amah still had an understanding.
"Fate takes you where it will, and you must let it," Mai Lin continued. "This is the way of the river, even when it is dry and dusty. We must bend and flow, or we will be swept aside by dangerous desert winds."
"All wrong, foolish woman!" Ahcho suddenly shouted, unable to contain his high-and-mighty opinions any longer. "We are Christian soldiers now. We fight against silly old ways. We are not overcome like a camel in a dust storm that lowers its head into the sand and waits to be suffocated. We must exert our will and not allow Fate to carry us willy-nilly. This is what the Reverend taught us!"
"Quite right," Grace said, mostly to calm him. It was touching how precisely Ahcho quoted her husband. "Though," she could not help adding although her mind remained dizzy and somewhat confused, "in a way, isn't that what I am suggesting for myself? I am taking my life into my own hands."
"But you are a girl!" Ahcho said.
"Right again," she agreed with no intention of belaboring the argument. He was an old fellow, and she needed to preserve her strength for the journey ahead. "Now, let's carry on."
Her words only inflamed the suffering man more. Ahcho turned to Mai Lin and began to speak in a rapid dialect that Grace had never heard issuing forth from his lips before. Mai Lin returned his fire with equal fury. Grace was shocked at the sounds. She had grown accustomed to the ever-changing dialects in this land, the inconvenient way language shifted from village to village. But apparently, the servants had had their own tongue all along, which they had somehow kept hidden from her. They argued rapidly back and forth now in words she could only vaguely understand. All these years when they had been speaking Mandarin to her and the Reverend, they had been perpetuating a ruse, as they also used another, more local dialect as well. What else had they been hiding about their true selves? Grace wondered. She was astounded and could not help chuckling, although the two continued to disagree quite vehemently.
"What is he saying?" she asked Mai Lin when the argument had slowed.
"He says he forbids you to go. He is the big honcho around here now. Mr. Big Man."
Mai Lin spat a long shot of tobacco juice into the spittoon. Grace had expressly asked her not to do that, but at this moment, it seemed precisely the right thing to do.
"Explain to him that I will go with or without him. This journey must be carried out no matter what."
Mai Lin rattled on, and Ahcho raised his voice and then his hands in another show of emotion Grace had never seen from him before. The ancient man was irate as well as heartbroken.
"Tell him that I know the Reverend would approve of this mission," Grace said.
Ahcho ran his fingers over his slicked-back hair and pressed his palm against his receding brow. Mai Lin let out a triumphant laugh.
"He has agreed?" Grace asked.
"He is an old fool," Mai Lin said and waved her hand in Ahcho's direction as she turned away.
"That's not nice, Mai Lin," Grace said.
Then she spoke to Ahcho directly in the formal tongue they had used for years. "I am terribly sorry to have upset you, Ahcho, but you see, I have nothing else to live for. I must go forward. There has to be something I can do, otherwise I am lost, utterly lost. Do you understand?"
She reached a hand across and squeezed his bony arm under his tattered, dust-covered black robe. The poor fellow was trying so hard to maintain a semblance of what had been. But Grace could see plainly that it was no more. None of it was anymore.
Ahcho appeared to have returned to his senses. His crisp posture made him tall again.
"Yes, I understand," he replied and closed his hands together. "But Madam will find nothing in Yao dao ho. It is an empty village, all the people gone, and it is dangerous to travel anywhere now, even to the market in Fenchow-fu. Why risk a destination that has no purpose? Instead of pursuing this mad investigation, you must pray, Mistress Grace, and grow strong again. You are not well, and you must ask the Lord to help you. Jesus heals the sick who are patient and good. Not those who gallivant about like wild women."
He shot a harsh glance at Mai Lin, who let out