Qiu Yue blinked and smiled back. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad after all.
*~*~*
It turned out to be much worse.
The magistrate of the mountain was introduced by a round-faced servant before he entered the room. It was something like Wei Len or Wei Jing, something that was quite appropriately pompous, and Qiu Yue was glad to have her eyes downcast, holding herself still and quiet as the magistrate himself swept into the room.
Like the merchant who had brought her here, he was tall and very thin, with a pinched sort of face and a hunch to his shoulders. Every now and then he would force them to straightness, as if he had caught himself, but as he grew distracted, they pulled up again, closer and closer to his ears. Something about the way his head wove and bobbed on his neck reminded Qiu Yue of a bird leaning back to make himself appear taller. He dressed in long fine robes that dragged against the floor as he moved, all black except for where they had been embroidered with both gold and silver thread. A long thin mustache with drooping ends sat over his upper lip; looking at it, Qiu Yue could guess exactly why the merchant had grown his out.
"And you think you have something to offer me?" he asked. His voice was deeper than his frame would suggest, though it was strained and rough, as if he were trying to force it deeper still. It made him sound a bit like a frog.
Qiu Yue bowed low. The merchant had coached her on that much, at least. She kept her head lowered and her eyes downcast, and this also had the benefit of hiding the disgust in her expression. Did this man really think that he could have whatever he liked, from whatever woman he desired? There were men in her village who were arrogant enough, who disliked to share the work with others because they believed they were somehow entitled to easier work than the rest, but even they could not begin to scratch the depths of what she could see before her.
"I am very sturdy, honorable lord," she said. "I have worked hard all my life, and I know the value of an honest day's effort. I can cook, sir, and I can clean. I can repair most anything that you might find around a home. I know the paths of the forest well."
"The forest?" The magistrate turned; she could see the sweep of his clothes as he came closer to her. He'd been drenched with perfume at some point and it was enough to make her eyes sting. "Is that where you came from?"
"Yes, honorable lord."
"What rubbish." He swept away again, and she wondered how long he'd rehearsed the move so that the heavy train of his clothes moved smoothly and gracefully with him. "The forest is full of nothing but superstitious creatures, creeping and scraping, as if they could do any better for themselves. Hah! How ridiculous. I don't know what you were even thinking."
Qiu Yue gritted her teeth and kept silent. She was glad that her own hands were out of sight, pressed against her breast; he could not see the way she was making fists. He looked so thin, like he'd done no amount of physical work in his life. To look at him, she wasn't certain if he did a whole lot of his actual work, either. Perhaps he spent his days practicing how to walk and how to pose himself to look intimidating. One good sharp blow would probably fell him. The thought pleased her enough to smile, and she kept her lips pressed closed over her teeth to soften the look.
"However," the magistrate said. He paused at that, clearly waiting, but Qiu Yue gave it a few seconds before she answered obediently:
"However?"
"There is something that I am interested in." He came closer, and he took her chin in hand to tilt it up. His fingers were cool and slightly clammy to the touch and Qiu Yue fought down a shudder of revulsion. They were so soft—like an infant's hands! She looked up in his face, and his breath was cool and sour against her cheek. It took her a moment to realize he was waiting for her again, but she kept her lips pressed shut this time, watching the irritation flicker over his face before he was forced to continue:
"I will consider you if you will complete three simple tasks for me. If you are as hard a worker as you say you are, they should be no trouble for you."
The tone of his voice sat poorly with Qiu Yue, but she nodded and she kept her expression smooth and sweet as she said, "Please tell me, O honorable lord."
*~*~*
The room that was given to her, as a potential bride vying for the magistrate's hand, was far more lavish than she would have expected. The size of it was nearly as large as the home where she had grown up—the bedrooms and the common area and the kitchen altogether. The floor had been laid with close-grained planks of bamboo that was both soft and smooth under her feet. There was a door that opened into the hallway itself, into the rest of the house, and one that opened into the gardens. Looking at those gardens, Qiu Yue could guess how lovely they would be in their proper time, but as it was, they simply seemed dead and shriveled now, closed in and brittle.
