Jade Man's Skin

by Daniel Fox

  But she was angry, and didn’t want to tease him. Nor to fight. Nor did she want to be jealous of her friends. She could be happy for them, at least until Siew Ren came to find them.

  In the meantime, Jiao stroked Mei Feng’s fingers over the flowing warmth of the stone shirt and said, “Feel where the jade has chipped and shattered, under that blow?”

  “No,” she said. “No, I don’t feel anything …”

  Not a mark, not a scratch. She wondered how they made the carvers’ blades, what could cut and scrape this stone. Yu Shan would know, no doubt, but it didn’t matter now. She said, “Yu Shan? How does it feel, is it hard to wear, hard to fight?”

  He shook his head, pushed his hand through his hair, said, “You feel it, but it’s not like weight. Not dead weight. More like muscle, an extra skin, more power. It’s … wonderful.” He sounded like he didn’t want to take it off.

  Perhaps Jiao thought so too. She reached over and pinched a sticky tuft of hair between finger and thumb, squeezed out an accumulated drop of sweat. “Hot, though.”

  “Yes. Hot. Tell the emperor that,” grinning again, looking like a boy again, dressed up in soldiers’ clothes. “Tell him not to wear anything underneath it. I put a shirt on first, and that’s sodden …”

  LATER, IN the late of the evening when old women and young girls do not sleep—perhaps for one reason and perhaps for another, but sometimes because their sons and lovers are hatching war with dangerous men elsewhere in the palace, and so they are perfectly free to hatch conspiracy themselves—she sat closeted with the empress in her shadows and unwrapped the folded wonder of the shirt and showed it her.

  Even an empress, even a woman who has schemed and manipulated for the throne and all but stolen it entirely before the end, even she will apparently hesitate before she handles a coruscation of jade, before she lets it shimmer and run through her fingers in the transitory lamplight.

  Even she will shiver afterward, and wonder perhaps quite who she is in league with here, quite how bold this girl will be.

  “… Yes,” the old woman said at last, as though the weight of her own silence had dragged it out of her like a jewel on a chain. “Yes, this is a gift fit for an emperor. If it will fit him.”

  “Oh, it’ll fit. Yu Shan says Guangli can add as many more scales as it needs, to make it fit; he has them all cut and ready. I don’t understand how they hold together, but it’s like links in a chain, he says, he can add them or take them away until the fit is perfect.”

  “And if my son will wear it.”

  “He’ll wear it.” She was just as certain about that, only this time it was her own certainty she offered, not someone else’s she had borrowed for the occasion. “You know how he is about jade, great lady,” you made him so. “He’ll love it. And it will keep him safe. Safer. On the battlefield.” Everything was contingent, diminishing, regretful. “Please, what can we do about Ping Wen?”

  An armored shirt was no protection against treachery; and he would be far from either of his palaces, far from the watchful regard of his womenfolk, exposed and vulnerable. She couldn’t bear to think of him as vulnerable, but it was true.

  “Child,” the old woman said, “leave Ping Wen to me. He will be here, left as governor despite his protests; his people are clerks these days, not soldiers. They will be … distracted, perhaps, and war is dangerous to everyone.”

  “Are you saying”—her fingers reached for the shirt again, and not just to have something to play with while she fumbled for a handful of obvious, difficult words; it was astonishing, how hard it was to give it up—“are you really saying that you can have him killed?”

  “I could do that, perhaps. Men do die, in wartime. And the Son of Heaven would be safer if he did. But I might not. Women too can die, old women insist on it sooner or later, and if the council thought that I had helped Ping Wen out of this world—well. I am allowed to interfere, but not that much. Half those old men would be afraid and mistrustful then, and I would not survive that.

  “Besides, we have said the general is treacherous, we have told the emperor to be watchful of him. If he simply dies, all that work is lost, and my son will simply turn to another adviser. If we are shown to be right …”

  “We have no proof.” No proof that they could bring forward; she would not, would not expose her grandfather. Whatever the cost elsewhere.

