The Lotus Palace (23 page)

Huang waited in the kitchen, forcing down the rest of the wine before he strode to the study. He opened the locked chest beneath the desk and lifted out a purse containing exactly one thousand coins. Even the weight was familiar to him now. The door to the bedchamber remained closed as he left the courtyard.

Out on the street, he waved down a sedan. As they set off he leaned back and folded his arms over his chest, not watching the lanes as they flowed by. He had started the evening pleasantly and now he was unsettled.

He had confided in Yue-ying only to be scolded as if he were a child. She wasn’t his wife. She wouldn’t even admit to being his mistress.

Yue-ying had ridiculed him at times, which he’d found endearing, but this was going too far. He expected respect from her, at the very least. To not have his decisions questioned. Not to be scolded or challenged. He shouldn’t need to explain himself. Yue-ying should just hold her tongue about matters she had no knowledge of and leave him in peace.

Like his mother did with his father.

Quiet and respectful...and cold.

The carrier had brought them into the familiar streets of the Pingkang li. His blood was still running hot. The gambling den was not much farther and his hand itched to place a bet. He wanted that rush of waiting for the dice to take his cares away.

“Stop.”

The carrier at first didn’t hear him. He had to repeat himself. “Stop at once.”

“My lord?”

“Turn around.”

* * *

B
Y
THE
TIME
Huang returned to his house, the sky had darkened. He lit an oil lamp from the smoldering charcoal in the stove and went first to the study to return the purse to the chest. Then he stood still, listening for sounds of movement from the adjacent chamber. There was nothing.

Yue-ying had raised her voice to him and he had put her in her place. The memory left a sick, sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. The civil thing to do would be not to wake her, to wait until morning and they could both speak to one another calmly.

Or not speak about it at all, which was more likely to happen.

With the lamp in one hand, he went to the chamber door and tapped lightly on it. His heart thudded as he waited for an answer. When there was none, he pushed the door open a crack.

“Yue-ying.”

She was curled onto her side fully dressed with her back turned to him.

He sat on the edge of the bed. “I didn’t go.”

When she turned to him, her face looked pale in the darkness. The red mark was like a bruise on her cheek. She blinked at him, waiting, saying nothing. Her eyes looked as if they might have been swollen, but he couldn’t be certain.

“I wanted to, but I needed to come back and tell you that I’m not angry with you.”

“I’m not angry either,” she echoed, but he could see it was a lie.

“If you want me to leave...”

“I can hardly demand that of you. It’s your chamber.” She turned back to the wall. “I have no right to demand anything of you, Lord Bai.”

Her tone cut into him.

“Then I’ll stay.”

He set the lamp aside and removed his outer robe, then lay down on the empty half of the bed. There was an invisible line drawn down the middle and he reached a hand toward it, silently willing her to turn around and close the gap between them. It wasn’t as easy as that.

“Please put out the light.” Her voice was tight. “I would like to sleep now.”

He did as she asked before lowering himself back down. He let the darkness gather for a few moments before speaking.

“I am glad you said what you did,” he said.

His heart was pounding as he spoke and his gut clenched. This wasn’t the small rush of excitement he felt upon each roll of the dice. This was something much, much more frightening. The risks were so much greater.

“I needed to hear those words,” he continued quietly. “Because I have been a fool. I only convinced myself otherwise.”

He waited for her answer, but she said nothing. Her silence spoke for her. She wanted the matter done with. Forgotten. It was the way of servitude and humility and of keeping the peace at the sacrifice of everything else, but Huang didn’t want to forget. Something was happening between them that he couldn’t ignore.

“Yue-ying, say something, whatever is on your mind. Scold me, if you have to.”

He knew this sort of silence could harden around you until it was as unbreakable as a wall of stone.

She shifted restlessly in the dark. “You are right, Lord Bai. I’ve become too familiar.”

“I want us to be familiar.” Just the previous night they had been wrapped around each other, naked.

“It isn’t my place,” she replied softly.

