Chapter Two
‘MERCY?’ XIAN found his regular place at the pond’s edge, where a missing stone enabled him to draw near flush with the water level. ‘How many mayflies have you caught today, my friend?’
Bubbles bloomed against a murky surface almost entirely covered by water lilies and water lettuce, with the soft fronds of hornwort submerged beneath.
Sweet flag jutted like green daggers around the edges, growing ever thicker, no matter how often he pulled them up to give Mercy more places to poke her head above the surface and pounce on resting dragonflies.
He spotted the fanning of her tail just below a browning lily pad, a flash of sunset she seemed to think he could not see from the surface.
This was the game she liked to play, hiding among the plant life, making the leaves rock with her bubbles.
She’d not reveal herself until Xian made a show of searching for her.
‘I cannot play today,’ he laughed, the weight of his upcoming performance melting away with being so near to his friend, in this place of quiet solitude. ‘I am fully dressed. I’ll return this evening as soon as I can.’
But she blew her bubbles somewhere in the nearest cluster of sweet flag, the long-stemmed grasses jiggling as she moved amongst them.
‘Alright then, I see you…right…here.’
His arm was not yet straight when he felt the snag of material.
Xian cursed beneath his breath, peering through the swinging pearls and coral for a sign of a tear to the delicate overcoat. To his great relief, he could see no obvious damage, but the near miss dried his throat.
A splash nearby made him jump. ‘Careful now, you little shanxiao!’ He teased her with naming her a mountain daemon. ‘You can see I am finely dressed, are you trying to make my heart stop with fright?’
Mercy emerged from the sweet flag, swimming into the clearer water where Xian leaned over the stones.
The carp, a shade of gold that the emperor’s crowns would envy and trimmed with reds stolen straight from the sun, pushed her head out of the water, black eyes glistening, pearlescent mouth rounded.
Her glorious pale gold tail fanned out behind her like a grand gown in the dark water.
She opened and closed her mouth in what he liked to imagine was a greeting.
‘Good afternoon to you, too.’ The mere sight of her shimmering scales unburdened him. ‘It is very good to see you. Have you missed me?’
Mercy darted around in a tight circle, the fluid movement so beautiful to behold, before she stuck her nose above water again, performing a wiggle he’d learned was her version of a nod.
‘I have missed you too, friend. I’m sorry I could not visit you yesterday, my mistress has me run off my feet.’
Xian caught sight of his reflection. His long black hair was loose, save for the strands at each temple pulled back tightly and clasped with hairpieces covered in pearls and coral that matched those on the decorative veil.
In looking at his reflection, with the face veil covering the ugliness of scarred skin on his cheek, one might say he looked fine. But Xian knew better.
Mercy swept around, blowing bubbles to mark her path, creating a carp artwork of sorts; one of her favourite activities.
He did not know what she was trying to draw, but he clapped his hands and enthused about each attempt.
There was something hypnotic in how she moved; something that untied all the knots he found himself in.
The same was apparently said of him when he danced.
But ugly rumours had his graceful talent born of dark magic.
The rumours had followed him from the Forbidden City; talk of Xian’s mother using sorcery to bewitch the emperor as she sought to become Empress of China.
‘When she bore you, your highness, the claws of all who envied her beauty and grace only sharpened. You must not listen to these disgusting lies.’
So Daiyu told him often, the daughter of the Marquess and Marchioness’s herbalist, and the only soul in the household he’d consider an ally. Even a friend, perhaps. But Xian had learned it was not wise to trust too easily.
‘Oh, Mercy you truly are talented. Wonderful.’ But pleasing as the fish’s display was, Xian needed to speak of other things.
‘But I have to tell you…I’m so very nervous…
about the ceremony today. You’ll probably think that’s stupid of me.
