by Jeannie Lin
The lady titled her head in puzzlement, causing the pearl ornament to swing in an entrancing fashion, but then she appeared to accept without any further question. ‘I’m Min, Lord Chang’s concubine.’
Concubine? Fei Long hadn’t mentioned he had a concubine.
‘No, the elder Lord Chang,’ the woman corrected, smiling at her confusion.
Now that Lady Min had come into the light, Yan Ling could see she was actually plain in appearance, but a youthful energy radiated from her. Her beauty was expressed in the carefree exuberance of her movements rather than her features.
‘Maybe you can help me,’ Lady Min began cheerfully. ‘I had the most wonderful revelation while paying my respects at the temple to the elder Lord Chang.’ She pulled out a bundle of cloth hidden in the billowing folds of her sleeve. ‘I was coming to see if Pearl wanted to come with me, but she’s away with her true love, so all the better.’
Lady Min set the bundle down on the low table and straightened regally. She raised her hands to smooth out her hair. It occurred to Yan Ling that she should be studying and copying her movements, but Min flitted about like a dragonfly on gossamer wings, impossible to envision in stillness.
The lady began to pull the pins from her hair and handed them over to Yan Ling one by one. ‘I don’t know why it took me so long to think of it, really. And then today in front of the temple altar, with all that smoky incense everywhere, it just came to me.’
She shook her hair loose and Yan Ling couldn’t help but be a bit envious. The thick mane flowed down to her waist. Min reached down to unroll the cloth bundle, revealing a pair of scissors among other implements.
‘What is your name?’ the lady asked.
‘Yan Ling, my lady.’
‘Help me with this here, Yan Ling. I can’t see the back very well even in my mirror.’ The lady pressed the scissors into her hands and turned around, running her hands once more over her hair.
The scissors lay like a leaden weight against her palm. Yan Ling was feeling a bit ambushed. ‘I’m afraid I don’t have much experience cutting hair. What if I ruin it?’
‘Oh, there’s nothing to worry about. It’s all coming off.’ Lady Min was uncustomarily excited about the prospect.
Yan Ling swallowed. ‘All?’
‘Yes. We’ll use the scissors first and then the razor. I’m going to join the nuns at the Temple of the Peaceful Lotus.’
The lady turned around, waiting expectantly. What else was she to do? Yan Ling raised the scissors and opened them around a lock of lustrous black hair. She closed her eyes and made the first snip. The blades sheared through the lock with a definitive snick.
‘I’ve been very lucky,’ Lady Min said. ‘The last few years have been happy here. The elder Lord Chang was a kind man. No matter what they say, he had a joyfulness about him. Always in good humour. I laughed every day, you should know.’
‘That’s good to hear.’ Yan Ling picked up another lock and cut it away, placing it beside the first one on top of the cloth. It seemed such a crime to sacrifice all that beautiful hair. ‘But I’m surprised. The younger Lord Chang is so serious all the time.’
She could also say humourless, stiff, didn’t know his way around a proper smile.
‘He gets that from his mother,’ Min replied. ‘Lady Chang was also a good woman. I was her attendant, you know.’ Her tone became wistful. ‘She was practical and ran the household admirably.’
‘Lady Chang is gone as well then?’ More locks fell away. Yan Ling was getting bolder with the scissors as well as her questions.
‘Several years ago. Right before her son passed his military exams. I don’t think the elder Lord Chang ever forgot her. All the carousing, drinking, extravagance—’ she had to take a breath before continuing ‘—dice and women aside.’
Yan Ling frowned at the description. ‘Wasn’t Lord Chang a government official?’
‘Lord Chang was a department head in the Ministry of Works. And well loved, too. Everywhere he went, men would call out his name, wanting to be the first to greet him. His death was such a shame.’ Lady Min’s voice grew distant. ‘He slipped coming home late one night along the canal. Hit his head and drowned, the city guards said. Poor man… Are you nearly finished? My head feels so much lighter.’
It was one thing to die at a venerable old age, but to go so unexpectedly. Her heart went out to Fei Long and his family. ‘I think it’s done.’
