by Sharon Shinn
He laughed. “But that is all any politician can ask for, Mistress!”
Xiang gestured at Daiyu, who kept her gaze determinedly on her shoes. “I know you have heard me talk many times of my sister, who unfortunately lives far away from me. It is a sad thing to be separated from family! But she has kindly sent me her daughter to keep me company this summer. May I introduce you? Daiyu, this is Prime Minister Chenglei, the most intelligent man in all of Shenglang.”
Chenglei loosed an exclamation of pleasure and held up both of his hands, palms out, toward Daiyu. “But what a pretty girl she is!” he said. “How long will she be staying with you?”
“For the summer at least, and longer if all goes well,” Xiang replied.
Daiyu lifted her hands to press them against Chenglei’s. His fingers were longer than hers by a full inch, and his skin was pleasantly warm. She could feel him peering down at her. “Tell me, Daiyu,” he said, “are you enjoying your stay in Shenglang?”
He had addressed her directly; she must respond. She looked up, hoping her expression seemed shy, and found him smiling down at her. Mei was right. That streak of gray in his dark hair added the perfect complement to his basic good looks. Not only that, his smile was peculiarly attractive. Warm and intimate, it invited her to smile back or to whisper a secret.
“Very much,” she said.
“What parts of the city have you seen?”
“Mostly Xiang’s house. It is magnificent!”
“What, you haven’t been to the aviary yet?” When she shook her head, he said, “Oh, you must go. It is my favorite place in the city.”
That was not a question, so she did not reply. He still had not dropped his hands. In fact, he seemed to be leaning forward a little, so that the pressure of his touch increased. His smile became teasing. “And certainly you will be coming to the palace soon, will you not?”
“I hope so, Prime Minister.”
“For the Presentation Ball, at the very least! I suppose you and Xiang are spending all of your time poring over dress designs and hairstyles so that you will be able to outshine all the other young girls who are making their appearance that night.”
She couldn’t help but giggle. It wasn’t the actual words he said, it was the way he delivered them, in such a friendly, personal, and amused fashion, as if they shared a long history of private jokes and idle conversation. “I just want to make sure I do not shame Mistress Xiang,” she said.
“In what possible way? Come, tell me.”
“I have only recently learned the tiaowu,” she admitted. “Sometimes I still get the steps wrong.”
“You won’t get them wrong when you are paired with me,” he said. “I am a very good dancer. My partners always look graceful.” He paused. “You will dance with me, won’t you? I will be so disappointed if you say no.”
Since every girl presented at the ball was to be partnered by Chenglei—and he knew it—the question was ridiculous. Yet she felt a little flutter of excitement at his words. She was charmed by his eagerness.
“Prime Minister, you would honor me immensely if you would invite me to dance with you,” she said. “How excite dmy mother would be to hear that you had led me in the tiaowu!”
“Then your mother will be thrilled to receive the very first letter you send her after the ball,” he said with a little chuckle. He finally lowered his hands and Daiyu dropped her arms to her sides. “For you will have much to tell her! I suddenly find I cannot wait for the Presentation Ball.”
Xiang appeared to be positively elated as they rode home a short while later. “That could hardly have gone better!” she exclaimed, waving a decorative fan in front of her face, since the car’s awning wasn’t enough to turn back the late-afternoon heat. “You behaved just as you should—you did not embarrass me at all—and Mei’s son could hardly take his eyes off of you all meal.”
“Mei’s son? Which one was he?”
“The young man in the green jacket embroidered with suns.”
“Oh. Ididn’t get a chance to talk to him, but he looked very nice.”
Xiang snorted. “He’s wealthy, which is more to the point. I had not given any thought to trying to make an alliance for you, but if that’ sthe way things appear to be heading—hmmm. I will have to consider that.”
An alliance? As in a marriage? What a horrible thought! Surely Daiyu would not be on Jia long enough for any kind of courtship to progress too far. “He might be angry when he discovers I am not really your niece,” Daiyu ventured.
