The Secrets of Jin-Shei (45 page)

Nhia bowed deeply and took her leave. After paying a short visit to the priests of the Fourth Circle, leaving a fat stick of incense as an offering to Tai’s future happiness, Nhia went straight back to the Palace where she had to sit through an interminable hour and a half while the delegation from Chirinaa whined about the nonpayment of dock tariffs and Nhia’s mind kept returning to the lost and wretched folk who had found their way into the Great Temple to ask for succor. Things were connected; harvests were failing, people had less money, trade hiccups happened at the warehouses and docks in a port city where fees and charges were not paid. Even people like So-Xan were feeling the pinch. They were craftsmen, and their product was safeguarded by centuries of custom and tradition, but even the poorer people in Linh-an itself would find it cheaper to find other means of keeping tally of the passing days.

But the endless meeting was finally over and Nhia was able to walk out with Liudan, managing to snatch a moment to tell her of Tai’s impending wedding.

“Let me know when it is,” Liudan said.

“Will you come?” asked Nhia.

“Of course. If I am invited,” Liudan said archly. And then she glanced aside, her attention already claimed by something else, and Nhia bobbed a courtesy and withdrew to start her planning.

Tai had received her own
so ji
with a reaction much the same as Kito’s had been to hers.

“Honestly,” Nhia said, watching Tai, giggling and wet-eyed, as she cradled her sculpture, “I don’t know why you didn’t at least get betrothed years ago. Anyone with eyes in his head could have seen this would happen. Oh, but I forget, you did.”

Tai, still laughing, slapped at Nhia’s arm.

“So-Xan left it to me to arrange things,” Nhia said. “I’ve already talked to the Temple people. We can do this as soon as you want, Tai, the timing is entirely up to you.”

“I know it’s irrational, and I know she can’t really
be
there, not really, but I would like my mother to be at my wedding,” Tai said. “I know I should have done something sooner if I’d wanted her to have any chance of participating in it—and maybe it was a mistake to hold off for so long—but I find myself not wanting to waste any of the years to come on regrets any worse than they already are.”

“Then that is how it will be,” Nhia said lovingly. “I will make the arrangements. If I plan it for next week, is that going to be too fast for you?”

Tai suddenly blushed. “No,” she said coyly.

Nhia laughed. “Be happy, little
jin-shei-bao
,” she said. “Get ready for your wedding. Leave the rest to me.”

Preparations suddenly took off at a breathless speed.

Liudan, when officially told the news and offered an invitation to the wedding, sent a bolt of scarlet silk for a wedding gown and a set of matched rings for the ceremony. She also sent a beautifully bound book of
jin-ashu
wedding poetry, some of it written by Tai’s idol, the poetess Qiu-Lin who was also the Cloud Empress, to pass on to the bride-to-be, with a note in her own hand on the fly-leaf:
I have not forgotten your vision.

Xaforn, who had an unexpectedly delicate touch at whittling with her dagger, produced a lucky rabbit talisman made of some soft, pale wood; and Qiaan created an ink drawing of the Three Heavens of Cahan, invoking a blessing on the new couple. Xaforn had looked over her shoulder as she had put the finishing touches to the painting, and had suddenly been reminded of another one, a childish drawing that Qiaan had done years before.

“It’s better than the cat drawing,” Xaforn said, with a grin.

Qiaan obviously remembered, too, because she turned with a mock scowl and flicked the black ink off the top of her brush in Xaforn’s direction. Xaforn ducked, laughing.

“Still conceited,” she got out, between giggles.

“Still malicious,” Qiaan responded, in an echo of their early battles, without looking up again, apparently immersed in her work.

One of Szewan’s early patients had paid her with a quantity of dark-gray pearls, which had then languished in a safe box at the back of the stillroom until Yuet had quite accidentally found them almost two decades later. Now she had two of the smaller matched pearls fashioned into a pair of delicate earrings for Tai.