A bedroll was laid out, and she ran her fingers along the blanket. It was rougher than the clothes she wore, but still finer than the bedclothes she used back home. She wondered if Xiao Dan was doing well, and whether or not Li Hua was taking proper care of him.
There was also a trunk waiting for her when she arrived. When she opened it, she found more clothes, similar in style to what she currently wore. She had not seen the merchant since she'd first been led to the waiting room, and she wondered if she would see him again anytime soon.
After she had examined the whole of the contents of the trunk, she closed it back up and opened the door that led out into the garden. She sat down in the doorway despite the cold, and she folded her hands in her lap.
He will give you a room. I will find you in it.
She had expected to wait for some time—after all, the fox had left her even before they'd made it to the inn where she'd changed and Song had done her hair—but it was no more than fifteen minutes before she caught a familiar flash of bright warm red among all the garden's withered skeletons. Despite herself, she felt like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She leaned forward and held out a hand as the fox trotted to her, then hopped neatly up to sit beside her.
"So, tell me what he wants," the fox said.
Qiu Yue pulled her feet back and drew the door shut. "He has three tasks," she said.
"First, in that garden there: there are two nests of hornets that have made their home. He wants to see how well I dance among them. If I am at all stung, I will be disqualified."
"Oh, so I see," said the fox.
"He wants me then to show how good of a cook I am, by preparing a meal that could bring tears to his mother's eyes. She is old and she no longer quite so aware of the world. She might have shed all the tears that life has allotted to her, I've been told."
"Oh, so I see," said the fox.
"And finally," said Qiu Yue, who was now a little annoyed at the fox's repetition, "he says that if I know the ways of the mountain so well, I should find the lost name of the fox-god, and tell it to him."
She stared at the fox, expecting her to repeat that phrase again. Instead, the fox opened her mouth and laughed. It went on for far longer, long enough that Qiu Yue found herself almost nervous—and then, abruptly, it cut off. The fox scratched at one ear a moment, then made another deep chesty sound.
"That will be the easiest of them all," she said. "I am a fox, and we all know the name. But we'll save that one. He thinks it will be the most difficult, and it wouldn't do any good if he learned your advantage now. Very well. The others will be simple enough as well. Once all the pieces are in place, you'll be able to have what you want." It turned its head to look at Qiu Yue with its bright unblinking eyes. "With this, then, our debt is resolved."
"I don't want to be the magistrate's wife," Qiu Yue said. It came out of her instead of the agreement she had meant and she went red for a moment with the humiliation. "I just want to be able to help my brother. I don't want to trade one problem for another."
The fox looked surprised at that—or as surprised as she could, with her sharp vulpine features. "Oh, no. It will resolve itself fine. I promise."
&nb
sp; "Fine," Qiu Yue said. "What does that even mean?"
The fox turned her head and pressed her nose to Qiu Yue's fingers. It was cool and damp to the touch, and after a moment, despite herself, Qiu Yue turned her hand so she could stroke the length of the fox's muzzle.
"It means that you'll be happy," the fox said. "Do you think I would repay my debt so poorly? Put your faith in me. I've carried you this far, and things have gone as I've said, haven't they?"
"They have." She was reluctant, but she could hardly argue that point.
"They will continue to," the fox said. "I swear to you that, on the debt that I owe you. Eat well of the food they bring you; it will not be poisoned. Sleep well in the bed they have given you; it will hold you comfortably. And tomorrow morning, leave it to me."
Qiu Yue frowned, but she continued to stroke the fox's muzzle, and she said, "All right."
*~*~*
In the morning, Qiu Yue opened her eyes and found herself confronted with her own face.
