River of Stars

Until the Twelfth rose, their own, a new glory.

A more limited glory, mind you, with the Long Wall lost and crumbling, barbarians south of it, the Silk Roads no longer Kitai’s, the Fourteen Prefectures lost.

But they called the throne the Dragon Throne again, and told cautionary tales about ceding too much influence to women. In the palace, in the home. Women are to remain in their inner quarters, to offer no opinions on matters of … on anything, really. They dress more soberly now. No long, wide sleeves, no bright colours, low-cut gowns, intoxicating scents at court or in a garden.

Shan lives these realities, and she knows their origins: the theories and writings, disputes and interpretations. She knows the great names and their works and deeds. She’s steeped in poetry, has memorized verses from the Third and Seventh, the Ninth, before and after the rebellion.

Some lines were remembered through everything that happened.

But who knew what words or deeds would last? Who made these decisions? Was surviving down the years a matter of accident as much as excellence?

She stands by the desk and lamp, suddenly weary, without even the energy to cross the room and close the door the servant has left ajar. It has been an intense day.

She is seventeen, and will be wed next year. She doesn’t think (though she might be wrong) that either of the men here fully grasped her father’s careful choice of a husband for her from the imperial clan.

A daughter-in-law in Kitai is the servant of her husband’s parents. She leaves her home and becomes a lesser figure in theirs. The parents can even send her back (and keep her dowry) if she is judged insufficiently respectful. Her father has spared her that, knowing what she is (what he has caused her to be).

The imperial clan have all the servants any of them will ever need, paid for by the court office that administers the clan. They have doctors assigned, and entertainers and alchemists and cooks. Astrologers, though only by daylight and with permission. They have sedan chairs, single or double, at their disposal when they wish to (again with permission) leave the compound by the palace, where they are expected to live forever.

There are funds for formal clothing and adornments for banquets or ceremonies when their presence is required. They are creatures to be displayed, symbols of the dynasty. They are buried in the clan graveyard—which is here in Yenling. There isn’t enough room in Hanjin. From one graveyard to another, someone had once said.

A woman marrying into the clan lives a different life. And it can be a good life, depending on the woman, on her husband, on the will of heaven.

She will have a husband, less than a year from now. She has met him. That, too, is unusual, though not forbidden—and such matters are conducted differently within the imperial clan. Her father’s jinshi degree, his status as a court gentleman, had given more than enough stature for him to address, through intermediaries, a family in the clan. Marrying into the imperial ranks isn’t universally desired. It is such a sequestered life, shaped by ceremony and regulation, so many living so closely together as their numbers grow.

But for Shan it offers a promise of sorts. Among these people, already marked apart, her own differences might blend, silk threads weaving with each other. It is possible.

And Wai—Qi Wai—is a student himself, her father had determined. A little different, too, it seems. A man (a boy, still, really) who has already travelled (with permission) to search out ancient steles and bronzes in the countryside, and brought them home to catalogue.

This wasn’t your usual son of the indolent imperial clan, pursuing wine and pleasure in the entertainment districts of Hanjin because there was no ambition possible for him. Sometimes, perhaps out of boredom as much as anything, some of them drifted into intrigues against the throne. They were executed for that.

Qi Wai had been stiff but courteous, sitting with his mother and her aunt on the one occasion they were together, taking tea, after the first negotiations had proceeded satisfactorily. Her father had made it clear to her (and to them, she believed): in his view the marriage turned on the two young people finding or anticipating an affinity.

Shan thought they had, at least potentially, that day.

He’d looked younger than her (was a year older). He was plump, had the wispy beginnings of a scholar’s chin beard. The attempt at dignity that implied was amusing at first, then endearing. He had small, smooth hands. His voice was low but clear. He’d be feeling shy, too, she remembers thinking.

She had taken pains with her appearance, which she didn’t always do, but her father had worked hard and carefully to arrange this meeting, and he deserved that much of her. Besides, it was all interesting. She’d worn blue liao silk in a sober cut, gold-and-lapis-lazuli hairpins. Her lapis earrings, too. They had been her mother’s.

She allowed Wai to see her mind working as they talked. He’d know about her eccentric education by now, but she didn’t push forward her manner of thinking the way she sometimes did, to provoke a response.

