by Prue Batten
‘Aine but I hate this cruel place.’ Isabella tracked back and forth. ‘I cannot allow this.’
‘Just remember that the decision you make at the time will have the power to free you or condemn you.’ She could hear the Fox Lady’s voice, never dreaming when she had spoken those prophetic words, that it would be something like this that would throw her off course. She swallowed, her throat tightening.
‘You know I am leaving shortly it seems. I cannot allow you to stay. You must come with me.’
‘But I cannot. And the Son may not agree. I shall be…’
‘You shall be alive. Do you think that after talking with you I could leave you to lose your life here? Aine, I could never!’
‘My Lady Ibo, you have a good heart and I am ever grateful but…’
‘Then it is settled. I shall find you some quilted clothing, something thick and warm and we shall make haste to the stables.’
‘Lady Ibo,’ Chi Nü muttered as Isabella bundled her into heavy robes of a plain dark grey. ‘This is wrong. It is kind but it is wrong…’
‘Poof,’ replied Isabella as she placed quilted boots on the Celestial’s elegant feet. ‘In my mind it is very right and please do not call me ‘Lady’.’
The boots of course were too big, but Isabella hoped thick stockings and the folds of the trousers would keep them in place. It was unthinkable that the woman could cross the Goti Range without them.
The frisson that darted between Chi Nü and Isabella was far more ambiguous than any she had encountered and Isabella would have liked to enquire why but there was no time.
‘If we are asked, you are my companion which Ming Xao will endorse. It will be acceptable.’
‘Then,’ said the delicate porcelain-like spirit. ‘ I can only say mortal madness is truth not legend, and I will ever be your support as you now appear to be mine.’
You are a victim, Lady Chi, just like me. Victims sometimes have to stand up for their freedom.
‘Indeed,’ the spirit said, her back turned from Isabella.
Isabella’s eyes snapped wide but hearing a faint call from some ambitious rooster in a far-off compound, she knew the time had almost come. There was a faint knock at her door, a secret sound, and she swiftly opened it to the evening shadow shape of her husband-to-be.
‘How did you get past that detestable handmaid who sleeps at my door?’
‘I didn’t,’ he said as he indicated a supine figure before slipping in and closing the door. ‘She was there snoring like a pig snuffling through street garbage. It may be that the rice wine I sent her to celebrate the Lantern Festival was filled with calmative. Who knows? You are ready?’
Ming Xao, you drugged her? You surprise me.
‘Ready but very nervous.’
‘Then we shall depart by your balcony. Come…’
Isabella dragged at Chi’s hand, pulling her from the shadows.
Ming Xao turned, his spectacled gaze falling on the Celestial, whereupon he collapsed to his knees, his forehead on the floor.
Chi Nü seemed to sense an atmospheric change and reached out in front of her.
‘Do you kowtow, Ming Xao? Please raise yourself.’
‘My Lady Chi Nü,’ he said as he stood, head bowed.
It was the most hesitant, most subservient he had been in Isabella’s short acquaintance.
‘How did you know?’ she asked.
‘My Lady Chi Nü is well represented in many paintings in my library. My Lady…’ he bowed low.
Far off the rooster crowed again and Isabella could almost hear a warning, hear the blades sharpening and spoke quickly.
‘She is banished from the Heavens and has been struck blind by her peers as punishment.’
‘But if,’ Ming Xao’s face blanched, ‘she is found here, she will be killed. People judge disability without foundation in the Han. They will not believe she is a Celestial and they will follow the dictum that everything and everyone must be seen to be perfect or at the very least, perfectly able.’
‘Superficiality is never perfect. What a ridiculous concept when the whole country lives on the backs of slaves. That is most definitely not perfection. This is why you must leave such a circumscribed life behind, Ming Xao, observe broader philosophies. You surely see. At any rate, I have said she will travel with us, get safely away.’
Ming Xao bowed over his hands to the celestial spirit.
‘Without doubt. My Lady’s life is in my honoured hands.’
‘As the Emperor’s son,’ Chi worried, ‘what you do with me and with the Lady your intended wife, places you in grave danger.’
