by Julie C. Dao
“I didn’t know there were this many people on the earth,” she told Hideki, who fell back to allow a large caravan to pass. The men walking beside it stared at his elegant Dagovadian horse and muttered to each other in a foreign tongue.
“There are many opportunities in the city. This is where people dream of a better life. See the men with the crude wooden spears? Likely recruits hoping to join the Emperor’s army.”
Xifeng noticed a great number of travelers were young women. Several were clearly seamstresses, laden down with bolts of fabric and baskets of supplies. She recognized the cheap silk she and Guma had used. “They must have purchased those from an outside market. I suppose silk is much more expensive in the city.”
“I’m sure of it. The taxes are higher closer to the palace, at least in Kamatsu.” Hideki watched a girl struggle with four reams of cloth. “Silk is worth a king’s ransom back home.”
Xifeng nodded. Silk was made only in the Kingdom of the Great Forest; it was against Imperial law to take silkworms outside its borders. Guma used to rant about the preposterous levies they’d had to pay for materials, despite how much profit the kingdom was making.
Other young female travelers carried few possessions, like Xifeng herself. Did they, too, approach the city with a fortune similar to hers? “The Fool,” she murmured, scanning their faces, but they were all plain and unremarkable, and soon she grew bored and turned her attention back to the entrance.
A stone wall hundreds of feet high surrounded the city. Soldiers patrolled the towers along the top, above a burnished gold gate carved with images of dragons rampant. The immense doors stood open, flanked by armed guards observing the crowd.
The men with crude weapons clustered around one guard. He seemed to be directing them through the city. Xifeng caught the words training field and tomorrow afternoon, and knew Hideki had been right after all; they had come to try to secure a place among Emperor Jun’s warriors. They looked laughably rural to her, with their twigs that longed to be spears.
She glanced at Wei, who wore an expression of ferocious delight as he studied the Imperial guards’ weapons: exquisitely crafted crossbows, iron-tipped arrows, and scabbards worked in the finest bronze. She could easily imagine him in armor, wielding such beautiful and deadly tools. If he went to the training fields, she knew he could outshine those hopeful recruits.
What he might be able to do, if only he were trained, she thought.
The guards allowed them to pass without question when Shiro presented a scroll bearing the stamp of the Kamatsu king. Xifeng noticed them scrutinizing her companions’ black steeds. None of them bothered to look at her old horse, and as a result, Xifeng herself. She wished fleetingly she had insisted upon riding one of the Dagovadians.
The road widened into a bustling avenue lined with fruit trees and graceful buildings, and immediately Xifeng felt her eyes and ears being pulled in every direction. She had never seen so many people in one place: men and women, young and old, their hair every shade in between black and brown and their skins gold, russet, and ebony. There were monks, officials, merchants, and seamstresses in silks of every shade, walking and riding and leading horses, oxen, sheep, and camels. They spilled from taverns and inns with sloping roofs, gated monasteries, and warehouses full of heavy crates and furniture.
The smells of roasting garlic, onions, and pepper wafted over from the food carts lining the avenue, and a cluster of stalls sold a hundred varieties of fragrant spices: saffron and cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg, cassia and ginger. A stage in the square featured dancers accompanied by an old man on a barbarian’s fiddle. The instrument had twisted silk strings that produced a lilting melody when he drew a stick of horsehair across them.
Xifeng turned to ask Shiro whether they had similar fiddles in Kamatsu and saw that he had developed a sickly pallor. He swayed atop his horse, a fine layer of sweat coating his face.
Hideki steadied him, his face grim. “Hold him up, Wei. I’ll make inquiries about a physician.” He rode off and returned a few minutes later, breathless. “We’re in the market district, quite far from the best physicians in the city, but there is one down the street. There’s just one thing. She’s a woman.”
