River of Stars

“A cat hunting,” he says. “Perhaps a fox. Even amid beauty and order, that happens.”

“And when there is no beauty, no order?”

She regrets that, even as she says it. She’s pushing again.

But he smiles. First time since entering. He says, “I am not going to the island intending to die, Miss Lin.”

She can’t think of what to say to that. Say nothing, for once, she tells herself. He is looking at her from across the room. She can’t read that gaze. She has brought only ordinary hairpins to travel, but wears her mother’s earrings.

He says, “People live on Lingzhou Isle, you know that. I just said the same thing to Wengao.”

People who have grown up there, she thinks. Who grow accustomed to (if they survive childhood) the diseases and the endless, steaming rainfall and the heat.

She says, “There are … there are spiders.”

He grins at that. She has meant for him to do so, wonders if he knows. “Enormous spiders, yes. The size of houses, they tell me.”

“And they eat men?”

“Poets, I am told. Twice a year a number of spiders come from the forests into the square of the one town and they must be fed a poet or they will not leave. There is a ceremony.”

She allows herself a brief smile. “A reason not to write poetry?”

“I am told they make prisoners at the yamen compose a verse in order to receive their meals.”

“How cruel. And that qualifies them as poets?”

“The spiders are not critical, I understand.”

He will be another kind of prisoner there. Not in a jail, but watched, forbidden to leave. This folly is not as amusing as he wants it to be, Shan thinks.

He seems to come to the same conclusion. “I asked if you would offer me one or two of your songs, if you remember?”

Remember? Men can say the strangest things. But she shakes her head. “Not now. Not like this.”

“Poetry suits a bedchamber. Songs even more.”

Stubbornly she shakes her head again, looking down.

“Why?” he asks gently.

She hasn’t expected gentleness. She meets his gaze across the room. “Because that is not why you came,” she says.

His turn to fall silent. Mostly silence outside now, as well, after that death in the garden. Wind in the plum trees. Spring night. And now, Shan realizes, she is afraid, after all.

It is not easy, she thinks, to make your way in the world while insisting on a new path. She has never been touched by a man. She is to be married early next year.

And this man is past her father’s age, has a son older than her, a first wife dead, a second living with his brother’s family, for Lu Chen will not bring her to the island with him—whatever he might say about not going south to die. He has had concubines, written poems for them and for pleasure-district courtesans. It is said that if he named a red-lantern girl in a poem, she could triple her rates. She doesn’t know if he is taking a woman south with him.

She doesn’t think he is. His son will be coming, to be a companion. And perhaps to bury his father one day, or bring the body north for burial, if that is allowed.

Lu Chen says, “I am not so vain, or unmannerly, to have imagined anything beyond talking here tonight.”

She draws a breath, and with it (with his words) her fear seems to have gone, as quickly as it had flowered within. She can even smile, carefully, looking down.

“Not even imagined?” she asks.

Hears him laugh, her reward. “I deserve that,” the poet says. “But, Miss Lin …” His tone has changed, she looks up. “We may imagine much, but not always allow these visions to enter the world. We all live this way.”

“Must we?” she asks.

“I think so. The world falls apart, otherwise. There are men I have imagined killing, for example.”

She can guess who one or two of those might be. She draws a breath, finding courage. “I think … I think you meant to honour me, coming here. Sharing these thoughts. I know how wide the space is between us, because of my sex, my age, my inexperience. I want only to tell you that I am not … that you need not …”

She is short of breath. Shakes her head impatiently. Pushes forwards. Says, “You need not assume I would be offended if you came into the room now, Master Chen.”

There. Said. And the world has not broken asunder. No other animal has screamed outside. Burning suns are not falling, shot down by arrows of legend.

And she will not, she will not live defined or controlled by what others think or say. Because this is the life, the path, hard and lonely, her father has put her on—never realizing it would be so, never intending this when he began to teach her and they discovered, together, that she was quicker and brighter and perhaps even deeper than almost any man they knew.

But not more so than this one. He is looking at her with a different expression now. But has not stepped forward, and whatever she is, however bold she might force herself to be, she cannot cross to him. It is beyond her.

He says, unexpectedly, “You might make me weep, Miss Lin. Thinking of your life.”

She blinks at that. “Not what I want to do.”

“I know that.” A faint smile. “The world is not going to allow you to be what you might be. You understand?”

She lifts her head. “It hasn’t allowed you to be. Why should it let—”

“Not the same. You know it.”

She does. Lowers her head.

“Nor need you challenge it with every breath, every encounter. You will break yourself, as if on rocks.”

“You did. You challenged. You’ve never held back from saying when you thought ministers or even the emperor were—”

“Again, not the same. I have been allowed to find my view of the world, and give voice to it. There are risks to doing so, changing times make for changing fortunes, but it is still not the same as what lies ahead of you.”

She feels chastened, and yet oddly reassured, sustained. He sees her. She makes herself meet his gaze. “Is this how you always respond when a woman offers you—”

A third time he stops her, a lifted hand this time. Not smiling. She is silent, waits.

He gives her (she will always remember it that way) a gift. “No woman, or man, has ever offered quite what you just have. I would destroy the gift by accepting it. It is necessary, for both of us, that I leave you now. Please believe I am honoured beyond words or deserving, and that I will be equally honoured to read your writing when you choose to send it to me.”

Shan swallows hard. Hears him say, “You are now another reason why I intend to survive Lingzhou and return. I would like to watch you live your life.”