The Hidden Blade

by Sherry Thomas

  “Da-ren is right, of course.” She forced the words past her lips, though what she felt was not humility, only humiliation. “I will keep Mother’s magnanimity and Da-ren’s generosity always foremost in mind.”

  “Good.” But there was little approval in his tone. “Reflect often on what you owe your mother’s memory. Squander not your time in frivolities. Become as your mother would have wished.”

  “Yes, Da-ren.”

  “Look after her strictly,” he spoke to Amah. “Be not spare with discipline.”

  “Yes, Da-ren.” Amah curtsied. “Thank you for your sage instructions, sir.”

  “You may leave,” he said. “And you need not come every day to offer your greetings.”

  In other words, unless summoned again, they were not to disturb him for their own purposes.

  Silently they made their way out. When they passed the garden, the pavilion was empty, the foreign devil gone. The faded lotus heads shivered in a sudden gust of cold wind.

  Winter was in the air.

  “He had to speak like that,” said Amah. “Now that he has taken you into his home, you will remain his responsibility until the day you marry—or until the day one of you is no more. Heavy words now are better than heavy words too late. And for a girl like you, only words as heavy as mountains have a hope of holding you in place.”

  Ying-ying said nothing. She could find no solace in Amah’s explanation. And with every step she took, she crushed a few more of her own hopes underfoot.

  The bounty hunter lay on the ground, gasping his last breaths, his foot twitching maniacally. But instead of looking on from the side, Ying-ying was now the one holding the sword, drops of gleaming, black-red blood trickling from its tip. As she glanced up, still shaking with the fright and relief of the kill, none other than Da-ren materialized beyond the dying man. His gaze horrified her. The sword fell from her grip. She dropped to her knees, bowed her head to the ground, and tried incoherently to explain. But when she looked up, he was already gone.

  She jerked awake and slowly sat up, relieved that the dream was over, but dreading the long hours of the day.

  Nothing had gone right since Amah killed the bounty hunter. Nothing.

  Each night, a manservant came to lock the gate to their courtyard—from the outside. Not until the arrival of breakfast would it be unlocked. Amah pointed out that it was how things were done in all lordly homes. That did not make it less offensive to Ying-ying, this assumption that unless she was locked up, she would be indulging in wildly inappropriate behaviors.

  She had thought her movements restricted and her person carefully watched since birth, a fish in a small pond. But a fish in a pond had greater freedom than a fish in a bowl—what she had become now.

  Worse, she was no longer the daughter of the house, but a nobody. Amah had predicted as much. But nothing could have prepared Ying-ying for how much of a nobody she had become.

  “May I go for a walk today?” she asked, giving a listless stir to her breakfast porridge. The food was not bad, but she hadn’t the appetite.

  The same request she had made daily since their arrival a fortnight ago. Amah had always denied it. She thought it a bad idea for Ying-ying to be prancing around when she ought to impress everyone as timid and uncurious. So she kept Ying-ying inside and tried to teach her about medicinal herbs, which bored Ying-ying to no end.

  “May I?” Ying-ying pleaded, but without much energy. She had no real hope. She was imprisoned between these walls until the day Da-ren informed her that he was gifting her to a crony. And then she would have to escape to the wilds, to be plagued by outlaws, mountain cats, and head lice, never to sleep in a proper bed again.

  “I won’t trouble anybody. I won’t let Da-ren’s sons see me. And I most certainly won’t let anyone guess I’ve been studying the martial arts,” she droned.

  “Fine, then,” Amah answered almost nonchalantly, her chopsticks stretched out toward a dish of pickled radish. “But you can’t go until you’ve eaten properly.”

  Ying-ying goggled at her, astonished. Then she grabbed a steamed bun and began shoving it into her mouth, afraid that if she didn’t eat and slip out fast enough, Amah would change her mind.

  The voices were soft, the laughter playful. Ying-ying stopped. No woman she knew had ever laughed that way, at least not within her earshot.

