Chapter 1 — Quarrel

Dou Yan had the feeling that she would not be long for this world.

The old folks always said: dream of death and you shall live; dream of life and you shall die.

Lately she kept dreaming that she was a little girl again, sitting beneath a trellis heavy with wisteria, swinging her plump little legs while her nurse, white and round as a steamed bun, fed her spoonful after spoonful.

A breeze stirred, and the hanging wisteria vines pressed close together; the clustered blossoms rustled and murmured like a gaggle of little girls whispering among themselves.

Delighted, she scampered over giggling, seized a vine, and without a second thought plucked a blossom in full bloom.

Her nurse came running after her. "Fourth Miss, there's a good girl, just one more bite and Seventh Master will be home from the capital. He'll bring Fourth Miss all sorts of treats, and pretty shoes and stockings too..."

She did not even glance at her nurse. Dodging the silver spoon thrust toward her, she caught hold of another vine and plucked another wisteria flower.

Then a clear, lovely woman's voice came to her ear: "What's this? Fourth Miss is being naughty again?"

At the sound, the nurse spun around at once, bent her knees, and dropped a curtsy toward the voice, murmuring with great deference, "Seventh Madam."

Clutching her wisteria blossom, the child darted over. "Mother, Mother..."

The young woman gathered her up tenderly.

She held out the flower in her hand for her mother to see, as proudly as if she were presenting treasure.

The spring sunlight fell upon the red-gold hairpin in her mother's hair and upon her crimson robe, gold-threaded all over and full-sleeved, striking off a dazzling brilliance. Her mother seemed dipped in gold leaf, so bright it stung her eyes, and her mother's face melted into that golden haze, so that she could not make out her expression.

"Mother, Mother..." Fighting back the smarting in her eyes, she tilted her head back as far as she could, straining to see her mother clearly.

But her mother's face only grew more and more blurred.

A little maid came running up and announced, radiant with joy, "Seventh Madam, Seventh Master has returned from the capital!"

"Truly!" Her mother rose to her feet, startled and overjoyed, and gathering up her skirts, rushed outside.

She toddled after her on her two short, plump legs, pitter-patter. "Mother, Mother!"

But her mother only walked faster and faster, and seemed about to vanish into the spring light.

Frantic, she shouted after her mother's briskly receding figure, "Mother, Mother, Father hasn't come back alone—he's brought a woman with him! She'll take your place as his lawful wife, drive you to your wit's end, and you'll hang yourself and die..."

Yet for some reason, these words of such desperate importance circled over and over in her mind and on the tip of her tongue and would not come out at all. She could only watch helplessly as her mother's figure drifted farther and farther away and vanished from her sight.

Sick with anxiety, she ran this way and that, searching everywhere for her mother.

In the white glare there was a crowd of grown-ups quarreling endlessly.

She ran toward them.

Pushing her way through the crowd, she asked in agony, "Have you seen my mother? Have you seen my mother?"

But they were all too busy quarreling, and not one of them paid her any heed.

Where on earth had her mother gone?

She looked about her in bewilderment.

Suddenly she saw a hall whose lattice doors were inset with colored glass; the door stood half open, and shadows seemed to stir within.

Could her mother be hiding in there?

Overjoyed, she ran toward it and pushed the lattice door open with a creak.

A crimson skirt, gold-threaded all over, swung in midair; beneath its hem showed two feet—one in nothing but a snow-white silk stocking, the other in a crimson silk shoe embroidered with mandarin ducks at play in the water...

Screaming in terror, she woke drenched in sweat.

What met her eyes was the familiar octagonal palace lantern, standing quietly in the corner, casting a bright yet gentle radiance.

The room was utterly still. Her senior maid, Cuileng, was dozing on a little stool by the head of the bed.

Dou Yan drew a deep breath.

So that scream too had been part of the dream!

She forced down the panic and unease in her heart.

Her illness had turned the whole household upside down—especially the maids who attended her personally, taking turns day and night without daring to close their eyes for an instant. They must be utterly exhausted.

Dou Yan did not wake Cuileng. Gazing at the lamplight in the corner, she could not help thinking back on the dream.

Her mother had died when she was but one year and eleven months old. She remembered nothing. If her mother's faithful servant Tuoniang had not found her later, she would not even have known how her mother had died—so how could she know such details?

Clearly it was all a case of what she thought by day, she dreamed by night—having heard Tuoniang's account, she had simply imagined the rest!

A dull oppression settled over Dou Yan's heart, a suffocating misery, and she could not help turning over.

The rustle of fabric against fabric sounded especially distinct and loud in the stillness of the night.

Cuileng was startled awake at once; realizing she had actually dozed off while on night duty, she called out in alarm, "Madam!"

Dou Yan gave her a soothing smile and said, "I am a little thirsty."

"I will go and pour you some tea right away." Cuileng sprang up, heaved a long sigh, and felt her heart settle.

Dou Yan took a sip of the hot tea and asked her, "What hour is it now? Has the Marquis returned?"

"It has just passed the hour of Zi," Cuileng said hesitantly. "The Marquis, he, he has not returned yet." She looked thoroughly uneasy.

Dou Yan's gaze darkened despite herself.

She had caught a chill on the day of the Double Ninth Festival, when she went to the residence of her sister-in-law—Lady Wei Yanzhen, wife of the heir of Duke Jing—to admire the chrysanthemums, and afterward she had run a slight fever. At first no one took it seriously, Dou Yan included. They assumed a few doses of medicine from the imperial physician would set her right, but instead of improving, her illness only worsened, and ten days ago she had taken to her bed and could not rise. Only then did the household fall into a panic, summoning doctors, conducting rites, praying to the Bodhisattvas—the whole place turned upside down. Her husband, Wei Fan, Marquis of Jining, even had a couch set up behind a screen for the maids, and every night he rested there, tending to her tea and water.

Yesterday afternoon, Wang Qinghai, the fourth young master of the Marquis of Ting'an's household, had come looking for Wei Fan, and the two had muttered together outside for a long while. Then Wei Fan made the excuse that he was going out to dine with Wang Qinghai, and he had not returned since.

Wang Qinghai, whose courtesy name was Dahe, came, like Wei Fan, from a family of dukes and ministers; the two had grown up together, both fond of archery and kickball, and they were especially close, often riding out together for polo, kickball, hunting, and horse racing. At any other time Dou Yan would have thought nothing of it and gone back to her peaceful sleep. But just half a month ago, Wang Qinghai's father-in-law, Zhou Shaochuan, Earl of Donglin, had been stripped of his title and his household confiscated by the Emperor on charges of embezzlement, and thrown into the imperial prison. Wang Qinghai was now running in every direction on his father-in-law's behalf, and she feared Wei Fan might get himself entangled in it too.