Only jagged tufts remained where there had been a beautiful head of hair only minutes earlier, but Lady Min wasn’t yet satisfied. The lady picked up a porcelain jar and poured some oil from it into her hand. Then she ran her palms over her head, massaging the ointment in circles. She handed Yan Ling the razor and sat down in one of the chairs.
By that time, Yan Ling had accepted the strangeness of the situation. With great care, she scraped the blade gently along Lady Min’s scalp. The blade was sharp and the hair fell away easily.
‘If you’ll forgive me for asking, you sound content with your life here. Why leave?’ Yan Ling asked.
‘It seems the right thing to do to repay the elder lord’s kindness. I’d be nothing but a burden here. And it’s not such a sacrifice. The temple gardens are tranquil. The nuns spend their day in prayer. A simple life.’
Over the next half-hour, Yan Ling finished shaving the rest of the lady’s head. She found a mirror within Pearl’s dresser in the private area of the room and brought it out.
‘Waa… Look at me!’ Min turned her head this way and that as she peered at her reflection in the polished bronze. She rubbed her hand over the newly smooth surface with an expression of amused curiosity. ‘I look like a newborn baby.’
‘When will you go to the temple?’
‘Tomorrow.’ She grinned. ‘I’m already prepared.’
Min began gathering up the locks of hair and the other supplies. ‘I better return these to Old Man Liang before he realises they’re missing.’ She paused as she picked up the jewelled hairpins. ‘Well, I don’t have any use for these any more.’
They laughed together. With the laughter, some of the apprehension Yan Ling had harboured throughout the journey uncoiled within her. She grew pleasantly warm in their small intimate circle. Yet at the same time, she was stricken with a pang of sadness. She would be alone in a house of strangers once more when the lady left.
‘You should take them.’ Min held the pins out to her. ‘And thank you.’
Without warning, the lady swept her up in an embrace. Yan Ling returned it with not as much grace as she would have liked, but Lady Min didn’t seem to notice. When they moved apart, the lady ceremoniously placed the hairpins across Yan Ling’s palm.
‘Fei Long must not be so different from his father after all, bringing you here. He’s not completely blind to a young and pretty woman.’
‘Oh, no.’ Yan Ling’s face grew hot and she shook her head vehemently. ‘That’s not why I’m here at all.’
She quickly explained her role in replacing Pearl as the alliance bride, though there was no way to escape the questionable nature of their journey, alone together when they were neither family nor husband and wife, sleeping in the same chamber. Yan Ling flushed with embarrassment. Maybe this was why Fei Long needed someone with no reputation to lose. If she had any sort of family name to call her own, it would be ruined already.
‘Well.’ Min blew out a breath after the explanation was done. ‘As I said, not so different from his father as I thought.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Fei Long wasn’t always so morose. There’s still some life in him.’ Min embraced her again. ‘Just remember. The elder Lord Chang was a good man. No matter what you may hear.’
The lady stole away in a swirl of silk. After a moment, Yan Ling sank onto the chair, wondering what had just happened. And why, when Min had been so overwhelmingly cheerful, did her parting words sound like a dire warning?
Chapter Four
Yan Ling had never heard Fei Long shout duri
ng their journey together. He rarely raised his voice above the stern and steady tone that she’d come to know so well. That morning, she learned that he could shake the rooftops if he chose to.
The yelling brought her out of her room and sent her running into the central courtyard. Maybe there was a fire. Surely someone was dying.
Dao nearly collided with her on the pebbled walkway. ‘Lady Min,’ Dao pronounced, looking to the front of the house. ‘She’s done something crazy again.’
The pieces fell into place quickly between the male and female voices raised in argument followed by the sight of Min running through the courtyard, sobbing loudly. Her bare head gleamed in the morning sun while her opulent robe fluttered behind her. Dao stared after the lady with eyes wide and mouth open as Min disappeared into the back of the house.
‘What is this place?’ Fei Long was shouting. ‘This isn’t my home. This is a den of wild animals.’