  Keeping to her promise to Amah, Ying-ying had stayed away from the more populated areas of the compound. She was now near the southwestern corner, in a narrow alley that led from a row of storerooms to what she thought might be the stables.

  She crept to where the alley intersected an equally narrow path that was likewise walled on both sides. A quick glance revealed a man and a woman standing close together, their backs to her, less than a stone’s throw away.

  Ying-ying flattened herself against the wall behind her. She was old enough to know that she had stumbled upon a situation that did not welcome intruders. But her curiosity outweighed her sense of propriety. She perked her ears.

  “Good sister,” the man wheedled, “let me have a kiss.”

  Ying-ying twisted her lips. This was too coarse. She’d hoped for something slightly more refined. An exchange of small presents, perhaps. Or an elegant lament for what could not be—if this thing had any hope in marriage, it would not be a boy and a girl meeting clandestinely in back alleys, but their families and matchmakers conferring openly in front halls.

  But apparently “good sister” had not expected anything different. “You kiss me here,” she answered saucily, “then return to your chamber to kiss Little Orchid.”

  The name Little Orchid rang a bell. Ying-ying, in Amah’s company, had done the requisite visits to the womenfolk of the compound: Da-ren’s concubines and a few elderly female servants who by their sheer seniority had more authority than the new mistresses.

  Mrs. Mu-he, an old woman who had once been Da-ren’s wet nurse, had mentioned a Little Orchid. There was talk that the maid would be given over to Da-ren’s elder son for his bedchamber uses once he turned sixteen. It would be an elevation of sorts, but not enough that Ying-ying should bother to go around and pay her respects, Mrs. Mu-he had decreed.

  The boy must be Shao-ye, then, the lordling. The spoiled one. For it wasn’t true that Da-ren had two bratty sons. His younger son, a boy about Ying-ying’s age, was considered a studious, obedient child, though not too clever, from what Ying-ying gathered.

  Ying-ying risked another peek. Shao-ye, who was fifteen years old, had Da-ren’s features, but none of the power and—dared she say it—ruthlessness that made Da-ren riveting to the eye. His long black robe stood in sharp contrast to the maid’s pink tunic and trousers.

  “So jealous already?” He laughed. “Do I need to avow my love?”

  “Vows are just words,” the maid said.

  “What’s your favorite dish? I’ll have the kitchen make it today.”

  “And what good does that do?” The maid pouted. “By the time a chicken gets to the likes of us, it’s all bones.”

  “I’ll have it sent especially to you,” promised Shao-ye. “A kiss?”

  Ying-ying had heard enough. The more she knew about men, the less dreadful a life in the wilderness was beginning to seem.

  She retraced her steps until she came to another pathway that would take her deeper into the compound, to the garden she had passed her first day here. She didn’t like to admit it, but she wanted another look at the foreign devil. None of the women she visited had mentioned him, and she had not thought it a good idea to ask.

  A girl with not-black eyes should not appear too interested in foreign devils.

  She had not expected him to be there, but he was, seated at the same stone table in a long gray tunic, the kind worn by scholars, Chinese scholars. She hesitated, and then entered the garden. She would walk about as if enjoying the scenery, and study him when he was not looking.

  He didn’t notice her. He was staring into the distance as if his mind were
far away, well beyond the boundaries of China. Was he thinking of his own country? Of the people he had left behind?

  He ran a hand through his short hair. It was the pale yellow of leaves in autumn. His beard, however, was more of a light brown. She inched closer and pretended to be inspecting the fish in the pond. He had changed footgear. Instead of the shoes, he had on short boots in brown leather. They shone brighter than a bald man’s pate.

  She looked up to find him studying her. What should she do? How did one comport oneself before a foreign devil? They were said to possess no understanding of the proper rules of conduct.

  He rose, set aside his book, and came to the ornate railing. There he greeted her, right palm over left fist, both raised to chest height. “What is Gu-niang’s esteemed family name?” he asked—in Mandarin.

