by null
Ming-Chou replied in a high thin voice. “I think you have your eyes on this little hummingbird.” He chortled. “You are certain she has been kept from the larn-jai?” Ming-Chou’s hands continued to feel her, his fingers rough and thorough as if he were fumbling the feathers of a fattened duck to guess its weight and value. Li could not stop the shivering of her limbs or her rising dread; every inch of her shook as though she were naked in a bitter wind. The sallow face, smug and cruel, was smooth as carved ivory, the eyes shifting like oiled olives under their puffy lids. One bony forefinger with its curved golden nail caressed her forehead, cheek, and nose, teasing her tightly closed mouth. He giggled, the point of his fingernail tracing her lips, forcing them apart. “Her teeth, they are sound?”
Ah-Jeh bowed nervously. “As newly opened pearls matched to perfection, Lo-Yeh.”
“She is frightened,” he tittered, the sharp golden nail crawling to her eye. “And stubborn too, I have no doubt.” Without warning the hand slid like a viper into her robe and squeezed her naked breast.
Everything that Li had ever learned through Pai-Ling, every warning Pebble had given her, every word Ah-Jeh had spoken, was suddenly wrenched from her by a cold hand that squeezed her heart and tried to take it. Fear turned to fury in a blinding flash as she spat roundly into his watery eye, swinging her hand with all its force across his horrified face. Ming recoiled from the blow with a strident squeal, dislodging his mandarin’s hat and kicking his legs like a child. So absurd did he look, she heard herself howl with laughter. The fox fairy turned and ran for the door. In the wake of her flight, a great vase crashed to the marble floor, smashing into a thousand pieces. All Li could see was her father, and the happiness tile shattered in pieces at his feet. She kicked off the silken slippers to run like the fox they saw in her, her feet flying upon the jeweled path, through the moon gate to the packed earth of the towpath along the river’s edge. The only sound was the echo of her own mad laughter.
All sense of time and place deserted the fox fairy. She felt the pounding of her bare feet, stretched over tufted grass and stony ground, her heart beating like a temple drum, strong and indestructible within her … while the larn-jai with their loping yellow dogs bawled and yapped with evil joy, in no hurry to end the chase. She led them baying with their hounds, over fields, through hedgerows, and across streams. There was no thought of how far she ran, for how long or where her feet might take her. Her flying feet felt no pain, only the glory of escape.
The dogs finally brought her down in the bed of a ditch, clawing at her clothes, tearing at her arms and legs, covering her in the slime of their toothless jaws. The larn-jai circled her, dancing to the chorus of their savage snarls, encouraged by her kicking feet, as her naked flesh was revealed before they pulled the dogs off. Vicious hands forced her face into the mud and slime of the ditch; a knee rammed into her spine.
When it seemed she must drown in the sludge, her head was wrenched back by the hair, while the larn-jai cursed her with vile oaths. She was turned over like a goat about to be slaughtered and skinned.
Their leader was kneeling between her flailing legs, his pants around his knees, the thing protruding red as a sore from his jerking fist, his thighs skinny as a child’s. He ordered the others to step aside as he drew back his fist, his narrow chest heaving for breath. Only then did he pause, blinking foolishly at the the hook of steel protruding from the fox fairy’s closed fist. She held it close to her chest, bright in the moonlight as the talon of an ea gle.
“I am promised to Lo-Yeh. He has chosen me for his bed. If you take me, he will not want the leavings of larn-jai scum like you.” The face of the boy astride her held its savage leer, but she saw his stupid smile grow thin as her words hung in the cold silver air above the yelping of the dogs. “Ah-Jeh will lose all face. There will be no commission. She will flog you at the triangle until you weep for an early death.”
Li gave the larn-jai no time for further thought, seeing the hesitation of ignorance in their eyes. “Ming-Chou paid much for my sung-tip—more than he has paid for all of you. Think upon his punishment while you can … and if you still want more of my blood, it will mix with yours.” She raised the blade as Pebble had shown her.
