Heart and Soul (42 page)

“No,” Nigel said. “It seems like a very contrived thing, and something everyone would realize was contrived.”

“Yes. So I think this city was founded by my people. A different clan, but…” Jade said, and conversation lagged, as though it had quite run out of power.

They were riding up narrow streets from the harbor, turning and twisting in the alleys. They passed three women, harnessed with clothesline to tugging nets of thick rope filled with bricks. They were barefoot, and bent forward, pulling the great loads of bricks. Jade steered quietly around them. They passed a temple where the smell of incense wafted at them from the big incense burner in the front. “You see,” she said, as if continuing an interrupted conversation, “Guangzhou is a city of temples. It is said that there is even, in this city, a temple to a man of your people who came here long ago and explored the land. My mother said his name was Marco Polo.”

“Not of my people,” he said. “Italian.” Then probably reading the incomprehension of this in her eyes, he smiled. “From a southern land not like mine at all. Far sunnier and more interesting, in some ways. But not home.” He looked at her, and it seemed to her as if he were making an unwanted effort to speak, to find something he could say to her, to continue their conversation. “How do you know so much about this land? I thought you’d not traveled around China.”

“I’ve not traveled much anywhere,” she said. “My life has been spent on the Dragon Boats.” She realized only after she said it how forlorn and bitter her voice had sounded, but it was too late to call back the words. “But I listened to every story of other lands. I drank in the tales of every emissary, every traveler, everyone at our little court who arrived fresh from the outside.” She wondered if she seemed very stupid. It appeared inexplicable to her, this thirst for knowledge of other lands. She was, after all, the sister of the Dragon Emperor, the daughter of the previous one. She should have been contented with her fate. She had been the trusted adviser of her father and the protector of her brother. What more could she want?

But he only nodded. “I used to dream of foreign lands when I was little, too. My brother, you see, was older, and always very healthy. But I was born too early and too small, and I had every childhood illness possible and might have invented a few new ones. So all I did was stay in bed and daydream about foreign lands.”

“But you’ve finally traveled,” she said. And then realizing how her complaint would sound, she smiled. “And so have I, I guess.”

He didn’t answer that, and perhaps it was because she hadn’t left him anything to say. Sometimes her damnable pride felt as though she had enclosed herself in a prison from which she could never break out. She reined the horse in, tied it, then put a word of protection on it, so on one else could drive him off, as she waited for Nigel to get out of the carriage—an operation only somewhat complicated by his twice tripping on the cloak and twice more having to make sure the cowl stayed on.

“We are here,” she said in a whisper. “Let me speak until I can ascertain if we are safe.”

The cart had stopped outside a large establishment that had three doors open across its length. Inside, though there were no windows and the interior seemed deep, many magelights blazed. At the door, there were several apprentice magicians—recognizable by their sky-blue cloaks—calling out to the people to come in and try their various remedies. Above the establishment, a sign flared in paint enhanced by magic, so that the letters appeared to be both solid gold and floating maybe an inch in front of the wood. It read “Drug Hall of Propitious Munificence.”

She had heard it was run by the Fox Clan, as was the drug hall of the same name in Hangchow, also known as the City of Heaven, the capital of the province of Chen-kiang. After her experiences with the Tiger Clan, she felt very afraid of approaching the foxes here, but she saw no way around it. Keeping to the side of Nigel, very careful not to step on his cloak, or cause him to trip on it, she walked into the drug hall.

“Lady,” one of the apprentices said. “Welcome to our humble drug hall, where you will find cures for everything that ails you. We have the Great Blessing pill, which has ten kinds of different drugs, each with its own curative properties. We have the Double Mystery pill, very useful for curing skin diseases.” And, in saying so, he looked at Nigel with a somewhat suspicious eye, as if suspecting the poor man must only be covered from head to toe because he suffered from some horrible, disfiguring disease.

