My Fair Concubine (23 page)

Today his mind was anything but clear. He thought of Zōu and his smug look. The two million cash in debt hanging over his head. He thought of the family home where he and his sister were born. If he sold it and moved away, Pearl would never know where to find them. And he thought of Yan Ling.

More than once, she’d pulled him away from the brink of ruin because she was stubborn, where he was patient. She was impetuous, where he was forbearing. He believed everyone should fulfil his duty. She believed that everyone should go one better.

‘Houyi!’

It took him a moment to realise that Bai Shen was yelling at him.

‘They’re going to disqualify you if you don’t shoot.’

Fei Long lifted an arrow. He was just setting his eyes on the target, that was all.

He aimed and fired. Just like his opponent, he took the two targets on the right with ease. The wound had started to throb, pulsing at his side as a reminder of weakness. He sucked in a breath and pulled through the pain to claim the next target.

The fourth one was a challenge. He took his time centring it in his sight. His aim was steady. He timed his breathing, slowed his heartbeat. The moment he released, a sharp twinge made him double over. The arrow flew foul, with no grace to speak of as it loped into the grass.

The crowd groaned, jeered, swore. The bookies went mad. New odds were frantically cast, all while Fei Long clutched at his side and gulped in air. Off to the side, the Bull looked like he was ready to snort with rage. If Fei Long had been in a speaking mood, he would have told Zōu something about karma.

Bai Shen came to kneel beside him. His eyebrows raised sharply with concern as he put a hand on Fei Long’s shoulder. ‘Do you need to rest? I can try to delay them.’

‘No.’ Fei Long rose slowly. ‘No, let’s do this now.’

The pain would only get worse. He took his stance and faced off against the tenth Sun. Bai Shen backed away and the crowd hushed once again, all bets final.

Eight out of ten. He was at a draw, but for him that was the same as a loss. The terms were that he needed to win.

He’d seen how the other archer had performed on this target. His arrow had flown straight, propelled with all his strength, but it had fallen short. Fei Long couldn’t pull much harder, not with his body in agony.

In the legend of Houyi, the tenth Sun was the one that remained. Zōu and his crony had placed the last target far enough to taunt them. It wasn’t meant to be attainable. Not with this bow and his strength on this day, but he couldn’t give up yet.

Fei Long sighted the target and pulled back as far as he could, bending the bow until the wood creaked. Every muscle within him strained. His ribs screamed, but he could endure it for a single release. He had no other choice. If he shot straight, absolutely straight, and the arrow was blessed by wind and air—

He paused, lowering the bow and releasing the tension with the arrow still in place. He’d shot this far before in infantry drills, but it wasn’t precision shooting. The purpose of the infantry was to let loose a rain of arrows.

All instinct left him in the wake of the pain. He tried to push the ache to the back of his mind, tried to draw forth the training and knowledge within him. The tenth Sun mocked him across the field as he reassessed the distance. The mask around his face became unbearably hot and stifling.

Fei Long straightened and sighted again. With a silent tribute to Houyi, he angled the bow upwards and let the arrow fly.

Chapter Twenty-Two

F
ei Long tracked the path of the arrow as it soared across the park. He measured its speed and decline and somehow he knew. He turned his back on the target and started walking.

Bai Shen continued to stare down the field, transfixed.

‘Come on.’ Fei Long didn’t pause as he passed him. He hooked the bow over his shoulder and lengthened his stride. The jubilant roar of the crowd confirmed what instinct had already told him.

The arrow had hit its mark.

‘Let’s go,’ he called to Bai Shen, louder this time.

Zōu was up on his feet, grinning as if he’d held the bow himself. The Bull met his eyes and clapped his hands in acknowledgement. His debt was settled.

The crowd was coming alive behind him. He had to get out of there, away from the revellers and well-wishers while his identity was still hidden. At the edge of the park, he broke into a run. Bai Shen caught up to him.