Oh, please.
‘Can we save the semantics for later?’ Isabella felt life closing around her as the rooster crowed and her companions seemed set on courtly philosophics. ‘Should we not leave now?’
*
Breathing the crisp air of dawn helped settle Isabella’s nerves. She sucked it in greedily, filling her body, willing it to stiffen her resolve, to quieten her fears.
Perhaps it’s not fear – maybe its excitement that at last I begin my journey home.
Home.
Her eyes filled briefly but she blinked away the emotion, it didn’t serve her purpose. She tightened her grip on Chi Nü’s lead-rein, glancing back to see the Celestial sat easily in the saddle. Isabella was in awe of the woman who had been thrust into such a dark place. That she would never survive without her companions was a given and because Isabella understood that feeling of impotence and frustration, let alone fear, she would support the Celestial as best she could.
In front of her, Ming Xao rode on a steel grey horse that matched his dark robes perfectly. Thinking on it, Isabella realised they were all dressed in shadow clothes and mounted on shadow horses. She hoped it would help in the dark forest through which they must travel between the gates, but she was conscious that on the mountain range, perhaps amongst snow and ice, they would be as conspicuous as a drop of blood on a length of pale silk. But she chose not to dwell on such negative thoughts, better to focus on the immediate moment.
They had ridden round the calm waters of the lake that surrounded the imperial palace. The light had barely risen above the horizon and they passed over a delicately bricked bridge and through a dragon-entwined moongate, past sleepy guards who barely acknowledged them.
Perhaps because we come from the palace, rather than going into it.
Birds began to trill in the trees, just one or two, but then a swift wave of chirruping and twittering followed. The darkness of night softened and detail began to appear in building and road as they finally turned through the massive gold gates of the imperial demesnes and into the main road proper.
Few people were around, the odd scurrying slave and a guard, and the horses’ hooves clattered on the cobbles, announcing their passing as much as if the Voice had preceded them, calling in its infernal way. But what few folk were around seemed to take little notice, recognising nothing imperial about the three riders at all. Isabella wished they had left earlier so that their arrival at the Small Wall would go equally unremarked, but it was no use wishing and they must make the best of the situation.
Chi Nü’s horse strode close by Isabella’s side and so she spoke to her companion.
‘We are beginning to climb, Chi Nü. Can you feel the horse pulling? We have come through the imperial gate and past the People’s Park and we have begun to climb the main way. We are passing the commercial district, perhaps you can smell the food?’
‘I can,’ replied Chi Nü, ‘and I thank you for telling me where we are. I confess to confusion and welcome your words.’ She turned her head toward Isabella. ‘And I confess to a noisy belly as well.’
‘I feel the same,’ answered Isabella. ‘But better we eat far from here when we can take our time.’ Privately she wondered if that would be after the gate in the Great Wall and despaired, as that might be hours hence. ‘We are passing the Middle Streets now. Strange isn’t it, the way the Han have placed th
eir different classes of citizens up the hill according to their place in society? In my country, it’s an eclectic mix in every place. Lower, middle, nobility: they all inhabit the same village, sometimes next to each other.’
‘You mean the wealthiest share a patch of earth with the lowliest?’
‘In a way. Sometimes the lowliest live inside the main gates of the wealthiest manor.’
‘I have heard this.’ Ming Xao turned around and spoke. ‘I should like to see it. Classes are not separated at all?’
‘In Pymm, no. Everyone works together and helps those who can’t. It’s just that some, like here, have the ability to make more of themselves than others. It’s nature. But the poorest are not segregated because of that. It’s the duty of an estate owner to provide for those less fortunate. Possibly it is different in Trevallyn and Veniche but I do believe the Raji way is very much like the Han.’
Ming Xao lapsed into quiet and looked ahead and Isabella’s belly surged once more as she noticed they approached the First House levels. Much as she would miss Lucia, the last thing she wanted now was to be seen by her. She had a feeling there was no way she could conceal what she and her companions were about to do. Ming Xao twitched his reins, almost as if he understood her thoughts and they eased off the main road and round the edge of an enormous park, so that she realised they would approach the gate in the Small Wall obliquely, perhaps giving them an element of surprise.