She inclined her head. “I am Lady Red Jade,” she said, speaking softly enough that no one else would hear her, “the only sister of the True Dragon Emperor. Do you understand me?”

The apprentice’s eyes, which had the same sly and peeking look that Third Lady’s eyes could so often display, now narrowed more and he nodded, an expression of awe imposing gravity on a face as triangular and mobile as that of Jade’s sister-in-law. He bowed, hastily, and cast a look all around.

“I wish to speak to the senior magician or the senior clan member in this establishment.”

“Lady, they are the same.”

“Good. Then lead me to him.”

“This way, lady.” He led her to the back, where a man, whose white hair looked exactly like fox ears as it stood away from his head, was talking animatedly with an elderly lady. The apprentice stepped up to him and whispered in his ear. The magician, wearing the dark pants and the yellow jacket of a senior medical magician, widened his eyes as he looked toward her. He bowed slightly, then gestured hurriedly. Another senior magician stepped out of the shadows and, after what looked like a brief introduction, took his place in talking to the portly costumer.

Meanwhile, the elderly magician steered Jade and Nigel away from the crowd. Then he bowed to her. “Lady Red Jade, you will not remember me. I was part of the delegation that negotiated your sister-in-law’s contract.” He looked both curious and alarmed. “Is this about Third Lady?”

Jade had a moment of worry. Did they know that Third Lady was even now in the underworld—or at least so Jade presumed? And if they did know, what did they think of it?

“No,” she said. “Or at least, only partly. Third Lady and I consulted an oracle and we were both given missions. My mission involves something with which I need your clan’s help.”

The man looked at her attentively. Then he said, “This way, please. To a private room, perhaps? Where I can serve you tea and we can talk?”

Jade grabbed for the ample sleeve of his jacket. “In a Tiger Clan silk shop,” she said, “I was imprisoned in the back room, and my powers seriously damaged by a concoction they fed me. I will not go into a private room.”

He looked at her evaluatingly. “The tigers…would this be the same tigers whose silk shop burned to the ground?”

“The very same. So the news spread?”

“The news yes, but not the details.” He paused. “I could tell you that we are not playing the same game as those tigers, and that in fact the only reason we know about them is that we’d long suspected they’d allied themselves with the Prince of the High Mountain, Minister Zhang. We thought they were trying an end game around our kind, you see. And our kind hopes that Third Lady…” He looked around fearfully, as if making sure no one heard them. “Surely you can see that with us being the most reviled of the were-clans, we have great hopes for Third Lady. Should the Dragon Emperors be restored, and should she be the mother of the next emperor, it will be the most important thing that ever happened in the history of our clan. It will confirm our honor and power forever.”

Jade bowed slightly. “And I could believe what you say, save that, as the tiger said, the Fox Clan—and to be truthful, every other were-clan—always seems to run their game three and four conspiracies deep, trying to ensure that they’re on both sides of any dispute. How do I know you don’t mean to deliver me to Zhang?”

“Zhang has other allies,” the Fox Clan leader said. Then he drummed his fingers on a table loaded with bottles filled with a dubious green liquid. “And yet, Lady Jade, you cannot have come all this way simply to deny conversation with us. And you cannot have wished to come all this way and then stand here, waiting for me to give you an absolute signal of my worthiness.” He looked, however, as if he were trying to find a solution to their dilemma. “What if you come with me to my garden, the gate of which will be left open, and your companion…” He cast a curious look at Nigel, his eyes narrowed, in the way magicians did when they were trying to find out if someone had magical power and what the imprint of their magical power might be. “I assume your companion has a magic that I can neither touch nor influence?”

Jade nodded. It wasn’t difficult. She, too, had magic he couldn’t touch or influence. Unfortunately, it was not the type of magic that could allow her to change forms and become a dragon. So it was possible, she told herself, that Nigel was no different from her. A Chinese son of a foreign-devil concubine, which she supposed was what they would have to use as an excuse after they disguised his appearance.

