The Hand, the Eye and the Heart Read online

  “Strange.” Sui shrugged it off and asked, “Why aren’t you with your friend, then – Yang Jie, isn’t it?”

  “I was looking for him just now, sir. I seem to have missed him.”

  “Well, you can find him easily enough,” he said dryly. “I overheard him ten minutes ago talking about some special fancy woman in the northern quarter he’d saved up enough to visit. Apparently she’s famous for a trick with ripe peaches? He wouldn’t go with the others to the wine house I recommended.”

  I knew I was gawping at him, but I couldn’t have controlled my expression, or kept it from affecting my mask, for all the gold in the Land of Clouds. “He what? Yang Jie said that?”

  “I admit it seemed a little out of character. But apparently his older brother made a bet with him before he left, and he was determined to see this woman.” The sergeant paused, eyebrows rising. “Are you all right?”

  “He’s never been out of his village before. And his older brothers hate him. It’s probably some kind of awful joke. He’s going to get himself fleeced. Or beaten. Or taken advantage of. Or all three, one after the other…” I said numbly.

  “Surely not,” Sui said, deadpan. “They could probably undertake at least the first two simultaneously.”

  “Sir!” I cried, horrified.

  “Don’t drown yourself in a bucket, young one,” he said kindly. “I know he looks like an infant, but he’s the same age as you, and he’s surprisingly tough. I’m sure whatever he gets up to will only leave him wiser.”

  Not if it gets him killed! “I think I’d better go and check on him, sir.”

  “Well, if you think it best,” he said with a suggestive smile. “It’s your afternoon off, after all. But remember – never pay in advance. Half up front, half afterwards.”

  I bit back a sharp retort, obtained the name of the place Yang Jie had mentioned – the House of the Golden Moons – and headed out of the barracks into the city with a salute, fuming. What was Yang Jie thinking? It wasn’t like him to let one of his brothers provoke him into acting like a fool. It was completely out of character! And he had never mentioned any such bet or any such woman to me.

  And what if you stumble on him, not being robbed, but being deflowered? a sly voice asked in the back of my mind. He is a soldier boy, after all. They do that sort of thing.

  Then I – I’ll just apologize and – find something else to do, I told myself grimly. But somehow I suspect that’s not what’s going to happen.

  My suspicions were confirmed when I entered the colourful northern quarter, official home to the city’s dancing girls, courtesans and less salubrious prostitutes, and discovered that the address Yang Jie had been given was false. Not only had there never been any such house, but the quarter held no woman who did “a trick with ripe peaches”, although it cost me some embarrassment to ask the giggling girls who did occupy the locality to make sure.

  So where was Yang Jie?

  “Forget your friend,” the young woman I’d been speaking to said with a smile. She ran one finger down my arm, the bright silks of her robe whispering over the back of my hand, sending up a whirl of rather cloying, musky perfume. “I’m sure he’s having a fine time. Let me give you a night to remember as well. Special rates for our brave fighting men.”

  “Thank you for the offer,” I said gravely. “I’m sure it would be very memorable for both of us” – what an understatement! – “but I really must find Yang Jie.”

  She pouted for a second, then offered a surprisingly sweet smile. “Well, if you find him, bring him back here. Special rates for friends!”

  I cleared my throat, feeling strangely overheated, and hurried away to check on another place the girl had mentioned, the House of the Golden Crescent. It was possible Sui had got the name muddled up.

  After several fruitless – well, in terms of the right kind of fruit, anyway – hours, evening was beginning to draw in and the northern quarter’s colourful lanterns were being lit, one by one, illuminating the growing shadows like glow-worms. The talkative ladies who had been draped artistically around their porches earlier to attract customers during the slow hours had either withdrawn with their company to their boudoirs, or were now busy preparing for their evening’s work – dancing, singing, serving alcohol, and entertaining. The streets became strangely bare in the twilight and, despite the scarlet paper lanterns strung above the streets, the cheerful lights shining through window screens and door frames, and the muffled sounds of laughter, voices and music, it felt lonely and cheerless.