  The old woman smiled. “Anything can be turned up, in war. A man can be found, perhaps, who will confess to sailing with your pirate, Li Ton I think was his name? Summoned by Ping Wen and sent to light that beacon, to bring the invasion here. There are men in the army who have not forgotten me, I think, nor my man who was emperor before yours. They will do as I ask, if I give them a reason. A prisoner will confess to anything, under the right persuasion, and my son will believe it when he hears it directly. Of course he will; it is true. The Son of Heaven can be deceived, he is young yet, but truth will shine at him when it is needful, like jade through common rock.”

  And yet she was talking about deceiving him herself with false confessions; and about destroying another man, a stranger, an unknown prisoner, simply as a tool toward the destruction of Ping Wen. This was the palace, this was the life Mei Feng had now. This ancient spider was what she should aspire to, her best hope of life and influence.

  And yes, she would plot with the empress to make this happen, to betray one man with another, because it might prove to be the only way to save her lord. And she would give him the jade shirt—somehow: they had yet to agree how best to do that—before he went to war, because that too might prove to be the one thing that would save him. She would guard against treachery with treachery, and she would guard against war with the gear of war, and it still wasn’t enough.

  She was still as angry as ever she had been, but that made no difference here. He was her emperor and her man, and she was furious with him and would save him despite himself, despite her temper and his own best efforts, if she could only find a way to do it.

  Outside, storm battered at the roof and the shutters. Mei Feng shivered; she did not believe in omens, but she did most definitely believe in the dragon. And in the dragon’s temper, which was worse even than her own.

  Stone and Water

  one

  She saw them before he did.

  Indeed, he saw them first through her.

  IF THE fog was her breath, a heavy cloak that she laid like a claim across the water—mine!—then the typhoon was her temper, the vicious lash of the winds and the dark deep howl that they rose up from, the chill still stare of the eye and then the fury again, worse than before.

  All his life, Han had known that the typhoon was her temper. Once it had been because she was chained, and he had been inland at the limits of her reach: rising rivers and cascading rains, roofs ripped from houses and boats left far from water, old men sucking air through their teeth and saying it would be worse on the coast, if any fool were fool enough to be there.

  Then she was free, and her temper was an eruption against him alone because she was not free after all, because he rode still in her head and could twist her out of true if never bend her truly to his will.

  They were still trying to learn how to deal with each other, for this little time until they could each be freed; and she was still not free at all, because there was another power in these waters and they were not hers after all. She could not break those paltry humans in their eggshell boats when they dared to chance the open strait, because she was not allowed to.

  And so she sent the typhoon, or else the typhoon came because she was so raging; and for weeks nothing did sail on the strait, because nothing could.

  She sailed on the wind, as though to claim it for her own, storm-empress; he sheltered as best he could in rock-caves filled with curses. When she came to him, he said, Bring me a boat, and weather I can sail in, and ignored the fact that he didn’t know how to sail.

  After the storm was over, she was still angry, and disturbed; she
still rode the wind and glowered down on Taishu-island and its boats. He knew. He was in her head, and saw them packed like seeds in all the ports and harbors.

  The storm’s wake had brought clear skies, strong seas and a steady, whipping wind. Almost, Han thought the dragon was abroad for the simple pleasure of it: soaring high and then plunging like a stone, stretching to cleave the sea as she struck, sinking deep and thrusting up again, she might have been a youngling at play, thrilling in the power and precision of her body, nothing more.

  Almost.

  Almost, he thought it was true. After so long in chains, small surprise if she chose to exult in freedom. Even if it was limited, circumscribed, deceptive.

  But, when she was high, he knew she was looking down, seeing all those many boats that packed the harbors like great seeds afloat. Seeing how they all fared forth like seeds in the wind, boats on the water.

  When she plunged, he knew this was yet one more attempt to assert herself, her authority, her possession of these waters.

