A Dance with Danger

‘After the proper mourning period, of course. In the meantime, take comfort that your husband’s spirit is with you. He hasn’t forgotten you.’

She nodded and took her leave, feeling confused and numb. Father was obviously very busy and she was barely making sense. She had so many questions to ask, but she didn’t know where to start. As Jin-mei made the long walk back to the living quarters, she tried to arrange all the pieces. Father’s explanation was indeed the rational one, but some instinct inside her refused to let go.

When she was young, she hadn’t listened to whimsical folk tales. Her father had entertained her instead with famous case accounts. The stories always featured clever officials who knew a lie immediately. They never accepted the obvious solution and were unsatisfied when the pieces of a puzzle didn’t fit together just right.

Jin-mei was unsatisfied.

Once she was back in the familiar surroundings of their house, she realised what was bothering her. Father had returned to his office with Constable Han. The constable’s wife had mentioned that Han was in the drinking house—could that mean her father had been there as well? At the very same time she had seen Yang in the street just outside.

It was possibly all coincidence, but Father was acting strange. Constable Han was acting strange. His wife as well. Perhaps heaven and earth had switched places and Jin-mei was the only one who found any of it odd.

Amah was out in the garden, watching over Jin-mei’s two brothers, which meant the old nursemaid was sitting beneath the shade of pavilion as the boys fought over a wooden boat.

She passed them by with a nod to Amah and went to her father’s study. The room was cool and dark with the shutters drawn. A sanctuary.

She had never, never been in Father’s study without his permission. Her hand trembled as she opened the drawer. A seed of an idea had been planted inside her. If she didn’t rid herself of this suspicion immediately, it would continue to take root and fester.

There were letters in the drawer. She looked quickly through them, finding nothing of any significance. Beneath the letters lay a thin book with a blue cover. She lifted it and saw a folded paper tucked away at the very bottom of the drawer.

Jin-mei opened up the paper to find that it was a note for five thousand taels of silver. Five thousand? It was an extraordinary amount of money. The red seal at the bottom of the note contained the character for ‘Bao.’ The Bao family chop, perhaps.

If this was meant to be a wedding gift, it was an extravagant one. Bao Yang came from a line of successful merchants, but she hadn’t realised how wealthy he was until now. How wealthy he had been...

Slowly, she folded the bank note and put it back beneath the book. There were officials who were corrupt and took bribes, but she’d always been confident that her father wasn’t one of them. He’d never shown any interest in money. When he spoke, it was of honesty, of moral behaviour, of law and order.

She could just ask her father why he had so much of Bao Yang’s money. They had always been able to say anything to one another. She’d always trusted him. She knew him.

Yet Jin-mei’s instincts told her Father had been hiding something for a while now. Ever since Bao Yang had come back into their lives.

Suddenly the details of her wedding night came back to her, not as a personal memory steeped in emotion, but as fragmented pieces. The pieces had always seemed oddly familiar to her, but she couldn’t place exactly why. A wedding banquet. A groom chased into the woods. The story had the mark of a classic tragedy.

Jin-mei went to her father’s shelves and began to look through the books. There were volumes of history and poetry, but the books she’d always enjoyed most were the extraordinary case records. Stories of scheming criminals bested by clever officials. Once she could read, she had borrowed the books from her father and read them herself. He’d always found her fascination for these tales amusing.

When she finally found the account, her heart stopped. There was a wedding. And a murder.

Clutching the book to her chest, she went to her room. Once the door was shut, she opened the book once more. A woman and her lover schemed to rob her wealthy neighbour by seducing him into marriage. On their wedding night, with guests all around, the groom was seen running from the bridal chamber, his hair in disarray. Mad.

The similarities were too much of a coincidence. Had the entire night been staged? But why? She wanted to run back to the tribunal to demand an answer from her father, but she already knew what would happen. He would deflect her suspicions. He would weave together colourful lies and she would believe him because she wanted to be convinced.

With shaking hands, Jin-mei collected her wedding money and a few belongings into a satchel. She didn’t need to read the case record to remember the rest of the details. The groom had thrown himself into the river while the guests looked on in horror. They knew it was him because of his ceremonial wedding robe. Though the river was searched, his body was never found.