She had done as the fox had instructed her the night before, and eaten well of the meal provided to her—like the room, it had been finer than she had expected, given the magistrate's disdain of her—and then she had gone to bed shortly after. Her sleep had been deep and dreamless, and when she awoke, she found herself kneeling beside her bed, dressed in some of the fine clothes that the merchant had given her.
Only it wasn't quite the same: she hadn't filled them in quite the same way. Even with the help of a maidservant, she hadn't been able to make the folds lie so smooth and flat. There were more folds to it than anything Qiu Yue had ever seen before, all of it flowing down the curves of her body like water. And there was certainly no way she could have done her hair up again in the same fashion that Song had done for her. Or rather, it was finer still, in fact, with strips of silk ribbon and tassels of jewels that sparkled against the dark richness of her—her?—hair. There was a smile on the other her's lips that was small and mysterious and beguiling... and at the same time, utterly familiar.
"You," she said in shock.
"Me," said the fox, and inclined her head. Qiu Yue's head. Even the sound of her voice had changed: where the fox's voice before had been low and rough before, now it was higher, sweeter, and Qiu Yue wondered if that was what she sounded like. Surely not. "As I promised you, I'll handle this. The first task today is the dance, isn't it?"
"It is," Qiu Yue said. "Out in the dead garden, where there are hornets."
"Hornets are easy," the fox said. "You will have breakfast with the magistrate. He will have you change into finer clothes for your dance with him, so he will send you back to this room. When that time comes, I will go in your place."
"He'll notice," Qiu Yue said with a frown.
"He won't," the fox said. She smiled. "Trust me on this. Now here. I'll help you dress."
She had picked out something from the merchant's pack that was similar in style to what she was wearing, though certainly less elaborate. She dressed Qiu Yue with gentle hands, and her touch was even more deft and easy than Song's had been, the day before. Qiu Yue submitted to all of this without protest, but she could feel her cheeks start to burn as she sat there with her head bowed and her nape exposed, sitting quietly as the fox brushed her hair and pinned it up.
"Was I meant to have a servant to do this for me?" she asked finally, as the last of the pins were being slid into place amidst the heaviness of her hair.
"You were," said the fox. "But in a household like this, orders can be lost so easily. Don't worry. The girl who was meant to come to you won't be punished."
"I wasn't worried about that," Qiu Yue said quickly, though she couldn't hide the way her shoulders relaxed, or the deeper breath she took.
The fox just laughed and pulled at her shoulders, drawing her up to her feet and handing her a bronze mirror. Qiu Yue glanced at it briefly, and to her surprise, she found that she perfectly matched the fox now, in grace and poise, so long as she held still. "You're a kindhearted person. I've learned that much about you. She will be fine, and in her place, you will have me."
Something about the way she said it made Qiu Yue's breath catch in her throat. It was surely not meant to be suggestive, but she turned her head away regardless.
"I suppose I will," she said, and she rose to go to breakfast with the magistrate.
The meal was quiet and strained; the magistrate acted distracted, alternating between a smug satisfaction whenever he glanced at Qiu Yue, and a deeper sort of irritation, like there was some itch that he could not quite reach. He barely spoke to her throughout, and Qiu Yue found herself relieved. She kept her head low and ate with the best dainty manners she could, mimicking the old woman seated beside her—the magistrate's mother, she was certain—and just watched what she could of the other servants. They gave the magistrate a wide berth whenever possible, and they walked with the same skittering, nervous movements of frightened animals.
At the end of the meal, the magistrate said, "Go and make yourself appropriate. I am eager to see you dance. I think it will aid in my digestion."
He leered as he said it, and his gaze swept from Qiu Yue's eyes to her breasts. She wanted to stare. Part of her was amazed that such a man could exist outside of stories. Was this what her life had become?
Instead, though, she bowed low, keeping her eyes downcast. "Of course, my lord," she murmured, and she did not lift her gaze from her feet until she'd left his presence. She was more relieved than she wanted to admit to return to her room and find the fox there, seated with grace and poise by the open door out to the gardens. The fox looked over as Qiu Yue entered the room, and she smiled that wicked smile that she'd flashed so often as a fox. It was far more distracting like this. For all that Qiu Yue knew they looked alike, she found it hard to believe in her heart. She wasn't so lovely; she was certain of that.