“You mean she’s a healer?” Xifeng asked. In the poor villages surrounding her town, there had been women reputed for their knowledge of herblore. But they had mostly been called to attend difficult births or help get rid of pregnancies. In times of true need, people sought a male physician with great skill and prices to match.
Wei shook his head. “Can’t we find someone else? There must be another nearby.”
“She’s a trained physician and she is the closest, but still . . .” Hideki bit his lip.
Shiro sagged against Wei’s arm and Xifeng gave a growl of frustration. The men turned to her in surprise. “She’s the best chance we have. Better to see if she can help than stay here and have Shiro sicken even more. Would you risk his life?” Wei’s mouth turned down at her forceful manner of speaking, but neither of the men could argue with her logic.
“To the woman physician, then,” Hideki agreed.
The tidy building they found stood on a quiet offshoot of the avenue. It had two levels and a sitting area shaded by the curving roof. A tall woman emerged who was older than Xifeng, but not yet middle-aged, with hair so black it looked blue in the shadows.
“Are you Bohai, miss?” Hideki called. “We seek a physician for our wounded friend.”
“My family name is Bohai, yes.” The woman spoke in a low voice, the kind music would suit well. To Xifeng’s surprise, she spoke the common tongue with the same lilting Kamatsu accent as Shiro and Hideki. Hideki looked astonished as well, but made no comment as the woman approached Shiro and studied his face. She was not a beauty; Xifeng assessed that at once. But there was something pleasing about her intelligent eyes, smooth, flat nose, and wide mouth, which turned down as she felt Shiro’s forehead.
“This man is deathly ill. Bring him in. You can put your horses in the back.”
Hideki leapt off his horse at once and carried Shiro inside, laying him on one of several clean pallets in a chamber off the front room. Xifeng followed, scanning the shelves that held jars of herbs, roots, and powders, each labeled with the neat calligraphy of a learned woman.
The physician looked at Xifeng as if to say something to her, but then she turned to Hideki. “Could you please bring me the jars of peony root and wolfberry? They are in the front room, on the bottom shelf.”
Xifeng watched him hurry to retrieve the items, bristling a bit. Did the woman imagine she couldn’t read? “Can I do anything to help?” she asked pointedly.
The woman bent her blue-black head over Shiro, inspecting his wound. His eyes were closed, and his chest rose and fell with labored breathing. “Not at the moment, thank you,” was the absent reply. She tugged his tunic from his injured shoulder, and Xifeng saw that the injury had grown even worse. The ragged edges had turned an oozing pale green, and the sour-sweet smell that emanated from it made her cover her nose.
Hideki rushed back in with two small jars, followed closely by Wei.
“Is he all right?” Wei asked Xifeng, hand brushing her shoulder.
“I don’t know.”
Shiro winced and hissed through his teeth, eyes still closed, as the physician pressed a moistened cloth over his wound. She gathered a mortar and pestle, mixing the root, powder, and several other ingredients. She used a scale to measure some of the components, and when the mixture became a white paste, she carefully daubed it on his cut.
“This is an old remedy that will keep the wound clean,” she told Hideki, seeming to sense that Shiro’s well-being was in his charge. “The peony root will draw out the infection. That should take a few days, and then I’ll add a paste to hasten the healing of the skin.” She had Shiro’s calm, knowledgeable manner of speaking.
“It’s a p
leasant surprise to have my friend in the care of a countrywoman,” the soldier said gratefully. He seemed to have forgotten his reservations about the physician being female.
“I see my accent has given me away.” The woman bestowed a brief smile upon him.
“If the healing will take a few days, we ought to find lodgings. Or I suppose I should.” Hideki glanced at Xifeng and Wei. “I don’t wish to keep you two. You’ve been more than kind to wait with us this long.”
“It’s the least we can do. We’re all friends now,” Wei said.
