Page 10 of Song of the Crimson Flower

“In fact,” Madam Huynh told him, her voice guttural with glee as she went to stand beside Lady Vu, “I think you should never show your face again in this town. You won’t work for my husband another minute once I’ve told him of your disgraceful conduct toward Miss Vu.”

Lan collapsed against her mother. “Oh, Mama, help me,” she said as the ground tilted beneath her. She caught sight of Bao, whose eyes had never left her. The cheek she had slapped was red, but the rest of his face was white as a funeral sheet, and the look he wore—so much like what Lan imagined her own expression to be, thinking of Tam—was more than she could bear. She buried her face into her mother’s shoulder and let the tears come, gushing out like rain.

“You fancied yourself one of my husband’s sons, didn’t you?” Madam Huynh taunted Bao. “You thought yourself on an equal footing with Tam, to even dare to desire his betrothed.”

The anger came back, sharp and hot as an iron in the fire. “Tam is not my betrothed,” Lan shrieked at the woman. “And I wantyouto leave as well, Madam Huynh.”

“Lan!” her mother cried, horrified by her uncharacteristic rudeness.

But then Bao turned and ran out of the courtyard, leaving Lan’s scarf and brooch behind, and the world disintegrated into shimmering dots. As her vision went black, Lan gave in to her devastation, her body crumpling in her mother’s arms.

Lan lay in bed in a stupor of humiliation.

Her mother had ordered everyone to leave her in peace, and in the dark and quiet, she pulled the pillows over her head, shutting out theworld. But, try as she might, she couldn’t shut out her thoughts. They came like pebbles, disturbing the surface of her mind with the truth she had never been able to admit: that she had imagined a Tam who did not exist.

The real Tam, on the rare occasions when hehadbothered to visit, had never spoken of love or talked about their future. She had fallen for his charm, his wit, and his careless smile, and she had seen his parents’ flattery and her parents’ hope, and had filled in all the rest herself. She had wasted years fantasizing about a future that would never happen. How her cousins must have laughed to see her swanning around, smugly choosing wedding clothes and hoarding the love notes that the Huynhs had paid Bao to write her.

Bao.

Lan dug the heels of her hands into her eyes. Her shame was a knife in her stomach, and several times she sat up, heaving over her chamber pot but bringing up nothing. She had been so cruel to Bao. It wasn’t his fault the Huynhs had used him to hide their son’s shameful behavior. He had needed the money, and he had only wanted to make Lan happy. Hehadmade her happy.

I see you, he had said.You deserve to be loved.

And she had flung his love and his lack of family in his face, as though he could help any of it. She had always been so self-satisfied, so certain she would never grow up to be as horrible as Madam Huynh... and in the span of five minutes, had proven that she was no better.

Years ago, she had heard her father telling her mother that he thought Madam Huynh was beating Bao. She remembered how Ba had slipped coins and sweets into the little boy’s pockets at every opportunity, and how Bà n?i, too, had gone out of her way to be kind to the child. Lan had felt superior to Madam Huynh then, because her father andgrandmother had taught her that a man’s greatness lay not in in his birth, but in who he chose to become.

And then she had called Bao a peasant to his face.

She despised herself.

All through the night, she tossed and turned and listened in the silence, though she knew she would not hear the boatman’s music again. When the sun rose at last, she swallowed her self-loathing and forced herself to get out of bed. Her grandmother wouldneverhave let her sulk like this. She would have said, “You have done wrong yesterday, but you have a chance to do right today,” and figured out a way for Lan to make amends.

And so Lan made an effort to put herself together and go down to join her family. Meals were a chaotic event in the Vu household, with three generations under one roof. Minister and Lady Vu presided at one end of the table, with their four sons, their sons’ wives, and assorted grandchildren filling up the rest. Today, Lan welcomed the commotion, hoping it would shield her from attention. She went through the customary round of respectful greetings to her parents and older brothers, then took a seat beside her mother. Lady Vu touched her hand and Minister Vu gave her a loving smile, and Lan felt she could better weather the day with them beside her.

She dug her chopsticks into a bowl of sticky rice speckled with egg and listened to her brothers talk, hoping it would distract her from thoughts of Tam and Bao. Unfortunately, they appeared to be talking about bloodpox, which explained the elegant grimace on Lady Vu’s face.

“The disease doesn’t seem to be contagious,” Phong, her eldest brother, was saying. “Master Huynh and Khoa’s sister were both there when he died, but neither of them fell ill.”

Nor did Bao.A stab of guilt lanced through Lan’s gut, and she put her chopsticks down.

“But how do you explain this other case, then?” asked Chung, the youngest of Lan’s brothers. “A man died of bloodpox, surrounded by his family and faithful manservant. Only the servant fell ill and died a month later, and everyone else survived.”

“Contagious or not, people are frightened,” Minister Vu said. “A few men from the river market came yesterday, begging me to use my influence with the king. They’re visiting all of the officials in our region, retired or not, to try to have the Gray City’s new medicine legalized. They think it could help stop bloodpox from spreading, if His Majesty approves the research.”

Chung shook his head. “It won’t happen, Ba. There’s a reason the poppy fields were burned and black spice was outlawed eight years ago. It is a dangerous and highly addictive drug, and I doubt anything else the Gray City makes would be safer.”

“But isn’t it worth a try, if people are dying such violent deaths?” Phong argued.

“I don’t trust the Gray City one bit,” Chung said. “Nor do I believe in that woman who is leading them. Do you know why her family has grown so rich and powerful over the years? Because they’re good at courting the favor of whoever happens to be in power at the time.”

Lan looked up, surprised into speaking. “The Gray City’s leader is a woman?”

Lady Vu frowned at her, but Chung answered seriously. “Mistress Vy’s family grew the Gray City from nothing,” he told Lan. “They gifted black spice to the barbarian kings who ruled over them for a century, and then to Empress Xifeng. And look what happened to them all!”

“An epidemic killed off the barbarians, not black spice,” Phong pointed out. “And as for Empress Xifeng, she was defeated in the Great War by her stepdaughter.”

Chung threw up his hands. “My point exactly. Anything having to do with Mistress Vy or the Gray City is bad luck. I think it’s because they still revere the Serpent God,” he said, and Lan leaned forward eagerly, distracted at last. Their parents had never before allowed talk of the fallen deity who had aided and abetted wicked Empress Xifeng during her reign of terror.

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