Even Antian, the Little Empress, seemed to reach out from Cahan and bless the wedding. She had never rescinded the order she had put in with a Linh-an paper bindery, and Tai’s red-leather journals had been arriving faithfully, one a year, at the end of Kannaian. Quite by accident, in this particular year the red journal arrived almost two weeks early—as though Antian had urged a special delivery for the special occasion. Tai had shed a few fond tears of remembrance when the new red book was delivered to her, and the first thing she wrote in it, jumping the last blank pages of the previous year’s book, was a delicate poem, full of the shape and color of the dawns which Antian had loved to greet on a small balcony in the Summer Palace. Tai had copied it out, when it was finished, on a fresh scroll of paper and sent the copy to Liudan, partly because of the interest that Liudan continued to take in Tai’s poetry, partly in response to Liudan’s own wedding gift of the poetry book. She heard nothing back, at least not immediately, but she had no time to think about it as the last few days before the wedding swept by.

Only Tammary, watching all these preparations, hung back.

“What on earth can
I
give her?” she asked Yuet. “I’ll be the only one there without a gift.”

“It is not required,” Yuet said. “At least, it doesn’t have to be something material. A gift of a simple white lotus flower is a blessing on the marriage, for example.”

Tammary thought on it, and held her peace.

The day of the wedding, in the last week of Kannaian, was full of liquid sunshine and fierce heat. Nhia and Qiaan, helping Tai get ready, were both complaining vocally on Tai’s behalf as they layered her with the traditional wedding garb. The thin inner shift of silk so fragile that it was practically
see-through was lovely and cool against Tai’s skin, but it was followed by the inner robe made from Liudan’s heavy scarlet silk and overlaid again with an outer gown, stiff with embroidery, and a wide-sleeved coat with sleeves that hung to well below her wrists. Her hair was coiled up into a crown on top of her head, and the heavy headdress, with its double layer of red and gold silk veils which completely hid her face, was fixed onto this with thick pearl-ended hairpins the length of Tai’s forearm.

“Nobody should marry in summer,” Qiaan said. “I declare, she’ll be dead of heat exhaustion before they put the rings on her thumbs!”

“Ow,” said Tai mildly as a hairpin went astray and grazed her scalp.

“Sorry,” said Nhia, the culprit. “One more … there. That should hold it. Shake your head—no, not
that
hard—it’ll do. Where are you going?”

“I want to see if people …”

“Come back here, you goose, you aren’t supposed to let them see you until you are ready to come out!”

“But …”

“He hasn’t got here yet,” Qiaan said, laughing. “I think there’s an elderly gentleman who might be an uncle of his, though. Yuet and Tammary are here, too, and so are the Temple people. We’re just waiting for the groom.”

“My mother?” Tai said anxiously.

“Yuet is with her. She’s awake,” Nhia said. “I think that would be them now. Ah, but he looks good today, too, does your groom!”

“So are we ready?”

“The Empress,” Nhia reminded Qiaan gently.

“Ah,” Qiaan said, “of course.”

“While we’re waiting,” Nhia said, “I have a duty to attend to. Keep her in here, Qiaan, and for the love of Cahan don’t let her be seen before her time!”

Qiaan nodded, grinning, and Nhia slipped out of the room and hurried through the main chamber, smiling and nodding at the assembled guests, on her way into the outer courtyard and the gates where the banners announcing the wedding had been hung.

There was a delegation from the Beggars’ Guild waiting there, as was the tradition, for their wedding alms. Nhia pulled out a small silk purse full of silver coins and, folding her hands around it, gave a slight bow to the group.

“In celebration of the wedding,” she said formally, “the bride and groom give you these alms.”

“Thank you,” one of the men said, returning the bow and accepting the purse. He signaled and another man stepped forward with a paper sign on which, in ragged
hacha-ashu
writing, it was stated that the household was having a celebration and that the Guild, in return for their largesse, wished them every blessing. They all murmured their thanks to Nhia and bowed to her, backing away; she smiled and bowed in turn. She would do everything right, Tai’s wedding would be wonderful in every way, she would honor every tradition in order to ensure her little
jin-shei-bao
’ perfect happiness. The man with the sign had finished attaching it to the front door of the house, and had turned away and Nhia suddenly realized she knew him—he was the blind man whom she had once seen standing in the beggar king’s house.

“I know you by your voice. You are the Young Teacher,” the blind beggar said softly. “It is well; Brother Number One has a message he wished conveyed to you.”

Nhia looked around instinctively for danger. “Message? What message?”

“He instructed me to tell you that the storm is nearly upon us,” the blind man said. “That you will know when to come for answers. He will be waiting for you.”