  She had heard Mother’s parakeet speak better Mandarin, and she had heard Amah speak worse—Amah having never lost her thick southern accent. The foreign devil’s Mandarin, while far from perfect, was both correct and intelligible.

  The next thing she knew, she was walking out of the garden as fast as she could without breaking into an outright run, the inside of her head as messy as a sheet of paper with too much ink spilled onto it.

  She was halfway across the residence when she stopped. Why had she fled? Was she afraid of the foreign devil? Or was she afraid someone would see her speaking to him?

  A middle-aged manservant carrying a bamboo steamer turned onto the path. He greeted her cursorily and went on his way.

  “Is this the sweet walnut soup for my mistress?” a female voice asked. Ying-ying turned around and recognized the speaker as a maid to one of Da-ren’s new concubines.

  “Yes. It’s piping hot. Gu-niang take care not to burn your fingers,” the man answered with much bowing and scraping as he handed over the steamer.

  The maid thanked him and left. The manservant started back. Ying-ying called him as he passed her. “Master Keeper, there is sweet walnut soup in the kitchen today?”

  He did not look happy to be asked that question. “A little, not much.”

  “Will you have some sent to my rooms?” Amah greatly enjoyed the delicacy. It would be a treat for her.

  He sighed. “That might be a bit difficult, Bai Gu-niang. We have Da-ren, the mistresses, the two young lords—I’m afraid there will be none left over.”

  Ying-ying did her best not to flinch openly. “That’s that, then. It’s anyway too cloying for my taste.”

  The man bowed a little and hurried away. Ying-ying stood in place with a strange burning in her chest, a sense of rabid futility. She was at the bottom of the hierarchy; she already knew that. But would it have been too much to spare a mouthful of the dessert? Must even the kitchen treat her with such scorn?

  The outcome of their exchange would have been different had Ying-ying been able to grease the servant’s palm as she made her request. But they’d had to hand over the silver certificates and the taels of silver into the majordomo’s keeping when they moved in and now must be spare with their coins.

  Only the foreign devil seemed to display the slightest interest in her. She took a deep breath, spat on the spot where the manservant had stood, and headed back to the garden. Let the servants see her with the foreign devil. They could not be more contemptuous of her than they already were.

  She stormed back into the garden. The foreigner looked up in surprise.

  “My family name is Bai,” she said, as if a quarter stick of an incense’s time hadn’t passed since he asked her the question.

  He stood up again. “To meet Bai Gu-niang is the good fortune of three lifetimes.”

  Not only did he speak decent Mandarin, he spoke it like a courtier. But the strange thing was, he seemed to mean it, as if he truly was glad that she had not stayed away, but had come back.

  An even stranger sensation settled over her: a desolation that was almost like despair. She never realized it before, but until now she had no idea what it felt like when someone was glad to see her. Mother’s gaze had always been worried, Amah’s critical, and Da-ren’s severe. None of them had ever been glad that she had come into the world: From the very beginning she had been a problem that they did their best to prevent from becoming a bigger problem.

  She curtsied, her hands together at her right hip. “What is your esteemed family name, sir?”

  “Here my family name is Kuo-tung.”

  “It is a privilege to be received in your presence, Master Kuo-tung.”

  He didn’t look like he ate babies. In fact, he looked harmless, not at all beefy like the mental picture she carried of foreign devils. He was tall, but slender to the point of thinness. In single combat, she’d take him down in the time it took to blink an eye.

  “Is Bai Gu-niang a guest of Da-ren’s?” he asked.

  A very nice way of putting it. “Da-ren has been so kind as to host me.”

  “A guest of Da-ren’s is a guest of mine,” he said gallantly. “Would Bai Gu-niang care for a cup of tea?”

  She never thought she would be having tea with a foreign devil. But then, she never thought she would hate living in Da-ren’s residence. “Master Kuo-tung is too generous. But I fear to impose.”

  “I will be honored. I only worry that my fare is too poor for Bai Gu-niang’s exquisite palate.”