Something told him this wasn’t just about their argument earlier. Yue-ying had been agitated from the moment he returned that day. But how to speak of things that weren’t supposed to be spoken of between people like the two of them? Man and woman and unmarried, for one. Nobleman and peasant, for another. They might be separated by class, but she was here with him, in his bed. He had never trusted anyone else with the worst parts of himself.

There was no way to explain to her what he was feeling without telling her everything, starting with the part of the story that he had left out to preserve his pride.

“It wasn’t just debt that chased me from the city,” he began. She lay across from him in the dark, close enough to touch though he couldn’t see her. “The money-lender hired someone to put a knife in me and he succeeded, leaving me bleeding out in the street for the city guards to find me. The wound wasn’t deep. It was bound and I was brought back home.

“My father came to me as I lay in bed, weak from the loss of blood. Somehow he had learned of the debt, because he didn’t need to ask me of it. He sat beside me and told me I was worthless, that I was a do-nothing, a good-for-nothing and that I was a disappointment as a son. The look on his face made me wish that I had died. I certainly deserved to.”

Huang fell silent then to let the words sink in. Unlike their conversation earlier that evening, he had no excuses. He imagined Yue-ying must have agreed with his father at that moment. She might as well hear the rest of it as well.

“After that, Father paid off the debt without another word. As soon as I healed, he had me sent out to Fujian province and put me to work, believing that was why I had been tempted by the dice. I had no responsibilities. I was easily distracted.

“Father taught me the duties of his position. He was in charge of protecting several key river ports in the province. Stretches of the waterway had become overrun by bandits, some of the gangs numbering over a hundred men, enough to challenge the local militia. It was arduous work patrolling the ports. Father would position and provision men along the river. He would confer with garrison commanders and city officials to track down and capture the worst of the bandits. The outlaws often blended in among the villagers along the rivers, so I would pose as a merchant to lure them out.”

“Such work would suit you.”

He was startled to hear her finally speak.

“You’re a different person when something that matters to you is at stake,” she went on.

“Different? How so?”

“You become focused. Dedicated.”

Was that how she saw him? He had to admit he was moved.

“At first it seemed to help,” he agreed. “I wanted very much to redeem myself in my father’s eyes, but apparently I hadn’t had enough. As soon as Father wasn’t watching over me, I started to gamble again. Just a little at first, to entertain myself. A harmless diversion—until I was once again in debt.

“One night, I was dragged away from the dice table by ruffians. They tied me up and threw me into a large crate. When I was let out, I found myself on a boat with ocean on all sides and no sign of land. It was all my father’s doing. His people were following me and reporting to him. Father had left me alone to see what I would do and, once again, I failed.”

“This was your punishment? Abandonment at sea?” she gasped.

“This was his way of teaching me. The sailors cut the ropes—there was no need for them when there was nowhere to escape to. At the time, I couldn’t even swim. It was an imperial navy ship, patrolling the coast for pirates. Immediately I was put to work, as any other crewman on board. I had never spent a day beneath the sun in my life. I had never lifted anything heavier than a calligraphy brush. By the first day, my hands were raw from scrubbing the deck and hauling rope. I fell asleep the moment I was allowed into my bunk, too exhausted to be angry.

“Over the next months, I labored every day with the sun and wind beating down on me. I ate what everyone else ate and lifted and carried and spent long nights on watch. Slept with rats always scurrying somewhere nearby. The crew would occasionally play the dice, but the game no longer held any appeal for me.”

He managed a chuckle to which Yue-ying did not respond. At the time, he was certain his father meant to leave him there to a life of forced servitude and hard labor.

“When the ship docked at port, I saw my father once again. At the time, I hated the man for being so rigid, so unyielding. There was no compromise with him. There was no warmth or humor or affection. He lived life by exacting standards and expected the same of his family. Anything less was unworthy.”

The sun had been punishing that day. He remembered everything in stark brightness, with no shadows to hide behind. His clothes had been worn to threads and his skin so dark, he was unrecognizable. Father had stared at him with a hard and piercing look, a look that held no remorse.

“As much as I wanted to curse him, I was also humbled. We didn’t speak of what had happened. He merely met my eyes as I came to join him and it was understood that I could no longer be the hapless fool I’d been. I had to take responsibility for my actions, for myself, but more importantly for my family.