He spoke—this man, Qi Wai, who would, apparently, be her husband—of a rare Fifth Dynasty stele he’d found north of the capital, close to the border with the Xiaolu. She wondered if he had been trying to impress her with his bravery going up there, then decided he didn’t think that way. There was a long-established peace, trade, a treaty. He’d gone to where he’d heard there were antiquities to be found. The border hadn’t entered his mind.

He became animated talking about this funerary stele, the writing on it. The record of some long-dead civil servant’s life and deeds. She had to see it, he urged. Perhaps tomorrow?

Even at that first meeting it had occurred to Shan that she might have to become the practical one in this marriage.

She could manage that, she’d thought. Wai hadn’t recognized a quote from a poem she’d offered without emphasis, but it wasn’t a well-known line, and he’d seemed at ease discussing with a woman how objects from the past excited him. She’d decided there were worse passions to share with a husband.

The idea of sharing wasn’t usually a part of marriage. (Nor was passion, really.)

Her father had offered her another gift here, it seemed. If the boy was still a boy, a little eccentric and intense, he would grow (she would grow). The mother hadn’t seemed overwhelming, though the usual disapproval of Shan’s education was there. It was always there.

She’d bowed to her father, after, and told him she would be honoured to marry Qi Wai if the Qi family approved of her, and that she hoped to bring grandchildren one day for him to teach as he’d taught her. She holds to that. She can picture it.

This evening, however, listening to crickets in the night, she finds herself sad and restless, both. Part of this will be the adventure of where they are. Travel has not been a great part of her life. Yenling at festival time can make anyone overexcited. Not to mention the men she’s met today: the one in whose home they are sleeping, and the other one.

She ought never to have said what she’d said about his “Red Cliff” poems. What had she been thinking? He’d have decided, right then, in the gazebo, that she was a vain, presumptuous girl, evidence of the error of educating women. He had laughed, smiled, engaged in conversation with her, but men could do that and think very different thoughts.

She had told him she’d memorized the two poems. She hopes he’ll remember that, accept it for the apology it was (partly) meant to be.

It is dark outside the silk-paper windows. No moon tonight, the crickets continuing, wind, the birds quiet now. She glances at the bed. She isn’t sleepy any more. She is gazing at the books on the desk when she hears a footfall in the corridor.

She is not afraid. She has time to wonder at herself, that she seems to have not closed her door after all, when he steps inside.

“I saw the light,” he says, quietly.

Half a truth. His chamber is at the front, other side of the dining chamber. He had to have come this way in order to see her light. Her mind works like this. Her heart is racing, she notes. She is truly not fearful, though. Words are important. You don’t think or write afraid when it is the wrong word.

She is still wearing the blue jacket with gold buttons from dinner, there are phoenixes on it. Her hair is still pinned, though without the flower now, which is in a vase by the bed.

She bows to him. You can start with a bow.

He says, not smiling, “I shouldn’t be here.”

Of course he shouldn’t, Shan thinks. It is an offence against courtesy—to her, to her father, to their host.

She does not say that. She says, “I should not have left the door open.”

He looks at her. His eyes are grave above a long nose and the neat, grey-and-black chin beard. His own hair is also pinned, no hat, the men had removed their hats at dinner, a gesture meant to indicate freedom from restraint. There are lines at the corners of his eyes. She wonders how much he’s had to drink, how it affects him. The stories, widely shared, say it doesn’t, very much.

He says, “I’d have seen a light under the door. I could have knocked.”

“I would have opened it for you,” she says.

She hears herself say that and is amazed. But not afraid.

He is still beside the door, has not come farther in.

“Why?” he asks, still quietly. He has been cheerful all day, for the three of them. Not now. “Why would you have opened it? Because I am being sent away?”

She finds herself nodding. “That is also the reason you are here, isn’t it?”

She watches him consider it. Is pleased he hasn’t offered the too-easy, quick denial, flattering her. “One reason,” he murmurs.

“One reason for me, then, too,” she says, from where she stands by the desk, by the bed, near the lamp and two flowers.

Something shrieks from the garden, sudden and loud. Shan startles, catches herself. She is too much on edge, not that it is surprising. Something has just died outside.