Xiang glared at her. “And how will he discover it? Unless you are foolish enough to tell him.”
“But—if your sister ever comes to Shenglang—or your true niece does—”
Xiang waved a hand as if to consign those unfortunate relatives to oblivion. “They will not come,” she said. She lapsed into thought again.
“The prime minister seemed very gracious,” Daiyu said after a moment.
“Oh, Chenglei is the worst kind of flirt,” Xiang said in a complacent tone, sounding like an indulgent aunt who secretly approved of her nephew’s wild excesses. “He can make women and men fall in love with him. It is all the same to him, as long as people admire him. I told him once that if he had not ascended to office, he would be the perfect courtesan. He laughed and said that a courtesan had even more power than a politician, and that if he ever tired of his present job, that was the one he wouldpursue.”
“I suppose that everybody likes him,” Daiyu said.
“Well, of course they do!” Xiang exclaimed. “Didn’t you?”
“Yes, Mistress,” she replied.
The rather frightening thing was that her words were true.
Aurora slipped into Daiyu’s room that night while she was getting ready for bed, as she had almost every night that Daiyu had spent in Xiang’s house. Before she had arrived at Xiang’s, Daiyu had expected that it would be easy to find time every day to exchange a few words with Aurora, who had explained her position in the household as assistant to the mistress of the wardrobe. That had not sounded like a job that would take a great deal of time.
That was, of course, before Daiyu had seen the extent of Xiang’s wardrobe. And her own.
“How was your breakfast at Mei’s house?” Aurora asked in a hushed tone. She was not supposed to be in Daiyu’s room, but they had prepared their cover story if she was caught. Daiyu would say she had found a tear in one of her shirts and was too embarrassed to tell Xiang she had ripped it, so she had begged the cangbai servant to come to her room in stealth. They both stood near the door that led to Daiyu’s closet—which was actually a chamber bigger than her bedroom back on Earth.
“I was nervous the whole time,” Daiyu admitted. “But Xiang seemed pleased with me afterward, so I guess I did all right.”
Aurora smiled. “If she didn’t berate you for your clumsiness and stupidity, you must have been outstanding.”
“Chenglei was there,” Daiyu said abruptly.
Aurora grew very still. “Did he speak to you?”
“He spoke to everyone in the room, including me.” She hesitated and then said, “He was nothing like what I expected.”
“How did he seem to you?”
“Gallant. Intelligent. Charismatic.” She met Aurora’s eyes. She knew her own expression was suspicious. “He did not strike me as a man who was evil.”
“I have always thought true evil had a seductive charm,” Aurora said quietly. “It is very easy to shun someone who is deliberately cruel, and everyone loathes a man who is brutal and vicious. Such people have a hard time winning followers. But an individual who is gracious, who is attractive, who smiles and flatters and praises—that is a person who can lead whole nations to disaster. Who would not want to follow such a man or woman? Everyone is drawn to beauty and wit.”
Daiyu was far from convinced and made no attempt to hide thatfact. “But there are plenty of people who are attractive and courteous who are not horrible,” she argued. “There’s a man at
my father’s church who’s so good-looking, you’d think he was a television actor. But he runs the soup kitchen and he volunteers at the prison, teaching law classes. So you can’t just say beautiful people are bad.”
“I didn’t say that,” Aurora said. “I said evil is seductive. It’s two different things.”
“I suppose I’ll get a chance to gauge him a little better when we dance at the Presentation Ball,” Daiyu said.
Aurora watched her narrowly for a moment. “I suppose you will.”
Daiyu changed the subject. “How’s Kalen?” she asked, as she had asked every night. “Have you thought of away that we can see each other?”
“Daiyu—”
“I heard the bronze bell ring tonight,” Daiyu went on. “So I know he will be at the river tomorrow. Maybe I can convince Xiang that I need to buy something at the shops down by the Zhongbu.”
“And will you also convince her that you need to go by yourself, so that no servants see you go wading into the mud, seeking out cangbai boys?” Aurora asked in a sharp voice.
