My Sect Is Down to Seven People

Chapter 67: Hands That Stack the Tiles

At Mao Hour, before the sky was fully light, the four of them shouldered empty baskets and started down the mountain. No one said much. Shi Po followed them as far as the courtyard gate, stood there a long while, then walked over to Xu Yan. "Let me go down and carry one load back. The empty baskets are light enough; I'll take a share on the return."

"They haul the tiles. You stack them." Cheng Banshan knocked the furnace hook against the medicine hall's doorframe. "We settled who does what long ago."

Shi Po wiped both hands on his trouser legs and went back to squat by the wall.

Carrying empty baskets ten li down a mountain path took one shichen. Coming back with baskets loaded with roof tiles and lime took two.

The tiles came from that stack by the town wall. The tile seller pried the stones off the stack one by one, then slapped the top with his hand, as if to say every tile was accounted for. A bag of lime and a ream of window paper sat beside the stack. Huo Qing slid the carrying pole from his shoulder, stood it against the wall, right arm hanging at his side as always, the rope knot kept away from that half the whole way. Du Xiaochuan made two trips. On the last one, when he set down his load, the shoulder of his shirt was worn dark where the rope had rubbed. Shao Ming hauled only one stack per trip and switched shoulders three times on the road. Qi Qi brought up the rear. His voice reached the courtyard before he did. "Tiles are all here. Not one missing."

A He and A Sui followed behind, carrying the lime and window paper in two trips. A He walked slowly with the window paper tucked under one arm, afraid of creasing a corner. A Sui hugged the lime sack, stopping now and then to catch her breath, her face dusted white.

Shi Po was already squatting by the wall, both hands hovering above the tile pile. Only when Xu Yan came near did he look up. "Sect Master, I'll stack the tiles."

"Stack them. Good ones in one pile, cracked ones in another." Xu Yan crouched, turned over a tile at the corner of the pile to inspect it, then put it back. "Don't throw out the cracked ones. We'll use them for the drain ditch later."

Cheng Banshan came out of the medicine hall and stood under the veranda, looking at the two piles in the yard. "That rest stop halfway up the ridge — who was carrying the load then?"

"Me," Du Xiaochuan said.

"When you set the load down on a slope, don't put it on rock." He turned and went back inside. "Tiles are brittle."

Nie Bo swept in from the Mountain Gate. His broom pushed up close to the tile pile, skirted around it by half a chi, then went on sweeping forward.

At Horse Hour, the ladder went up against the eave of the westernmost room in the West Wing. Shao Ming pushed at it from below, then moved the feet half a chi inward before they sat solid. Qi Qi went up first, not daring to put his weight on the tiles, and only straightened at the eave. Du Xiaochuan followed, one hand on the ladder rail, the other holding his trowel. Huo Qing hefted a stack of new tiles on his left hand and climbed rung by rung to the middle of the ladder, passing them up.

On the ground, Shao Ming opened the lime sack and sifted it through the iron sieve. The clumps that didn't pass he set aside, then mixed in water and stirred it with a wooden stick in one direction. The mixed mortar had to sit a while before use. Let it rest, he said, and it'll grip the tiles.

The first old tile was the hardest to work free. Decades of mortar had dried to stone. Qi Qi worked his trowel in along the seam and pried for a good while before that first tile finally came up, a chunk of mud still clinging to it. He set the old tile at the eave edge and shouted down, "Watch below." The second tile came easier. The old tiles came off in rows along the roof slope, passed down one by one, into the empty baskets in the yard.

When Du Xiaochuan lifted two tiles, dirt from inside the room fell through the rafter gaps, onto the bed. He rolled up the straw mat, carried it into the yard, and shook it twice. Dust sifted out through the weave. Shao Ming looked up and called, "Don't rush to lay new ones down there. Check the rafters first."

"Same as Uncle Shao said." Du Xiaochuan lay down, pressed his face to a rafter gap. "Dry inside."

Working toward the inner half of the slope, Qi Qi lifted a tile and found dry grass beneath. He scooped it out: half an old sparrow's nest, one chicken feather still sticking out of the grass.

"There's a household living up here," he called down.