‘Will he calm down if we just wait?’ Yan Ling looked to Dao, whose only answer was to shake her head helplessly.
‘Bald as a Shaolin monk,’ he ranted. ‘I must already be dead. This must already be the afterlife because no one alive could be so stupid.’
Several servants from the kitchen and surrounding chambers peeked into the courtyard, only to duck away when Fei Long continued his tirade. Min’s sobbing had receded into the house, but it grew louder once again. She came back into the first courtyard with eyes swollen red and a travel pack slung over her shoulder.
‘On my mother,’ Dao swore under her breath. ‘The scandal.’
‘Stop her before she leaves the house,’ Yan Ling directed, her pulse skipping. ‘I’ll go speak to Lord Chang.’ Maybe it wasn’t her place to be giving orders, but she felt responsible for helping Lady Min.
The servant girl ran in one direction while Yan Ling hurried in the other. She slipped into the front part of the house and wove her way through the hallway. It wasn’t hard to find Fei Long. He had taken to swearing a river of oaths behind a closed door.
‘My lord.’ The door loomed before her. She pressed a hand to her stomach to try to calm it. ‘Are you all right?’
The stomping inside ceased. ‘Miss Yan Ling, this is a private matter. Please return to your room.’ His voice sounded muffled through the barrier.
Private? Not any more when every porter on the street could likely hear him.
‘Maybe I can be of help,’ she began.
The door swung open slowly and Fei Long appeared. There was a slight flush to his cheeks and his eyes glinted with a dangerous light. ‘There is nothing for you to concern yourself with here.’
She could hear the strain at the edge of his voice as he resorted to extreme politeness.
‘Pardon us, miss, for disrupting your morning,’ he continued.
His chest rose and fell rapidly and the muscles of his face pulled tight as he fought for control. Maybe she could help. She was an outsider and he wouldn’t dare yell at her…as loudly, at least.
‘Everyone in the house is frightened. Lady Min is crying.’
The mention of the lady’s name had Fei Long gritting his teeth. ‘She’s lost her mind.’
What would calm him? She tried to think of what little she knew of him and she could only think of one thing.
‘Let me have some tea brought to you.’
Yes, tea. He did all his planning with her over tea. And he had come to the teahouse to ponder over his troubles when she’d first met him. He regarded her woodenly, perhaps thinking that she, too, had lost her mind. But slowly, as if with great difficulty, he nodded once.
A small victory.
* * *
They were seated with the tea tray arranged before them in his father’s study. It was his study now, as was everything that had once belonged to his father: this mansion, the servants, all the troubles he’d stirred up like rats let loose in a storehouse.
Like rats, the problems gnawed away at what remained bit by bit. Like rats, they multiplied.
Yan Ling scooped the tea leaves into the special enamel cups. Her hand trembled slightly as she lifted the pot of steaming water. That small break brought him back to himself. These problems weren’t meant for her or the other servants. He was wrong to involve all of them.
‘I apologise for my anger,’ he said.
He had been completely stricken senseless by the sight of his father’s young concubine shaved bald. Even the thought of such foolishness made his pulse rise once more.
Steam rose from the cups and Yan Ling gently placed the lids over them to let the leaves steep. She sat back with her hands in her lap.
Her fingers twined together. ‘Lady Min came to me last night—’
‘We should speak of other things,’ he interrupted.
‘I think her intentions were well meaning.’
He let out a slow breath. She wasn’t going to spare him this shame. ‘How is bringing scandal upon this house well meaning?’ he asked. ‘Lady Min has no reason to complain. She was once a servant in our household before my father made her his concubine.’
Fei Long’s own father had always let his passionate nature get the best of him. Shame soured his stomach once again. It was impossible to hide such personal family matters from Yan Ling while she lived here among them.
‘She isn’t complaining. Lady Min praised your father as a generous and joyful man.’
‘Do you know how this looks? First my sister, Pearl, runs away, then Lady Min shaves her head to become a nun to escape. There is no discipline in this house. No harmony.’
