Chapter 10 — Across the Water
The 漓江 came up at the hour of the rat under a low moon.
She smelled it first. River-air had a chemistry — fish, mud, the green clean cold of fast water over deep stone, the deeper note of cinnabar-treated oar-handles along a working shore — that had no resemblance to anything in the ten-year register inside her ribs, and the compound inside her sternum was, by the dawn of the second day, getting full.
The cart-line halted half a li short of the landing in a stand of bamboo. The carter's wife passed a second folded paper. The fox in the canvas pack made the small soft hh of an embassy clerk going on duty for the third treaty of the morning.
"Mei-mei."
"Yan Jiuhe."
"The 青芦 landing is four hundred paces south through the bamboo. The boat is the third boat at the third post. The boatman is — Lin Yao — my sort-of friend. He is — by the standards of the 漓江 — sober at this hour two days a week. This is one of the two days. The boat is — by the standards of the 漓江 — also a boat. We will board at the hour of the cock. We have, by the carter's wife's reading of the wind at the second water-house, eight hours."
"Eight."
"Eight. Mei-mei. I am — for the record — happy that there are eight. Earlier in the week we had three, and an hour ago we had twelve, and now we have eight, and I am — strictly — not commenting on the trend."
"You are commenting."
"I am commenting. Lin Yao. Su."
He turned to the third bench. Su had been awake the whole night. The slow steady three-count breath had not, by the count of her own pulse against her own thumb, varied since the cart hit the stone at the second ford. The wound under the linen had — by the smell, which was the smell she had been monitoring for six hours without naming the monitoring — held. The poison had — by the smell — not reached the lung. The poison would reach the lung at the hour of the rooster, as he had said.
He had — strictly — three hours.
Yan Jiuhe said, conversationally to Su's medicine-staff: "Yaōguāizi. The 药王谷 healing station is two li east at the bend, half a li upriver. There is a biāoshī in the bamboo on the east path. The biāoshī is — strictly — paid. He will walk you to the gate. He will not, strictly, ask your name. You will be at a 药王谷 mat before the hour of the rooster."
Su breathed in. Four count.
He breathed out. Six count.
He said, very softly: "Brother."
Yan Jiuhe did not, strictly, answer.
He laid one hand — flat, the biāoshī signing-hand, palm down — on the medicine-staff between Su's knees.
He took the hand back.
He said: "Yaōguāizi. Sister Lin will, strictly, see you to the bend."
Lin Yao raised her eyes.
Yan Jiuhe was — not looking at her. He was looking at the bamboo, the way he had looked at the altar in his mother's shrine, with the third face turned a half-degree away.
She understood.
The door had — by the small bright steady choice of a biāoshī who had been adjusting for two days — opened, one cùn, for 药王谷.
She did not — strictly — thank him.
She bowed.
The bow was the bow her mother had once made to a woman who had carried her in a snowstorm for three li and had refused payment, and her mother had bowed the third bow, hands at the side, head dipped two cùn, weight off the right hip, and Yan Jiuhe — when she straightened — was looking at the bamboo with an expression that was, strictly, the expression of a man who had been bowed to by a woman in a way he had not, in nine years, been bowed to by anyone.
He bowed back.
He bowed back the biāoshī bow.
It was — by the count of breaths — a cùn lower than the bow he had used yesterday.
She walked Su to the bend.
It was — strictly — four hundred paces.
He walked beside her, the staff in his right hand, his good shoulder a cùn clear of hers, the 药王谷 discipline at the angle of his neck holding through what she could read as the second wave of the 寒岩苔 under his skin. He did not — strictly — speak.
She did not speak.
The bamboo rustled at the second watch. The torchlight at the official landing was visible through the trunks two hundred paces ahead. The bamboo on the east path was darker. Somewhere in the dark of the east path was the paid biāoshī.
Twenty paces short of the bend, she stopped.
She said, looking at the bamboo and not at him: "Su."
"Sister Lin."
"Three things."
"Three things."
"One. The 寒岩苔 will reach the lung at the hour of the rooster. The 药王谷 mat will hold it. The mat will not — strictly — neutralize the second wave. You will need the 青精散 in the third drawer of the second cabinet of the east wing. The pill bin is — by the seal — initial-stamped to the resident master. The resident master will not — strictly — release it for a courier. You will say to the resident master, in the second register, the staff was not the only thing that needed delivering. He will release the pill bin."