He bowed, and was gone.

“Wait,” Nhia said helplessly. “Wait …”

But they were gone, only the sign on the door showing that they had ever been there. Nhia cast a glance up and down the street, but there was nothing further to see, and after a while, trying not to show how disturbed the message had made her feel, she returned to the bride’s room.

“Are we still waiting?”

“No, but … I think she might on her way,” Qiaan said, “Xaforn just came in.”

Xaforn had crossed the room and exchanged a few soft words with the waiting priests, and then came over to the door of the inner chamber and knocked. Nhia edged the door open.

“Tai, she’s sorry, but she can’t make it,” Xaforn said. “She sent you her best wishes, though, and she says that you and Kito are commanded to wait on her in the Palace tomorrow so she can offer you congratulations in person. She …”

But the priest was speaking. “The Empress Liudan, who was to have been a guest, sends regrets. All other guests are here. We will begin.” He cleared his throat. “Bring out the bride.”

Tai, who was wearing shoes raised on precarious ceremonial wooden platforms, emerged from the outer room at that command, supported on either side by Nhia and Qiaan. She walked slowly, carefully, balancing with each step, her head demurely bowed. They took her first to So-Xan so that she could make a deep bow to him as his daughter-in-law-to-be, and then on to Kito’s uncle and elderly aunt to offer them honor as well. At the same time Kito was being conducted on his own tour of the room, over to Rimshi’s bed where he bowed deeply to the ailing woman. Rimshi actually managed to raise a hand in blessing; Nhia, nudging Tai gently, made sure she saw it. Tai squeezed Nhia’s fingers in gratitude.

And then she was in front of the Temple priest. Kito was already standing there, a crimson silk tunic fitting tightly over his broad shoulders, his feet in the red boots of the bridegroom.

“In the name of Cahan and the Lord of Heaven, we are here to witness two people joining their lives into one. Let Kito and Tai journey together now and seek the paths of enlightenment. May the Three Pure Ones bless them as they enter into a covenant with the blessing of Cahan; may the light of the Way shine upon their spirit, and may the Lord of Heaven always hold them in the palm of his hand.” He paused, and Nhia produced the box which held the rings that had been Liudan’s gift. The priest opened the box and took out one set of rings.

“Kito.”

“I will always be with you,” Kito said, slipping the thumb rings onto Tai’s small hands.

Tai held on to him for a moment, and then cupped her hands together for the priest to lay the other set of rings down.

“Tai.”

“I will … always be with you.” Tai whispered, her voice breaking very slightly, placing the rings on Kito’s thumbs.

“Where once there was a man called Kito and a woman named Tai, there now stands a new being—both man and woman, she who is now Kito-Tai, he who is now Tai-Kito. In the light of Cahan, in the name of the Lord of Heaven, you are wed.”

Kito reached over and drew aside the heavy veils; there were tiny jeweled hooks on the headdress provided for this moment, but Kito’s hand was shaking so hard that he could not seem to attach the veil to its mooring and Nhia had to reach over and help anchor the wayward silk. She and Qiaan were standing next to Tai on either side, still ready to help her move
if she should want to; Xaforn had come up to stand beside Qiaan, and they were grinning broadly at each other and then at Tai, taking turns; Yuet had hurried over to give the bride, teetering unsteadily on her stilt shoes, a careful hug, mindful of the need to keep her upright by main force; even Tammary had drifted over and stood on one side, a little self-conscious, nodding at Tai with a smile on her face.

There were the absent ones—Antian, the first one, who was gone; Khailin, who was still missing; and Liudan, the glittering one, swallowed by the corridors of power.

But they were all here, in their way, if only in Tai’s thoughts or deep in her heart where she still kept the love she had borne Antian. The
jin-shei
circle that was hers. The world was a safer, less frightening place all of a sudden, with her new husband beside her and
her jin-shei
sisters around her.

Tai started to turn to tell them all so, and her shoes tangled, caught, and pitched her forward into what would have been a less than dignified heap at Kito’s feet—had half a dozen hands not shot out at once to hold her. Nhia and Qiaan at her elbows, Xaforn at her back, Yuet stepping forward to right her if she overbalanced any further, even Tammary’s hand out to help support her. And Kito’s arm around her waist.