"You don't need to do anything more for now," the fox said. She rose to her feet and took Qiu Yue's hands, drawing her over to sit where she had been a moment before. Once she was arranged, the fox drew a thin veil over her, settling it so that it covered Qiu Yue's face. It was pale gray in color, almost white, and it only added a faint mist to her vision, nothing more.
"If you keep this in place," she said, "then you will be able to watch, and no one will notice you here. If you'd like. If not, then do as you like. Play, or sleep, or go walking like a ghost. Just be certain not to drop the veil, or to let anyone touch you. It will keep you safe."
"Would I even be able to see from here?" Qiu Yue asked. She lifted her head to watch the fox, and though the fox looked like her, she looked also far more beautiful than Qiu Yue knew she would ever be. Some part of her wondered if she should resent that, but she found herself only admiring, instead. "I'd like to see you dance."
The fox blinked at that, and then she ducked her head. It was a coy sort of gesture, but her smile looked genuine and pleased. "If you do, then come with me. I will dance for you, not for him; but he won't notice the difference. And that will be fine. It will be enough for the two of us."
Her voice was warm as she said it. Qiu Yue's cheeks went equally warm. She found herself smiling back, and when the fox held out her hand, Qiu Yue took it.
*~*~*
The magistrate's garden was larger than it looked from Qiu Yue's guest room, and she found she was glad that she had chosen to follow. They ended up on the far side of the estate from that room, through a number of identical-seeming hallways. She was certain she would have gotten lost otherwise. She walked carefully close behind the fox, and was grateful that the servants kept their distance from them as they had from the magistrate. His mother came as well, along with a small handful of other girls. Looking at them, Qiu Yue guessed that they were other potential brides, come to observe their rival dance. The merchant was there as well, and that was both a surprise and not; she hadn't seen him since that first day, and she'd wondered if he would still be around—for his "investment" or otherwise.
The magistrate had done a
double take when he'd seen the fox as Qiu Yue; his eyes went wide and his jaw dropped a moment, hanging for a couple of seconds before he managed to correct himself. Suddenly, his manner was far warmer and friendlier than at breakfast or the day before. He tried to come closer, as if to put a hand on her arm, but the fox delicately sidestepped him, with the grace to make it seem like the natural shift of one's body. It was enough to humiliate him into not trying again, but he still watched her with an open, hungry covetousness that made Qiu Yue frown at him through her veil.
But if he wanted her more now, he still did not take back his ridiculous request. They stepped out into the cold late morning, and the magistrate led them out to a part of the garden where tall empty trees stood, their naked branches thrust to the sky. Qiu Yue heard the hornets before she saw them, a low angry buzzing noise that made the skin on the back of her neck prickle. The nests were huge—larger than she'd ever seen before—and it was telling, she thought, that the magistrate stopped and waved the fox to go on ahead.
The fox turned and flashed a smile over her shoulder. The magistrate drew himself up, and the other girls gasped. She looked beautiful and graceful standing there, framed by the empty trees and the pale cold light of the winter sun. The beady eyes of the magistrate were glowing, and there was even a bit of a flush to his thin cheeks, but Qiu Yue knew that the fox was looking past all of them, straight to her.
"As you want me," she said, "here I am."
She bowed to them low. A wind passed through the branches, making them quiver, and the hornets rose out of their nests in a thick cloud. The entire audience took a step back as one, including Qiu Yue; whatever magic was in the fox's veil, she did not know if it extended to the rage of a hornet.
The fox, on the other hand, was unconcerned. She rose gracefully from her bow, the movement as fluid as water over smooth stones. She tilted her head, as if listening to something—perhaps the sound of music, played only in her imagination.
Fairytales Slashed: Volume 8 Page 10
