“Leave? No. This is the murderer of my—” She took a deep breath. “No. Either he dies or I do.”
“Most likely it will be you.”
He had spoken her exact fear aloud. She clenched her fists. “That would be good for you, wouldn’t it?”
All at once his fingers dug into her wrist. “Do not say that.”
They both wore gloves, yet his grip was like a burning brand upon her skin. “Why shouldn’t I, when the first thing you suggest is that I make myself scarce?”
The brightly lit windows of Mrs. Reynolds’s house were pinpricks of light in his eyes, eyes with just a hint of wildness to them. “I went back for you,” he said.
A tremor went through her. “What do you mean?”
“I went back to Chinese Turkestan to look for you. I went as far as Kulja, knocking on the governor of Ili’s door. But it was a different governor by then and no one could tell me anything about you. I left a letter in the cave, in our cave, telling you how you could find me.”
“When was that?”
“In eighty-five—and eighty-eight.”
She felt her lips tremble, her throat constrict. He’d gone back twice? “You must not have realized that I caused your occasional disability.”
“I have known it for years. The poison in your salve was extraordinarily powerful.”
She could scarcely believe it. The backs of her eyes prickled. “And still you looked for me?”
He exhaled. “And still I looked for you.”
Something hot and wet rolled down her cheek. “I left Chinese Turkestan in the winter of eighty-three. I never went back.”
He closed his eyes for a moment and let go of her. “I guess some things are not meant to be.”
Neither of them said anything more. And then the silence became that of his absence, a silence that she had come to know all too well.
CHAPTER 13
The Years
Chinese Turkestan
1883
What did you say?” asked Da-ren, his voice quiet. Too quiet.
“I am . . . I am . . .” Shame swamped Ying-ying. If she had any fortitude, she would have already killed herself. “I am with child.”
She was six months along, but on her knees, in the thick, loose Kazakh robe, it was not yet completely obvious.
Da-ren slammed down his teacup, rattling its lid. “Who did this to you? I’ll empty the garrisons, hunt him down, and tear him from limb to limb.”
She pressed her forehead into the hard floor. She wanted to disappear, never to be seen again. “I was not violated, sir.”
A long, lacerating silence.
“My men searched for you for months,” he said slowly. “Every night I kneel before your mother’s spirit plaque, begging her forgiveness. The departure to Peking I have delayed again and again, in the hope you might yet return. But all this time you have been playing at love.”
She trembled, but dared not contradict him. She, too, had been searching. The mountains, the deserts, the dusty settlements of this harsh land. If anything, after learning that his horse had been found without a rider, she had redoubled her efforts, going as far as the Karakoram Pass, her heart shaking at the sight of the bones strewn along the barren path, from all the pack animals that had not survived the crossing.
As she stood in the saddle of the pass, gazing down at the desolate plain on the other side, she realized that there had never been any reason for her to climb so high she could scarcely breathe. But she had run out of places to search, and if she stopped, she would have to accept that her Persian had died.
That she had killed him.
“Where is this man?” Da-ren demanded, rising to his feet. “Bring him to me. He will not dare refuse to marry you.”
She could no more bring the Persian than she could conjure rain. After seven days of daily application, the poison in the salve she’d given him would have manifested on the ninth day. He’d have keeled over by sunset three days later, his flesh rotting from the inside out.
“He has passed beyond the borders of this land.”
Into the underworld, shadows and phantoms. When remorse had come, hot as tears, thick as blood, overwhelming her pain, overwhelming even her fury, she had ridden frantically after him. But she could not find him in time to save him. Nor could she locate his body for burial.
“Who is he? A nomad? A Russian?”
Worse. A spy. She could not speak for the magnitude of her disgrace.
“Have you no respect for yourself? Have we taught you nothing of right and wrong?! How could you, after all that your mother—”
Da-ren broke off, at a loss for words. Her mother had been the love of his life. How Ying-ying had dishonored her memory.