Jin-mei had to know what had happened to Bao Yang. Even more than a sense of justice, her father had impressed upon her the importance of finding the truth.

Calmly, Jin-mei informed her amah that she was going to visit the constable’s wife, but instead hired a carriage to take her outside of the city walls to her father’s villa. Being wed and then widowed within a day must have emboldened her.

Her thoughts buzzed in her head like a nest of wasps. When she’d told Father she’d seen Yang alive, he hadn’t argued with her. Instead, her father had nodded sympathetically. He’d listened without judgement, and even agreed with her that she was not mistaken in what she’d seen. Most particularly, he’d brought up her mother. They rarely spoke of Mother, but Father had done so, confiding in Jin-mei and telling her a story that made her heart ache. He’d cast all her doubts aside and effectively quieted her.

Because as a magistrate, he knew how to detect falsehoods and how to create them. Father was a master of lies.

* * *

The villa was no longer draped in red and lit with lanterns. It had been locked down, with only a lone groundskeeper and his family assigned to watch over it. The groundskeeper was a middle-aged man whose hair was thinning slightly on top. He was surprised to see her, but let her in without protest.

‘You and your family attended to my husband while he stayed here, did you not?’ she asked as she wandered from room to room.

‘Yes, Lady Tan—my apologies. I meant, Bao Furen.’

He addressed her by her married title as Bao Yang’s wife. A pang of regret struck Jin-mei as she entered the bridal chamber. The red sheets and decorations had all been cleared away. The bed itself was bare and cold.

She closed her eyes. She remembered sitting on the bed and waiting for Yang. They were supposed to consummate their marriage that night. Perhaps coupling would be as awkward as it appeared on the bronze mirror or as profound and ephemeral as it sounded in poems. Regardless of what it would be, she had been excited to be discovering the answer with him. Excited and frightened and happy.

If she stayed any longer, her heart would shatter into a hundred pieces. Gently, with great care, she closed the door as if shutting it on an invalid on a deathbed, not wanting to disturb what little rest might remain.

‘Did you attend the wedding?’ she asked the groundskeeper.

The man was following behind her solicitously. For all he knew, her visit was nothing more than the whim of a grieving widow. For all she knew, maybe it was.

‘No, my lady. Magistrate Tan freed us from our obligations that day. We went into the city to visit family.’

She continued through the rest of the villa. The banquet room had been swept and all the tables cleared and stored. On the other side of the house, the side facing the woods, she entered a spacious chamber with a canopied bed. This bed had also been stripped of all curtains and bedding. At the foot of the bed, beside one of the legs, was a speck of something. She knelt down to retrieve it, closing two fingers around a candied lotus seed.

There had been lotus seeds scattered on her bed the night of the wedding to symbolise fertility and good fortune. Lotus seeds in two places. Two bridal chambers?

On the night of her wedding, Yang would have left the party, ushered away by the well-wishers who were guests at the banquet. By tradition, they would lead him to her bed in case he was too drunk to make it there himself. But Yang had never appeared in her chamber. Instead, the next time anyone saw him, he was being chased into the woods.

In the story of the tragic wedding, the greedy woman had continued to live for years as a widow, wealthy with her late husband’s fortune. No one knew that there was actually a tunnel connecting the two houses. And that the groom hadn’t thrown himself into the river that night. He hadn’t left the house at all. Years later, the constables found a corpse hidden in the tunnel, still dressed in his wedding robe.

What if the guests had never intended to escort Yang to the bridal chamber? Maybe they had taken him to another room, one with a hidden compartment just as the case record had described.

And maybe, with the suspicious lotus seed in hand, she was standing in that other room now.

Jin-mei searched along the floor for some sort of trapdoor. Next she searched over the walls, feeling all along the wood. Her breath caught when she found a raised edge in the wall.

It couldn’t be true. Jin-mei prayed that it wasn’t true. Holding her breath, she pulled the panel open.

The enclosure was empty, but Jin-mei felt no relief as she stared into the hollow space. On the ground, a dark mark stained the wood like a spill of blank ink. Her head tried to deny what she was seeing, but her instincts wouldn’t be quieted. Blood had been spilled here. Her entire wedding night had been an elaborate ruse, and no one was more deceived than she.

