Mai could scarcely believe it. "My…my father is dead?"
"Yes, your father is dead. It's your fault for not being there to take care of him. He talked of nothing but you the week before we left," Jing snapped. "While you were off pretending to be some hero, your father was dying. Alone."
Mai didn't know what to say. All her fierce words and thoughts had dried up. Her father couldn't be gone. He couldn't be. She had promised her mother she'd take care of him, but she'd failed. Now, all she could do was burn incense in the shrine every day and beg both her mother and father to forgive her.
"I must go home," Mai found herself saying.
Jing gave a most unladylike snort. "Another useless mouth to feed that we can ill afford? What for?"
"I will come home for my father's funeral, as is proper," Mai said, finding strength in her sorrow. "I will honour his memory. And you cannot stop me." She drew herself up and returned Jing's glare with one of her own.
"Oh, by all that is holy…I refuse to be intimidated by a girl who thinks that because she looks like a man, she is better than me!" Jing bit down hard on her lip and waved her hand at Mai.
Mai felt a faint tingle run across her skin, and then the weight of her robes dragging on the ground because – she glanced down – all of a sudden, they did. She yanked up one sleeve, then the other, seeing her own arms for the first time in too long, instead of the muscled appendages she'd grown used to. Impetuously, she threw her arms around Jing. "Thank you!"
"Quickly, take those off. You must wear women's clothes, but not too fine, or someone will question why they did not see you before." Jing surveyed the room. "Jia! Find her something of yours."
What Mai suspected were Jia's only set of spare clothes were brought, and Mai put them on. The rough cloth was strange against her skin after the smooth silk of her court clothes, but Mai knew she would not wear the maid's clothes for long.
"I will go get my things," Mai said. "I won't be long."
"Be quick about it. We won't wait for you," Jing snapped.
Mai nodded and hurried off to the prince's apartments. Hopefully, he would be fast asleep and not notice a lowly maid going about her business.
Thirty-Four
Mai hesitated in the doorway to the prince's apartments. They seemed bigger somehow, though she knew they had not changed. Only she had changed.
No, she scolded herself. She had not changed at all. She had merely lost the illusion that made her appear to be something she wasn't.
A small part of her wanted the prince to be awake, to recognise her for who she was, and claim her as his bride, like Lady Zuleika had said. But she was too mired in her grief to let even that tiny ray of hope lighten her mood. Her father was dead, and she must return home to mourn him. She would never dance with him in the courtyard again, nor bring him his tea, nor pray with him in the shrine as they laid out her mother's favourite incense. She could never thank him for all that he had taught her, the invaluable skills which had kept her alive at the siege of Dean.
A light still burned in the prince's sitting room, as though he was not yet back from the ball. The light was more than enough to set her mother's shoes sparkling where they sat in pride of place on the table. Despite herself, Mai smiled. Sweet prince. He must have seen that she'd forgotten her shoes and brought them back here for her before rejoining the festivities.
With trembling hands, she reached for her mother's shoes, magically transformed into a dream she could no longer indulge in. But she could treasure the shoes, and the memories that came with them. Mai scooped up the slippers, cradling them like the precious heirlooms they were.
"Put those down!" Yi roared. "Get out!"
Startled, she dropped the shoes back on the table. Had he looked so big and fierce before? It did not matter – he was still Yi, the man she loved. A man she must say goodbye to, for even if he had offered to marry her, no wedding could take place until the mourning period for her father was over. Not even the Emperor himself would stop her from returning home for her father's funeral.
She sighed. "I must – " she began.
"Do you know who I am?" he interrupted.
What a peculiar question. Had Yi drunk too much baijiu, or was this some strange joke? Slowly, she nodded.
"Who am I?" he demanded.
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him he was a puffed-up rooster who couldn't fight, but realisation dawned on her that he did not know who she was. Dressed like a maid, and a girl again, she would appear as a stranger to him.
Her mouth was dry as she replied, "His Highness, the Prince of Swords." As any palace servant would.