Daiyu lifted her chin defiantly. “You promised me I would be able to see Kalen again,” she said. She left the implied threat unspoken. If you don’t keep your promise, I won’t stay at Xiang’s.
Aurora studied her a moment in silence. “He has taken a job,”shesaidatlast,almostreluctantly,“attheaviary.Hehelps clean the grounds.”
“The aviary!” Daiyu exclaimed. “Chenglei mentioned it to me. I bet Xiang would let me go there.”
Aurora shrugged. Her blue eyes were troubled. “Perhap sshe would.”
There was a sound in the hall, most likely one of the servants walking by. Aurora and Daiyu both fell silent, listening, until the faint noise receded.
“Time for me to go,” Aurora said.
“Tell Kalen I’ll come see him at the aviary,” Daiyu said.
“I’ll tell him you’ll try,” she responded. “Be careful, Daiyu.”
She slipped out into the hallway so quietly that even Daiyu could not hear her footsteps moving away. Daiyu thought, I’ll be careful after I’ve had a chance to see Kalen.
ELEVEN
XIANG WAS AMENABLE to the idea of Daiyu touring one of the city’s well-known attractions, possibly because of the way Daiyu phrased her request.
“Yesterday the prime minister asked me if I had seen the aviary, and I was ashamed to say that I had not,” Daiyu said in a mournful voice over breakfast. “What if he asks me again at the Presentation Ball? What shall I tell him then?”
“You shall tell him you have visited the grounds and enjoyed them very much,” Xiang said, tapping her long red fingernails on the tabletop. “That is a most excellent idea. I myself cannot abide the place, for there are bird droppings everywhere, and it is hot, and all sorts of people may be found there. But you might enjoy it.”
“When can I go?”
Xiang considered. “Tomorrow afternoon. You have no appointments with dressmakers or dancing instructors, so you may take a few hours to go. I am expected at the council, so I will not accompany you.”
Daiyu tried not to let her excitement show on he rface. “May I go by myself?”
Xiang looked undecided, but eventually shook her head. “No. I will have one of the servants go with you. Perhaps I should ask Mei if her son would like to escort you—but no, it is too soon. Perhaps in a few days.”
That was a complication Daiyu didn’t need, but she merely nodded her head. “Yes, Mistress. Thank you, Mistress. I will be happy to go tomorrow.”
Daiyu only wanted to visit the aviary for a chance to see Kalen, so she was surprised by her own reaction to its grandeur and gorgeousness.
The whole expedition was unexpectedly perfect. Aurora had managed to be selected as the servant who would accompany Xiang’s niece to the bird sanctuary, and she nodded almost imperceptibly when Daiyu asked her an imploring question with her eyes. Did you tell Kalen? Will he be there? The driver was in an expansive mood, and he actually pointed out a few city landmarks they passed on their way. As always, Daiyu tried to figure out where they might be if Shenglang was really St. Louis, but within a few turns, she was hopelessly lost. They were going east and south, she thought; other than that, she had no idea.
The aviary was huge—a latticework iron cage at least the size of a city block. From the street, all she could see through the black grillwork was plant life, giant trees brushing the top of the structure, great leafy vines twining around every individual rod so densely that it was almost impossible to see in. Daiyu stood before the entrance, mouth gaping, staring at the clustered greenery. She saw a flash of feathered red near the pointed apex.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” she said to Aurora in a low voice. The driver had asked when he should come back for them, and Daiyuhadsaid,“Twohoursfromnow,” butshewas wondering if she should have said, “Tomorrow.” It might take her that long to walk around the inside of this place.
“It is most impressive,” Aurora agreed with a smile. “Even more so inside.”
Indeed, once they were through the gate, Daiyu stared even harder. The aviary was full of lush vegetation that took up most of the available space from the ground right up to the top of the iron cage. At the lowest level, the soil was covered in thick grass and the occasional patch of flowering shrubbery. In the middle level, short trees spread their stubby branches, heavy with summer green leaves; and towering above the whole space, giant oaks and elms sent their reaching limbs poking through the metal restraints of the grill. Ropy vines tied all the levels together, twining around trunks, dropping down from overhanging branches, bursting into erratic blossom at the most unexpected junctures.