There were seconds of silence as they looked from one to the other, the leader still pinning her down. Finally, he snorted his disgust. “I would not stick this in a stinking fox fairy. I would rather fuck a pig.”
An hour later, Li stood upon the threshold of the superintendent’s private quarters, the two senior larn-jai gripping her arms on either side. Her hands were trussed with grass rope, her ankles bound so that she could stand and walk but not run. Each of the larn-jai bore bloodied scratches on face and neck and was streaked with mud. Still, she felt no great fear, only exhaustion from the chase and a ringing sense of triumph at the power of thoughts and words over fools.
The larn-jai rapped loudly on Ah-Jeh’s door with grimy bloodstained knuckles, taunting Li with whispered details of how they would take revenge when Lo-Yeh had finished with her.
The door was opened to the powdered face and red lips of Elder Sister, the hint of a smile reaching her wary eyes as she stepped back, allowing Li to be shoved inside. She ordered the larn-jai to move away. “Have you touched her?” The question was abrupt as a threat. The leader protested their innocence, the difficulty in subduing the demons the fox fairy had summoned to defend her. “They must have been many, if it took five of you and a pack of dogs to bring back one girl. Go now, and if I find you are lying, you will cry for the mothers you do not have.”
The room was small and crowded. A bed with a quilted cover was partly hidden by a red curtain; papers and record books were scattered on a large table beneath a hanging oil lamp of green glass. Another table and some stools stood on a square of carpet in the room’s center. By the door, in a tall china vase, was an assortment of willow canes.
Li-Xia had an uneasy sense of being stared at in her bedraggled state, until she realized one wall was filled with framed portraits surrounding a small shrine lit by dragon candles. The unsmiling faces of Ah-Jeh’s ancestors gazed through a drift of sandalwood incense. The superintendent looked her up and down, a smile slowly twisting her mouth.
“You were wise to reject the attentions of the master, but not to do it quite so violently. He is greatly angered and has ordered me to punish you severely. He expects me to flay you within an inch of your life and put you in the rings for a week. But he trusts my judgment and will not wish to see evidence of this. Lo-Yeh does not set foot in the world of the mui-mui.”
Her eyes glistened in the greenish light, like the ashes of a fire blown upon and rekindled.
Though suddenly struck by fear, Li-Xia was determined to speak bravely. “I have been chased by beasts who are worse than the dogs they run with. They have stripped me and would have used me as a cockerel uses a hen. When I can, I will kill them to restore my dignity and avenge my mother, whom they cursed and insulted.”
Ah-Jeh held up a hand, calling for silence. “This is something you brought upon yourself. Did you think that you could run and not be chased? Your freedom has been sold; it belonged to Ming-Chou, but he has no further use for it. Now you belong to me.”
She crossed to the corner, returning with a knife, cutting through the grass rope that bound Li’s wrists and ankles.
“They are less than the droppings of a syphilitic bat, those larn-jai,” she muttered. “Only the dregs of hell know what diseases they carry. Are you sure they did not enter you?”
Li-Xia nodded with a glint of pride.
“You were lucky. But I must be sure of this—your future may depend on it. If you are still pure, I will save you. The comb and the mirror shall be yours.”
“With great respect, Elder Sister, and with all gratitude, I am not worthy of such an honor. I know now that I can never become a weaver.”
The sound of her own voice, so much stronger than she felt inside, encouraged Li to continue.
“Just as I would be worthless in the bed of the old lord, so would I be found unworthy of the sisterhood. My feet are my only freedom; without them there is no path ahead. I could not spend my life at the loom, without the open air and the sky above me. I have a great fear of four walls.”
“This is not for you to judge. Nor is it an opportunity to be tossed away so lightly.” Ah-Jeh’s words seemed more reasonable than angry. “Where do you think this path you speak of can lead you—one of the mui-mui without a name, whose ancestors have turned her away and can find no resting place?”
“I have a mother; her name is Pai-Ling and she is a scholar from the great city of Shanghai. I am called to be a scholar, to read and write as she does. Her knowledge lives within me, and together we will follow our path.”