“My lady,” the fox said, “I suggest that your companion cast a spell to make sure that my garden gate remains open and no one can approach it without his permission. We can then sit in full view of the garden gate, but far enough away that we might have a private conversation.” He spread his hands wide. “I beg your pardon, lady, but this is the best insurance I can offer for your fears.”

“I am afraid that you are right,” she said. “I cannot help but trust you at some point in this ordeal. For should I not trust you, then I cannot take your medicine.”

“That is so, milady,” the fox-man said, and led her, gently, through a door in the back, into a garden where every single plant seemed to be flowering. In fact, there were more plants and of more different varieties than she’d ever seen together in a single place.

Standing on tiptoe, Jade whispered into Nigel’s ear the full story of what the man had said and what she wished Nigel to do to protect them. Nigel nodded once, signifying it would be no problem. She longed for him to be able to speak, but dared not let him speak English words here, amid so many strangers.

The senior magician led them to a set of stools and a table under a small arcade at the end of the garden, from which they did, indeed, have full view of the gate and the street beyond. Jade looked toward Nigel, who gave her a small nod—indicating he had indeed set his magics in place. If she concentrated, she could see them barely gleaming around the gate.

“So, Lady Jade,” the fox-man said, “I suppose you have come to me about the affair of the two jewels, the ones that Minister Zhang wanted but which, if the rumors are true, he failed to secure—or secured only one of them, which is insufficient for his ambitions. Our Fox Clan relatives in distant lands had made us aware of these jewels, and this we made known to Third Lady.”

Jade nodded and told him about the oracle’s command that she enlist the river dragons to a council of dragons.

“A council of dragons,” the fox-man said, and narrowed his eyes. “I wonder what it all can mean. I’ve never heard of such.”

“No,” Jade said. “The truth is that our dynasty has been gone for so long, and all the traditions lost, that I’m sure there is much that none of us remembers. Besides, from what I understand, the rivers have been as though in a sleeping death. And in that sleeping death, they could not help bring about the restoration of my line. They are the sons of the dragon, the most immediate descendants of the Great Dragon.” She inclined her head. “As I understand it, we must enlist their help before our clans can rule once more.”

He looked at her with curiously bright eyes. “Well, then, you must mean to enlist the dragon of the Pearl River, right here in Guangzhou. In fact, I have heard reports of a dragon, or a dragon power, but never very clear, since I’ve lived here.”

“I will enlist the power of the dragons,” she said, and her eyes sparkled bright in challenge. “And even the power of the ram-riding fairies, if I can find them.”

He laughed, amused at her sally. “Now, that, my dear Lady Jade, I can no more help you with than you can help yourself, for I’ve never heard about any ram fairies or Ram Clan. Perhaps there was one, in the distant past, but it is now wholly gone.”

“Or perhaps the Fox Clan told people they were the Ram Clan,” she said, goading him. “Or fairies arrived upon flying rams.”

He looked at her, and his eyes narrowed, his expression suddenly serious. “I’ve often wondered,” he said, “whether they’d not come from the underworld.”

“The underworld? You mean, they were dead?”

He shook his head. “No. But if Third Lady brings her case about, she and your illustrious brother will arrive from the underworld to claim their throne. I wonder if the story of the five ram fairies is the remnant of such an event, only reduced so that all that remains of it is a faint echo through which one must divine for the truth.”

“What could make you think they came from the underworld?”

“The robes of many colors,” he said. “And nine-colored silk. In this world it is but paper, but in the other world it is a splendid many-colored silk, like we’ve never seen in the world of the living. And you know, the effects of the underworld remain for a little while in this world.”

“And the flying rams?”

“They could be anything,” he said. “From true rams, perhaps made of clay, to those clay horses that are buried to serve emperors in the underworld, and which, after many millennia of use, might have come to resemble rams.” He waved his hand. “You’d say it was nothing. An old man rambling. Or perhaps those pretty words for which foxes are known.”