A long silence.
He said, very softly: "Sister Lin. My master gave you that sentence."
"My father gave me that sentence. My father wrote it in the third-volume notebook at the back of the page that contained the Yongquan-Huiyin gate sequence. I read it at thirteen. I did not — strictly — know what it meant. I know now."
"Yes."
"Two."
"Two."
"At the 漓江 south-east turn, twelve days south of 青芦, there is a Wanyue boat that will, by the second water-house bird, be off the 白鹿洲 sandbank at the liánqi moon. We will be on that boat. I will not — strictly — be using the name Lin. I will be using a fiancée's name and a forged permit and a biāoshī's sword and a fox. If you find us — Su — you will find us by the pulse."
"By the pulse."
"You took back your pulse at the edge of the grove. You returned the rhythm at the campfire when I gave it back to you off your clavicle. The rhythm — Su — is now between us. It is not, strictly, a 药王谷 exercise. It is a Lin-Su exercise. You will find me — if and only if I am alive — by the three-breath pulse. You will not find me — if I am dead — by anything. Do not, Su, go looking for the dead. You will only find the 药王谷 mat my father refused for his daughter. I will not — strictly — be there."
A longer silence.
He said, very softly: "Yao-yao."
The third sister.
The Yao-yao sister.
She did not — strictly — flinch.
She said, around the corner of her mouth, the smallest possible thing: "I have not been Yao-yao in eleven years, Su. My mother was — strictly — the last. You will be the second. You will be the second once. Do not use it again until I tell you. Yes?"
"Yes, Sister Lin."
"Three."
"Three."
She turned.
She took, from the inside seam of her right sleeve, the small folded square of waxed silk she had been carrying since the third day in the gorge. It was — by the weight — light. By the smell — clean. By the seal on the wax, initial-stamped 月-木, the same 月-木 as the second seal on her father's last talisman and the same 月-木 as the hairpin in his master's hair.
She held it out.
She did not put it in his hand.
She held it out in the air at the no-thumb's-breadth distance.
He understood.
He held out his good right hand, palm up, at the no-thumb's-breadth distance.
She set the waxed silk into his palm without touching the palm.
She said: "Su. This is the second of the three notebooks. My father wrote it for fourteen years. He gave it to my mother three breaths before he died, on the soul-nail morning, when I was nine. My mother carried it nine days through frost and gave it to me at the Frost Sect intake gate inside the lining of the condemned-white inner-robe. It has been in my sleeve nine years. I have read it twice. I do not — strictly — understand a third of it. The third is — Su — 药王谷. The third was written for a hand that was not, strictly, my father's. The third is — Su — for you."
He breathed in.
He did not, strictly, breathe out.
She said: "Read it. Keep it. Return it to me at the 漓江 south-east turn. I will be — strictly — alive at the turn. If you do not, strictly, return it — I will know two things. One — you have also not been alive. Two — the 寒岩苔 was — strictly — not the southern poison you thought it was."
"...Sister Lin."
"I am taking the 药王谷 hand off your neck for two days, Su. I am asking you to be — strictly — a 药王谷 hand at a 药王谷 hall, with the second notebook of Lin Zhao in your sleeve, for two days. I am not — strictly — sending you. I am — Su — inviting you. The third — Su — is for you. The first is — strictly — for me. The second is — by my mother's hand on the 月-木 seal — for both."
He folded his good hand, very carefully, around the waxed silk.
He bowed.
He bowed the 药王谷 bow — two cùn, hands at the side, weight off the left. It cost him, by the small in-breath at the corner of his mouth, the wound. He took the cost.
He said, into the bamboo: "Sister Lin. I will return it. I will be alive at the turn. The second notebook will — strictly — read its hand. The third 药王谷 hand at the 月-木 margin is — Sister Lin — mine."
She did not, strictly, breathe.
She breathed in. Four count. Out. Six count.
She said: "Su. One more thing."
"Yes."
"Your right hand."
He understood.
