The household steward (not a bad man, for a steward) arranged for two doctors to attend upon him, taking turns, day and night, in the small room where they’d brought him after the public beating in the Third Courtyard. (It was important for all the servants to see the consequences of carelessness.)
He survived, but never walked properly again. He couldn’t lift his right arm. That side of his torso was twisted, like some trees above the Great River gorges that grow low to the slanting ground to stay out of the wind and suck moisture from sparse soil.
He was dismissed, of course. An aristocrat’s compound was not a place for the unemployable. The other servants undertook to look after him. It was not something he’d expected, not something normally done. Usually a man as deformed as Qin would be taken to one of the markets and do what he could to survive by begging there.
It might have helped if he could have sung, or told tales, or even served as a scribe … but he had no singing voice, was a small, shy man, and his writing hand (he’d been taught by Wen Zhou’s father’s steward how to write) was the one that was twisted and useless after the beating.
He’d have been better off dying, Qin thought for a long time. He shaped such thoughts in the street behind Wen’s compound, where the other servants had placed him after he was dismissed. It was not a busy thoroughfare, not a good place for a beggar, but the others had said they’d look after him, and they had done so.
Qin would limp on his crutch to the shady side of the street in summer and then cross as the sun moved, or huddle in an alcove in rain or winter winds. Begging brought little, but from the compound each morning and many evenings food and rice wine came out for him. If his garments grew threadbare, he would find that one day the person bringing his meal would be carrying new clothes. In winter they gave him a hooded cloak, and he even had boots. He became skilful with the crutch at beating off dogs or rats eyeing his provisions.
Last autumn his life had even changed for the better, which was not something Pei Qin had thought was possible any more.
One cold, clear morning, four of the household servants, walking the long distance around from the south- facing front doors, had come along the street towards where Qin kept his station against the compound wall. They carried wood and nails and tools, and set about building a discreet shelter for him, set in a space between an oak tree and the stone wall, not easily seen from the street, not likely to offend.
He asked, and they told him that the new concubine, Lin Chang, had heard Qin’s story from one of Zhou’s other women—apparently meant as a cautionary tale. She had made inquiries and learned where he was.
She had given instructions that he be provided with a shelter, and his food rations became more substantial after that. It appeared that she had assumed responsibility for him, freeing the servants from the need to feed him out of their own allocation.
He never saw her. They told him she was beautiful, and on five occasions (he remembered them perfectly) he heard her play the
Qin had decided she was playing for him.
He would have killed, or died for her, by then. Hwan, the servant who most often brought his food or clothing, clearly felt the same way. It was Hwan who told him she’d been bought from the North District, and that her name there had been Spring Rain. He also told Qin what the master had paid for her (it was a source of pride). Qin thought it an unimaginable sum, and also not enough.
It was Hwan who had told him, at the beginning of spring, that a Kanlin Warrior would be coming to meet privately with Mistress Lin.
Hwan—speaking for the lady, he made clear—asked Qin to show this Kanlin how to get over the wall using his own shelter-tree, and to give her directions to the gazebo from there (it was a distance back west in the compound).
It brought intense joy to Qin’s battered body and beating heart to be trusted with such a service for her. He told Hwan as much, begged him to say so to Mistress Lin, and to bow three times in Qin’s name.
The Kanlin came that night (a woman, which he hadn’t expected, but it made no difference). She looked for Qin in the darkness, carrying no torch. She’d have had trouble seeing him, had he not been watching for her. He called to her, showed her the way over the wall, told her where the gazebo was. It was a cold night, he remembered. The woman climbed with an ease Qin would never have matched even when he had his legs and a straight back. But Kanlin were chosen for their aptitude in these things, and trained.
Qin had been chosen for intelligence, but had overheated wine one night.
You might call the world an unjust place, or make of life what you could. He was grateful to the servants, in love with a woman he would never see, and he intended to live long enough to celebrate the death of Wen Zhou.
He watched the Kanlin woman disappear over the wall and saw her come back some time later. She gave him a coin—silver, which was generous. He was saving it for an extravagance. Lychees would be in season now in the south, where he’d been born. The court might have them already, the Xinan marketplaces would see them soon. Qin intended to ask someone to buy him a basket, as a way of remembering childhood.
He’d actually gone once to the nearer, eastern market the summer before, just to see it again. It had been a reckless, misguided thing to do. Getting there had taken him most of a day, limping and in pain, mocked by children. He’d fallen several times, and been stepped on, and had then been at real risk, at day’s end, of not getting back inside the ward when the drums began.
You were beaten by the gate guards for that.
He would ask someone to buy him lychees. There were several of the servants he trusted, and he would share his bounty. They had saved his life, after all. And surely there was value in any life, even one such as his?
Earlier today, Hwan had come out again, taking the long walk around to tell him someone else would be coming along Qin’s street tonight, and would need to be shown the tree and how to climb, and where the gazebo might be found.
“It is for her?” was all Qin asked.
“Of course it is,” Hwan said.
“Please bow three times. Tell her that her most humble servant in the world under heaven will ensure that it is done.”
That night a man did come walking, with five Kanlins. One of these, Qin saw, was the woman who’d come before. He knew because he didn’t need to call out to them, she came straight over to his tree. Since it was the woman who’d been here they didn’t need instructions. The man looked down at Qin in the darkness (they carried no torches). He saw the small shelter built for him.
He gave Qin two coins, even before going over the wall. Three of the Kanlin went with him, two remained in the street, on guard.
Qin wanted to tell them that he would have served as a guard, but he wasn’t a foolish man. These were Kanlin, they had swords across their backs. They wore black, as ever, and melted into the night. After a time he had no idea where they were, but he knew that they were there.
HER
She wears no perfume, same reason.
She is on her feet because she has heard someone coming—from the eastern side of the garden, where the oak tree can be climbed.
The one lantern casts an amber glow. The gazebo will seem like a cabin in a dark forest, she imagines, a refuge, sanctuary for a lost traveller. It isn’t, she thinks. There is no sanctuary here.
Footsteps ascend the two steps and he is here.
He kneels immediately, head lowered, before she can even see his face, register his presence properly. She has not expected him to do this. She’s had no real idea what to expect.
