He summoned one of the youngest scribes, and to him he handed the pole of a yak-tail standard such as was carried for a magistrate. Mu-Ti, having put off his own light armor at the Commander’s bidding, picked up the sheathed sword as was his duty.

Last of all the Minister reached for a lute, which he had sent Mu-Ti earlier to seek out in the town. He tested its stringing delicately, frowning a little as he made adjustments to his liking. Lute in hand, he went out on the parapet above the gate, where two of the soldiers had set a bench. And there he seated himself, the lute across his knees, the scribe and Mu-Ti taking their places, one on either side of him as if they were in some pleasant garden, come to enjoy the quiet of a summer afternoon afar from the clamor and danger of war.

Chuko Liang, having tuned the lute to his liking, began to play and sing one of the songs of Chi Kang:

“I will cast out wisdom and reject learning,
My thoughts shall wander in the great void—
Always repenting of wrongs done—”

Having finished that song, he began another. Yet never did he sing of war, but rather of the thoughts men held in times of peace, and those verses which had been written in quiet places.

Nor did he show the least interest in what was happening on the roads leading to the city. To the best of their ability Mu-Ti and the young scribe tried to copy his calm and lack of interest in their present surroundings.

What the scribe felt, Mu-Ti did not know. As for himself, he knew an inner shrinking, awaiting with a dread he fought hard to conceal the striking of the first crossbow bolts. For now the scouts of the enemy’s van were riding below, though with the wariness of those suspecting ambush.

Then, having stared for a long moment at the open gates of the town and at the small party of three on the rampart, the scouts wheeled around and thundered back at a full gallop the way they had come. Mu-Ti grasped the sword tighter, as if holding it so, even sheathed, could afford some defense. But Chuko Liang smiled gently as he finished his song, only to begin another, this time voicing words in praise of wind-driven clouds.