“I had planned to find you a husband when we returned to Peking,” Da-ren said coldly. “A good man, not too old, who would tolerate your pride and your wildness.”
She knocked her forehead against the hard floor, hollow, abject iterations of apology and contrition. “I dare not beg Da-ren for forgiveness—never in this life or the next will I deserve any. I wish only to thank Da-ren for his generosity all these years and then to take my banishment.”
Da-ren sighed wearily. “Then go and bother me no more.”
Hot streaks of tears ran down her face. She kowtowed three times. “Da-ren, please take care.”
She rose to leave, to ride out into a world where she had absolutely no one.
“Stop,” said Da-ren.
Numbly she obeyed and turned back, her head bowed. He came to stand before her, but she could scarcely see him through her tears.
The impact of his palm on her face nearly knocked her sideways. “Fool!” he shouted, losing his temper at last. “Are you so proud that you are not capable of sense? Have you forgotten the man who wants you dead? How will you protect yourself in this state?”
She sank to her knees again, bewildered at the implication of his words. “I have dishonored Da-ren. I have dishonored my mother. I do not deserve any better.”
“You do not, but your mother would have wanted better for you.” Da-ren returned to his chair and sat down heavily. “It is late. Eat and get some rest. We will speak of what needs to be done tomorrow.”
She kowtowed again, speechless with gratitude.
With the relief of not having lost everything.
Shandong Province
Four months later
The baby was two weeks old and Ying-ying still could not stop watching in amazement at everything she did: the fierce concentration as she latched on and nursed, the big, adorable yawns afterward, the peacefulness as she slept, with occasional smacks of her lips as if she dreamed of her next feed.
“When you are old enough,” Ying-ying told her, “Mama will take you to the western territories, so you can see the Heavenly Mountains.”
She’d had to leave Chinese Turkestan, of course. Da-ren had been called back to the imperial court and did not want her to remain behind. But it had been a difficult departure. She hated to think of the ghost of her Persian all alone, without anyone for company.
“And maybe I will take you to the Buddha cave, if I can still find it.” She wondered how long it would take for the grass mattress to turn to dust, for the last vestige of their few days together to disappear into the stream of time.
The child slept on, heart-meltingly content. Ying-ying traced her finger over her daughter’s brows. “Maybe you are the wonderful thing your father saw for me. Many, many wonderful things, he said. But you are enough by yourself.”
Auntie Lu, the local woman hired to look after Ying-ying during the first month after giving birth, entered with a covered bowl. “Eight-treasure porridge for you, Bai Tai-tai. Have it while it’s hot.”
Bai was Ying-ying’s family name; tai-tai was how one addressed a respectable married woman—Ying-ying pretended to be a young wife traveling north to join her husband, one who had to stop for a bit to give birth. Auntie Lu did not question the story too closely, even
though sometimes Bao-shun, Da-ren’s trusted guard who had accompanied Ying-ying from Chinese Turkestan, still made the mistake of calling her gu-niang, the term used for an unmarried girl.
She thanked Auntie Lu and accepted the bowl. Auntie Lu adjusted Ying-ying’s covers—women who had just given birth were to leave their bed as little as possible during the first month. Ying-ying had thought she would be driven stark mad from the inactivity, but her daughter had proved to be such lovely company that she had not felt a moment of boredom or restlessness.
Auntie Lu chatted as Ying-ying drank the porridge. Spring Festival was around the corner, and Auntie Lu’s sister would make her annual dish of “pulling silk” sweet potato—the “silk” being threads of caramelized sugar. “I will have her come and make some for tai-tai also. It will give you tastier milk—and baby will drink more and grow up fast.”
She patted the baby’s cheek fondly. “Such a beautiful girl. The matchmakers, so many of them will come, they will flatten your threshold!”
“I don’t want her to grow up too fast,” said Ying-ying. She wanted her baby to remain in a state of happy ignorance for as long as she could, insensible of the tragedy of her background.