Ah-Jeh nodded her understanding, then held aside a curtain to reveal a tub of warm water. She allowed the slightest of smiles, and her voice was lightened with the hint of amusement.
“Well, you are no scholar now, but a spinner of silk, and that is knowledge and skill enough for a child. Your mother cannot be allowed to look upon a daughter so badly used. Take off those rags and wash yourself; I will clean your injuries and find you something to wear, then something to eat and drink. You cannot consider such important things until you are well rested.”
She crossed to the vase of canes, selected one, and stood watching as Li shed the muddy garments. She lifted them from the floor with the tip of the cane and flicked them into a corner. Li could see the superintendent eye’s examining every inch of her; there seemed little point in modesty and she made no attempt to hide her nakedness. Ah-Jeh clucked her tongue in a show of sympathy.
“You have been punished enough by those sons of pestilent whores.” She stepped closer to inspect the scratches and bruises on Li’s body. “You are not one who cries easily, I think. But there is nothing serious that I can see. Turn around.”
A fingertip crawled like a fly over Li’s naked back—down the length of her spine to the cleft of her buttocks. She felt them tighten, but the fingers stopped. Ah-Jeh fetched the kettle from the stove and added hot water to the tub, along with brown drops of disinfectant from a small vial, then produced a large sponge and a cake of soap. She flicked the curtain across its rail to give the pretense of privacy.
“Be sure your hair is free of their filth. Call me when you think you are clean. Your back is lacerated; I will attend to it.”
Her voice was almost motherly. The soap smelled of flowers and was like none Li had seen; the sponge slipped over her wet skin like the hand of an angel as she stood in the tub. It was the first time in many grueling hours that she had a moment alone and a chance to think. She realized that she was in the presence of danger, but was this a greater or lesser evil than she had already faced? That Ah-Jeh possessed more power than any of those who had hurt her was certain, yet it seemed that Elder Sister was also capable of pity, and perhaps even sympathy.
Li knew there was no escape from the hands of Elder Sister except to please her, to play her game to its end. How easily the willow cane could have flayed her raw, yet she had been spared. Compared to the loathsome capering of the larn-jai, Ah-Jeh was a comfort.
Moments passed and the curtain was flicked back. There was an almost kindly patience in Ah-Jeh’s voice.
“Turn around. I will tend your back before it festers.”
The sponge was drawn carefully up and down Li’s back and across her shoulders, soothing the burning scratches; the water turned rusty with blood and dirt running down her legs and into the tub. Li was grateful for its touch, her uncertainty dissolving with the flood of perfumed water down her back, over her buttocks, and down her legs.
She closed her eyes as Ah-Jeh firmly gripped her narrow waist to turn her around. When she opened them, she realized with a small shock how much taller she had grown since first seeing the superintendent perched like a crow upon her stool. Now she saw the whiteness of Ah-Jeh’s scalp, straight as a scar in the parting of her hair.
“Let me see you free of mud and muck.”
The sponge was wiped over her chest and along her arms, her stomach, between and down her legs in such an easy way, Li found no urgent reason to resist as exhaustion swept over her till she trembled.
“I see now why your dolt of a father called you Li-Xia. You are almost a woman when most mui-mui are still giggling children.”
“I do not believe I was ever a child … I am incapable of giggling.”
“You are also confused, and nervous. Perhaps you find your position too much to clearly contemplate. I can understand this uncertainty. We will drink tea and talk of it.”
As though in a trance, Li stood still as Elder Sister reached for the towel, gently blotting her skin, paying close attention to her wounds no matter how slight. From a tray, tinctures and salves were painstakingly applied. Through her sense of gratitude, Li’s heart cried out in anger, knowing these were the kindest hands that had ever tended her, the closest she had known to a mother’s touch. She cursed the blind gods for cheating her this way; she knew this was a blessing that would soon be snatched away, and the hands that treated her so sweetly would quickly turn to violence.
