to decide.”
There was a shout in the yard. Qian Ding left, obviously flustered. While he appeared to be leaving to carry out his official duties, in truth he was running from an awkward situation. It was the sort of thing that occurred often on the operatic stage, so I knew what he was doing. His wife blew out the candle and let the moon light up the room again.
Feeling awkward, I got up and sat on a stool in the corner, my tongue parched, my throat dry and raspy. As if she could read my mind, she poured a cup of cold tea and held it out to me. Hesitant at first, I took it from her and drank every drop.
“I thank Your Ladyship.”
“I could never have pictured you as a brave and resourceful woman!” the Magistrate’s wife said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
How was I supposed to respond to that?
“How old are you?”
“May it please Your Ladyship, I am twenty-four this year.”
“I understand that you are pregnant.”
“I am young and ignorant, and I can only ask Your Ladyship’s forgiveness for any offense I have given. As the popular adage has it, ‘A great man overlooks the flaws of a lesser man, and a Prime Minister has a capacious nature.’”
“What a clever little mouth you have,” the First Lady replied with the sobriety of her station. “Can you say with certainty that the child in your belly is Laoye’s?”
“Yes, I can.”
“Then,” she said curtly, “do you want to stay or leave?”
“I want to leave,” I said without a moment’s hesitation.
————
5
————
I stood beside a gatepost in front of the yamen staring blankly inside. I’d not slept a wink, suffering through a hellish night worse than any performed onstage. This was no performance, but it would not take long for it to find its way into operatic lore. Before I left the yamen, the First Lady urged me to go somewhere far away to keep myself safe. She even handed me five liang of silver. But I was not about to leave. My mind was made up. If I was going to die, it would be in Gaomi County, nowhere else. Whatever happened, happened.
All the local people knew that I was Sun Bing’s daughter, and they spared no effort to shield me, like mother hens protecting a single chick. White-haired old ladies tried to hand me still-warm eggs, and when I refused to take them, they stuffed them into my pockets.
“Eat, young lady,” they said tearfully, “you must eat to stay well and strong.”
Truth is, as I knew all too well, before troubles had beset my dieh, all these county women—young and old, daughters of fine families and prostitutes from local brothels—had ground their teeth when they heard my name mentioned and would have loved to take a bite out of me. They hated the fact of my relationship with the County Magistrate, they hated the fact that I lived better than they did, and they hated the fact that I had healthy, unbound feet that could run and hop and were prized by the Magistrate. Dieh, when you raised the flag of rebellion, their attitude toward me changed for the better, and better still when you were taken into custody. When the Ascension Platform was erected on the Tongde Academy parade ground and an announcement was posted in all the villages that you were to be dispatched by the sandalwood death, well, Dieh, your daughter was transformed into everyone’s favorite niece, loved by all.
Dieh, last night we tried to save you, and almost won. If you’d not lost your head, the deed would now be done. Dieh, oh, Dieh, four beggars’ lives were lost. Look at the winged walls beside the gate~~your heart will ache, blood from your eyes will run. On the left two heads, on the right three, one monkey and two human. On the left Zhu Ba and Xiao Luanzi, on the right Xiao Lianzi, Houqi, and his monkey, all rotting in the sun. (So vicious that even an innocent monkey was not spared!)
The sun climbed slowly into the sky, yet all was quiet inside the yamen. I imagined they would wait till noon to take my dieh out of his cell. But already, people—dignified individuals in robes and hats—were emerging slowly from Shan Family Lane, opposite the yamen gate. As the most famous lane in town, it had gained notoriety for being home to not one, but two Imperial licentiates. That glory, however, belonged to the past.