"And you would dare to steal from me?" he thundered.
"I wasn't! " she protested hotly, opening her mouth to tell him that they were not his shoes, but hers.
He seemed to read her mind. "Not another word, or I shall call the palace guards and have you thrown out."
Mai longed to tell him the truth, but she knew he meant what he said. If he summoned the palace guards, she would either end up in a fight where someone would get hurt, or she would have to let them throw her out. And Jing would leave without her.
Angrily, Mai met his gaze, determined to make him recognise her.
Recognition sparked in his eyes for a moment before Yi turned away. "Tell whatever woman who sent you that I have chosen my bride and no trick or spell will change my mind. Now get out!"
Mai's heart broke. She was too late. Yi had chosen someone else. She had nowhere else to go but home. Tears sprang to her eyes – tears she refused to shed in front of Yi – so she turned away before he could see her heartbreak. What was losing a pair of shoes to losing the man she loved? Mai had nothing left, now, for as she departed from the prince's apartments for the final time, she left her bleeding heart on the table, beside her mother's shoes.
Thirty-Five
The next morning, Yi sent Heng to Yeong Fu's apartment to ask whether he might meet with the man over the course of the morning. Heng came hurrying back, wide-eyed. "The whole family has packed up and left. Apparently, Yeong Fu died suddenly and they all returned home for the funeral first thing this morning."
Yi's hand closed around the shoes on the table. So that was why Mao had not returned last night. He must have been with his family, and returned home with them for his father's funeral. As any dutiful son would do.
Surely he would have taken a moment to return here to pack his belongings, and say farewell. Yet all of Mao's clothes were still in his room, and the shoes sat where he'd left them last night.
Now Yi remembered the maid from last night. Had she been sent to collect Mao's things, and give him a message from Mao? The more he thought about it, the more Yi decided it must be true. He shouldn't have frightened the girl away.
Mao was right. He should wait before he married one of Mao's sisters. Life in the army had left him with absolutely no idea how to deal with women.
Thinking about Mao, though, made him remember another important appointment. One he must keep, though Mao wouldn't.
His parents were breaking their fast when Yi entered their private courtyard, but his mother waved him in.
"Mother. Father." Yi bowed. "I have come to convey my deepest apologies for my friend, Yeong Mao. His father has died and he has returned home for the funeral."
"Your friend, the war hero?" Father asked.
"Yes."
"Who was his father again?" The Emperor reached for another slice of peach.
"Yeong Fu, the great general. His mother was Da Ying, the military strategist." Yi couldn't keep the grin off his face at those words.
Mother frowned. "Yeong Fu had no sons. Unless he fathered some on that girl…what was her name again? Jing?" She turned to her husband. "That witch girl you made him marry…oh, it must have been fourteen years ago now. He had no sons, so you commanded that he marry again. I saw her at court last night at the ball, with her two girls. She'd magicked them to look older, and dressed them in purple and gold,
the imperial colours, as if they were already members of our household." Delicately, she bit into an egg.
Yi found himself shaking his head. "No, that's not possible. I've seen him fight. His military tactics and strategies are second to none. He makes me look like an idiot, and he can beat me in a fight before I can blink. He carried me out of Dean on his own back when I was wounded. He told me who his parents were, and his father trained him in war since he was a child. His mother is Da Ying, I swear it, not some witch. I have shared a tent with the man for the whole of the siege, and my apartments here since we arrived at the palace. I know him, and he cannot be anything except who he says he is!"
"Calm yourself," Mother said. She nodded at Yi. "What is that in your hand? Is that a token from your bride, so that you do not forget her?"
Yi glanced down. In his hand, he still clutched Mao's shoes. He could not even remember picking them up. "No," he said slowly. "I picked these up in the garden, after we finished sparring. I thought they were Mao's, but…"
Mother held out her hand and Yi wordlessly gave her the shoes.