“But when I was back in Changan once more, I still couldn’t stay away from the dice. So I tried to trick myself into thinking I could scheme and plan around this temptation, as if it were an unseen enemy. But you were right—I am the fool.”

“I spoke without thinking,” Yue-ying said quickly. “Forgive me—”

“No, there’s nothing to forgive.”

He paused. He needed her to fully understand this next part.

“My father is strict. There’s no warmth to him. A word of praise is as rare as finding a pearl in an oyster, but when he dragged me out of the gambling den and threw me onto that ship, it wasn’t punishment. If I was no longer his son, he could have disowned me, but he did not. At first I was angry at him for being so hard, but I came to realize the truth of it. This is how he shows his love.”

The silence between them was interminable. He reached out through the darkness to touch her, resting just his fingertips against her back. Yue-ying stilled beneath the touch, not moving toward him.

“You don’t have to say anything,” he told her, his voice deep with emotion. “I know you are not sentimental by nature. You’re too stubborn and practical to ever submit to any notions of romance, but I know what it means for you to reprimand me the way you did. Only one other person has ever cared enough to do so.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

B
AI
H
UANG
REGARDED
her from across a bowl of tea the next morning. They continued to drink in silence, as if meditating. Her thoughts were not profound, but they were significant. They were of him and all that he had confessed to her.

Yue-ying had stayed up late into the night, listening to the chirping of the crickets, while Bai Huang lay in bed beside her. His breathing eventually grew deep and slow, but sleep still wouldn’t come to her. The echo of his words kept her awake. She had no knowledge of what to do now that he had revealed his feelings so plainly.

“We have forgotten something,” he said finally.

Her pulse jumped. There had been no talk of last night. There had been no talk of this morning, when they had woken up with their limbs inadvertently entwined. They had untangled themselves without a word and continued about their daily ritual, dressing, washing, sharing tea. She was hoping that they would continue as they were and act as if last night hadn’t happened.

“What have we forgotten?” she asked, forcing herself to appear calm as she sipped her tea. No need to let good tea go cold while she brooded over the uncertainty of the future.

“Lady Huilan,” he replied. “We’ve forgotten to consider her connection in all this. She and your sister were together on those docks. It was Huilan’s death that brought everything to light. Who killed her?”

She regarded him closely. Bai Huang was a contradiction. His time at sea, slaving under the sun, had briefly opened his eyes, but it certainly wasn’t enough to erase a lifetime—no, generations—of wealth and privilege. He threw good money away on elaborate clothing and dice games out of boredom and treated Auntie Mu as if she didn’t exist. Yet at the same time he was willing to risk himself to pursue Huilan’s killer when he had nothing to gain from it.

He believed in justice, even for someone who was merely a servant.

“Huilan could have been attacked by the smugglers who were seeking revenge for their comrade,” she suggested. “While they were looking for their missing silver.”

“Let us assume that’s true. How would such rough characters get into the Hundred Songs while all those guests were there?”

“It was a festival night. A stranger could have slipped inside unnoticed.”

“Or maybe he was noticed. An unnamed young man was seen there before Huilan was found dead, but afterward, he disappeared,” Bai Huang reminded her. “There was also the tree outside. Her murderer could have climbed the tree to her window and entered undetected.”

“But he would have had to know it was her room,” she reasoned. “It could have been her scholar-lover. Maybe her death isn’t part of all this.”

“Don’t be so hasty to abandon this path,” he admonished with a pointed look. “Some truths take a while to reveal themselves.”

Was he speaking of the murder, or something else entirely?

Yue-ying focused back onto what was most important. “After Huilan’s death, Mingyu becomes frightened. So she runs away before the smugglers can find her to exact revenge—though it still seems that she’d be safer at the Lotus than alone on the streets as a fugitive.”

“Maybe she was hiding something,” Bai Huang offered. “Her own stash of silver. The two women hid the body and divided the money among them. Mingyu went to retrieve her stash and has now fled the city.”