  They went back and forth a few times, as dictated by good manners, before Ying-ying finally accepted. He came out of the pavilion and crossed the bridge to where she stood to properly welcome her. “Bai Gu-niang, please.”

  And so it was she found herself across the round stone table from this man with light blue eyes and a sharply ridged nose. Up close his skin was not white, but pink, and remarkably unwrinkled. She had thought him in his forties, judging by the thickness of his beard. Now she could see that he was much, much younger: no more than thirty, if that.

  “Little Dragon,” he called, clearing some crumpled papers from the table.

  A boy of about sixteen appeared instantly, startling Ying-ying. He must have been nearby if he answered the summons so quickly, but she had not been aware of him at all. The rather illicit excitement of making Master Kuo-tung’s acquaintance must have rendered her oblivious to everything else.

  “I have some jasmine tea. I hope Bai Gu-niang does not think it too humble,” said Master Kuo-tung.

  “Only if it isn’t too much trouble,” she answered, casting another look at the boy. He was almost as tall as Master Kuo-tung, fair of complexion and good-looking. But he did not have the correct demeanor for a servant: He stood with his back and neck straight, no nodding head, no obsequious smile.

  Master Kuo-tung related instructions to Little Dragon in a foreign tongue. To Ying-ying’s astonishment, Little Dragon answered in the same language.

  “He has been learning French from me,” said Master Kuo-tung after Little Dragon’s departure, in reply to the question she had yet to ask.

  “Does Master Kuo-tung hail from France then?” Ying-ying felt a flicker of disappointment. For some reason she had thought him an Englishman, like her fa— like the man in Mother’s photograph.

  “No, I came from England,” he said, nudging a tray of snacks toward her.

  So he was an Englishman. She felt a quiver of nerves.

  “But in my country, many educated men speak French,” he continued. “I teach both the young masters English and French, but most of their time is spent studying the Chinese classics.”

  There were schools that taught foreign languages, but only those who aspired to be no more than lackeys attended, since the merit tests that determined a young man’s future in officialdom still relied exclusively on Confucian learning. Ying-ying had no idea Da-ren was this progressive in his thinking, having his own children learn foreign languages.

  “Did Da-ren also instruct Master Kuo-tung to teach Little Dragon?”

  “Little Dragon assists me when I hold classes for the young masters. Most of what he has learned he picked up on his own—he seem
s to have a particular affinity for French.”

  “So he is not a student of Master Kuo-tung’s?”

  The question puzzled the Englishman. Then he laughed. “I keep forgetting the concept of ‘student’ is very different in China. If you are asking whether he has kowtowed to me and whether I have formally accepted the grave responsibility for his tutelage, then no, he is not my student.”

  She had not noticed the sadness in his eyes until his laughter dissipated. Now she wondered how she hadn’t seen it from the very beginning. It wasn’t obvious, not the hollow-eyed grief in her mirror following Mother’s death. More a sorrow that had become less acute with time—but there nevertheless.

  For some odd reason, he reminded her of Mother. She, too, had a habit of sitting with a book open before her, looking off to some distant time and place.

  “Is it lonely for Master Kuo-tung to be far from home, far from family and friends?”

  The moment the question left her lips, she regretted it. His eyes widened, as if he were taken aback—she hoped he didn’t think her a very nosy girl, though that was probably exactly what she was.

  And then he smiled. “Yes, sometimes it is.”

  There was relief in his voice, as if he not only didn’t mind, but was glad that someone had asked that question.

  She exhaled. She couldn’t remember ever meeting anyone who was so easy to talk to—except Bao-shun, maybe. But Bao-shun, though good-natured and willing to indulge in a bit of silliness from time to time, always treated her as a child. This foreigner, however, spoke to her as if she were his equal.

  “Has it been long since Master Kuo-tung left England?”

  “Two years.”

  “Master Kuo-tung has been traveling for that long?” She could very well believe it.

  He smiled again and shook his head. “No, I arrived in Peking at the beginning of the year—and that’s after stopping at quite a few places along the way. I could probably go around the entire world in six months, if I wanted to.”