He raised his good right hand. He did not raise it to her face. He raised it to her left wrist, the wrist Yan Jiuhe had laid two fingers on at the fire and had taken back, the wrist that had been strictly hers all morning.
He laid the pad of his right index finger — only the index, only the pad, only one cùn of skin — against the inside of her left wrist, where the pulse ran.
He did not press.
His finger did not — strictly — move.
Then, with the slow precision of a man who had learned at thirteen how to set a needle along the inside of a cùn of skin, he slid a thing from his right sleeve into the cuff of her left sleeve.
The thing was — by the cold weight against her wrist-bone — silver.
Long. Thin. Thumb-needle gauge. One.
A single one of the 九转还魂针.
He said, very softly, to the inside of her wrist: "Sister Lin. One needle. The needle is — strictly — fed. It will hold one 拘魂 — soul-recall — at one strike, at any distance up to one hundred li, if a 药王谷 hand has set the gate in advance. The gate, Sister Lin, I am setting now."
His finger had not — strictly — left her wrist.
He breathed in. Four count.
He breathed out. Six count.
The pad of his finger — for one count, the last count, the only count — pressed. A fēn, not more, into the inside of her wrist where his own pulse had been an hour ago. The press was the press of a man setting a gate, the way her father had once set a gate in the meat of her shoulder at four when her mother had said the child is going somewhere I cannot follow her, husband, leave her a door.
The press ended.
His finger left her wrist.
Her wrist remained — strictly — hers.
He said, against the bamboo: "Sister Lin. If you strike the needle into your own yintang, between the brows, with your own intent — the gate opens. You will see, for one breath, 药王谷. I will see, for one breath, you. That is — Sister Lin — the fed of the needle. Do not waste it. There is one. There is only one. The second of the 九转 — by my master's rule — I am not permitted to feed for a stranger."
"Su."
"Sister Lin."
"You are — strictly — wasting it on a stranger."
A pause.
He said, very quietly, looking at the bamboo: "I have not, strictly, believed you were a stranger since the count of three breaths at the beech root, Sister Lin. The needle is — Sister Lin — not wasted."
She did not, strictly, speak.
He bowed.
She bowed.
He walked into the bamboo on the east path.
The fox in the canvas pack on Yan Jiuhe's far shoulder — four hundred paces back — opened both eyes for the first time in twelve hours, and then, strictly, closed them again.
The embassy clerk had — off the watch, on the watch, off again — registered the third initialling at her grove.
The clerk would, strictly, file it under stayed.
The landing came up at the hour of the rabbit.
Bamboo opened to a long stone quay along a wide grey water that was, by the dawn-low, the colour of an old sword. Three docks. Eleven boats. The biāoshī checkpoint sat on the second dock, three men on a low stool with a kettle and a bowl of pickled radish between them. Yan Jiuhe's posture, by the time they hit the open stone, had become the fourth face — not the grin, not the third-face, not the cart-shoulder. The fourth face was, by the soft white at the knuckles of the right hand on the sword-pommel, hunting.
He did not, strictly, turn his head.
He said, against the wind off the water, in a voice that was very low: "Lin Yao."
"Yan Jiuhe."
"On the far bank. By the willow. Do not — strictly — turn. Use the biāoshī bowl. The bowl is polished. The bowl reads the bank at thirty paces."
She did not turn.
She stepped to the second biāoshī's stool. She bowed one cùn, the biāoshī bow, the one Yan Jiuhe had bowed her into for two days. She took, from her sleeve, the second folded paper Yan Jiuhe had passed her at the bamboo, the new permit, the second forgery. She set it on the corner of the stool. The eldest biāoshī — a flat-eyed man with a small white scar at the corner of his lower lip — nodded one cùn. He pushed the bowl of pickled radish, very lightly, one cùn toward her.
The bowl of pickled radish was polished steel under a thin film of brine.
She bent.
She took a single piece of radish in two fingers. The brine on the steel — by the angle of the rising sun against the lantern over the stool — showed her the far bank of the 漓江 in the reflection like a small clear cold mirror.
The far bank was three li wide.
The far bank was, at this hour, in the second-watch dark.
In the reflection on the brine, against the willow at the bend, stood a man in white.
The man in white was wearing a sect outer-robe at the cut of the Cold Jade Peak lineage.
