Chapter Fifteen
XIAN’S ROOMS lay in the east wing, overlooking the wide sweep of the siheyuan’s inner courtyard.
Torches were lit all along its edges, a few tied to long poles that jutted out of the dominating rockeries; a garden feature favoured by the Mandarin’s wife, a woman now deceased, and whose name Xian had not yet overheard, or had forgotten in his stupefied haze.
He climbed the stone steps to the second level of the east chamber.
The building’s lower level, as with all in siheyuan, was built of stone, with the terracotta roof and support poles painted the russet brown of a fox.
When he’d spied the colour on his arrival, his tincture-soothed mind had harked back to long-lost days, when his mother had called him her bao bao huli; her treasured baby fox.
He’d taken another dose of tincture as soon as he was led to his rooms; sending those memories back down deep where all his other pains now lived.
Xian’s accommodation comprised two sections: one room held a low table for dining and day beds of silk stuffed with goose feathers; the other, larger room was for sleeping.
Its soft flooring was lovely underfoot, and three goose feather mats — covered in a sublime yellow-gold silk fabric — lay rolled up in a corner, awaiting a night’s slumber.
Xian touched his fingers to a loosened thread on one of the mats. His belligerent mind shoved his thoughts towards Song Lim. The shoemaker wouldn’t approve of that unsightly thread. He’d insist on fixing it; his quick and clever fingers working a needle through the fabric.
Xian looked away. He needed the tincture at once; his head was far too clear, and that only led to painful memories surfacing.
He hurried towards the open window with its pretty window box on the ledge; three pots sat within, brimming with pink and white daphnes, thriving even as winter slowly waned.
Xian glanced over his shoulder, ensuring the inner door was closed.
At least he would hear anyone who entered the other room, and his hiding place could be kept safe from prying eyes.
Xian leaned over the flowers; checking that none of his neighbours were at their windows.
The occupant on the left, beyond Xian’s main room, had been so quiet he was yet to figure out if anyone stayed there at all, but on the right it was quite different.
For several nights, lewd sounds had seeped between the thin walls; between the same woman, who he now suspected was the chestnut-haired Englishwoman from tonight’s late performance, and various male callers.
She was vigorous in encouraging her lovers, and her appetite for them never waned; which made for supremely uncomfortable evenings for Xian.
All was silent next door now, though.
He lifted the leftmost pot, straining with the weight of the ceramics and soil, and set it down on the floor inside the room. To make the floral displays more visible to those both in the room and in the courtyard below, each had been rested atop small, overturned wooden boxes.
Xian touched the simple design, weather-worn, and with a hint of mould where the pot sat. These boxes were nothing remarkable, not like the box Song Lim had carried the slippers in. It was the shoemaker’s box that had given Xian the idea for the hiding place for the tincture and the slipper.
Lifting the wooden box, Xian took up slipper from where it rested, wrapped inside one of his veils for protection. Inside the shoe, he’d placed the tincture; the bottle was now well below half-full.
Unwrapping the shoe, the most precious of gifts, Xian drifted his fingers over the wonderfully uneven surface of the crystal-like fabric, marvelling at how here, even with the room dim with only the lanterns in the main room lit, the diamond glints were vibrant.
He’d like nothing more than to feel it upon his foot again, but he guarded the shoe like a dragon with its most favoured treasure, and would not risk the slipper being seen.
Mandarin Feng would covet this piece of Song Lim’s work, steal it away from Xian, and remove the small sliver of happiness he found in its beauty.
When Song Lim had presented this astonishing gift, Mercy had still swum in her pond. She’d shared Xian’s delight when he’d brought her the shoes. And when Xian glimpsed his reflection in that odd glass-like material, he’d seen a man who’d found a moment of joy.
Xian took the tincture bottle from inside the slipper and re-wrapped the shoe setting it down on the floor.
He wiped at the dirt smeared on his skirt as he retreated deeper into the room; where no one might see him grimace and gag, then sigh in utter relief as the concoction smoothed his mind of its troubles and wrapped a bandage around the fissures in his heart.
He sat for a while, debating whether he needed a bit more. Deciding against it when he realised he’d been sitting staring at the wall for far longer than was necessary.
‘You’ve had enough,’ he chided himself softly, giggling at his own reprimand. ‘Naughty prince. Put it back.’
Getting to his feet was a chore; the world tilted and swayed as if he were on a boat. The pot now felt a hundred times heavier than before. Xian’s first attempt to lift it was a failure, the ceramic hitting the edge of the flower box, loosening soil and petals all over his gown and the floor.