There would be no matchmakers for this girl of irregular birth and parentage, just as there had never been any for Ying-ying. But that was fine. Ying-ying would not die of illness like Mother or recklessness like Amah. She would survive and protect this child, who would be the bright pearl in her palm, as the saying went—her greatest treasure.
“Oh, they always grow up too fast,” said Auntie Lu. “Keep eating, tai-tai, don’t let the porridge get cold or—”
Ying-ying held out a hand. “Shhh.”
Auntie Lu blinked in incomprehension, but Ying-ying had heard something: the sound of a body slumping over.
They had rented two rooms from a prosperous landlord, one for Ying-ying, one for Bao-shun, who acted as her bodyguard. Today was the landlord’s aunt’s seventieth birthday; the entire family had gone to the next village for the birthday feast, and the servants had taken the opportunities to visit home—there was no body to fall over inside the walled estate, except for that of Bao-shun.
She shoved the bowl of porridge into Auntie Lu’s hand, swept aside the thick, pink silk-covered comforter, and leaped off the bed.
Auntie Lu gaped, scandalized—a woman who stepped on the cold floor in her bare feet in the month following childbirth risked all kinds of terrible aftereffects to her person. Ying-ying made another shushing sound and grabbed her sword.
A shadow crossed before the windows. The window panes were small, translucent squares of mother-of-pearl—they let in sufficient light but did not allow her to see out properly. But Ying-ying was already trembling: She had seen the shadow but she had not heard any footsteps.
This was not Bao-shun coming to check on her.
The double door opened quietly. A cold blast of air rushed in. Just beyond the threshold stood the man who blamed Ying-ying for the deaths of both his master and his beloved.
“Bai Gu-niang, it has been a long time,” he said softly, politely, his eyes viciously hard.
His master’s death had been a fluke. The death of the woman he loved had not, but he believed that if only Ying-ying had willingly submitted to Shao-ye, Da-ren’s wastrel son, then Shao-ye would not have beaten his concubine in frustration, causing her to miscarry and then to take her own life.
And nothing Ying-ying could say would change his mind.
“Take her and go,” Ying-ying told Auntie Lu. “Now.”
Auntie Lu set down the bowl of porridge she still held and reached for the baby. But Lin raised his hand and Auntie Lu slumped over, half on the bed, half off—he had hit her major acupuncture points with his hidden weapons.
“I have come to see Bai Gu-niang’s thousand-gold,” he said as he walked into the room, using the most courteous term for referring to someone else’s daughter. “Surely Bai Gu-niang would not deny me the privilege.”
Ying-ying’s heart froze. She had not thought that he would seek to harm an infant. She’d been such a fool.
Her sword left its scabbard. He casually picked up the wooden bar used for locking the doors at night. She swallowed. It was said that in a state of true, sublime mastery, a practitioner of martial arts could counter steel with cloth. Had he reached such a stage?
She lunged at him. He blocked her blade. The wooden bar promptly broke in two. Ying-ying heartened—no mythical mastery for him yet. She lunged again, aiming to force him outside. The more distance she put between him and her baby, the safer her baby would be.
He stepped backward and dodged one thrust. Stepped backward and dodged another thrust. One more and he would be on the other side of the threshold.
Ying-ying charged. He pushed back. This time, the pieces of wooden bar did not further splinter. She, on the other hand, felt the block all the way into her armpit. She was still weakened from childbirth and two weeks of utter inactivity, and he was incredibly strong, incredibly powerful.
She kept driving her blade at him. But he seemed to anticipate her every move. Her mind clouded with fear; her moves were too obvious and imprecise. He countered and thrust aside her attacks, easily holding his ground.
Every block from him was like a boulder hurling her way. Already she was tiring, the sword growing heavy in her hand. Her heart pounded, her concentration slipping while panic surged. How long could she last? Could she hold him off long enough for Bao-shun to recover his mobility and come to whisk the baby away?