‘A truly humble man!’ The actor laughed, keeping pace beside him. ‘Not even staying to steep in the glory.’

They ran out into the streets and ducked into an alleyway. Fei Long’s entire left side burned. He clenched his jaw and forced himself to breathe through it. The competition had pushed him to his limit.

‘Fei Long!’

He knew that voice. He turned to see Yan Ling flying towards him.

‘You were wonderful!’

He caught her in his arms and she squeezed him hard. Too hard. He winced, but held on to her, feeling her soft curves moulded against him. Nothing would make him let go.

‘So wonderful,’ she murmured, tugging the scarf away from his face.

Her eyes shone as she looked upon him, and he decided she was perfect just like that, safe in his arms, wearing that oversized robe that always failed to disguise her.

Bai Shen beamed. Dao scowled. And the chaotic noise coming from the street meant that the crowd from the park was spilling out onto the city.

‘They want their champion,’ Bai Shen warned. ‘You baited them with that mask.’

The four of them set off, crossing and weaving through the busy streets like a pack of wayward demons. Bai Shen let out a whoop of triumph. A sense of lightness filled Fei Long, lifting him as his feet flew over the paved streets. The pain receded into the background. He hadn’t felt this way since he’d been a boy, running with no destination through a city that never ended.

The weight of debt and ruin had finally been removed. There was only one thing left that kept him from soaring to the heavens. He slowed his pace so that Yan Ling was beside him. Her cap had fallen off and her hair flew behind her.

He hadn’t allowed himself to dream about this until he won. And he’d just won.

Fei Long laughed. He was breathing hard and it would have been easier to run if he weren’t laughing, but he couldn’t help himself.

* * *

By the time they reached the mansion, they were all out of breath. Yan Ling and Dao disappeared through the gate and he could hear Yan proclaiming his victory to Old Man Liang. Fei Long started to enter as well, but Bai Shen halted at the threshold, still refusing to go inside.

‘Come on, you scoundrel,’ Fei Long said as he tried to catch his breath. ‘That’s not necessary any more.’

Bai Shen folded his arms stubbornly. ‘You know what has to be done.’

Fei Long sighed, wiping a hand over his brow. ‘I most humbly apologise to you, Li Bai Shen, for any unkind words or consequences I caused you to suffer.’

‘Ah, very well said. Thank you, my lord.’ Instead of coming in, Bai Shen grinned and turned to go, lifting his hand in farewell. He strode down the lane as if the day were his. ‘Come see my next performance at the Pear Blossom Gardens and bring that charming attendant of yours. I’m playing the Monkey King.’

His voice faded with the distance. Fei Long watched him until Bai Shen disappeared around the corner.

Old Man Liang greeted him in the courtyard. ‘Is it true, son?’

Fei Long nodded, a bit embarrassed by the overt pride in the steward’s eyes.

‘Ha, well done! Well done.’ Liang patted his shoulder. ‘Everyone went to see you,’ he explained, seeing how Fei Long scanned the courtyard from corner to corner. ‘Huibin said he was going to place a wager, but I told him you wouldn’t like that.’

He only listened vaguely to the old man’s report while he searched the courtyard for Yan Ling. The two women had disappeared completely into the recesses of the house. They’d probably gone inside to change out of their disguises. He loosened the scarf from around his neck and used it to dry his face. Perhaps he should wash up a bit as well before speaking to her.

He had to do it quickly. In mere days, the ambassador and an escort of court-appointed attendants would come to take Yan Ling away. The first part of the plan was to get her to agree to stay, the next part he had yet to figure out.

Doubt besieged him. She’d already refused him once before. Had the situation changed enough for her to reconsider?

He would have to face the wrath of the imperial court when there was no princess to send to Khitan. The family name would be scarred. Minister Cao, who had been their benefactor all these years, would shun them.

Fei Long was prepared to endure all of it. There were worse things than losing face. He’d decided this when Yan Ling had put him in his place back in the park. Saving face was only important for protecting the people he cared for. What use was honor, when he would live for ever in regret? If he let her go to Khitan, he would save face, but he would lose hope.

