by Prue Batten
The woman took up a brush and released Isabella’s hair to brush it smooth, pulling it into a high bunch that hung down her back, deftly twirling it into a bun and slipping through two ivory skewers hung with crimson silk tassels. All the while as the brush did its work, Isabella fretted at her predicament.
How do I progress my plan? I’m of the imperial house and I have some sort of freedom but is it enough?
The servant nodded at Isabella, bowing over her cuffed hands before indicating that she should be followed through the doors and out into the colonnaded and gilded passage where red pigment predominated. Ornamental dragons of gold looped and curled around the pillars and over the ceiling, their thick bodies and tails giving the illusion of life. Isabella’s stomach turned as if the beasts were her guards, their ferocious white teeth just waiting for her misdeeds. She barely had time to take in anything more before her companion stopped in front of even grander doors, carved in more of the sinuous beasts. The female guards, big and brazen like the gate guards at the Koi House, rapped on the wood with their ceremonial pikes and the doors curled open, pulled by unseen hands. Her guide preceded her into the chambers, so quickly falling into an obeisance that Isabella almost fell over her.
‘You don’t show me respect, Lady Ibo?’
Ming Xao turned from the window, his spectacles flashing, his eyes unreadable as his fingers nudged his eyewear.
‘I’m sorry.’
She went to kneel.
‘No, you needn’t. I am beastly careless.’
Beastly careless?
‘Beastly careless, my lord?’ She grinned at the colloquialism.
‘Did I say it in the wrong context, what should I have said?’
‘No. It is perfect. I’m just surprised you disposed of the protocol in front of imperial servants.’
He spoke brusquely to the woman on the floor, the Han words rattling like Madame Koi’s, and she stood, bowed and backed out of the room, the door openers retreating also.
‘You will find, Lady Ibo, that I care little for palace protocol and you can rest assured I shall not require you to act toward me in any way that makes you uncomfortable. However, I do ask that you treat me as the Son when we are with courtiers and that you treat my Father as the Emperor and my Mother as his Imperial Consort.’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I shall do what is expected of me.’
‘I think you will, Lady Ibo. You have much to gain.’ He gave her such an inscrutable look that her stomach tripped over itself again. Sometimes his eyes seemed to look straight through her as if he knew every bit of her subterfuge. ‘Now let us go. I would show you your home.’
He led off, calling for the doors to be opened and as they strolled along the brightly red passage, she could hear the Voice and as in the streets, a rustle of fabric that stalked alongside as servants sank to the ground with their noses on the floor.
‘Who speaks, my lord? I see no one.’
‘It is the Voice. Every room has a voice and like a chain of bonfires, one ignites the rest and the message that the Imperials proceed is passed along. It is the same in the city. You will never see the Voice, only hear it.’
Isabella’s eyebrows rose as she contemplated his words, the Voice continuing just that bit further ahead of them.
‘It is unnecessary for you to know the whole Palace. Perhaps just the places that will affect you, which are the places that affect me.’
He walked beside her, a quick step, neat and precise like the man. The jade weights at the end of his spectacle cords glided back and forth over the fine black silk of his tunic.
‘Your apartments consist of three rooms: your sleeping quarters, your bath closet and a reception room. Did you see that? No? It has a view. I asked that you have the apartments that overlook the lake and the mountains. I had a feeling that you would,’ he gave her a sideways look, ‘appreciate that.’
‘I am grateful, thank you.’
They continued along garishly decorated colonnades and through carved doors, their feet tapping over acres of green marble.
So ornate.
‘Over there,’ he pointed through a moongate, ‘are the stables. Do you ride? Yes? Then you may ride with me when I go out. That is one of the places that is important. And there,’ he pointed again. ‘The official heart of the palace, the throne room and ante-rooms, receiving rooms and far too many other rooms to be of any interest at all. Although you will be required to attend there occasionally. Tonight is one such. It is to be the banquet for the Lantern Festival. You will enjoy it, it is quite beautiful.’
‘I shall be glad to be a part of it. There was much activity in the First House of Merchants as they prepared for it and I was sorry that I could not see it through to fruition.’
‘I am sure Master Koi’s celebration would have been exceptional. This however will be even better. Sometimes, Lady Ibo, the Han can excel at beauty.’
She stopped in her tracks. His words had been double-edged ever since they began their peregrinations and she was at a loss to decipher their meanings, wondering if her feet were even now under threat from the axe.
‘Lord…’
‘Ming Xao.’
He plucked at some silken fluff that had attached to his black attire.
‘Ming Xao, have I done something wrong? Your words convey a certain manner.’
As if you know something.
‘Not at all, Lady Ibo. But it is wise not to speak thus in these halls. Here, come into the library. This is one of the three places I want to show you.’
He took a key on a green silk cord from his pocket and unlocked the door, pushing it open, ushering her inside and closing it behind.
‘Oh!’