At last, a mistake on his part that left his right shoulder exposed. She jabbed toward that point of weakness. He stumbled back a step. She pressed her advantage. He stumbled back another step, almost tripping over the threshold.
She leaped up, desperate to disable him. But the man who a moment ago had seemed completely out of balance shot up like a cobra emerging from a field of grass and used Ying-ying’s own forward momentum to send her nearly to the middle of the courtyard.
Even while she was still airborne she understood that she had been bested: She had been tricked and now nothing stood between Lin and her greatest treasure. She landed screaming, rolled, came to a stop, pivoted around, and charged back into the room. Everything together probably took only a second or two. But it might as well have been a year and a half, for Lin already had his hand on her baby.
He did not strike her, but seemed to pat her gently, like a fond uncle. Yet the baby shuddered and woke up gasping. Lin lifted his hand and laughed, that same surprised, awkward laugh that already haunted Ying-ying’s nightmares.
She reached for the baby with shaking hands and gripped her tiny wrist. The pulse was that of someone on the verge of death: Everything inside her baby was broken, so broken that the little one could not even cry, but only tremble in agony.
Ying-ying barely hearing Lin as he said, “Now Bai Gu-niang also knows what it is like to lose the one she loves most. Bai Gu-niang, please take care.”
She set her hand on the baby’s abdomen and forced her own chi into the baby’s body. The baby jerked, her breath rasping in her throat. Ying-ying hated herself for causing her daughter even greater pain, but she must keep trying. It was the only way.
Her energy poured into her daughter—a trickle, a stream, then a flood. Her baby stilled and quieted. For a moment hope rose bright and searing in Ying-ying’s heart, until she realized that the baby had not fallen asleep. She gripped her tiny wrist once more. Her pulse was gone. Ying-ying grabbed her baby’s other wrist. She held her hand under the baby’s nostrils. She listened with her ear on the baby’s heart.
A muffled wail broke the silence, the sound of a desperately injured beast. It came from Ying-ying, who could not quite scream, as if part of her still believed her baby asleep and did not want to disturb her with loud, ugly noises.
There would be no bright pearl in her palms. No trip to see the Heavenly Mountains. No hope of redeeming herself by giving her child a wonderful life.
<
br /> She screamed at last. For a long time, it seemed she would never stop screaming. Then tears came, burning her eyes as they fell and fell.
She had lost everything after all.
My beloved,
I write to you from Rawalpindi, with the help of a Turkic-speaking imam, a kind man with a twinkle in his eyes and a soft spot for lovers. Now two years after I left Chinese Turkestan, I am about to embark on a solo journey there to find you, and my heart shakes with both hope and dread.
If I do not find you, then I will leave this letter in our cave, and pray that God willing, someday, as you ride by, you will be moved by an inexplicable urge to see the place where we had been so happy.
I was a fool to leave. If you can forgive me, please come and find me in Rawalpindi. Ask for Arvand the gem dealer at the British garrison, and they will know where to direct you.
I enclose a bar of chocolate, a packet of tea from Darjeeling, and all my fervent wishes for your well-being and happiness.
The one who loves you, always Peking
Peking
1886
Da-ren did not recognize Ying-ying.
When he’d last seen her, she had still been a pretty girl. Now she was no longer pretty, and no longer a girl. It was a hard, grim woman who lowered herself to one knee before him.
This, she had realized some time ago, was the doom that Mother, Amah, and Da-ren had always feared for her—that her pride, impulsiveness, and obduracy would lead to great misfortunes. And make her the kind of woman who could never again lead a safe, normal life.
She didn’t care anymore.
“Da-ren wished to see me?” she said by way of greeting.
He pushed aside his tea. “Three years we have had no news of you and this is all you have to say?”
She did not answer.
She had ridden to Peking to bury her child, wrapped in fabric from the turban her Persian had left with her, next to the grave of her mother. And then, without a word to anyone, she had left to hunt down Lin. Several times she’d had good leads, but she had yet to come close.
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