"Beautiful," she purred. "Very well made. I have never seen any of our shoemakers do work like this, though they are silk. And the glass beads! Why, every one of them looks like it has been cut by a knife, so sharply that they shatter the very light that touches them. Whoever makes your friend's shoes would have an honoured place in court, if they so wished it."
"They're not…" Yi began, but then he stopped. He had seen Mao wearing these shoes. His mother's eyes were knowing. "Did you see Mao wear these to the ball, too?"
Mother inclined her head. "Indeed I did. I wanted to ask who made them, for they look better suited for a woman than a man, and perhaps now we will never know." She eyed them. "But if your friend no longer wants them, I would like them."
"No!" Yi snatched the shoes back and hugged them to his chest. "He left them behind in his hurry to attend his father's funeral. I must return them to him."
"Convey our condolences to your friend, and to Yeong Fu's widow," Mother said. "They were married for fourteen years. I am sure she is quite bereft without him, even if their story was not the stuff of legends, like the tales of Fu and Da Ying."
Fourteen years. Mao had said his sisters were younger than that. Ordinary girls who danced and…were not Da Ying's daughters. His heart sank. So much for finding a bride with Mao's help.
"The stories say they fell in love during a campaign, but the General forbade them to see one another. She dressed in armour and marched into battle at Fu's side anyway, and when he fell in battle, she took command of his troops and won a great victory." Mother smiled. "What the stories do not say is that she was pregnant with his child at the time, and that night she went into labour early, and gave birth to a daughter. Born in the heart of battle. What an empress she would make."
Yi stared at his mother in confusion. "You mean…Mao has another sister? One who did not dance at the ball last night?"
Mother shrugged "Did she not? I did not notice every girl there. There were so many. But when you said you chose one of Fu's daughters for your bride, of course I assumed it was Da Ying's girl. The others are merely children."
Yi's head whirled. Women's shoes. No sons. Born in battle. Another sister.
Only one thing he knew for certain: the answers to all his questions lay with Mao, and Mao alone. If he wanted to know the truth, he must ask Mao.
Yi bowed to his mother and father, thanking them for their time, before heading back to his apartments.
If Mao had left the palace, Yi would go after him. One way or the other, he would know the truth.
Either Mao had not been honest about whose son he was…or Mao was no one's son at all, but a daughter.
Yi would journey to Mao's house and find the daughter born in battle, and make her put on Mao's shoes. If they fit, he would ask her to dance for him, just like the other girls had last night.
If the girl truly was Mao, he would know.
And if she was…Yi swore he would make Da Ying's daughter his bride.
Thirty-Six
When Yeong Fu's funeral was ended, Mai busied herself in the kitchen, doing the dishes to keep herself busy. After her father's death, many of his loyal servants had left, for they weren't as fond of Jing and there was plenty of work to do on the farms of the village. With all the men who had gone to war and not yet returned, every pair of hands were needed to till and seed the fields in the hope of a summer harvest.
Like most soldiers, she had learned the use of a cookfire and the kitchen here was no different, if a little more civilised. On the days when the cook didn't come, Mai had to use her cooking skills, to Jing's loud complaints. Mai closed her ears to them. She had eaten worse food prepared by the army cooks, and though it was nowhere near as palatable as palace fare, it was edible enough. As long as they had food, her family would not starve.
On laundry day, Mai found herself alone, without a single servant to help, as a plague of birds had descended on the fields and they needed every spare person to either scare the birds away or replant the seeds they had eaten. She worked all day and into the night, washing clothes and linen, before hanging it all out to dry in the yard. She might have returned Jia's clothes, but she had taken the girl's place in what had increasingly become Jing's house. The only place Mai truly felt her mother and father's presence was the shrine, now, where she had barely a moment to light a stick of incense for each of them before she had to start her chores for the day.
The one thing from her earlier life she did not relinquish was her predawn dance, though now she performed it alone. There was no one to fight or spar with, and there never would be again. The baby brother who had died shortly before his father would never grow to adulthood, so Mai was the closest thing their household of women had to a protector. She might no longer look like a man, but she was most certainly a match for one.