Which might explain why Mingyu had taken none of her own jewels or cash before going. It was difficult to think of her sister being so cruel and calculating, but if the dead man was a slave trader, then Mingyu and Huilan might have felt justified in their actions.

“Perhaps Mingyu is already far from the capital.” She turned the bowl of tea around in her hands. “There are murderous bandits searching for her. Given the constable’s lack of sympathy, maybe it’s better if she’s never found.”

And Yue-ying would be left to wonder, once again, what had become of her sister and if they would ever see each other again. When she looked up, Bai Huang was watching her with an intent look.

“No matter what happens, you should know you’ll be taken care of,” he said earnestly.

She looked away from him, her face heating. “That won’t be necessary.”

“But I want to.”

He acted as if he were free to make such promises, as if the decision weren’t already out of his hands.

“You’re living in a dream world,” she muttered.

“What do you mean?”

“I know you’re already promised to someone else.”

Bai Huang fell silent. She could hear him slowly letting out a breath at the other side of the desk. When he spoke, his tone was calm and controlled. “How did you find out?”

“Your sister told me.”

He waited until she looked up before speaking. His face was a mask.

“The marriage was arranged when she was only eight years old. She’s sixteen now. We’ve never even met.”

Yet this girl had more of a claim to him than she would ever have.

“You don’t have to explain,” she said, her voice rough.

The bell rang at the front gate, interrupting them. At first, he ignored the summons. His next words were caught on his tongue. As he struggled with them the bell clanged once more insistently.

Bai Huang met her gaze and held it before rising. His meaning was unmistakable: their conversation was not finished.

She knew that he hadn’t been deliberately hiding the arranged marriage from her. It was a part of his personal life, a private matter between two families. By bringing the betrothal out into the open, she had all but accused him of wronging her. She was making demands she was not entitled to make.

This young woman, who was likely from a good family with a cultured upbringing, would become Bai Huang’s wife. Yue-ying would become nothing more than a memory to fade with time. Yet he had revealed such startling sentiments to her in the dark: about his father, about his own failings and about his feelings for her. She didn’t know what to make of his confession, so she drank her tea. The leaves had imparted a slightly bitter taste as the liquid cooled.

It wasn’t long before Bai Huang returned. She could see the servant Zhou Dan behind him as he stood in the doorway. His expression was grim.

“There’s news.”

The breath rushed out of her. “About Mingyu?”

“We need to go now.”

* * *

T
HEY
SAT
SIDE
by side in the carriage with Zhou Dan at the reins. He navigated them quickly through the ward and out into the main avenue. The summer heat was already building toward a swelter even though it was not yet midday. A broad canopy overhead provided shade from the sun, but soon they would be roasting like ducks in an oven.

She could see that they were headed south. “Where are we going?”

“Zhou Dan received a report this morning from a servant who resides in the house adjacent to General Deng’s mansion. A carriage left the general’s residence late last night. He was able to bribe a location out of the driver, but little else.”

“But you said the general wasn’t in the city.”

“Which is exactly why this is suspicious.”

Mingyu had used General Deng once before as a diversion. Earlier in the month, Mingyu had claimed to be visiting the hot springs with Deng. Yue-ying had assumed it was a lovers’ tryst, until Bai Huang told her differently. Mingyu had been lying to her for a long time now, and she wasn’t the only one hiding the truth.

“You are still doing the same thing you were doing in Fujian, aren’t you?” she asked.

Bai Huang only presented his profile when she turned to him. He didn’t answer immediately, but she could see the tension along his jaw.

“You’re still working for your father, gathering information,” she persisted. “You only found out about this mysterious carriage ride because you’ve been spying on General Deng. He’s the one you’ve been interested in all along, not Mingyu. You only act the fool so everyone will think you harmless.”

He looked downward, smoothing the edges of his sleeves over his wrists. The border was flamboyantly embroidered with gold thread. It was a costume, she realized now, part of the role he played. Though he admitted to nothing, she knew. The explanation fit him perfectly.