‘It is this woman’s humble opinion—’
He raised an eyebrow at that. It was one of the phrases he’d introduced during their daily lessons and now she was wielding it. He didn’t know whether to be pleased or irritated that she was putting it to practice to placate him.
‘—that the women of this household may have enjoyed a certain freedom under your father’s most generous care.’
He could see how she struggled with the words. How they lingered on her tongue, a bite too large to swallow easily.
‘The lady came to me yesterday and asked for my help,’ Yan Ling blurted out. She looked exhausted from speaking so delicately. ‘I think she didn’t want to be a burden, that was all.’
She was trying valiantly and his heart softened. ‘What do you suggest?’ he asked.
‘Being a nun can’t be the easiest life. Let the lady do as she’s chosen and the good energy from it may come back to you.’
‘Karma?’ he offered.
She looked relieved. ‘Yes. Karma.’
He leaned back, considering her argument. The difficult matter wasn’t that his father’s concubine now wished to become a Buddhist nun or that Pearl had been so devastated by being sent to a foreign lord that she went against duty and honour to run away. What Yan Ling could never understand was that he was responsible for all of them. Min had been utterly devoted to his father, yet she had gone to a stranger first to try to solve her problems. And his sister had become desperate enough to run away after he’d disregarded her plea for help. He was a failure at holding this household together.
‘Will you abandon me as well?’ he asked tonelessly.
She frowned. ‘I don’t understand, my lord.’
His throat closed tight and he had to force out the words. ‘Our arrangement is an unusual one. I have no assurance you won’t decide one day that it’s no longer worth the sacrifice.’
If Yan Ling suddenly ran away like Pearl and Min, he’d be left with nothing. The family name would fall completely to ruin. Fei Long had also put his hopes on an outsider. The uncertainty left him vulnerable and darkened his spirit. The shadow of it had hovered over him during their journey and it clung to him now. This was the closest he’d ever come to admitting this fear to her.
‘Is our arrangement what you truly want, Yan Ling? We have at least been honest with one another. If you have any doubt, tell me now.’
‘I have no doubt, my lord.’
He didn’t believe her. Her voice hitched and she ran the tip of her tongue over her lip before biting into it.
‘Don’t do that,’ he reminded gently. She stopped this time.
‘I have no doubt about this,’ she repeated with more iron behind the words. ‘I’ll see this through to the end. I swear it.’
The tension in his shoulders eased. He’d been right about Yan Ling. She was a practical, logical woman. They were partners in this. Only she was audacious enough to carry out the ruse and she wouldn’t abandon him.
She fidgeted as his gaze lingered. ‘The tea is ready,’ she deflected. ‘Let us drink.’
They enjoyed their tea for a few peaceful moments. The stillness was welcome after all the drama that morning. A careful tap on the door interrupted the silence, but by then the throbbing in his skull had settled.
‘Old Man Liang. Come in.’
His father’s steward entered in a black robe and cap. He carried a thick ledger book, almost larger than he was, with a wooden abacus balanced on top. Liang had always been there at his father’s side, older than time. And he’d always looked the same: same thin nose, same tapered beard hanging down to his breastbone. The widening bands of grey in it seemed to be his only signs of ageing.
Liang paused at the sight of Yan Ling. Fei Long had already explained her role to all of the servants as well as the old steward. That had been accomplished in the morning before his confrontation with Lady Min. They also knew that discretion was most important.
‘Enquire today at the Temple of the Peaceful Lotus,’ he told Liang. ‘Tell the abbess that Lady Min wishes to join them and prepare a donation of alms to the temple.’
Across from him, Yan Ling straightened. Her eyes lit with surprise.
‘I’ll go tell Lady Min.’ She set her tea down and rose to her feet.
Excitement brought a vibrant glow to her cheeks and he refrained from admonishing her for ending the meeting without taking proper leave. At least she remembered to bow to Liang, before rushing out the door.
He still had much work to do with her.
Fei Long got up to move to the desk. He and the steward had planned to go over all of the accounts that morning, without the protective smoothing over of details that Liang had practised with his father. It was poor etiquette to give bad news plainly, but Fei Long needed to know the truth about the family finances.