The man in white was wearing a four-foot straight sword at the back of his shoulders.
The sword at the back of his shoulders was 寒霜.
The man in white was Pei Shenzhi.
She breathed because her mother had taught her, at nine, the night the soul-nail morning began: daughter, the breath is the one thing they cannot take. Keep it. Take it back at four and give it back at six and they cannot follow you into the count.
Four count in. Six count out.
The brine moved.
The man in white — by the small bright steady set of his shoulders, by the precise way his left hand rested over his right cuff at the cùn her own left hand had once rested at her right cuff for three years to copy his stance — turned his head one degree.
The one degree was the one degree of a Jindan-cusp first disciple who had, through three li of grey water and a polished brine-bowl on a biāoshī's stool, seen her.
He had, through three li and a brine-bowl, seen the second bench.
She had, for ten years on the second bench, never been seen.
She straightened.
She put the radish in her mouth.
She did not turn.
She did not need to turn.
The reflection had — strictly — done the work.
She said, around the radish, around the brine, in the small quiet biāoshī voice Yan Jiuhe had taught her at the third water-house: "Yan Jiuhe."
"Lin Yao."
"He cannot — by the count of three li of grey water and the breath against the current — cross in the next hour."
"He cannot. Mei-mei. He can — strictly — cross in three. The ferries run from the third dock at the hour of the dragon. He will be on the first ferry. He will be at the 青芦 stone at the hour of the snake. We will be — by the boat at the third post — one hour downriver by then. The current will, by the season, run six li an hour. Mei-mei. He will not catch us today."
"He has seen me."
"He has — Mei-mei — seen you."
"He will know — by the bowl, by the brine, by the small bright cold set of my own right shoulder when I leaned for the radish — that I have seen him."
"Yes. Lin Yao."
"He will — strictly — not look away."
"He will not look away."
A pause.
"Yan Jiuhe."
"Lin Yao."
"I have been afraid of him for ten years."
"Yes."
"I am about to make him afraid of me."
Yan Jiuhe did not, strictly, answer.
He breathed out, against the wind off the water, the small soft pleased hh that lived in the same compound as a man who had been waiting nine days for a sentence and had — by the small bright cold accident of a brine-bowl on a biāoshī's stool — heard it.
He said, very softly: "Mei-mei. The kettle."
"The kettle."
"You said — at the campfire — you would boil."
"I will boil. Yan Jiuhe. I will boil the whole way south. I will carry the kettle myself. I will ask him, when the hour comes — with the cup in my own steady hand — whether he wanted the tea sweet."
"Mei-mei. What if he says yes."
"Then I will pour it. Yan Jiuhe. And I will, strictly, not warn him about the temperature."
The fourth face of Yan Jiuhe — the hunting one — adjusted by one cùn. The white at the knuckles of the right hand on the sword-pommel softened by one cùn. The set of the chin came down by one cùn. The biāoshī came back.
He said, conversationally to the second biāoshī's kettle: "Mei-mei. I have, currently, been wondering how to ask you a question for two days."
"Ask."
"You have been — strictly — running for nine days."
"I have."
"Are you — strictly — done running."
She turned, very slightly.
She did not turn toward the far bank.
She turned toward Yan Jiuhe, the fourth face of him, the hunting one, and she set her own left thumb — very lightly — on the inside of her own left wrist, on the place his two fingers had been at the fire and Su's index had been at the bamboo, the place her own three-breath pulse had been strictly hers since the dawn at the stone.
The needle in her cuff was cold.
The pulse under her thumb was hers.
She said, in the small quiet voice she had used to her father at six on the morning he had asked her if she was sure she wanted to learn the yongquan-huiyin gate sequence:
"Yan Jiuhe. I am done running."
A breath.
"I am — strictly — going to run toward."
The fourth face of Yan Jiuhe became, for the first time in nine days, a face she had not yet given a number.
The number, if she gave it, would be — by the discipline of nine days — five.
She did not, strictly, give it.
The fifth face — she registered with the small bright cold clarity of a woman who had just chosen a kettle — stayed.
They boarded the third boat at the third post at the hour of the dragon.