I’ve danced the yayue so many times, and I know once I begin everything will be fine, but…
’ He sighed. ‘I am so tired, I feel a hundred years old, and not twenty-three. I fear I might stumble, or falter, and shame my guardians. They have much invested in this agreement, I don’t know exactly what, no one tells me such things, but these past few days the marchioness has been even more…
’ Cruel and cantankerous. ‘Anxious. And she speaks of Yu Ming’s marriage prospects as though my simple dance alone will decide who her daughter’s betrothed shall be. ’
But there was little simple about the yayue. The moves were complex and required great concentration to remain in time with the shifting tempos of the music. The dances were an art-form, perfected over centuries of ceremony.
Mercy watched him, resting her head on the stone that had shifted into the water, giving Xian his resting place.
He dipped his fingers into the water, and the golden carp caressed their tips with her billowing tail.
‘The Lady Tian has been especially unkind of late, too. I wonder if she is not so eager to be betrothed as she deigns to show?’ To his mind, the carp looked thoughtful.
‘I think a wedded life sounds dreadful. If I did not know her so well I might feel sorry for Yu Ming, knowing she will be sent off to live at the whim of a man she does not know, and must bear his children.’ Xian shuddered.
He longed for no one’s touch. Xian just wished to be left alone.
Mercy wriggled beneath his fingers, pulling him from the bleakness of his thoughts. The carp always knew just when to distract him. His mother had been adept at such things too, easily turning the attention of a distraught young boy towards something that would make him laugh, and forget his tears.
‘I should consider my scars a good fortune, truly, Mercy. I shall never have to worry about my hand being taken in marriage, and that suits me just fine.’ He picked a piece of hornwort and moved it through the water as Mercy gave chase.
‘Can you imagine the hue and cry from the household staff, if I left? The marchioness’s attention would be on them like a swarm of bees, without me to bully about.
They’d have to clean all the hearths down to the last cinder every day, dust the leaves of every potted plant three times over, and polish the floors until they were too slippery to stand on. There would be revolt.’
Xian chuckled, but he was very good at making noise that could be mistaken for genuine mirth.
He cupped his hand just beneath the surface of the water, creating an underwater bowl of sorts.
Mercy slid her smooth body against the palm of his hand and rested her weight there.
The dry skin of his knuckles stung with being submerged.
Xian smiled down at Mercy, who rolled herself back and forth in his makeshift cradle, her huge black eyes glistening like exotic gems.
‘I wish I could bring you with me,’ he sighed. ‘I have such an ill feeling for today.’
The carp rounded her mouth and jettisoned a tiny fountain of water into the air.
Xian grinned, relaxing into the calm that the fish’s presence brought him.
Somewhere in the garden, tree sparrows loosened their spirited calls, and a cuckoo made its repetitive cry.
The afternoon was cool, but not terribly so.
Winter in Kunming was kind, and certainly not so harsh and snow-drowned as those places further north.
The city was afforded dry and mild days, usually sunny, with last night’s rain a rare event.
The next two weeks of celebrations, leading to the New Year on January twenty-fourth, were promising to be favourable, at least so far as the weather was concerned.
Xian closed his eyes, taking in the sounds, letting his rattled nerves soothe.
‘Xian…Xian…’ The harsh whisper startled him, even as he recognised the person who addressed him so informally.
Mercy darted from his hold, and Xian twisted, the beading whipping about, striking at his cheek.
‘Daiyu?’
‘She’s found your room empty, you need to go.
’ The herbalist’s daughter seemed to fly down the stairs, her short stature no impediment on the broad steps.
Her hair, normally carefully restrained in a bun, had loosened, and black strands wriggled like thin worms about her face.
Daiyu’s brown eyes now held an uncommon wildness.
‘She is in a vile temper. Oh, Xian, your clothes…and your shoes! You mustn’t let her see you like this. ’
Xian hardly heard the words, his blood like waterfalls thundering in his ears. He glanced down, and his entire world seemed to quake. He’d become lax with holding his gown clear of the ground; mud stained his hem, and darkened the toes of his slippers.
Xian slumped against the stones, his blood turning cold. He could not seem to catch his breath. Mercy nudged his fingers, bringing him back to himself.
‘How long do I have?’ He forced himself upright; his legs were jellied with shock. ‘Which way, Daiyu? Which way do I go?’
He was not proud of how his voice wobbled.