Page 8 of Song of the Crimson Flower

“I suppose the two of you came alone,” she said. It wasn’t a question, but Bao nodded anyway, and she sighed. “I presume Tam is still with his uncle? At the rate he’s been studying, he’ll be every bit as good a court minister as my father was.”

Bao looked at her downcast face, scrambling for something to say that would comfort her. “The villagers are worried about bloodpox spreading.” The moment he said it, he felt like kicking himself, knowing that Minister Vu didn’t want Lan hearing about such things. But Lan was looking at him, puzzled, and it was too late to take it back. “Master Huynh says that there is a lot of interest in that new medicine the Gray City is making. It might treat bloodpox. People want support from important officials like Tam’s uncle to persuade His Majesty to legalize the poppies again, or at least allow research to be done.”Stop babbling, he told himself, flustered.

But Lan looked more interested than annoyed. “Has the new medicine been successful yet?”

“Master Huynh’s colleague says it has. But more work needs to be done.” Bao noticed her eyes darting to his fingers, which were tapping a relentless, anxious rhythm against his legs, and made an effort to be still. “Tam must be busy learning everything he can.” He didn’t know why he was making excuses for Tam, but the dejection on Lan’s face was too much for him to bear. She deserved better—she deserved to know.

Lan smiled, her eyes sad. “Thank you for trying to make me feel better, but Tam has been like this long before the bloodpox scare. Will you take any refreshment before you go?”

Bao hesitated. He knew she was only being polite, but he couldn’t shake the hope that she wanted his company, too. Perhaps if he stayed, he would finally muster enough courage to tell her what she needed to hear. But he dreaded going back to sit with Madam Huynh and Lady Vu.

“I don’t want to go in there, either,” Lan said, laughing when he stared at her in surprise. She understood him so well. “Would you like to sit in the courtyard? I won’t keep you long. I don’t want to join my mother yet, but... I also don’t want to be alone today.”

He nodded and followed her outside, his throat dry and heart hammering at the good fortune of having time alone with her. The afternoon sky was gray with the looming threat of rain, and the air hung heavy with moisture and the sweet smell of the fruit trees. They each took a chair and sat down, looking across the expanse of limestone tiles to where a few maids were doing the day’s washing. For a fleeting moment, Bao let himself imagine that this was his house, those were his servants, and Lan was his wife. She would put her small, soft hand in his, and he would tuck a tendril of hair behind her ear and listen to her talk about her day.

But the illusion vanished when he saw the faraway look in her eyes. She was thinking of someone else, someone who would never care for her the way Bao did. This was the moment of truth. He drummed his fingers on his leg, struggling to find the right words. It was now or never.

“I... I have something to tell you,” he said haltingly. “Something to give you, in fact.”

Lan closed her eyes. “Please don’t say it’s another note from Tam.”

“It’s not.”

“Well, what is it, then?” Her eyes were so deep and soft that he feared looking into them for long. “If it’s bad news, tell me at once.”

It was too late to go back now. Bao exhaled as he pulled out two objects from his pocket: a crumpled blue silk scarf and a brooch set with dark rubies in the shape of a dragonfly.

Lan stared at them blankly. “I gave those as gifts to Tam. Why do you have them?”

“I’ve had them for almost a year.”

“No, that can’t be right. I saw Tam recently with my scarf tied around his wrist.”

“While playing the flute to you, on the river.”

“Of course. That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” she said impatiently, and then her eyes slid from the objects to Bao’s face. “Please tell me he told you that.Pleasetell me that’s how you know.” Her voice got smaller with each word until it was a whisper.

“I found your scarf and brooch in a pile of clothing last winter,” Bao told her, miserable. Every word he spoke was a double-edged knife, hurting her, and hurting him, too, because of it. But there was no help for it; this was one wound from which he had to drain the poison for Lan’s sake. “Every year, Madam Huynh has the servants discard the family’s old possessions. I knew that these were gifts from you to Tam, so Iasked him if the maids had discarded them by mistake. He told me he had thrown them out himself.”

Lan’s lips were pressed so tightly they had turned white. “Go on.”

“He wasn’t himself that night. He’d had an argument with his parents,” Bao said quickly. Again, he was unsure why he was making excuses for someone who didn’t deserve them. “They had been pressuring him about your wedding, and his studies, and how much money he was spending, and he... exploded. He said he was tired of them telling him what to do. He wanted to live his own life. To study what he liked, choose his own profession, and marry a woman he loved. Madam Huynh fainted, and Master Huynh... I’ve never seen him so angry.”

Bao wished he could erase the memory of that night and forget the awful things Tam had shouted at his parents. That evening had been the closest Bao had ever come to hitting him, and the gods knew he’d been tempted many times before. But it had devastated him to hear Tam talk that way to the mother and father he ought to honor—to tell them, to their faces, that he wished they were dead. Bao would have givenanythingto be loved the way the Huynhs loved Tam. And to see Tam throwing that away, so careless, so arrogant...

Lan rose shakily to her feet. “He said he wants to marry a woman he loves. Which means he doesn’t love me,” she said, lips trembling. “You tell me this happened a year ago, but I have received many notes since, all written in his hand. I have been given presents. I have heard music on the river at night. And my scarf and my brooch weren’t discarded after all.”

“No,” Bao said, his heart aching. He got to his feet, too, and gazed down at her, wishing he could take her pain away. She looked so small and sad, and when she covered her eyes with her hands, it was all he could do to keep from wrapping his arms around her. He could imagineit so vividly, the way she would fit softly against him, her head tucked beneath his chin.

Lan’s hands fell away. She looked up at him, tears beading on her lashes like dew. They were standing so close together that he could have bent his head and kissed the drops away. “It was you, wasn’t it?” she whispered. “You wrote the messages to look like they came from him. You left gifts for me. And you... you were the boatman.”

“Master Huynh asked me to do it,” Bao said, fumbling for words. “I didn’t want to join in the lie, but I couldn’t refuse him. I needed the money he gave me.”

“So they paid you to keep up the pretense. To avoid offending my father. To save face by hiding the fact that their only son had gone against their wishes.” Lan’s voice was calm in the extreme, and for some reason that made his stomach clench even harder. “I did wonder how Tam had suddenly become so gifted at poetry. You’re quite talented, you know.”

Bao looked down at his hands, still holding her gifts. “They paid me to write messages and stall for time,” he said, wanting desperately for her to understand. “But everything else, the poems, the gifts, the music... everything else came from me. Tam neversawyou the way I did. He never valued your kindness, your generosity. Your love and respect for your family. I see you. I seeyou, Lan.” Her name slipped carelessly from his mouth, but she didn’t seem to notice.

She was shaking her head, her fists clenched at her sides.

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