Xifeng hesitated. Reality had begun to sink in now that she was so close to the palace. She needed to find a way in and figure out what to do about Wei. She thought of his envious gaze on the city guards’ armor, and of the soldiers’ training taking place tomorrow. This delay could buy her time to come up with a solution. “I’ve never had many friends,” she confessed, gazing at Shiro’s pale, drawn face. “And I find them precious to me now. I’d like to stay until he heals completely.”
Hideki beamed at her. “It’s settled. I’ll see about finding lodgings.”
“As for that,” the physician said, wrapping a soft cloth around Shiro’s shoulder, “you are all welcome to stay here while your friend heals. I’d be happy to have you.”
“You are most generous, miss.” Hideki reached into his tunic for a purse, but the physician stopped him.
“I do not seek payment until my charge has healed. And please, call me Akira.”
Akira offered them lodgings, but it was clear she expected them to earn their keep. She sent Hideki to fetch water from the well and Wei to market to buy items for the evening meal. Again, she had turned to Xifeng first as though to ask her, before changing her mind. A bit insulted, Xifeng went out without being asked and carried in their belongings for the night. When Shiro had fallen asleep, his face relaxed and gaining a bit of color, Akira turned to her.
“Hideki will stay with Shiro tonight. If you’ll help me prepare the upstairs room, you and Wei may have that.”
Xifeng followed her, noting that the entire house was neat and meticulously clean. The physician did not seem wealthy, but she clearly did well enough never to go hungry. “When did you come here from Kamatsu?”
“My mother came from Kamatsu, but I was born here in the Imperial City. In the palace.”
Xifeng gave a start. “You’re a noblewoman?”
“Unfortunately not. But my father is a person of some standing at court. You might say he is the physician.” Akira studied her with an odd expression, like pity mixed with anger. She spoke slowly, as though to a child. “What I mean is that he cares for the Emperor and Empress.”
“Yes, thank you. I understood that,” Xifeng said, too astonished to be annoyed that the woman thought her stupid. Moments ago, she had wondered how to find a way into the palace, and now she had been presented with a potential key: the daughter of the Imperial physician. “You would rather live alone than with your father in the palace?”
“Who is closer to the Emperor than he who cares for him in illness? A man of such rank would never acknowledge a bastard, however grudgingly he may provide for her.” Her eyes cut to Xifeng. “I apologize if that offends you.”
Xifeng bit down her irritation as she compared Guma’s hovel with this well-kept house. She was a guest under Akira’s roof and had to show respect, no matter how she actually felt. “It doesn’t offend me at all, since I’m a bastard myself,” she said with forced politeness. “Only my father never cared to provide for me at all.”
The physician had the grace to blush. “I am sorry. I don’t mean to complain. I know how fortunate I am to support myself without a husband. And what man would wish to marry me, anyway? I wasn’t lucky enough to be born a beauty like you.” The corner of her mouth lifted, taking the edge off her bitter tone. “Will you allow me to make amends with some tea?”
Xifeng accepted, satisfied that as poised as she seemed, Akira was not unlike other women Xifeng had known in her town: jealous and quick to judge.
Downstairs, Akira poured tea for her and placed a sweet rice cake on her plate. “I’ve imagined meeting my father many times, but he can never leave the palace. He is like the nightingale in the old legend, trapped in a gilded cage to sing for the Emperor alone.” She studied Xifeng. “Your skin is as pale as the Empress’s must be. I hear she and her ladies never step into the sun without a hundred servants to shield them with silk coverings.”
“I wore a hat whenever I went outside. My aunt was afraid I would look like a lowly farm girl, tanned from always working outdoors, instead of a lady.” Xifeng stroked the rabbit painted on her cup. A drop of tea had dripped onto the image, like blood slipping from its heart.
She felt relieved when Hideki came in and Akira turned her attention to him. “It’s an honor to have guests from my mother’s country. I expect you and Ambassador Shiro have come from Kamatsu on business.” She glanced at Xifeng. “But what is your husband’s purpose?”