  When she struck the sea, he knew this was yet one more failure, one more spite, something to hate.

  Some two things to hate, because the fleet was divided: she struck at one and could not hit it, she tried to rise up beneath the other and could not.

  She tried to bring back the typhoon, he thought, to sink them all in open water, and could not do that either.

  He ran up to the height of the Forge to watch the fleets go by, one on the one side and one on the other; and, of course, to wait for her.

  two

  The Man of Jade was going to war, going to reclaim his empire, and even the dragon had turned out to see him sail.

  So it seemed, at least: a parade unimaginably honored, an enterprise blessed before its launch. With such an omen, such tribute in the sky above him, it was inconceivable that he should fail.

  ALL DAY the dragon coursed the strait, spotted time and again by the watchers on Taishu. Now she patrolled the island’s coastline, as though she mapped every bay and headland, every crag and jetty, every kink; now she lifted high above the silent monument of the Forge, a bare dot in the scrubbed pale blue, an eagle in possession, wherever her eye fell or her shadow touched; now she came to Taishu-port itself, hung in the air above the docks and peered down at wharves and shipping. She seemed intrigued by the many boats crowded stem to stern, so close that an agile and carefree child might run and leap—as many had, in defiance of anger and solemnity and import, prognostication, in defiance of it all—from one harborside to the other, as though the sea itself were wooden now and bridged itself.

  If it would, if it could only do that, the army might march to Santung and save these boats, this journey.

  Not save itself the peril, under the dragon’s eye; but boats were perilous in themselves, the sea was a threat on its own and the weather too. The typhoon—the dragon’s wind, they called it: and some swore that they had seen her aloft at its height, rejoicing, dancing in it—had blown for too long, weeks, till the sky itself was exhausted. Now there was a tug in air and sea that promised handy sailing, but no one trusted it. Not with the dragon so very present, ready to whip up the storm again.

  Trust the Li-goddess, the old man said, though he said it bleakly. The old man was the emperor’s touchstone these days, the man to whom the emperor himself would trust himself; and where the emperor trusted, who would dare to doubt?

  Besides, there were the children. Gifts of the goddess, like living charms: they could charm the dragon, charm the storm, charm the wind and water.

  With the emperor to lead and the old man to guide, with the goddess to bless, with the children to ward away all harm: then, yes, even the dragon could be seen as a luck-token, a sign of fortune, a promise from the immortal realms.

  AND SO, all day, fleets had assembled and men had boarded while the dragon watched.

  Last of all, the emperor had come down with his people, his guards and company, his council of the wise. There had been priests and blessings and formalities, good omens and bold oaths.

  His woman, his girl, his concubine: she had come down separately, with just a eunuch for her servant and an elderly man for companion, a man from the jade quarter with dust under his skin. They had made the emperor a presentation, no part of his plan. His mother had appeared on a balcony to watch, and he hadn’t been looking for her either.

  It was strange to see the emperor surprised and then surprised again, more than surprised by what his girl gave him. It was a wonder, a marvel of man and nature and the gods all hand in hand: a shirt of jade, an armor and more, a statement; more, a proclamation: this is the empire, it said, this is the Jade Throne, I am the imperium itself.

  He stripped off his imperial yellow there and then, before his people; stripped down to his trousers and donned that stone shirt slowly, formally, in full sight of crowded decks and wharves and streets. The Man of Jade dressed in a shirt of jade, stone on skin, and there was a shout that might have split the sky if the dragon hadn’t been up there to stitch it all together, weaving and weaving through the air.

  three

  Yu Shan watched the emperor discard the long yellow of his robe, watched him pull the rippling green of the armored shirt over his head, stone on skin—and felt a shiver of longing, a physical twitch in his own skin, as though it yearned to carry that weight again.

