made her peace with that. Any loyalty to the man who brought her here stops short of this attempted assassination. A woman, as much as a man, is surely allowed her own sense of right conduct in the world.
No, her real fear right now is of herself.
Word has come by courier from Chenyao. That was days ago. Travelling at any normal speed, a horseman from that city could be here tomorrow, or even tonight. And Tai is riding, if the tale is to be believed, a Sardian steed. A Heavenly Horse, from her home.
Rain is too self-possessed, too controlled (always has been), to attach meaning or weight to that last. Nor is she a poet, as some of the courtesans are. She sings the songs others have written. But still … Sardian horses?
And he is alive, very nearly here. After two years.
The morning passes, a midday meal, a rest in her rooms, a walk in the gardens by the bamboo grove. Time crawls at a pace that kills.
It occurs to her, sitting on a stone bench by the artificial lake, shaded from the sun by sandalwood leaves, that if Zhou has been summoned to Ma-wai for this afternoon, and a banquet after, he will not be home tonight.
It is just about then that the second messenger arrives. The household steward stalks into the garden to find Mistress Lin. She doesn’t think he likes her, but he doesn’t like anyone so it isn’t significant.
It seems there is another message from Ma-wai, this one sent to her. That has never happened before. She wonders if she’s being summoned to play for them … but no, it would be too late by now. And there is hardly a deficiency of performers at Ma-wai.
The courier is escorted through the sequence of public rooms and courtyards back through the garden, preceded by the steward and a warning to her that someone is coming—so that she can be properly seated and composed on one of the benches. She is, or presents herself as such.
The courier bows. She is, after all, the newly favoured concubine of First Minister Wen. There can be power in that for women. He hands her a scroll. She opens it, breaking the seal.
This message is also from Wen Jian, the Precious Consort. It is very short.
The second line is derived from a celebrated poem about a woman left alone too long. Jian has changed three words. You can imagine her smiling as she wrote or dictated that.
Actually, that isn’t quite true: it is difficult to imagine that woman. She eludes too easily, and frightens because of that.
You can begin to feel your own heartbeat going too fast, however, as you consider those words on the scroll, dismiss the courier with a grave expression, give instructions that he be offered food and drink before starting back to Ma-wai.
For one thing, how does Wen Jian even know of her existence? For another, why would she be disposed to assist Rain in anything, if indeed she is doing that? If this is not some trap, or test?
Rain feels like a child, overwhelmed by complexities.
The steward leads the courier past pagoda trees. Her maidservant lingers, ready if called. Rain sits alone, looks across the water at the island he’d had made in the lake he’d had made. The light breeze ruffles leaves overhead, touches her skin and hair.
She’d liked amber and apricots and music, very young. Horses a little later, but only to look at them. They’d frightened her. Her eyes had drawn attention, very young. Her mother had named her
CHAPTER XVII
“I should like,” said Wen Jian, “to be entertained. Cousin, will you offer a poem for me?”
Her cousin, the first minister, smiled. He was as Tai remembered him in the North District, or glimpsed in Long Lake Park … a big man, handsome and aware of it. He wore blue silk with dragons in silver. There was a lapis lazuli ring on his left hand.
A breeze entered through unshuttered windows, rippling pennons outside. It was late afternoon. They were in Ma-wai, where the hot springs had eased imperial weariness for centuries, and where the decadent games of various courts had been notorious for as long. Just north of here, not far away, were the tombs of the Ninth Dynasty.
Poets had written of this conjunction of symbols, though doing so carried risks and one needed to use care.
Tai wasn’t feeling careful just now, which was unwise and he knew it. He was tense as a drawn bowstring. Wen Zhou was here and Tai’s brother was here.
They didn’t know he was in the room.
Jian, amusing herself (or perhaps not so), had arranged for Tai to enter before her guests, and to seat himself on an ivory bench behind one of two painted room screens (cranes flying, a wide river, mountains rising, the tiny figure of a fisherman in his boat).
He hadn’t wanted to do this. It felt too passive, acquiescent. But he didn’t know, on the other hand, what he did want here. He had arrived. This was the court. He had decisions to make, alignments to choose or reject. It would also be useful, he thought wryly, to remain alive. One person here had been trying to kill him.
At least one person.
For the moment he would accede to what the Beloved Companion wished of him. He could start that way, at least. Jian’s women had bathed him when their party arrived, and washed his hair (gravely, with propriety, no hint of rumoured immorality). After, in a chamber overlooking the lake, they had laid out silks more fine than any he’d ever worn in his life.
He remembered that image as he dressed. His robe was a shimmering, textured flicker of greens, the colours of a bamboo grove in changing light. His slippers and belt and soft hat were black, with pale-yellow dragons on them. His hatpin had an emerald.
Two women had led him, silently, hands in full sleeves, eyes downcast, along corridors of marble and jade, then across a courtyard and down more corridors to the chamber where Wen Jian evidently purposed to receive certain guests.
Tai had not seen her since they’d arrived. She had told him in the sedan chair that she had a plan for this afternoon. He had no notion of what this might be, or of his own role in it.
At Kuala Nor each night, watching the stars set and rise, or the moon, he’d known his task at every moment. What he was there to do. Here, he was one of many dancers, and he didn’t know the dance.
He wished Zian were with him. Wei Song he’d released for the afternoon, to report to her own Kanlin sanctuary farther along the shore. It had crossed his mind that now that they’d arrived, her duties, her employment, could be considered over. He’d felt oddly exposed when she’d bowed and gone away.
The poet was somewhere in Ma-wai. He’d been a guest here before. They hadn’t had a chance to speak before being led in different directions. Zian was almost certainly sampling some celebrated wine. Tai wondered if the women were as proper with the Banished Immortal as they had been with him.
His two escorts had led him into this audience chamber, showed him the room screens (the paintings were by Wang Shao) and the low seat behind one of them. They’d invited him, prettily, to sit. He could have refused. But he didn’t know what he’d achieve by doing so. It seemed wisest, for the moment, to see what Jian was doing. What she was playing at—if it was a game.
He discovered he could see quite well through tiny holes in the screen. He hadn’t noticed them from the painted side. He was entirely certain the viewing holes, his ability to observe the room unseen, were not accidental. The ceiling, he saw, looking up in wonder, was of beaten gold. There were lotus flowers and cranes