Her voice echoed around the space, a room of gracefully large proportions, with yellow silk-covered walls and rows of box shelving no more than a man’s height. Scroll after scroll was shelved neatly, the edges of each row labelled in Han characters. She had heard of the Raji libraries – the Sultan’s and the Academie’s; white marbled chambers with cedar shelving, cool colonnades open to the trickling of fountain and rill.
There was a rumour the Sultan’s library had a celestial observatory attached and in Veniche, the museum-library there was the biggest in Eirie, housing a mammoth collection of the history of the world in magnificently frescoed and gold-leafed rooms with cavernous ceilings.
Even Other literature was housed in the Venichese Museo– beautifully written and illustrated tomes on paper like butterfly wings and with bindings like silk cobwebs. Her Aunt’s famously written and illustrated A Thousand and One Nights was also housed at the Museo under lock and key.
But this imperial library was sparsely elegant and Isabella felt she could almost hear the words written on the scrolls. As she walked the length of the room, she noticed larger wooden shelves housing books from her own world – case-bound codices of many sizes. Her footsteps sank into the sumptuous pile of a chiselled rug that ran from one end of the room to the other.
‘It is beautiful. So quiet, so perfectly spare.’
To the sides were long carved tables and along one was stretched a scroll of calligraphy, a story Isabella couldn’t understand, but something of the poetry of dark brushwork infused her spirit.
‘I hadn’t realised calligraphy could be so beautiful.’
‘There is no doubt much you don’t realise.’
Ming Xao pulled out a box from a set of shelves and lifted it to the table. Isabella saw five little shelves inside, on which lay five silk-wrapped scrolls. Ming Xao counted down to the third and pulled it out, tenderly unwrapping it as if it were made of gossamer. He rolled the small scroll along the table and Isabella gasped.
‘It’s breathtaking.’ She laid a finger on the fine scroll and ran it over the image. ‘What a marvellous map.’ She looked up at him and said, ‘My mother had a word in the Travellers’ tongue that perfectly describes it…iontach.’
‘Iontach,’ Ming Xao whispered the word and Belle was sure h
e was salting it away with other knowledge he had of the outside world. ‘I thought you would appreciate it. Look carefully.’
He wandered away to the wall of case-bound books, pulling one at random and losing himself in it, leaving Isabella to wonder at his strange behaviour.
Look carefully, he had said and so she bent over the small scroll, placing her elbows on the table, holding her face in her hands and examining the road on the map. The detail was fine, a cobbled road and images of Han houses, lakes, willow trees, a quaint image of a sedan chair being carried along the road, indigo humps where slaves kowtowed, other slaves walking with bamboo poles weighted with comestibles. The map almost breathed its own life as she inspected it.
She sucked in a breath – she knew that road.
She trailed her finger all the way past the First House of Merchants, up a hill between houses and gardens, to a wall that meandered through gates that she recognised, to the margins of the scroll.
Her breath stopped.
She turned her head slightly but Ming Xao seemed deep in his reading and she allowed her finger to travel on as she herself began to walk along the length of the table tracing the path that…led through softly brush-stroked trees, a flick of ink to indicate bird-flight, and then rocks creeping up and down to form a chasm over which there hung a suspension bridge as thin as silk fibre.
On the outer margins of the scroll there were Han characters making a word she didn’t understand. Her finger crossed the bridge and continued through dense forest and up, ever up into snowy mountains where the map stopped. She stood frozen, looking back down the length of the painted road and realised that in her amazement, she had not heard Ming Xao move up behind her.
‘I see you have found it interesting.’
She swung round, knocking him, and as he lurched back the jade weights on the ends of his spectacle cords swung off his chest and his glasses slipped sideways off his nose.
‘Oh! I’m so sorry.’ She reached for his arm as he pushed the spectacles back into place, lining up the cords on his chest so the glasses were perfectly straight. ‘Where I come from,’ she said, ‘spectacles have strips of bent wire that grip around the ear or else fashionable women have the spectacles on a chaste stick of silver or tortoiseshell and they are called…’
‘Lorgnettes. I know, and I have many pairs of each. Today I wear the ceremonial Han ones in your honour.’
Instantly shamed, she looked again at the map and wanted the floor of the room to swallow her. ‘Learn about the Han, Ibo.’ She remembered the Fox Lady’s words and a fresh wave of impotence flooded her.
‘This map is utterly exquisite.’
‘I thought I heard you comment as you examined it. Did something surprise you?’
Isabella could no longer pretend that his subtle innuendo was innocent. That he suspected something seemed obvious and, determined to deflect his interest, she replied.
‘Why yes, look.’ She pushed by him to the beginning of the scroll. ‘See? It’s the First House of Merchants. Master Koi’s house.’ She smiled as she stroked the image on the map. ‘He’s a kind man, a very wise man.’
‘Indeed. The Emperor thinks highly of him. Enough I believe, to appoint him as a Permanent Advisor to the Court.’
Master Koi, your gift to the Court is already paving your way. I trust you will be satisfied.
‘Master Koi will be of great use to the Emperor and to the Han, Ming Xao. It is an informed choice.’
Outside, a reverberation clanged through the palace. The giant gong that she had seen as they passed down the red corridors, shook the walls.
