pig. Zhou Yu was already busy in his dreams of war and Shangxiang was laughing, pulling at the dead beast's tail and needlessly inconveniencing the one who would have to wash her clothes.
The sky was grey with winter, all hung with cold clouds, eerily vivid with colours like the shades of water climbing through silk and of iron beginning to rust. On the ground the long pale grass resembled starved rice stalks, the wind hissed. Sun Quan felt his sweat fast cooling beneath his robes and looked ahead at the slaughtered tiger; the skin would be taken off, cleaned so it wouldn't smell and then be presented to him like some sort of a mark of glory, bravery, to celebrate his great touch with arrows. But the victory...Sun Quan knew it could never be called his own. Not when all he did was to enrage the monster with a dart through an eyeball and flee across the field, letting the servants hack the life out of it with the blunt ends of their spears.
Sun Quan bit down on his tongue and focused on his breathing. Whichever choice he took, he would never be able to assert his will.
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Night was falling and the bluing air carried the sound of the river up the walls of the fortress arching over it, and into the rooms through its many windows. It was at times like these that Sun Quan could feel his life flowing away.
After finishing dinner, he had gotten up, intending simply to go on another one of his long walks through the winding corridors as the light slipped away and left him a ghost, out of any place. But somehow, he'd found his way again to the altar where the ancestral tablets were placed to guard the house and show the way. Perhaps these old ghosts had a message to relay, they couldn't rest well, not with the country in such danger and their homes layered thick with dust.
Silence. Sun Quan plucked at the fabric at his knee, where the embroidery was beginning to unravel.
Gradually, he started to hear something. Faint sounds of qin-playing drifting from a room below. He shifted a little and was about to get up, thinking nothing of it, when suddenly thought of Zhou Yu and tried to listen closer. Yet he could make no sense out of the wildly clashing notes. It all sounded like noise.
He decided to pay the concubines a visit instead.
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It was late when Sun Quan finally prepared for bed. He waved the retainers out after they had finished undressing him and hanging up his day clothes. Keeping just one lamp burning to see him through his sleep, he turned back the sheets and was about to slip into bed when he heard a knock at his door.
Smoothing over his nightshirt with one hand while fumbling with the door with another, he found Zhou Yu, still fully dressed, smiling at him. After the customary greeting, Zhou Yu spoke first.
'May I come in, my Lord?'
Sun Quan stepped back and shut the door,he already knew that at times like these, his viceroy wanted him alone.
Zhou Yu turned to face him. The darkness made his expression unreadable and his eyes were reduced to a single smudge of shadow.
'So, do you give the word to go to war?'
Zhou Yu stood, a motionless figure, waiting for an answer. The curtain by his side flapped sluggishly in the wind and the air grew warm and close. The he sighed, loud and harsh, a sure sign of anger.
Sun Quan raised his brows in disbelief, and also in helplessness.
'Brother,' he nearly shrugged, 'do what you will. You know best, and I believe you already have an answer.'
Then, out of nowhere, a startling anger misted up his insides; he didn't quite know himself; Zhou Yu seemed far far away and tiny tiny like the drift of stars swimming high above. Nothing he did here could hold consequences and so he steadied himself for the drop, and let fall.
'Of course,' Sun Quan picked up after a long pause, 'of course you already have the answer. You knew all along what to do, otherwise, you wouldn't have taken that chance, with that tiger this morning. You nearly killed me. Perhaps you planned it all with a wish to do away with me, to set yourself up as regent.'
He breathed in, gazing at Zhou Yu, carefully watching him for a reaction. He could see none and so drove headlong into his invective.
'It always happens this way. They, your sort, all begin as loyal servants of their lord. More capable obviously, otherwise their lords wouldn't entrust so much power to them. And so the lord and his viceroy can live a long time like this, they become closer, become friends...maybe more. Then after awhile, the traitor in him comes out. Since he's the one doing all the work, shouldn't he take the throne too? Establish a new dynasty?'