The journey continued in silence past the last of the gated wards. Here the roads were unpaved and traffic upon them was sparse, with a few wagons and carts here and there. Instead of the shops and residences of the northern part of the city, the southern end was all fields and plots of farmland. Irrigation ditches fed rows upon rows of crops and there were holding pens for goats and other livestock. Aside from the sections of road, they could have been out in the country.

They must have been traveling for over an hour. Yue-ying couldn’t be certain without the sound of the market gong to mark time. Finally, they came to a stop at a wide plot of land near the eastern city wall. Bai Huang called out to one of the farmhands who were harvesting what appeared to be yams. The man wiped the dirt from his hands as he approached the side of the road.

“Is this General Deng’s property?” Bai Huang asked.

“It is, my lord.”

“We’re looking for a woman, a famous courtesan from the northern part of the city.”

The laborer looked confused.

“You would know if you saw her,” Bai Huang assured him.

He enlisted the man’s help, pulling him away from his task to act as their guide. They continued on foot, tracking through the fields with Yue-ying and Zhou Dan at the rear. She hadn’t thought to bring a parasol and the sun was relentless without the cover of any buildings around them. Before long, her face was damp with perspiration and her slippers covered with a layer of dirt, but she continued on without complaint, trying to match the longer strides of the men.

Two thatched huts stood beside a well near the edge of the property. Bai Huang went to the first hut. Her stomach churned as she came up behind him and her palms began to sweat. A curtain covered the doorway. He stopped to call out to whoever was inside, only to be met with silence. The second hut was empty as well.

“Our foreman lives there,” the farmhand explained.

“Bring him here. Tell him it’s an important matter,” Bai Huang instructed.

The man went to do as asked. Once he was gone, Bai Huang swept aside the curtains. Inside the hut was a single room with a stone hearth in the corner. The dirt floor had been dampened down. There were two pallets woven from hemp, a low table and a shelf of household items.

“General Deng’s carriage brought someone here last night, but the driver claimed to have returned alone,” Bai Huang said.

“The bowls have been washed and the floor was recently swept,” Yue-ying observed. “Whoever was staying here might return if we just wait.”

She circled the tiny space, trying to sense Mingyu’s presence, to gain some confirmation her sister had indeed been there, but it was no use. Yue-ying was met with nothing but a sense of desolation.

The sound of voices from outside indicated that the farmhand had returned. As Bai Huang went to meet him something on the floor caught Yue-ying’s eye. She lifted the corner of one of the pallets to reveal a rag doll. Her heart squeezed tight as she ran her finger over the doll’s blue robe. She recognized the pattern woven into the cloth from one of Mingyu’s handkerchiefs.

The conversation outside grew louder. Hastily, she tucked the doll into her sleeve and went to see what was happening. She swept the curtain aside and froze.

Though the day was bright, a gray cloud had drifted over them. Standing beside the farmhand was the forbidding and towering figure of Constable Wu. He looked from Bai Huang over to her and his face creased into a frown.

“You have been withholding information from me,” Wu said darkly.

“Funny thing is, I happened upon a curious rumor this morning,” Bai Huang said with more composure than she would have been able to manage. “I thought to see if there was any truth to it before troubling the magistrate. Unfortunately, it looks like rumor was all it was.”

Wu turned on the middle-aged man who Yue-ying assumed was the foreman. “Have you seen a woman? Tall, pale-skinned.” After a pause he added, “Beautiful. As beautiful as a goddess.”

Yue-ying was taken aback. Wu wasn’t usually one for embellishment.

“A lady came last night,” the foreman replied. “She and the old woman left with the child this morning.”

“The child?” Wu echoed.

If Yue-ying hadn’t seen the doll, she might have reacted in the same way. As it was, she was able to keep her expression neutral while the constable interrogated the foreman. An old woman and a young child had been brought to the farm several weeks earlier, supposedly on General Deng’s orders.

“My wife brought them food every day. They spoke to no one, stayed inside most of the time.” The man looked first to the constable and then over at Bai Huang. “We don’t want any trouble, my lord. We were only doing as we were told.”

It appeared that the place had served as a temporary haven and Mingyu had already fled. Constable Wu moved to search through the huts while Bai Huang and Yue-ying took the opportunity to return to the carriage.