Birds were everywhere.
Some gathered ont he branches, chattering and calling; some swooped from that lush green ceiling toward invisible prey below. Others hopped along the ground, pecking at nuts or insects. A few clung to the tree trunks, tapping their beaks against the bark. A few, as large as peacocks, strutted across the lawn and uttered incomprehensible cries of disdain.
Every bird in the aviary was red, some a deep vermilion, some a speckled white and crimson, a few with black markings along their wings and tail feathers. Daiyu only recognized two or three species that looked vaguely similar to the birds she knew back home—those might be woodpeckers, those scarlet tanagers, and cardinals were everywhere—but most of them looked unfamiliar and exotic.
“What an amazing place,” Daiyu said, turning to Aurora with her eyes wide open.
Aurora handed her a silk parasol. “You’ll want to use this as we walk around. Otherwise you’ll come home with bird droppings in your hair and on your lovely blouse.”
Indeed, the smell of avian excrement was pretty strong, though not intense enough to be truly unpleasant, and the whole narrow walkway that wound through the interior was covered with white and gray spatters. On the other hand, the thick greenery kept the temperature inside the aviary noticeably cooler than the air outside, though the aviary was just as humid. Daiyu could already feel her carefully styled hair start to loosen and frizz.
“Why are all the birds red?” she asked, snapping the parasol into place over her head.
“The story is that red was the favorite color of the wife of the man who built this place nearly a century ago. So he collected red birds from all the corners of the world and had them installed here. Some of the species here are extinct in other parts of the world. Zoologists from all over Jia come to study them.”
“I can see why,” Daiyu said, and began strolling forward.
The stone path meandered around some of the giant trees and past a variety of fountains and shallow pools filled with birds dipping into the water and shaking off their feathers. A flock of tiny creatures skittered by at eye height, so small that Daiyu at first thought they were butterflies. Now and then she felt a small splat on the top of her parasol and was increasingly grateful that Aurora had brought it along.
Scattered in strategic places along the path we
re stone and wooden benches, many of them occupied by bird-watchers with viewing glasses or students with sketchpads. Not far away, a young man with a bucket was scrubbing the bird droppings off a black wrought-iron bench. Daiyu imagined that he faced an unending task in this place. At their approach, the worker looked up and grinned. It was Kalen.
Daiyu had to choke down her squeal of delight, but she absolutely could not contain her smile. She was so glad to see him that she wanted to run down the path and throw her arms around his neck, but of course she couldn’t, not in front of witnesses. None of the people nearby looked affluent enough to be friends of Xiang’s, but too much was at stake for Daiyu to be stupid.
“Aurora,” she said in as stately a voice as she could manage. “Let us sit for a time on that bench that has just been cleaned.”
“Yes, young mistress,” Aurora replied.
Kalen, too, was exercising self-control. After that first grin, he schooled himself to look solemn and deferential. He bowed when he saw them approach and extended his arms as if to present the bench to them. “Would you like to sit for a while?” he asked. “I could hold the young lady’s parasol to protect her head.”
“She will sit,” Aurora said. “I will continue my walk.”
And so, seconds later, Daiyu and Kalen were alone. Well, if you discounted the young girl sitting ten feet away, apparently engrossed in her easel and paints, and the couples ambling past, and the mothers with their young children spilling off the pathway into the untamed bushes. Kalen stood respectfully behind the bench, holding the parasol at a deliberately low angle. It would be hard for anyone walking by to see Daiyu’s face. Of course, she couldn’t see Kalen’s face either, and she wanted to—she wanted to hang over the back of the bench and gaze up at him while she told him everything she’d seen and everything she’d done since she left for Xiang’s. But she had to sit here and appear elegant and bored and proper.
