Chapter 376 — The Search

Song Yan frowned at this. "The Duke of Ying's household still belongs to my father. To pull men off the estates to fill out Yizhi Hall would drag in far too much."

Even the most devoted of servants were devoted to the Duke of Ying — not to any single man.

When Song Cen was Duke of Ying, they were loyal to Song Cen as a matter of course; but when Song Yan is Duke of Ying, they will be loyal to Song Yan. And what Song Yan needs now are men absolutely loyal to him.

Dou Yan understood his misgivings and smiled. "Everything has two faces. You think only that the Duke is master of the house, and that they will be loyal to him; you do not think that you are the rightful Heir of Ying, the inheritor of the house. So long as you do nothing to harm the interests or the good name of the Duke of Ying's household, then since their loyalty is to the house itself, they will not turn on you out of the Duke's private grudges. So long as they can keep to the middle, you can use them. What is more, let these people see for themselves just what the Duke has been about, and it may well turn out to your advantage! Far better than your using men of the Duke of Ding's household, and letting the Song household watch the heir of Ying grow thick with outsiders while he snubs his own!"

Song Yan's heart jolted at these words.

He thought of how, when his mother was alive, the old servants of the Duke of Ying's household had looked at her askance.

Or perhaps that was one of the reasons it had been so easy to set a trap for him.

In the minds of many in the Duke of Ying's household, his mother and he belonged to the Duke of Ding's household.

So when his father dealt with those old servants, he had kept silent.

Something seemed to brush across Song Yan's mind, something he reached for but could not catch.

He held his teacup and sank into thought.

Dou Yan took out needle and thread and began to sew.

Only when he set the cup down did she speak. "Yantang, if you agree, why not leave this to me?"

If she appeared in person, it would show the future Duchess of Ying's goodwill toward these hereditary servants; it could be read as Song Yan's faint regret for what had been done before; and it would soothe the fears of the household servants after the great purge. A step forward and she could attack; a step back and she could hold.

Song Yan grasped Dou Zhiwei's intent at once, but before he could object she went on. "In the way a husband and wife live together, some women like to hide beneath their husband's wing, and some hope to stand shoulder to shoulder with him against the storms of life. Most women prefer the first, but when the husband meets trouble, some will choose the second. I think — whichever it is, so long as the couple themselves are content, that is enough. It is clinging stubbornly to one form that makes husband and wife grow strange to each other."

She blinked up at Song Yan, a little mischievous.

Song Yan burst out laughing. "Just say you want to help me — what is so hard about that? Need I remind you, I was once your beaten foe!"

Dou Yan said, "Am I not afraid of wounding your pride?"

"Pride?" Song Yan made a show of looking left and right. "What is that? I have never seen it. All I know is that if I had not been utterly shameless, you would never have married me!"

Now it was Dou Yan's turn to be helpless with laughter.

"Then what do you want?" she said, slanting a coy look at him.

Her look set his blood racing, yet he put on a show of pondering. "There are too many things I want to do; it is hard to choose just now. How about this — I will put it on account, and next time I think of something, you pay me back."

"Can such things be put on account?" Dou Yan haggled with him. "Past this village there is no other inn. Think quickly!"

Song Yan, grinning, leaned to her ear and whispered a few words.

Dou Yan flushed and spat at him. "Go dream your own dreams!" She turned and climbed down from the kang, calling loudly to the maids to ask whether supper was ready.

Song Yan laughed heartily, and he and Dou Chu went off to the reception room.

The next day, a young servant named Liu Zhang from Du Ming's staff was sent over to serve Dou Yan.

Dou Yan set him for the time being to wait on Chen Yanzhou.

Chen Yanzhou, like a tiger given wings, soon had the outer-court stewards investigated down to the last man.

He came to Dou Yan with a grave face and said with a bitter smile, "It is just as the Madam foresaw. Apart from the estate managers and head stewards outside the capital, every steward of the Duke of Ying's household in the capital has been replaced — either by the former stewards' apprentices or by their kin. That Steward Li is said to have died of illness."

Dou Zhiwei's expression was no lighter. She sighed. "It is the same on my side. The stewardesses who were replaced were mostly the more outstanding of those who had served in the outer court, or newcomers brought in from outside; of the old servants, not one is left."

Chen Yanzhou said, "Then where should we start?"

They both understood that these people were likely no longer among the living.

Dou Yan handed him a list. "This I copied from the household registers of the maids and wives who have served in the inner quarters over the years. Look it over and see whether you can pick up some thread among the maids who were married out of the household long ago — it is human nature to make friends and keep ties; those maids who left could not have cut themselves off cleanly from all their old connections just because they left the gates."

Chen Yanzhou answered and went off.

Dou Yan stood somewhat irritably under the covered corridor, watching the maids and old women prune branches and turn the soil, tidying the flowering trees in the courtyard.

As the third month came on, the weather turned warm; the wind on one's face was balmy and made one drowsy.

The rough-work old women were well enough — after half a year and more with Dou Yan they had found her kindly and easy-tempered beyond measure, and they came up smiling to greet her and went briskly about their work. But the little maids who had come into the household from the estates — Fufeng and the rest — who had only just finished learning the rules under Suxin, could not help themselves; every one of them trembled, and as they carried water and watered the flowers they kept stealing glances at Dou Yan from the corners of their eyes.

Dou Yan noticed that one of the little maids worked with uncommon quickness. The others did only what the rough-work women told them, but when she heard the women call "bring the shears," she would pick up a broom and sweep the cut branches aside as she went.

She pointed the maid out and asked Ganlu, who waited at her side, "What is her name?"

Ganlu had noticed too, and smiled. "She is called Fuye, sent up from the estate at Tianjin. Her great-grandfather's generation once served in the Duke of Ying's household; her grandfather was a head steward outside. The family's line was thin, and by her generation there was only this one daughter, and her father is only a tenant on the estate. He wanted a good match for his girl, and so he begged the manager of the Daxing estate to send her into the household."

Dou Yan said, "What was her name before?"

Ganlu thought it over. "Something like 'Meiyi,' I believe."

"Meiyi, you mean," Dou Yan said. "As the old poem has it: not that the thing itself is fair, but that a beauty gave it."

Ganlu's face was a study in bewilderment.

Dou Yan said, "Was she her mother's only child, or did her brothers and sisters meet with some mishap?"

Gan Lu said, flushing with embarrassment, "That... I really don't know."

"Then go and find out," said Dou Xin.

Gan Lu stepped out of the side corridor.

Dou Yan went into the inner chamber.