‘Ah, there is an hour left until we are required in the imperial dining chamber. You must go to your apartments and prepare. Your garments shall be laid out for you and your servant – the woman, your guide earlier? She shall help you dress ceremonially and I shall call for you and we shall proceed together.’
Isabella bowed over her hands and followed in his wake, but as they approached the door, she noticed a spiral stair leading upward beyond her line of vision and she stopped.
‘What’s up there?’
Ming Xao turned, a hand on the weights of his spectacles.
‘My observatory. I had it built when I heard of the Raji celestial observatory. I like gazing at the heavens, at the constellations. Besides, I am sure you know all Han spirits are celestial spirits, inhabiting a space far beyond ours, and I try to see them through my star-gazer.’
‘And have you?’
Ming Xao shook his head and opened the door as Isabella tried to imagine the celestial world of the Han.
Is it different?
The Others of her own world inhabited the Heavens as well and the Eirish had named parts of the skies, sailors using the stars for navigation. Aine, Mother of the World inhabited the Heavens and Belle’s own mother had often referred to her favourite Celestial, the Moonlady. But essentially, the rest of Eirie left the Celestials alone. Enough that they had to cope with the machinations of Others in a mortal world. Grandmother Ebba had always said, ‘Leave Aine and the Celestials to get on with their work and we should get on with ours,’ as she made the sign of the horns to ward off malign Others.
*
Isabella’s maidservant had laid out her garments and filled a wooden tub when she arrived, but no amount of lying in warm, scented water could erase the tension. Ming Xao was as prescient a person as she had ever met. He knew something or at the very least suspected.
Where are you, Kitsune?
Isabella craved sage comment from this Celestial Spirit of the Han. Whilst the woman was enigmatic, Belle had decided not long after their first meeting that the Fox Lady wanted her to escape, as though it were some sort of destiny. But the room remained silent and she allowed the servant to dress her hair, piling it in five different rolls and puncturing the rolls with bone combs from which hung jade and bone flowers and bright blue tassels. The garments, when she eventually found herself enfolded in them were yellow silk, with bands of peony and chrysanthemum embroideries and a vibrant cobalt sash covered in flying phoenixes.
Her mother would have found it breathtaking but she found it overwhelming.
All the more so when she reached the banquet chamber to see that the imperial family all wore yellow and sat apart on a dais, a tiny bunch of people like a posy of aconites, amidst a field of black for the lesser nobles, and blue for the more potent nobles.
She sat at the oblong table and felt as though she were on an island or in solitary confinement. No one spoke to her, perhaps knowing she wouldn’t understand, and she could speak to no one. Ming Xao sat at the other end of the table but every now and then she saw the light flash on his spectacles as he leaned forward to look at her. She couldn’t see his expression and preferred to think he was being solicitous. But either way, she had no appetite for the twenty courses. The shouting and gong-striking that preceded the entry of every new course conspired to build a head-pain of such proportions she thought her skull would cleave apart.
She rubbed discretely at her temples just as the Emperor and Empress stood and the rest of the imperial table followed. She realised she too must rise and pushed herself to stand and follow. She wanted to scream and run away, she hated this exposure where everyone watched her and then collapsed like a house of cards onto their knees. She wanted the infernal Voice that yelled as the procession curled around the chamber and through the giant doors to cease. But it continued its remorseless call as gradually the other guests filed out and took their places along the lake edge.
*
In the dark, the reflective flames of torchères frilled the water and Isabella’s head cleared slightly as cool air slid its way down her throat. Looking behind, she noticed she was at the back of the imperial group and that there was only an empty path, all the other guests having taken places around the lakeside.
Where she stood, the shadow tickled at her back and she shuffled a fraction. No one took any notice as the temple drums began their crashing
rhythm, the ground vibrating under her feet. At any other time she would have loved that noise, wanting to drag Nico to see it, to tap her feet, but now she wanted to use it as a means of escape. Not a final escape but just away where she could be alone and not part of some obscene grand dynastic plan.
She moved backward, cursing that she was not dressed in her indigo robes, the bright yellow identifying her immediately should anyone look. But no one glanced her way as the drums continued and a lion dance began. She had seen a small one danced in the Koi Gardens and knew that noise and fireworks were all part of the charade.
She found herself at the corner of the path, a corner that hung out over the lake with a delicate pavilion behind it and which gave her a view of the proceedings but was far enough away for her to be in shadow. She couldn’t think, the noise was too great and so she just watched the lion writhing and jumping, shaking its silk-maned head, wobbling its giant bulbous eyes.
And then it folded to the ground and the drumming lessened, until all that remained was an insistent but gentle throb. The Emperor raised his hand and when the drum stopped, he waved a yellow silk square up and down once and the crowd of courtiers cheered. Moving as one they all bent to the waters and in the sea of floating cherry blossoms and lotus flowers, they released tiny paper-boats with lights inside and the flotilla bobbed in a night breeze that lifted the hairs on Isabella’s neck.
She knew she was in the presence of an Other.