"Long moved out." Du Xiaochuan said. "And their roof was laid more carefully than ours — tile over tile."

Qi Qi passed the dry grass down over the eave. Shi Po stood to receive it. Xu Yan pointed at the top of the wall. "Put it up there. It's damp below." Shi Po set the grass on the wall and pressed a cracked tile over it, stepped back to look, then moved it half a chi over.

"How are the rafters?" Xu Yan asked.

"Not one rotten." Shao Ming said. "We stripped it right. If we'd only half-opened it, the joints would sit under the old tiles and never seat properly."

Xu Yan climbed the ladder for a look, pressed down on the rafter nearest the eave. It didn't budge. He came down with a hand gray with dust, and on the way down he wiped his palm twice on the ladder rail. Jiang Wan came over from the East Courtyard, sword in her arms, and stood on the steps.

"The tile seams have to line up with the eave gutter — not half a finger off. If they're off, rain runs into the walls."

"Understood, Senior Sister," Qi Qi answered from the roof.

"Don't talk up on the roof." She turned away. "Tiles break."

Not long after she said it, Qi Qi pried up an old tile, his foot slipped, and the tile flew from his hand. It hit the stone steps beside the ladder and shattered into three or four pieces. Shi Po's hand shot up, stopped halfway, clenched, and dropped back to his knee.

"Shi Po." Cheng Banshan called from the doorway.

"I didn't steady it."

"I know." Cheng Banshan said. "I saw that you didn't."

On the roof, Qi Qi wiped his palm on his trousers. "Nothing happened down there."

"Gather up those broken pieces," Xu Yan said. "They'll be useful for weighing down the oilcloth."

Shi Po squatted at the foot of the ladder, splitting the new tiles Huo Qing handed down into two piles. One tile had a crack running to the corner. He traced the crack with a finger, pushed the tile to the right-hand pile, and tucked it in so it wouldn't slide.

"Hands that stack tiles are not to steady the ladder." Cheng Banshan said from the doorway.

"I didn't."

"I saw you start to."

"I didn't move."

"Don't move your mouth either." Cheng Banshan went back inside to watch the furnace. The furnace door was open a crack, fire burning within.

A little past Horse Hour, Qian Duoduo called out from the courtyard gate that food was ready, loud enough that everyone above and below turned their heads. A Sui carried two bowls to the foot of the ladder and looked up. Qi Qi called down from the roof, "Bring them up." Qian Duoduo answered from the gate, "Bring the bowls up and the pot too? There's no room on the roof." In the end, A Sui climbed to the third rung and passed the bowls up one at a time. The three on the roof ate at the eave's edge. Qi Qi broke a spirit cake into three pieces and said whoever dropped crumbs would sweep below. He finished the sentence and dropped half his own piece. Everyone above and below stared at him. Qian Duoduo added an extra ladle to Shi Po's bowl. "Stacking tiles all day, even just squatting works up an appetite."

At You Hour, darkness fell fast. The stripped half of the roof still lay open. They spread the oilcloth over it and weighed down the four corners with cracked tiles. When the wind passed, the cloth bellied up, then settled back. Xu Yan stood outside the West Wing for a while. Shao Ming came out of Qi Qi's room carrying the straw mat.

"Tomorrow we lay from the eave up?"

"From the eave up," Xu Yan said.

"Row over row, seven covered, three showing." Shao Ming shifted the mat to his other arm. "Cover too much and it leaks. Cover too little and the wind lifts it. I know this work. I helped build houses when I was ten or so."

"Then you'll oversee the laying."

"I'll pass the mortar." Shao Ming said. "Hands passing mortar stay busy, and so do the eyes."

Shao Ming and Du Xiaochuan's room was unusable, and Qi Qi's room had only one mat and one bed board. The three of them stood at the doorway discussing it.

"I'll sleep on the floor, two straw mats under me." Shao Ming said.

"Uncle Shao takes the bed," Du Xiaochuan said.

"Stop fighting over it." Qi Qi slapped the bed board. "My bed board's big enough. If I can't sleep, I'll count the rafters. A hundred and I'll be out."

"How many rafters does this room have?" Du Xiaochuan asked.