  I finally admitted to myself that if Yang Jie had ever been here, he had either already concluded his business and left, or else was firmly ensconced in some house where he would be impossible for me to find. I had been wasting my time from the beginning. And the more I thought about it, the more it seemed likely to me that this bet with his brother – and the special girl with the peaches – was just a tale he’d spun to get the other privates to leave him in peace. Going on a drunken adventure would never have been his idea of fun.

  He had probably been peacefully reading poetry under a cloud of late blooming flowers in a public park somewhere, or stuffing himself with dumplings in a quiet eatery.

  I was a fool. I had wanted to believe that Yang Jie was in trouble because it would have given me the chance to sweep in and rescue him, proving I was still his friend. But even if he had got himself into a scrape, had I really thought it would be so easy to regain his trust and regard? He would have been unlikely to thank me for charging in to act as his hero. He was quite able to look out for himself.

  I was the one who needed him, not the reverse.

  If only I’d had the courage to admit that to him when it still meant something.

  In several places in the near distance – on whichever of the six main thoroughfares of the city was running closest to me just then – drums began to pound in a stately yet unmistakable rhythm. I had never heard it before, but I knew it at once: the warning that curfew was about to be called. The drums would beat one thousand times, and when they fell silent, the doors between the wards would be shut. Anyone with sense would have noticed the deepening dark long before and already been on their way.

  With a sigh, I turned and left the northern quarter at a brisk trot. It wasn’t a long walk back to the ward where the barracks were situated, but I needed to make good time.

  I nodded at the city guard stationed by the east gate as I passed, and hurried along the narrow road between walls. Ah, yes – to the left, and past the hulking shadow of this broken-down cart abandoned next to the wall. I remembered that from earlier. It couldn’t have been there for long, or the city refuse collectors would have towed it away.

  I swerved left to avoid a broken axle poking from the half-collapsed wreckage of the cart – then stopped as I heard a soft grunt from … above me? My head whipped up in time to see a dark shape – far too big to be a cat or any other city animal – slip over the top of the wall. It fell down into the shadows of the broken cart with an unmistakable flutter of fabric, and I heard a light impact that barely made the wood groan.

  Someone was sneaking out of the northern ward.

  Going over the walls instead of using the gates was punishable by fifty blows with a slim rod – and the gates weren’t even closed yet. It made no sense to climb the wall instead of walking freely through the open exit. Which meant this person couldn’t walk freely through the gate, couldn’t risk going past the guard.

  They had to be up to no good. A thief, a murderer. Maybe even an enemy spy.

  Silently, I plastered myself flat against the wall and, with a reflexive shudder of discomfort, released my illusion mask. My face felt naked and vulnerable without it, but I ignored that and reached for my cloak of darkness, of not-here, of look-away, of half-seen shadows and textures that blended seamlessly into the deepening dusk. This simple illusion was the first I had ever made, as a child of seven, and I realized as it deepened into existence around me that I had missed weari
ng it.

  There was no movement from the cart. If this escapee had seen me they would already have run – but they, too, were waiting, crouched so still and quiet among the jagged shapes of the broken vehicle that I couldn’t make them out. If I hadn’t known they were there, I’d have walked right by and never noticed them at all.

  After several long moments there was a whispering sound – material slithering as a person shifted – and then the light tap of a foot hitting the packed dirt of the road. I made my breaths shallow and calm, centred my qi…

  In a sudden burst of movement, a small shape flew out of the cart. My hands snapped out and caught them, fingers closing on handfuls of soft fabric. I used their momentum to swing them around, slamming them back against the wall where I had been hiding. The impact scraped my knuckles and forced a hoarse cough from their lungs.

  I opened my mouth to shout for the guard – and paused.

