Chapter 22 #2
“Come with me to Youzhou. It’s far to the northeast, and she won’t look for you there.” Fuqian sat up as well, his black hair loose from his futou. She fished around in the bed and handed him the headscarf.
“To Youzhou?” She’d heard Fuqian speak of his home with affection.
“I need to return soon, and you can come with me.” He stroked his thin nose. “I was to leave in ten days. I can have my servants take you in advance to wait for me. You will be bored while you wait, but then we can travel together. We can live in Youzhou, and you’ll be safe.”
Aiai gaped at him. “You want to take me home?” She had been wondering what would happen to her after Fuqian left, but had been too frightened to ask.
“I have been thinking of it for some time.” He smiled and stroked her stomach. “I was going to ask you, but I was worried you couldn’t leave the empress.”
“I bring nothing. No dowry. No family.”
“You bring my child.” He looked conflicted. “You would not be my wife, Aiai. My family has a woman for me to wed when I return. The bride is not my choice, but my father’s.”
A concubine and alive with her child, or her pride and possible death. Aiai nodded, knowing she had no choice. “I understand.”
Fuqian leaned over to hold her tight enough to feel the beat of his heart. “I will make sure my wife is kind to you. Perhaps you will become friends.”
“I must be able to make my perfumes.” After years with the empress, Aiai cared little about kindness or companionship. All she wanted was to keep creating.
He nodded. “You may. I’m sure my wife would be pleased to have her robes smell like those of an empress.”
“I will also create for others.” Finally, she could share her gift freely with the world.
Fuqian shrugged. “I would not stand in the way of your harmless hobby, and will see that she does the same.”
Aiai frowned. Perhaps it would be safer to keep her gift limited to those she chose instead of open to everyone.
What if there was another version of the empress or her mother, someone who would try to control her for her gift?
Perhaps Fuqian would change. Money and power did strange things to people.
Aiai had not told him of her moli. Even had the empress not forbidden her to tell anyone, she would have kept the information secret out of self-preservation.
The empress had been right when she said men could not be trusted, even if the man was fiercely handsome with gentle hands.
Aiai would extend that mistrust to the women in her life as well.
She considered him. The flickering beeswax candle cast a dim glow over his pale skin, turning it golden and scenting the air with a light sweetness. “You will teach me to read and write.”
Fuqian looked at her, his dark eyes widening in curiosity. “Why?”
“I would write down my perfume ingredients for my child,” said Aiai. “I have nothing else to give.”
“You and your little perfumes!” Fuqian’s laughter was fond. “My love, you will find it frustrating. Learning is easier as a child, and you are but a woman.”
“Will you?” Aiai pressed. Although she spoke the truth about her reason, she had seen how Empress Wu’s ability to read could be used as a weapon to protect herself from the trickery of others.
“Well, we have far to journey and it may help pass the time. I will teach you.”
Fuqian told her it was safest for her to leave immediately. “You shouldn’t go back to the empress,” he said seriously. “She acts as quickly as a snake strikes, and you don’t know what she will do with you.”
“It may be nothing.” Here, with Fuqian in their secret room, it was hard to believe anything could happen to her.
“Perhaps, but it’s not a risk that you should take—not with my son.” He ran his hand over her belly. “You will do as I say, Aiai.”
She lowered her head, knowing he was right yet feeling a pang at leaving the lovely tools the empress had gifted her over the years. She almost asked if she could go back and retrieve them before coming to her senses. Fuqian’s way was best.
“Will she come after me?” she asked as they dressed. She adjusted her silk sleeves. Her years in the palace had improved her appearance, and she looked more the lady than the Xins of her old home.
He shrugged. “Chang’an is a large city and she is a busy woman. There are dozens like you. She’ll easily find another to scent her clothes.”
There are none like me. As usual, she kept her thoughts to herself.
With luck, the empress would think she had fled in fear of being discovered a cheat.
With more luck, she would let Aiai go instead of bringing her back to face the empress’s version of justice.
If she was very lucky, Empress Wu would soon be too busy running the empire she desired above all things to think of Aiai at all.
If she was unlucky, Aiai would join Empress Wang.
Fuqian left after reassuring himself that she understood where to go to meet the servant he would send.
She lingered for a moment in the small room in the corner of the palace Fuqian paid a eunuch to use.
Their liaison was over a year old, after Fuqian, a government official, had come to pay his respects to the then–Consort Wu as a member of an entourage of officials from Youzhou.
Aiai sometimes wondered if her own moli worked on herself and Fuqian was her true love.
The thought, however, never lasted long, and eventually she confirmed what she had suspected since the beginning—the true love power had no effect on her.
She assumed she would wish to share everything with the man she loved, but she had no keen desire to tell Fuqian about her gift, the same way she knew she would hide her hope that her firstborn would be a girl instead of the boy he craved.
Fuqian was a good man, though, and he would take her and her daughter to safety.
She touched the sachet, sewn into layers of thick fabric to block the scent, in her pocket.
She had made it months ago to give to Fuqian when she was in the first throes of a love she now recognized as base lust before it deepened to affection.
She had avoided giving it to him at each meeting, and the scent had eventually faded.
Aiai sat up straight as a long, low noise sounded from the corridor, and she cursed the muttering maids. She shivered, wrapping her arms across her chest, and wished for Fuqian’s solid body.
Then she pinched herself. There was no time for such silliness. Not when she had real fears to confront. That was enough to help center her. Her life, and her daughter’s, depended on her ability to keep her wits for the night, at least.
Aiai took a breath to prepare herself for this new adventure.
How odd that she was already missing Empress Wu, for her mistress was the only woman who understood Aiai’s power.
She would be going to live among strangers, and it would be wise to keep her secrets to herself, at least for now.
Aiai looked ahead to the solitary years, already seeing Fuqian’s attention wane and waiting for the time her daughter was old enough to learn at Aiai’s knee.
Her daughter’s name would be Mingyue, she decided as she lowered her head to walk down the corridor, trying not to startle at every noise from behind the wooden lattice walls.
It meant bright moon, for her girl would be the one to light the lonely night of her isolation. Mingyue would make it all worthwhile.