  His tongue touched the little nub in his mouth, where flesh had overgrown his stolen splinter; his hand reached to his neck, where beads of jade lay openly against his throat. Those were gifts of the emperor, both the beads themselves and license to wear them: a sign of his generosity, a sign of his possession. I own your life, they said, that is truly my gift to you, and it was true. Actually, though, privately, Yu Shan thought that his life belonged to the stone. He thought it always had.

  At his side now stood his clan-cousin Siew Ren, who thought his life belonged to her. She always had, it seemed. Once, she had taken him for granted; now she took him as a birthright, fiercely.

  Jiao was elsewhere, on another ship. Yu Shan might have preferred yet one more, all three of them apart, but they went where they were told to go. Obviously the emperor’s own sworn guards—Siew Ren among them—would sail with the emperor. Jiao swore loyalty to no one. If half the guard thought of her as captain, that was strictly unofficial, unacknowledged by the emperor or herself. As witness, she was not here. If she were asked, she would say she went where she chose to go, where she could be most use. It wasn’t true, of course, but she might somehow manage to believe it.

  Yu Shan would sail with the emperor, then, because the emperor would not let him out of his sight today. Siew Ren would sail with the emperor because she was sworn not to let him out of her sight. If that kept her at Yu Shan’s side too, it was a happy chance. For her. The eunuch boy would sail with the emperor because he belonged to the emperor and the goddess both together, and their claims could not be divided. The girl belonged to the goddess alone, and would sail on an old jade ship at the head of a second fleet.

  If the goddess could speak through separate children in separate temples, she could surely protect two separate fleets. They thought.

  No one knew, of course. No one even knew for sure that it was the children who guaranteed the protection of the goddess. When they spoke in her voice, it had been in the old man’s presence, both times; perhaps he was the lucky charm, the object of her interest.

  Jiao was sailing on the jade ship with the girl.

  Yu Shan looked, and couldn’t even see her. There was a pack of soldiers at every rail on the high-sided junk, a swarm of sailors clinging to her masts and rigging. Jiao might have been anywhere, on deck or above; she might have been with the girl, wherever she might be, on deck or below.

  Was he turning to look for her, or turning away from the emperor, not to watch him in the wonder of that shirt, not to feel the hunger of it in his own yearning skin?

  He didn’t know. Neither did Siew Ren, but she probably had suspicions. Her hand slipped det
erminedly into his, I am here and you are mine.

  Best not to argue; easiest, perhaps, if it were true. Certainly he could pretend things were that uncomplicated. For a while, for a day or two, till they met up with Jiao again.

  On the quayside, Mei Feng was kowtowing formally to the emperor. Here at last was something truly easy: to fail to hide a grin at the sight of it, to wonder conspicuously how long it had been since she’d done that. To feel Siew Ren’s nudge in his ribs and know that at last they stood in entirely the same place again, thinking entirely the same thought.

  THE EMPEROR left Mei Feng on the boards of the wharf there, and came aboard Old Yen’s boat. That in itself was a procession, and a procession must needs be met; Siew Ren left Yu Shan’s side, and went to join those who ushered him watchfully into the cabin. When she took on a duty, she took it seriously. She’d been happy, he thought, in their valley with their people, happy in her prospect of him; now that she’d left it for his sake, and found him not the prospect that she’d thought, she needed something other to make sense in her life. Her little touch of jade made a potential soldier of her; training and enthusiasm and determination vindicated it. And a reason to be close to the emperor kept her close also to Yu Shan, whom she would not give up.

  There was a sudden flurry of movement on the dockside, as the moorings were cast off. Of course the emperor would lead his fleets to sea. Besides, every captain else meant to follow Old Yen, so long as there was a dragon in the sky. Not all had sailed across the strait and back, to see the dragon defied; not all who had seen it believed entirely that the eunuch boy had warded her away; there was not a captain in either fleet who would stray far from Old Yen’s wake this crossing. It might have been the boy, and the girl might have that same magic, but who knew? It might all be the goddess’s kindness to her favorite fisherman. Best stay close, press at his stern, one fleet all the way …