‘Stupid egg,’ Xian snorted. ‘Now, one, two, three.’
His self-encouragement worked well enough; he had the heavy pot almost centred on the overturned box. Now, just to wriggle it into place, and he’d be done in no time at all.
‘Is everything all right?’
Xian startled, and the pot tilted, raining dirt over the edge of the flower box, tinkling like hail on the terracotta tiles. ‘Fine, fine. All is well.’
The right-hand room, where the coupling had taken place, had an occupant. A yangren who spoke surprisingly well in Mandarin. ‘Do you normally do gardening in the middle of the night?’ The foreigner smiled from where he leaned out from his window.
‘No,’ Xian’s skin warmed. ‘No, of course not. I was just…’ What in all the realms of heaven could explain it? ‘Never mind. I’m sorry I disturbed you.’
The man waved his hand. ‘Oh, you didn’t. I was bored, so watching you ferret about keeps me occupied.’
Xian froze at that, his dragon-heart reeling at the thought of his treasure discovered. If that was what the man insinuated. Xian actually did not know what ferreting about meant.
‘I was doing nothing untoward,’ Xian protested mildly. ‘I hoped to make some tea…from the leaves…the flowers too, I think…’
‘Ahh, I see. So you needed to drag the whole pot indoors?’ The man arched fine eyebrows. He was certainly handsome, though Xian knew that wasn’t truly the word for his looks. He’d not met this man before. Even if he’d drunk the entire bottle of tincture, Xian would recall such a meeting.
His copper-brown hair — with its light golden streaks — fell in waves to his shoulders, framing a heart-shaped face with high cheekbones and skin white as the heart of a lychee.
He wore only a white long-sleeved shirt, and its ties were unfastened, allowing it to gape open at his chest. His full lips, shaped in a bow, were red enough for Xian to wonder if they had been smeared with rouge.
‘I was not making tea, that was a lie.’ Xian could not say what compelled him to sudden honesty, but he enjoyed the reward; the foreigner’s smile enhanced by the glow of the lanterns.
‘Lying does not come naturally to you, I can tell, despite the veil to make it easier for you. You must be the Dancing Prince. I am Sir William Black, from the great and mighty British Isles.’ He raised his hand, revealing the thin-stemmed glass he held, but Xian was more taken by the slender lengths of his fingers, and the narrowness of his wrist.
‘An Englishman? Welcome to the Middle Kingdom, Sir Black.’ Xian smiled shyly, dipping his head. ‘Your Mandarin is very good.’
William Black laughed, and Xian sighed at a sound that was lovely as the morning call of birds.
‘It is true, my tongue has many talents.’ William grinned. ‘I could teach you some skills, if you’d like?’
Xian floated on his little cloud of release, not sure what the man was talking about but nodding just the same. ‘I’d like that, yes.’
The Englishman was attractive. Would he like to see Xian dance? Did Xian wish to dance for him?
‘Do you like the food,’ he blurted, stunned by the unfamiliar path his thoughts were treading. He’d harboured no powerful feelings for as long as he could remember; now here he was, with Song Lim on his mind, and this stranger stirring unfamiliar thoughts.
Disquiet tapped at his senses.
‘I’ll admit, the cuisine is not saccharine enough for my tastes.’ The Englishman’s eyes glinted as he tilted his head. ‘Being as I am, I have a great hunger for sweetness.’ He took a sip from his glass, still watching Xian.
‘Salt is more to my taste. I am often berated by the cook for how much I add to her meals,’ Xian said, only for the sake of saying something. He brushed trembling fingers against the daphne petals, unnerved and yet intrigued by the man.
‘Interesting. Very interesting. That narrows things down a little.’ Sir William leaned out a little more, his shirt slipping from his shoulder.
‘What do you mean? I hardly think my preference for salt noteworthy.’
The night breeze caught at the man’s curls, making them bob like the tips of the pussy-willow.
Xian looked away, thinking he maybe should have heeded Master Liang’s warning to stop the tincture after a few days. Xian felt careless, or rather, carefree. Too much so.
‘I’d say it’s very noteworthy.’ The Englishman took a sip from his glass, running his tongue across the swell of his bottom lip; leaving Xian feeling as though he were a voyeur to something far more intimate.
‘Sometimes salty or sweet is a preference, of course. But at other times the reason is much more…shall we say, ingrained?’