Chapter Five

When it came to matters of commerce, Yang had a reputation for knowing who to trust and how far, but lately those instincts were failing him. He should have known it was a mistake to try to negotiate a deal with a crooked magistrate and an even worse mistake to return after the staged wedding to try to confront the villain. He’d only managed to get into the same room with Tan at the drinking house before being chased off.

He’d simply wanted answers, but apparently Tan Li Kuo was an even greater scoundrel than he was.

With his initial plan abandoned, Yang stood alone at the ferry crossing while the transport ship approached. For a river vessel it was an impressive sight: three masts with sails unfurled to catch the wind. The vessel was a floating fortress that had seen more than one battle in its lifetime.

The ship cut through the deep waters of the Min River and dropped anchor near the bank. Within moments, the gangplank was lowered.

‘Could that be the infamous Bao Yang?’ a female voice called from the deck.

A familiar face greeted him from the bow and he let himself breathe. He’d angered both a warlord and a magistrate and had precious few allies left. After ascending the gangplank, Yang was met on deck by the captain herself.

‘Lady Daiyu,’ he greeted.

‘Mister Bao.’ Daiyu was smiling at him, though her mouth was tight about the edges. ‘I hear General Wang wants you dead.’

She was dressed in men’s clothing; in loose trousers and a tunic that stopped short of her knees. Her hair was swept to one side, the black lightened to a reddish, rosewood colour by exposure to the sun.

‘I heard that you had been killed.’ A booming voice came from the other side of the deck. ‘I was ready to celebrate.’

A huge ox of a man approached. His broad jaw was roughened by a thick growth of beard and a scar cut near his mouth, making his grin widen to a sneer.

‘Kenji,’ Yang greeted curtly.

‘Yang.’

There was no cordial bow exchanged between them.

Kenji was a foreigner, originally from the island nation of Wa. No one knew exactly why he chose to never return, but it wasn’t hard to imagine he was no longer welcome in his homeland. Lady Daiyu tolerated him and he was one of the few on board who did not serve as crew. As far as Yang knew, Kenji knew nothing about sailing. He was kept strictly for protection and commanded a handful of fighting men. Lady Daiyu would be in an unfortunate position if that beast ever decided to try to wrest control.

Yang did spare a bow for the young attendant who stood dutifully beside Daiyu. ‘Young Miss Nan, are you taking good care of your mistress?’

She fought to keep her composure, though she was obviously pleased by the acknowledgement. ‘I try to, Mister Bao.’

Nan was slight and willowy, but her eyes held a warrior glint. She blushed at him with all the softness of a young tigress.

Kenji snorted. ‘Too bad you can’t charm the general.’

‘I seem to have lost my gift for it,’ he had to admit. He’d foolishly hoped Magistrate Tan would protect his family, but the truth was Yang could only depend on himself now. ‘Are you certain you want this fugitive on board?’

Lady Daiyu’s smile remained fixed even while her eyes hardened. ‘I have no fear of General Wang.’ She sent the girl and the hulking Kenji away, and her tone warmed when she faced him. ‘It’s been a long time.’

‘You’re still as beautiful as a spring flower.’

‘Sweet talker.’

‘I’m in trouble, Daiyu,’ he said in all seriousness. ‘I made a mistake.’

Daiyu was older than him, but her age could only be seen in the finest of lines along her mouth and eyes, barely visible unless one was allowed in close quarters to her. And Yang, at one time, had been allowed in very close quarters.

Pretty was too soft a word for her. She was nearly as tall as he was. Handsome rather than beautiful and as confident and at ease with herself in bed as out. She was also sharp and not one to waste words.

‘You used to be formidable. A shrewd and careful businessman. Never too greedy and always a step ahead.’

Yang knew where he’d gone wrong. It wasn’t in trusting Magistrate Tan too much, nor in making an enemy of a powerful warlord. He’d gone wrong from the moment he started letting emotion guide him rather than reason. Every choice he’d made since then had ended in disaster.

‘I need a safe place where my family can hide,’ he began. ‘One that Wang Shizhen with his entire army wouldn’t think to find.’

