The Calligrapher and the Widowed General novel · Chapter 20 of 24
Chapter 20: Mo Arrested
They reached the barracks yard as the sun cleared the east wall.
Mo walked ahead of them on his bad knee, upright and stiff, because he had insisted on being arrested on his own feet.
Lanxin came behind him in her plain dark robe, and Shuyi came last, holding the brush case she had not set down all night.
Soldiers stood along the yard in loose lines, hundreds of them, half dressed, most of them silent.
At the far end, in front of the quartermaster's door, a dozen men in the Ministry's blue-and-red sashes stood round a small plump figure in fur.
Du Wenyuan looked cheerful.
He had a cup of tea in one soft hand.
"Good morning, General," he said.
"I had hoped to spare you this."
"You hoped to do it where they could watch," said Lanxin.
"I believe in open justice."
He nodded to a Ministry guard, who stepped forward with a coil of iron chain.
"Vice-General Mo Hanzhang," Du said, in a pleasant carrying voice.
"By the Censor's warrant, you are charged with forgery of an imperial record, in that you carried and posted the false letters of a non-existent officer."
"You will be held until the Drum Tower day, and then tried."
"Do you wish to speak?"
Mo straightened his coat.
"I carried sixty letters in three winters," he said.
"I never forged a stroke."
"I would carry them again."
"That is a confession of knowing," said Du kindly.
"I will make a note of it."
The chain was wound around Mo's wrists.
A murmur rose among the soldiers, low and angry, and a hundred hands moved toward their belts.
"Stand fast," Lanxin said.
She did not shout.
The sound went through the lines, and every hand dropped.
Du's tea cup trembled, once, against its saucer.
"Thank you," he said, a little too brightly.
"No one need be hurt."
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