  A few incongruous facts were slowly bearing in on me. When I had thrown this person back, they had actually left their feet. Although I was strong, I was not Wu Jiang – thus, this person was very light. They were also not very tall. They smelled nice, too. They smelled of expensive perfume and something else, some enticing, familiar scent that gave me a strange urge to lean in closer and breathe deep.

  And … they were crying. Soundless, painful hitches of breath that shook their narrow frame and reminded me irresistibly of my little sister Xiao Xia, who hardly ever cried and never wanted anyone to hear her when she did.

  I had caught a girl.

  My immediate instinct was to let go immediately, but I quashed it. Girls could still be up to no good, after all. She had broken the law right in front of me. But … if I summoned the guard, the penalty – the beating – would be carried out right now, in front of me, and … I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it. Not without knowing more. I compromised by whispering, “Who are you? Why are you trying to evade the lawful authorities?”

  “Let me go,” she whispered back, voice choked and hoarse, but steady. “Please. I haven’t harmed you, or anyone. Please just let me go home.”

  Involuntarily, my crushing grip on the girl’s upper arms began to loosen. But I couldn’t just release her, no matter how pathetic she sounded. “Tell me who you are and where you’re going, or I’ll call the guard.”

  “Back to my family,” she said readily. “I know it’s illegal to go over the wall, but it was the only way out I had.”

  “Are you a concubine?” I asked.

  “No.” She shook under my hands, then I felt her take a deep breath. “Yes. I – my family engaged me to a man – but after he took me away to get married he brought me here instead. He sold me to a madam in the House of Tumbling Blossoms to pay his gambling debts. I’ve been trapped here with no way to reach my parents, to let them know what happened. I – I won’t let you take me back.”

  Her words were a stunning blow. It was illegal for any citizen of the Red Empire to be sold into slavery against their will, although sometimes people were forced to sign themselves into indentured servitude for a fixed term, to clear debts. But everyone knew that some people, especially young girls, were still vulnerable to this kind of unofficial slavery. There was often little the authorities could do to prevent it, and it was said that most of the victims killed themselves eventually. Their families all too often disowned them, and the shame was too much to bear. I had to help her, if I could.

  I released her, but continued to loom over her in case she thought she could run away. “Put your hood down. I want to see your face.”

  She hesitated for a while, bowing her head. Then small, pale hands came up to push the folds of muffling fabric away from her head, exposing a delicate, heart-shaped face. In the darkness, her features were difficult to make out, but even beneath the layers of cosmetics that turned her skin as pale as moonlight and gave her cheeks and lips a deep flush, and the delicate lotus flower painted between her brows, it was obvious she was young. Younger than me. Maybe no more than fourteen or fifteen. Her eyes, though I could not see their particular colour, were huge and dark, pleading like a kitten’s. A thin, livid red scar marred one side of her face, curving from just beneath her left eye to the corner of her upper lip.

  It was a clean scar – the sort created not by some messy accident but with surgical precision, and a very sharp knife. It had been well cleaned and disinfected after it was made. And it had obviously been made very deliberately indeed. Whoever had put on the make-up had left it alone, making no attempt to disguise the mark.

  “How did you get this scar?” I asked. I hadn’t known I meant to ask it until I did, and I winced at my own rudeness.

  She stared at me for a moment, brows crinkling. “The … the madam. After the first time I tried to run away. She said … a certain kind of customer wouldn’t mind. She was right.” She swallowed audibly.

  I couldn’t even bear to think about that. I nodded sharply. “Where are your family? Here in the city?”

  “In the merchant quarter,” she said. “But … I’m not really sure how to get there from here. Or if I can get there in time now…”

  “I’ll get you there,” I said grimly. “Come on.”

  I took her by the arm again, gently this time, and began to tow her in the direction in which I had come. I’d passed through the bustling markets of the merchant quarter on my way from the barracks to the northern quarter – I was sure I could get her to the entrance in time.

  “But what about you? Don’t you have to be back at – your post – before—”

  I cut her off, steering her into a run as we rounded a corner. “Don’t worry about that. It’s my fault you were delayed. Pull your hood up again.” In the darkness, the too-large, too-heavy cloak could pass for a loose burnoose of the kind many women wore out of doors, both for modesty and to protect their skin from sun and dust.