As Sun Quan said the last words, most heavily laced with meaning, he feared for a moment that his courage had run out. He placed a hand over his heart, to steady it, and looked up to see Zhou Yu looking away, gripping the ledge of his table. He could not tell if that weariness was real, the weariness of a kindly older brother trying to teach the younger, errant one. Or the feigned martyrdom of a usurper, like Cao Cao and the Emperor. Or, most painfully, heartbreak that he couldn't understand.
Indecision. Again. Sun Quan's view of the world has always been one with faded edges, unclear divisions, and that infuriates him. He baited Zhou Yu.
'I'm not eighteen anymore. I believed everything you said, and acted upon all your instructions. In fact, I was even afraid of you, as much as I thought I loved you. And you knew it. But you can't use me anymore, it's the other way around now. If you don't like this new arrangement, you can leave Wu.'
The lamplight flickered in the wind and for a moment, the room is outlined black and bright. As if lightning fell outside.
'So you're not about to kill me, the usurper?' Zhou Yu slowly turned to face Sun Quan, unsticking his fingers from the desk. His voice was low, barely concealing a foreign rasp.
Taken by surprise, Sun Quan could feel his mouth turn sand-dry even as his insides roiled like redding coals. As he struggled to slow his breathing, he came close to Zhou Yu, measuring each step like one heading for an ambush, an unknown. He expected, perhaps even wanted Zhou Yu to lash out with his customary speed, draw his sword and knock him off his feet. All this would culminate in the most blinding, most unambiguous moment when the whole puzzle of his life would finally be revealed. Sun Quan was very tired of walking through the years like a labyrinth, always dedicating all his strength to overcoming the obstacle immediately before him without knowing where he was headed, listening to the voice of that other who saw things more clearly and who had that divine clear sight of their purpose. Maybe here he would learn his own bravery, unmask his secret spirit to rule alone and decisively.
Yet, even as Sun Quan approached Zhou Yu, he made no move to defend or attack. He was simply waiting.
Sun Quan bit down on his lip as he drew in his breath. Standing right before Zhou Yu, he now had full view of the man's face. Through the dim light, he could trace the fine texture of the skin over the skull, could read the lines below the eyes, the wrinkles between the brows, and those around the mouth; he could remember where they all came from. Honest grief at the funeral, held in to give strength to a new master; fiery enthusiasm at each new challenge, which often led to absence at mealtimes; dire threats from all sides translated to late nights; and a lonely lord who caused him to leave his wife's bed empty. Battles, followed by late night drunkeness; reckless contests on hunts.
What a mystery it was, that the beautiful past tore at Sun Quan like a wolf, or would become a burden to make every future step a struggle. Even as Sun Quan cast his gaze to the floor, to show he was wrong, and placed a hand on Zhou Yu's shoulder, the way he used to after their smaller fights, he had to fight off his doubts about his true feelings, of Zhou Yu's true intentions. Perhaps the only affirmation he had was trust for the present.
'Yes, we'll make the alliance, and go to war.' Sun Quan murmured, still with his eyes averted. 'Now go to sleep...and please, just forget about tonight.'
Then Sun Quan turned away and waited for Zhou Yu to leave. Only after he heard the click of the door did he allow himself tears.
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After the announcement of the alliance and the presentation of titles in the audience room, Sun Quan walked out alone, swaying a little, dizzy. He wished to be alone.
'Congratulations, your highness.' Zhuge Liang appeared at his side, seemingly out of nowhere. The man's eyes glowed with an unusual excitement, and his smile was warm, but Sun Quan just wanted him to go away; for him, there was no triumph, not against the old advisors and certainly not against expectations.
'Yes, I know. I look forward to working together with your men.' Sun Quan lowered his head and walked away.
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That night, as his dreams poured into his pillows, Sun Quan could feel his mind's downward drift and drank deep of that river. The first sweet few years were not too long ago, and so sensation came back to him easily.
Zhou Yu, his friend.