Daiyu frowned. ‘You can go into the mountains. The Wuyi region hasn’t fallen to the warlord yet.’

‘Yet,’ he echoed grimly.

The plan had some merit. There were many small villages and settlements tucked away in the remote region. Wang would have to scatter his army to find them.

‘It’s been years since I’ve spoken to my brother,’ he went on. ‘I’ll need to go to him and convince him to go into hiding. It could well be that the general knows my identity by now, and I can’t risk their safety.’

‘I understand.’ Daiyu nodded sympathetically. ‘Family is everything.’

At that, the lady captain offered to take him as far as he needed—for three times the usual fare.

‘You’re a true friend,’ he said out of the corner of his mouth.

‘Times are hard,’ she replied with a shrug. ‘And you’re trouble. You said so yourself.’

‘Lady Daiyu!’

The girl Nan was looking over the bow as she waved her over. Yang remained by Daiyu’s side as she went to investigate, standing perhaps a bit too close to her out of old habit. Much of the crew had known the two of them had been lovers and likely assumed he would resume that role, which wasn’t an unpleasant prospect.

Except he was married now and standing on the bank was his wife.

‘Don’t let her aboard,’ Yang said beneath his breath.

Daiyu looked at him with surprise. ‘She looks like a poor lost kitten.’

Jin-mei looked nothing of the sort. She stood with a travel pack slung around her shoulder. Her cheeks were flushed and her hair fought against its pins. His heart did a little lurch as their gazes locked. The hard set of her jaw warned him that he was in trouble.

This was no coincidence. She’d followed him. Immediately, he scanned the surrounding area. What could Jin-mei possibly be doing out here alone?

Despite his warning, Lady Daiyu beckoned her aboard. ‘Come up, Little Sister! What brings you here?’

Jin-mei was out of breath by the time she ascended the gangplank, but she wiped her brow and straightened her shoulders.

‘Mistress, I wish to buy passage aboard your ship.’

She had assessed, quite correctly, that Lady Daiyu was the one in command and not the burly Kenji who had come to stand beside her.

‘Where do you wish to go, Young Miss?’

‘Wherever you’re destined.’ Jin-mei flashed a sideways glance at Yang before returning her attention to the lady captain. ‘I hope that this will be sufficient as fare.’

She produced a bolt of green silk from her travel pack and extended it to Daiyu, who looked it over without touching it.

‘This is very fine quality. Quite expensive. Are you certain that passage aboard this ship is worth so much?’

Daiyu barely held back her amusement as Jin-mei fidgeted. ‘I don’t want to waste more time negotiating.’

For all her boldness, the girl was staring nervously at the rough characters around her. Yang was tempted to go and put a protective arm around her, but she was still Tan Li Kuo’s daughter and no amount of wide-eyed innocence would make him forget that the magistrate was dangerous.

‘Miss,’ Yang began evenly, ‘this ship is not where you want to be.’

Her eyes narrowed on him. They were lovely, expressive eyes that spoke louder than words. They told him that she blamed him for all that had happened. That somehow, he had abandoned her.

‘This is exactly where I should be,’ she said coolly. Then to Lady Daiyu, ‘I wish to avoid the local authorities, and this ship has some experience doing so, I believe.’

‘And why do you need to flee?’ Daiyu asked gamely.

‘I was married to a man who wasn’t what he seemed,’ Jin-mei replied, shoving a strand of hair away from her eyes. She was certainly growing bolder as the conversation progressed. ‘I didn’t wish to be his wife any longer, so I had him killed.’

Yang nearly choked at that. Lady Daiyu and Kenji burst into laughter.

‘Welcome then, Little Sister.’ Daiyu tucked the bolt of silk beneath her arm and directed Nan to take her to a sleeping berth. Jin-mei shot him a pointed look before disappearing below deck.

Yang waited until he was alone with Daiyu once more before speaking. ‘She’s lying.’

‘Seducing girls from good homes now, Yang? Did she become so smitten with you that she killed her husband?’

He was about to protest that he was her husband, but that wouldn’t serve any purpose. Especially when he was trying to convince Daiyu to evict Jin-mei from her ship.

‘Her father is the head magistrate in Minzhou. He’ll be looking for her.’