This was one time where couldn’t fulfil his duty to the Emperor. He had no right to sacrifice Yan Ling. He’d never had the right. He’d only made every effort to convince himself that he did. She would be a princess, he’d told her. No longer a lowly tea girl with tables to clean and customers to please. And she’d believed him. Yan Ling had listened and absorbed every lesson he’d fed her. If that wasn’t an abuse of privilege, he didn’t know what was.

Could she accept him now, with all the hardship and uncertainty that lay ahead? More importantly, would he be worthy of her when his name and honour were gone?

* * *

Yan Ling waited in the garden of the local temple with Dao beside her. The arrangement was a tranquil one with a pond at the centre and a small grove of peach trees. Lady Min had chosen the location for the simple beauty of its garden.

‘Don’t lose focus,’ Dao warned her. The girl had resumed her role as a stern-faced chaperone as soon as they’d returned from the match.

‘I am focused,’ Yan Ling promised.

She focused on how Fei Long had looked when he’d wrapped his arms around her. For a brief moment, the boundaries between them had disappeared. He’d held her in daylight, without fear, as if she were precious. As if she belonged to him.

‘I know I have to go soon,’ Yan Ling said, agitated. ‘Can’t you let me dream just a little until then?’

‘Dreams are dangerous. They make you forget what’s real.’

Khitan wasn’t real, Yan Ling insisted stubbornly. Changan was real. Fei Long was real. Even Dao with her disapproving scowl was more real than the Khitan barbarian she was supposed to marry.

‘I’ll miss you, Dao.’

Dao made an impatient noise, but she relented. ‘I’ll miss you, too.’

‘Write me letters, all right? Make those imperial messengers ride all the way across the steppes to deliver them.’

‘Of course.’

Fei Long had taught her so much and so had Dao. This was her only way to repay them. Maybe it was being in the temple that made her so reflective.

Fei Long hadn’t asked her to stay with him again, and even if he did, Dao was right. She would be a servant or a favoured concubine at best. She would have done so happily—until Fei Long took a wife. Then she would be relegated to the far corner of the house to be forgotten, her spirit crushed.

Better for everyone that she fulfilled her purpose in the peace marriage. Still, she hoped Fei Long would miss her for a long, long time. No, she didn’t want him to find happiness elsewhere. She hoped to become a wound in his heart that wouldn’t heal.

‘Yan!’ Dao reprimanded.

‘What?’

‘You looked so malicious right then. This is a Buddhist temple, you know.’

They hushed as a nun in plain grey robes, head shaven, stepped out into the garden. She shuffled toward them in her sandals, then stopped, pressing her hands together and bowing from the waist. ‘Greetings, my ladies.’

Dao blinked twice, her eyes opening wide. ‘Lady Min?’

Min bowed again, but this time her smile was unmistakable. ‘I’m so happy you came. Miss Yan Ling, you’re so pretty now!’ the once lady, now nun, exclaimed. She hugged them both and led them to a mat set out before the statue of Guanyin. ‘So what is this about an archery match? Tell me everything!’

Dao took over the tale, speaking in a hushed, yet excited tone. Lady Min listened with childlike interest, laughing aloud when Dao described the final shot that would certainly become legend. Several grim-faced nuns walked by on the garden path and regarded them sternly before continuing on.

‘I’m too loud still, but I’m learning,’ Min said.

Yan Ling was certain Dao had brought her to the temple to keep her away from the house and away from Fei Long, but now that she was here, she was glad. Lady Min had been the first friend she’d made in the city, though it had been a short acquaintance.

‘At first I couldn’t stop touching my head,’ Min chattered on, as if starved for conversation. ‘Once I asked for a mirror and everyone stared at me. I thought I would be sent home that very moment, but the abbess is very tolerant. She looks at me very tolerantly every time she sees me. I do sometimes look into that fish pond over there just to check my reflection,’ she confessed.