Allowing the towel to be wrapped around her, Li followed Ah-Jeh to the small table now set with a pewter teapot and two glass cups with pewter lids. Ah-Jeh seated herself at the table, upon a stool of glazed porcelain, indicating a matching stool on the other side. The lilt of amusement was in her voice as Li took a seat on the edge of the stool.
“It took great spirit to avoid the bed of Ming-Chou so dramatically … and much good sense. He is like all men when it comes to that, no different from the larn-jai, but for his robes and riches—his thoughts and actions just as foul. Men differ only in the clothes they shed when the ivory staff is raised like a spear. But it is I you must now please, so be careful in what you say. Do not try my patience too far with your philosophies. You are too young for such meandering; it is for you to learn, not to teach.”
She reached for the teapot, lifting the silver lid of each cup to fill it. Her manner was light and almost friendly. She chuckled in her throaty way, offering Li a cup of the dark green tea with both hands in the proper manner of respect.
“You are not like the others, Li-Xia. Most would do anything to win the master’s favor and the benefits it can bring, and think nothing of the risks. This is not wise. The passions of men do not last—they are fleeting as the thunder and rain. You are very young, yet I believe you already know this.”
When Li could not find a worthy reply, Ah-Jeh left her seat and came to stand behind her.
“It is good that you find the hands of men distasteful. A woman should not depend upon the needs and whims of any horny goat. You are not a receptacle for unwanted seed, to be filled up and thrown aside—or given a child you cannot feed in return for a moment of bestial pleasure.”
As she spoke, the superintendent placed a hand lightly on the top of Li’s head. Her other hand lifted Li’s newly washed hair to find the hidden nape of her neck.
“If you accept the mirror and the comb and take the oath of sau-hai, you need no longer worry about such things. You will have many sisters and a home for life where no harm can come to you. In exchange, you must deny foolish dreams of a scholarly life; there will be no need for you to read and write.”
“I have thought fully on this since I was brought to Ten Willows. My respect for the sisterhood and for Elder Sister is great … but I could not take the oath required of me if my journey is to end before it has begun.”
There was a pause before Ah-Jeh spoke again. Li could see the pulse tripping like the heart of a bird in the vein of her neck.
“You have listened to the prattle of fools who know nothing of sau-hai. Your mother is dead. This I know from your father’s lips and from the sisters that serve in his household. The voice you hear will fade with time. You are alone. Only I can guide you in this serious matter.”
Ah-Jeh’s hands wer
e firm upon her shoulders.
“I must first examine you. There is no need for alarm, but your word is not enough. I must be sure of your maidenhood.”
Li felt a hand applied to her scalp, the other to her neck, probing, pressing, strong fingers kneading the sinews of her throat; willpower was drawn from her as surely as the golden thread was wound from the cocoon. Li was hardly aware of the pressure applied to a point at the top of her skull and at the base of her throat—only of an engulfing tiredness that robbed her of all energy and drained any thought of re sis tance. The pressure was increased until she had no wish to move, no voice to question. She felt herself carried bodily and laid upon the bed.
As a rosy cloud settled over her, there was no real thought of protest, only wonderment that she should so easily submit. The towel was opened; the hands of Elder Sister were firm and warm on her skin, applied with sure knowledge of her body—deepening pressure here, then there, the thumbs finding spots that released floods of well-being.
“Your chi is strong, but it is blocked. I will release it so that the channels of your energy flow freely.”
Li felt herself become two persons—one who yielded most readily, and another who looked on, deathly afraid. The hands were laid lightly upon the twin swellings of her breasts; she felt their points rise to the touch, then the hands shifted suddenly to her crotch, parting her softness. An unbearable tingling mounted from the roots of her hair to toes that clenched like fists, then a series of shocks passed through her to slowly ebb away, until she was immersed again by the rosy cloud.
Li had no idea how long she slept. For long moments she lay still, piecing together what had happened to her, before opening her eyes to find the room silent and darkened, the lamp turned down. Her perception was fogged, as though she had not taken part in things but had been a bystander. The physical pain that lingered from her encounter with the larn-jai was slight, but enough to remind her that this was no illusion.