‘We are skirting the edge of the park, Chi, do you hear the singing birds? The old men have already placed their cages in the trees while they do their meditations.’ A large mass of men and women had filled the park and they performed their various styles. ‘Oh, it’s beautiful. Some are just performing slow hand sweeps that are filled with grace. And we are just passing a big group now who have swords. They are almost the same movements as the others and I wish you could see. Listen, can you hear that?’ A flack filled the air. ‘It’s a group of women who are doing a fan form.’
‘I know of what you speak, Isabella and can hear the fans and the sound of the tunic and trouser fabric whispering as they step and sweep. You forget. It was for watching such things and not working that I was cast blind.’
‘I shouldn’t have spoken. I am sorry.’
‘Not at all. I prefer you give me a world in which I can place my own every movement. I thank you.’
The far end of the park that edged the wall was deserted and their horses proceeded along a tan, the hoof beats now a quiet shuffle. Around them birds chirped and the light was morning bright. As Isabella looked back, she observed the Han awake and intent on its daily perambulations. Slaves filled the previous empty spaces and seeing the indigo robes only served to heighten Isabella’s need to flee. She wished she could magick herself and her companions over the walls that slid by their side. Wished that Chi Nü was able to invoke her celestial powers. Wished they didn’t have to pass through the gates that loomed ahead.
Ming Xao drew to a halt whilst they were still undercover of the trees.
‘Wait here. I will have them open the gates. Isabella, you look as if you will faint. Please do not. I have passed through the gates many times at this hour. The only odd thing this time is my company, so I need you to look like my bride and her servant and not some terrified slave.’
Whose feet will be struck off if they find out what we do.
Isabella risked a smile and straightened her back and Ming Xao nudged his horse’s sides and moved toward the same burly guard Isabella remembered.
Does the man never take a day off?
His very appearance was intimidating, as he reached almost eye to eye with Ming Xao on horseback. Ming Xao spoke and whilst she couldn’t hear what he said, she watched the giant sink to his knees and kowtow and in the ensuing obeisance and greeting, she heard a voice behind her.
‘Well, if it isn’t Lady Ibo.’
No.
*
Isabella’s stomach sank. She glanced down to her stirrup where the little maid from the First House of Merchants stood. She took a breath.
‘Lucia! How I have missed you.’
She bent to grasp the maid’s hand but the maid stepped back.
‘Really? No one to chide you on your good fortune?’
‘Exactly.’ Isabella grasped at the awry tone in Lucia’s voice, unease trickling down her spine. ‘But I miss our camaraderie. So much.’
‘Oh but how much quieter my life is.’
The acid was unmistakeable and looking up, Isabella noticed Chi Nü’s brows drawing together.
‘Lucia…’ the unease grew colder.
‘Lady Ibo, why are you at the gate unguarded with the Lord Ming Xao?’
‘We…’
‘Could it be that you set one of your plans into being. That you will use the Imperial Grace to make your move?’
Lucia, don’t!
‘Of course I do not.’ Isabella’s cheeks warmed under a tell-tale blush.
‘You lying ungrateful bitseach.’ Lucia’s voice shook. ‘You will bring death and disgrace on the Master. I will not let you, Isabella,’ her voice began to rise as she moved to grab the horse’s bridle. ‘I will warn…’
As her voice lifted, a shadow stepped in behind her and an arm slid up to her neck, a hand disappearing under her hair at the nape. She subsided with a whispered gasp into a waiting grasp. The man who caught her had his back to Isabella as he carried Lucia into the shrubbery but when he turned, surprise filled Isabella’s voice.
‘You,’ she whispered. ‘Aine, you didn’t kill her, please say you didn’t . . .’
‘No,’ replied Master Koi’s trader. ‘She is unconscious and will not wake for some hours.’ He grasped Isabella’s bridle. ‘Tell me Lady Ibo, is she right? Do you leave?’