  How many drum beats left? More than half of the thousand must have passed now. We might only have five minutes remaining – not nearly enough for me to make it back to the barracks, even if I ran. But there was a chance for her. What was more, if I didn’t get her to the right door in time she would almost certainly be rounded up as a vagrant, and from there who knew what would happen to her? She might end up being taken back to the madam for all I knew. Or worse.

  My fingers slipped down her arm to clasp her hand as we broke on to the road leading to the east door of the merchant quarter. The guard stationed there tensed visibly as he heard running footsteps – then relaxed as he turned and caught sight of my uniform. I tugged a little on the girl’s hand to slow her down as we approached.

  “In a hurry, sir?” the guard asked when we were within earshot.

  “Just need to get my sister home to our mother,” I said casually. “She overstayed at her friend’s house. I knew she would, the silly goose.”

  “Ah, very well. Don’t let it happen again, young lady,” the guard said sternly, allowing us past.

  The girl let out a soft murmur that probably passed as “Yes, sir, sorry, sir”. And then we were through the gate and into the broad streets of the wealthy part of the merchant quarter, surrounded by tall trees, their branches hung with lanterns, and large houses with clean white paths leading to their doorsteps.

  “Where is your parents’ house?” I asked under my breath, tucking her hand into my arm and slowing us to a seemingly casual stroll.

  I sensed her head turning to and fro. “Much further down, on Six Coins Lane. We’re not so rich as this.”

  Hence entrusting their daughter to the kind of man who’d turn around and sell her off, I thought. “Will they have worried about you, if you didn’t visit or write?”

  “I … don’t know. I was supposed to be going away, out of the city. They might not have expected to hear from me for a while. My mother said she hoped she could visit next year, if Father’s business took him that way again.”

  Hmmph. Well, that made me feel slightly better about the fact that I was going to
hand her back over to them – and probably have to beg for a bed for the night, too. “Is Six Coins Lane this way?”

  She shook her head. It struck me that she was rather quiet. Dazed by having actually succeeded in her escape? Apprehensive about facing her family after what she had experienced? Or … perhaps frightened of me?

  “I won’t let any harm come to you,” I promised. I knew the words were rash, but I simply couldn’t help myself. “If your family are – if they’re angry, or difficult—”

  “Oh no!” she cried, and her tone was so strong and impassioned that I stopped dead. Her hand wrenched away from my arm and she turned to face me. All I could see among the heavy muffling folds of her cloak was the liquid gleam of those large, sad eyes.

  In the distance, the heavy repetitive noise of the drum beats suddenly cut off, leaving a quiet that seemed to thrum with tension.

  “What is it?” I asked softly, all too aware that, to a girl who had suffered my ancestors only knew what at men’s hands – a girl whom I myself had treated roughly – I probably made a less than reassuring figure.

  “Nothing, but I can’t…” Her voice wavered and she seemed to sag. I heard her take a deep breath. Then she darted forward and, to my astonishment, I felt a gentle press of soft lips against my cheek. A tingle like … like static in a thunderstorm buzzed through my insides, and I flinched.

  “Thank you for your help,” she whispered. “Goodbye.”

  “What? No, wait—”

  But somehow she slipped through my fingers, twisting away from me with a supple, graceful movement that turned her into a wisp of smoke, dissipating among the shadows. The cloak flared out and came loose in my hands. I opened my mouth to call out – and remembered that she had never told me her name.

  Just like that she was gone. Disappeared into the darkness under the trees. Between the houses? It had happened so quickly, I couldn’t tell.

  Cheeks still burning, the scent of rosewater rising from the cloth in my hands, it took me several minutes to realize that I was now stuck, after curfew, in a ward where I had no business, and no place to stay. I muttered a swear word that I had only heard out loud once in my life before. Now what was I going to do?