The boatman was — by the look of his sleeve — sober. He was also, by the look of his other sleeve, two Wanyue sword-script tattoos under the cuff, half-burned, and a small white scar at the inside of his thumb that Yan Jiuhe greeted, without comment, by laying his own thumb against. The greeting took one breath. The boatman did not, strictly, ask her name. He bowed to her the boatman's bow — one cùn, palm up, eyes off the face — and called her Lady, and his use of Lady contained — by the way his eyes shifted half a cùn to Yan Jiuhe — both the question fiancée? and the answer fiancée.
She did not, strictly, kick Yan Jiuhe's shin.
She would.
The boat pushed off at the second whistle.
The current took them.
She stood at the stern.
She did not, until the 青芦 stone had passed two hundred paces behind them and the willow on the far bank was a smaller and smaller dark shape against the rising sun, turn her head.
She turned.
She did not raise her chin.
She kept her face level — the level her mother had taught her at four, daughter, the level the magistrate's wife uses at the door of her own kitchen.
She looked across three li of grey water at the willow.
He was there.
He had not moved.
The four-foot straight sword at his shoulder had not moved.
The small white edge of his outer-robe in the wind had not, strictly, moved.
She held his eyes.
The level held.
The four count in. The six count out.
She did not, strictly, smile.
She did, however, very slightly — by the half cùn of a woman who had spent ten years bowing and had decided, this morning, strictly not to bow again — lift her face.
Not the eyes. The face. The way her mother had once lifted her face at the door of a magistrate's house at twenty-two, the year she had walked off the high path.
The lift was the lift of a daughter to a brother who had thrown her.
The lift was the lift of a kettle to a man who had — for ten years — handed her the kettle.
The lift was I will teach you to look up.
Across three li of grey water — Pei Shenzhi.
For one full count of her own breath — Pei Shenzhi.
He held her eyes.
The four-foot straight sword at his shoulder did not, strictly, move.
The breath in the wind did not, strictly, move.
The willow on the far bank, in the new sun, did not, strictly, move.
Then — the first thing she had not predicted in ten years — his eyes dropped.
Pei Shenzhi, of 寒玉峰, of Cold Jade Peak, Jindan-cusp first disciple, the man who had pinned her to the altar by 寒霜 through the meat of her left shoulder at the 清门大典 in the second watch of the 惊蛰 dawn —
— dropped his eyes.
For one breath. One.
He did not raise them again until the boat had moved another twenty paces downriver.
She, by then, had already turned her face away.
She had — strictly — gotten what she had come for.
The boat moved.
The willow shrank.
Yan Jiuhe came up behind her at the rail. He did not, strictly, touch her. He stood at the rail at the biāoshī distance, the right wedge-shoulder behind her right shoulder, the if she falls, boy, you fall first distance.
He said, very softly, into the wind: "Mei-mei."
"Yan Jiuhe."
"Pei Shenzhi — strictly — looked away first."
"He did."
"He has — Mei-mei — never looked away first."
"He has — Yan Jiuhe — never been looked at by this face."
"...Mei-mei."
"Yan Jiuhe."
"Lin Yao."
"He could have looked at the altar. He did not look at the altar. I — strictly — used to want to teach him to look. I have, Yan Jiuhe, changed the lesson. I will not teach him to look. I will teach him to look up."
The fox in the canvas pack at his hip flicked her tail. Once. Twice. A third time.
The embassy clerk had — strictly — entered the fourth treaty of the morning into the register inside Lin Yao's sternum, and the fourth treaty was not — Mei-mei — a treaty of love.
The fourth treaty was a treaty of war.
The clerk did not, strictly, mind.
The clerk had been — by the slats of Lin Yao's ribs — waiting for this entry for nine days.
The clerk filed it under stayed.
The river carried them south.
The willow on the far bank disappeared at the second bend.
The eighth bell of the morning rang from the 青芦 watchtower — one li back, a sect-courier bell, Frost Sect by the tone — at the moment Lin Yao took the silver needle out of her cuff, looked at it once, and tucked it back into the seam.
The needle was — strictly — fed.
The kettle was — strictly — on.
The boat moved.
She did not — for the next 漓江 hour, for the next twelve 漓江 days, for the rest of her strictly unfinished life — look back.