So every day she kept herself in readiness for an army she never expected to arrive.
But as fate would have it, the morning after laundry day, it did.
Thirty-Seven
The further away they travelled from the capital, the more each mountain lake reminded Yi of Mao. At first, it was just because they all seemed to be the same shade of blue green as Mao's court clothes in one of the saddlebags, until he found himself thinking almost constantly of his former roommate. Could the man he'd known truly have been a woman all this time?
The erotic dreams had returned, featuring a woman whose face he still could not see, but Yi no longer woke up in horror when he saw Mao's face or heard his voice in his dreams. Instead, he wondered whether Mao was simply a particularly muscular girl with a deep voice and a homely face who had chosen to join the army because she feared she would never be beautiful enough to attract a husband.
There were days he did not want to believe that Mao could be a woman, too. They were becoming fewer and fewer, though, especially when he remembered the knowing look in his mother's eyes as she'd held Mao's shoes. She had also mentioned Mao's stepmother being a witch. Yi hadn't met one before, though he had heard of them. Perhaps she had cursed her beautiful stepdaughter so that she merely looked like a man. If so, Yi would demand she break the curse as part of the marriage agreement, for he would not take a cursed bride.
Yi rode through the gates of the house, entering a courtyard filled with linens blowing in the wind as they dried, but no one was in sight. He dismounted, handing the reins of his horse to Heng, and telling his men to wait in the yard. If his mother was right, this was now a household of women, and women in mourning. He had no wish to frighten them by bringing an invading army into their home.
Someone emerged from the house and stood on the veranda, clad in white. From the quality of her mourning robes as well as her age, Yi judged her to be Fu's widow.
"Mistress Yeong," he said, bowing. "I have come to see your son, Yeong Mao, and to return his things, which he left at the palace."
"I am Mistress Yeong," the woman
said weakly. "But I no longer have a son." She buried her face in her hands and burst into noisy tears.
A crying woman. What in the ancestors' name was he supposed to do with one of those?
Heng slid down from his horse and advanced to stand at Yi's shoulder. "Mistress Yeong, may we come inside to speak with you? We have travelled a long way and would like some refreshment."
"Yes…yes." She seemed to collect herself at Heng's words, and beckoned them inside.
Heng grabbed Yi's arm before he could follow her inside. "She's a witch," Heng said softly. "She has an illusion about her, making her look younger and prettier than she is. Watch her if she bites her lip, or otherwise does something to draw blood, for blood fuels her spells."
One day, Yi intended to ask Heng how he knew all this. For now, though, he simply nodded, before heading inside the house.
Thirty-Eight
The sound of hooves on the stone gateway woke Mai from her uncomfortable sleep. She had spent so long dealing with the laundry last night that she'd laid down by the embers of the fireplace, with a rice bag as her pillow, to get a little sleep before dawn. Somehow the rice bag had come open as she slept, though, and the ashes were full of rice grains. With the last harvest as poor as it had been, Mai had shared much of their spare food with the villagers, and this was their last bag of rice. Every grain was valuable.
Sighing at her own stupidity for spilling the stuff, she began sifting through the ashes for the grains of rice so she could return them to the bag. She soon forgot about horses, visitors or anything outside the fireplace until Lei burst into the kitchen.
"Mai, Mai! You must make tea. The prince is here, and he is looking for a boy. Mother keeps telling him our brother is dead, but he does not believe her. He goes on and on about how our brother bought one of his sisters a gift, but how it belonged to a girl with big feet. He keeps holding up his hands to show how big." Lei held her hands apart, much wider than her own bound feet. "You must make tea, and when you serve it, he shall see your feet and stop hounding Mother. Every time she tells him her son is dead, she cries, but he only grows angrier. The courtyard is full of men. I am afraid he will hurt Mother."
Dance: Cinderella Retold (Romance a Medieval Fairytale series Book 3) Page 10