‘Even more reason to keep her on board. It’s obvious she has been pursuing you. If I let her go, she’s likely to lead the magistrate to us.’

He gave her the evil eye. ‘I suspect you’re siding with her because she’s a woman.’

‘Think what you will. I’m allowing her to stay because she’s paid me quite handsomely.’ She patted the roll of green silk beneath her arm and gave the order to lift anchor. ‘And I could hide ten runaways on board and it wouldn’t be as dangerous as harbouring one Bao Yang.’

* * *

The girl who called herself Nan led Jin-mei down into the lower deck to the sleeping area. She continued along to the far end.

‘More privacy here,’ Nan explained.

The berth looked like a low shelf built into the wall of the ship. There was a small window cut high above the sleeping area to let light and air through. Other than that, the sleeping quarters were dim. At the other end of the deck, Jin-mei could see several men lounging. They looked ragged, unkempt, lawless and unruly.

When evening came, she would be sleeping inside a ship full of strange men. Jin-mei shuddered at the thought.

‘I can bring you a curtain, Miss. So you don’t have everyone staring at you.’

Nan watched her as Jin-mei eyed the crew suspiciously. The girl looked no more than fourteen years of age, though her eyes seemed older. If this tiny reed of a girl could survive on board, then surely this ship wasn’t such a frightening place. Jin-mei thanked her, and Nan promptly turned and wove her way back to the upper deck.

She had done it.

Jin-mei finally let out a breath. She had run away. She had reunited with Yang and was on a ship that would take her far from her father’s lies and schemes.

But she no longer had a home. A lump formed in her throat. She no longer had a father either.

Broken and exhausted, Jin-mei climbed on to the berth and tucked her belongings into the far corner. There wasn’t a lot in the pack she’d bundled up. Jin-mei didn’t have much of a plan beyond her escape. She’d brought what little money she possessed, and only a single change of clothes. It had been hard to leave Lady Yi and her brothers, but fleeing was easier than having to face her father.

In the space of one afternoon, he’d completely changed in her eyes. And he’d taken the entire life she knew away with him. Suddenly she was trapped in a lie.

He was a corrupt official. A murderer—well, an attempted murderer since Yang wasn’t dead. But how many other crimes had her father been involved in? How many times had she been fooled by his talk of justice?

Jin-mei hooked her arms around her knees and let her head sink on to her arms. There was a slight lurch as the boat began moving along the current. Gradually, she accustomed herself to the feeling of being adrift. She closed her eyes and willed the answers to come to her. What was she going to do now? What next?

‘I’m curious.’

Jin-mei jumped up, startled. Yang stood beside the berth with a bundle of cloth beneath his arm. He didn’t appear angry at her, or startled the way he had been when she’d first set foot on the ship. As usual, he maintained a steady, slightly bemused expression. She wondered if he always masked his emotions so perfectly.

‘I’m curious as to whether you were involved in your father’s scheme,’ he continued as he draped the sheet over a set of hooks around the sleeping area.

‘No, I wasn’t,’ she murmured. ‘I thought you were dead. I...I mourned.’

He paused with his back to her and his arms raised to attach the curtain. She watched the rise and fall of his shoulders as he let out a breath. ‘It would probably be best if you went on with your life as if I were dead.’

‘It would be best for me never to know the truth?’

It was still a shock to see him alive, but it only proved beyond a doubt her father had tricked her. She was still dressed in her pale mourning robe. The rough cloth scratched against her skin.

‘Do you know why he wanted me gone?’ Bao Yang’s eyes were cold when he turned to face her.

Jin-mei shifted uncomfortably. ‘I don’t know anything about my father any more.’

Yang remained standing while she sat, staring at her hands. With the curtain in place, they were alone for the first time since their wedding. She could feel her pulse skipping as he continued to stare at her.

‘How did you possibly find me, Miss Tan?’

‘I saw you outside the drinking house yesterday,’ she explained, surprised at how casual they both sounded. ‘I knew you’d come by the river and would be looking to leave the same way.’

‘Ah, that simple.’ He sat down on the berth opposite hers. It was obvious Yang didn’t want her here, but presently his demeanour was cordial, even pleasant. ‘You didn’t run into any trouble travelling alone from the city?’