Once again, the assumption that Xifeng belonged to Wei—that she had no direction of her own. She wondered what they would say if she told them they might be sitting in the presence of the future Empress of Feng Lu. “My aunt wished me to seek my fortune at court . . . as a lady-in-waiting. It is where my fate lies.”
Hideki choked on his tea. “I wasn’t aware of this. I thought Wei wanted to start a business in the city. Did your Guma tell you whether it is a good or a bad fate?”
“The greatest seer cannot know the end of a person’s story. In any case, Wei and I have not yet come to an agreement about this.” Xifeng’s stomach twisted as she spoke. That was one conversation she wanted more than anything to avoid, but could not.
“The Empress’s ladies are not allowed to associate with men. You would be parted from him, perhaps forever,” Akira pointed out. The truth stung even more, coming from a stranger.
“Court is a dangerous place,” Hideki said grimly. “It’s made up of power and those poisoned by it. It’s like a sand pit in the desert: you can’t see one until it traps you, and then it’s too late. You struggle to regain your footing, but you won’t go far before sliding to the bottom.”
Xifeng’s eyes cut to Akira, who nodded sagely, though she probably didn’t know much more about court life than Xifeng did. Xifeng struggled not to roll her eyes.
“For every step you take, there are ten others close by, hoping you’ll fall so they’ll have their chance,” Hideki continued. “It’s a madness, a desperation to climb to the top even if the slippery walls betray you.”
“This is what you think of me.” Xifeng set her teacup down, hard. They dared question her. “That I’m silly and empty-headed, and my Guma would send me to court unprepared?”
“I’ve no doubt she wanted a better life for you,” he said, disturbed. “But in my country, mothers fought to keep their daughters away from the palace. I’ve seen what court can do to someone with a good heart. I’ve seen how Shiro has been treated simply because he is smaller than other men. The courtiers are kinder to their dogs than they are to him.”
“Not even the Empress is exempt from their cruelty,” Akira added. “She has given three sons to the crown, but longs for a daughter and keeps trying though she’s nearly fifty. The gossips say she celebrates every festival with yet another failed pregnancy.”
“And if I were the Empress,” Xifeng said in a quiet, dangerous voice, “I would teach them the meaning of respect. I would execute anyone who dared speak a word against me. And that includes anyone who dared speak ill of my friends.” She glanced at Shiro’s motionless form in the other room. He was so kind and gentle, and he had saved Wei’s life. Yes, she would take much delight in sentencing his tormenters to a painful, prolonged death.
There was a long, tense silence in which she could hear her own brutal words ringing in her ears. Where had they come from? Had it been the creature within her, on
ce again breathing its evil thoughts from her lips?
“I would be merciful, too, to those who deserved it,” she said hastily. “I would raise my friends high and treat my subjects with kindness.”
Hideki’s face relaxed, though his lips were still thin. “You’d be someone to be reckoned with at court, then.”
Wei came in at that moment, pink cheeked and jubilant, and Xifeng rose gladly to meet him. At the physician’s request, he brought the food into an adjacent room. He glanced at Xifeng as he stacked his purchases on the shelves. “Is everything all right?”
“I’m fine. Just annoyed with everyone judging me and the things I want. I told them about Guma’s hope that I serve in the palace.”
Wei’s cheer faded. “You didn’t need to bring that up. Hideki has a dim view of everything to do with the Emperor, including his army. I heard at market they’ll be recruiting soldiers on the training fields tomorrow . . .”
Xifeng’s heart leapt. “Yes, I know. I thought you could go and . . .”
“But that’s an old dream. I’d prefer to stay here in the city with you.”
But me, she thought helplessly. What about what I prefer?
“I passed a smithing district on the way to market. It would be simple to find work there.”
“But that’s not what you truly want to do,” she argued, watching with acute hunger as he hesitated. If only she could make him see he belonged with the army. And if his entry into the Imperial Palace facilitated her own—if it brought him into proximity to high-ranking officers and their wives, who might mention her to the Empress—so much the better.