"I've never counted."

That night, Cheng Banshan called Shi Po into the medicine hall and had him sit. He pressed down along the cloth strips over Shi Po's ribs with one hand. "You squatted all day. How's the back?"

"Doesn't hurt."

"What about here?"

"Doesn't hurt."

"Tomorrow, take a low stool out there to stack."

The next day at Mao Hour, Shao Ming was still in front of the Ancestral Hall listening to the twins recite formulas. He didn't go up until Dragon Hour. The stripped half of the roof was laid from the eave upward, row over row, mortar spread at the tile mouths, feet stepping only on the eave tiles. Huo Qing went up and down the ladder dozens of times that day. The web of his left hand was worn red. He wiped it once against the back of his shirt and kept hauling. By Wei Hour, the pile of new tiles in the yard had dropped by half.

Cheng Banshan leaned out from the medicine hall. "Qi Qi. Come down. Window paper."

Qi Qi came down from the roof and washed his hands at the water vat first. The medicine hall windows were wood-lattice windows. The old paper had been pasted on in three layers. It tore at a touch, and the edges still clung to the lattice. He pressed a wet cloth over it to soften it, then scraped with a bamboo slip. Paper scraps littered the windowsill. On the lowest layer he found a round mark where a medicine bowl had once been pressed.

"Who pasted this layer?" Qi Qi asked.

"The Old Sect Master." Cheng Banshan said. "He never tore off the old paper when he pasted new. Layer over layer."

Bai Xiaoman brought half a bowl of flour, mixed it with cold water, and set it over the clay stove to boil, stirring the whole time. Cheng Banshan stood beside her watching. "Too thick."

"Thick is what grips the paper." Bai Xiaoman lifted the spoon; the paste strung out in a thread. "It won't drip when it goes on."

They pasted the lower panels first. Bai Xiaoman brushed on the paste, Qi Qi pressed the paper down, smoothing from the center outward with his palm. On the third panel, Cheng Banshan stepped over, braced one hand on the window frame, and flicked a finger against the paper. "Hollow."

"It'll tighten as it dries," Bai Xiaoman said.

"When it dries, it shrinks. When it shrinks, it tears."

"Then we'll paste it again."

"You have to copy the running ledger tomorrow."

"Ledger work's done in daylight. And the tear only shows in daylight too."

Cheng Banshan said nothing. He moved his hand to the next panel and flicked again. This time no sound. Bai Xiaoman brushed on another coat of paste. She couldn't reach the higher panels, and Cheng Banshan wouldn't let her stretch. "You stand and point. Qi Qi will press." So Qi Qi stood on a stool to paste the high panels while Bai Xiaoman looked up from below. "Left. Half a finger more. Too far."

"Paste it too tight and the room gets stuffy," Qi Qi said.

"Stuffy is better than a crooked flame." Cheng Banshan said. "We haven't bought charcoal; we're burning wood. If the window lets air through, the flame wavers, and a whole furnace-load of medicine is ruined."

Shi Po came through the yard carrying a stack of cracked tiles and stopped. "Is it all right to steady a stool?"

"Steadying a stool is fine." Cheng Banshan didn't turn around. "The ladder is not."

They pasted until the sun was leaning west. The last panel was the one by the door. Bai Xiaoman folded the paper's edge into the wooden groove and pressed it flat with her finger. Cheng Banshan leaned in and looked for a long moment. "Passable." He tucked the empty sleeve of his arm back into his belt. "There's still fire in the stove."

At Dog Hour, a lamp was lit in the Accounts Room. Xu Yan pulled the slip tucked into the front of the ledger, spread it on the desk, and read from top to bottom. The October ration line sat empty, waiting on Uncle Wang's rent rice. The West Wing tiles line was blank. The medicine hall window paper line — he ran a fingernail across it, leaving a faint mark.

The tile pile in the yard stood half as tall as yesterday. The cracked tiles by the wall had grown into a stack. He blew out the lamp and stepped out. A corner of the oilcloth on the roof lifted in the wind, then slapped back down. Shi Po still squatted by the wall, laying cracked tile on cracked tile, flat and even, each one pressing on the one below.