They laughed together, hands held to their mouths to muffle the sound. Min looked content and Yan Ling was certain she still laughed every day. They said their farewells and Min again broke formalities to hug each of them. ‘Come visit me again.’

‘I’ll actually be leaving soon.’ Sadness hooked around her heart as she said it. ‘To Khitan.’

‘Oh! Oh, yes…like Pearl.’

Not like Pearl. Pearl had escaped with the man she loved. But Yan Ling was much more practical, as Fei Long had pointed out.

She should have run away with him that morning in the park, even if they had only made it to the ward gates before Fei Long came to his senses and insist they turn around. It would have been nice to be recklessly free for one small moment. She could remember that Fei Long had felt that impassioned once, with her.

Yan Ling squeezed the bridge of her nose to keep from tearing up. If Dao asked about her sorrowful look, she’d explain it away as the sadness of Lady Min’s departure, though Yan Ling had hardly known the lady long enough to weep for her.

* * *

That night’s dinner was a feast. They couldn’t celebrate Fei Long’s triumph with the rest of the city, but Old Man Liang purchased a roast pig from the butcher and the kitchen servants had been hard at work as soon as they returned. Everyone was drunk on their master’s victory.

The entire household gathered in the banquet room for the meal. The panel doors were thrown open and additional
tables and chairs were assembled in the courtyard so the feast could include everyone in the mansion. The tables were then loaded with plates of vegetables and platters of whole fried fish. Steamed buns were piled high to form a pyramid and you couldn’t extend your arm without encountering a flask of wine. Everyone ate and talked and ate. It truly was a family in every way but blood.

Yan Ling tried to put on a good face. She took a morsel off every platter, but she could only pick listlessly at the meal. Fei Long sat at the head of the table and each man tried to get him to drink with them. Even the stable boy tried to ply him with wine, to everyone’s amusement. As usual, Fei Long endured the taunts and enjoyed his tea.

Despite the laughter all around him, he barely broke a smile. He met her eyes once across the table and his look appeared weighted with thought, but she couldn’t read anything deeper from it. Her keen ability to identify Fei Long’s subtle moods failed her at this most critical time.

Midway through the meal, she gave up and stopped forcing herself to smile and laugh. It was impossible to speak to Fei Long alone. Everyone wanted his attention tonight. She’d heard the same story from ten different viewpoints about how Fei Long had won the match.

She sipped at a cup of wine and her face went hot, as she’d expected. Maybe she was hoping Fei Long would comment about it as he’d done after the play. Everything she did was a line, cast out into the ocean, trying to reach out to him from across the crowded room. All of her efforts failed.

Finally, she bid farewell to everyone. She was tired, she said. The day had been a long one. No one looked twice as she slipped away. Instead of returning to her chamber, Yan Ling went to the beloved study. It was dark inside and she moved about the room, lighting the lanterns. With all of them glowing, the study almost appeared the way she knew it—by the light of the afternoon sun as the day slowly waned.

She looked to the empty place where her writing desk once stood and her spirit shattered. The desk had been moved against the wall in the corner. She had been cast aside as well.

Yan Ling went behind Fei Long’s desk and ran her hand along the intricate carvings along the back of his chair. There was a worn spot over the arm where his elbow rested. She sat down and touched her fingers to the smooth, bared wood.

Something had been bothering her for a while. The last time she’d been in Fei Long’s study at night, it had been so dark she could barely see. They had needed to forge papers to get through the ward gates. When she had fumbled through Fei Long’s desk to search for the jade seal, she’d found something else as well. They had been so worried about Fei Long that night that she didn’t have time to investigate.

She pulled the drawer open now, almost afraid of what she would find. More afraid of what she wouldn’t find.

The stack of papers was near the top. They’d been shoved haplessly inside, which she wouldn’t have expected of Fei Long. Holding her breath, she dug the papers out and laid them onto the desk. Her fingers shook as she separated the pages to spread them out.