Isabella looked down into eyes that she would swear could be trusted. He’d had opportunities to betray her in the past and had kept her secrets.
She nodded.
‘Then I shall come to protect you. It is the least I can do for the Son.’ He moved to Chi Nü’s horse. ‘Lady,’ he spoke gently. ‘I see you are blind. Do not be frightened. I am going to ride behind you.’ He took the lead rein from Isabella and swung himself up onto the beast’s haunches. ‘When we are away, I shall make us more comfortable.’
As Isabella went to quiz the trader, she heard Ming Xao call, noticing the perplexed look on his face as the two horses and three riders rode alongside. Mercifully all the guards had kowtowed and as Isabella rode through the gate, her last view of the Han was once again the many bent backs of devotees, like a swarm of Mirradon beetles.
‘He is a friend, Ming Xao – a loyal servant of your safety. We are in his debt.’
Isabella briefly explained the trader’s presence as he spoke to them.
‘Turn to your left into the woods,’ the trader, Xuan, said. ‘Make it look as if you go on your expedition.’
Ming Xao turned his horse without argument and the others followed behind as he pointed at trees and birds and chattered about what they saw. To any eyes watching from the top of the Wall, they were indeed on an imperial expedition, one that the guards had seen enacted many times before.
The trader looked back along the trail.
‘Lord, we are concealed now so I suggest we move faster. See that small track to your right, turn quickly and it will bring us back to the main path but out of sight of the Wall.’
Ming Xao urged his horse to a trot and Isabella followed. The trader pushed Chi Nü’s horse on and as Isabella glanced at her, she could see the Celestial clasped firmly in the circle of his arms. It was a matter of moments and they were in the clearing that Isabella remembered so well. Edged with pine and with the acid leafed trees of spring, with clumps of azalea and camellia in between, Isabella had a swift vision of laying a thread on the ground…
In front of them, the edge of the clearing dropped away. Isabella edged as close as she dared on horseback, hearing a roar, faint spume drifting on an updraft.
‘
There was no flood when I was here before,’ she spoke to no one in particular as her stomach dropped with vertigo.
Ming Xao rode up next to her.
‘The thaw has begun, Isabella. The river is truly in flood.’
‘What river is it?’ she asked without caring. Anything to divert what lay before her. The thought of travelling over a bridge that wasn’t made her nauseous and she backed her horse away from the edge.
‘It is the headwaters of the Ahmad. But here we call it the Yangzhou.’ Ming Xao looked at the trader as he spoke. ‘I know you. You are Master Koi’s head trader, are you not?’
‘I am called Xuan, my lord.’
He bowed his head.
‘Xuan.’ Ming Xao’s brows drew together. ‘I…’
‘If I could interrupt, Excellence. I can see you are concerned. May I set your mind at rest. Lady Ibo knows me and will vouchsafe my intentions. I know what you plan, what she plans. Now is not the time for me to reveal how that happened, may I just say that I am a warrior-trader, Lord, and that I can protect you and the ladies. That I can also show you the way out of the Han.’ He jumped off the horse and eased Chi Nü to the ground where she held on to the horse’s black mane. ‘If you will allow me to adjust the saddle so that the lady may travel comfortably with me?’
He waited for Ming Xao’s response and Isabella wondered what he would do if Ming Xao sent him back to the gate.
‘Then I must trust you because you are a friend of Lady Ibo’s.’
‘Excellence,’ Xuan dropped his head briefly and then began to re-saddle the horse, quickly folding and strapping the soft saddlebags to form a seat of sorts behind the cantle. He lifted Chi Nü and placed her carefully, showing her where to put her hands until he mounted in front of her. Then he took her arms and pulled them around his waist. ‘Are you comfortable? If we have to gallop, you will be safer like this than balanced on the pommel over the horse’s wither.’
‘Thank you, Xuan, I shall be quite safe.’
She seemed equable in her reply and Isabella wished for the same sort of confidence.
‘I thought the bridge was supposed to appear when it was needed. We need it now.’