Page 7 of Song of the Crimson Flower

She reminded herself, yet again, that Tam had come every night forweeks to play the song he had written for her. He loved her, and his true love letter was in his beautiful music.

Still, she couldn’t help the tears that spilled down her cheeks. She would have happily traded an entire year’s worth of moonlit music to have Tam with her in person, where he belonged, and not in a boat far beneath her window.

4

In the two days since having tea at Minister Vu’s house, Bao had gone over every look and every word from Lan at least a hundred times in his head. He cursed the absurd flutter that took over his brain and body every time they were in a room together. His arms felt too long, his conversation too clumsy, and his manners too unrefined, and every clever, witty thing he meant to say would fly right out of his head. For years, it had been easier to pretend she didn’t exist, when he was aware of every breath she took. To avert his eyes, when all he wanted to do was look at her. To speak to everyone else, when she was the one he wanted to talk to.

And she had noticed.

“You’ve never so much as looked at me,” she had told him at tea.

She had seen him, and perhaps she had thought he was ignoring her because he was stuck-up, or he didn’t care, or he disliked her. But even if she knew the truth, it wouldn’t matter: she was meant for another.You’re a mess, Bao, he told himself.

“Why are you scowling?” Madam Huynh demanded. “I realize that bringing me to the Vu home is no pleasure of yours, but you needn’t show it.”

Bao jolted back to the present: his hands on the reins of the horse pulling the covered carriage, his eyes on the road, and his body sitting—most unfortunately—next to the physician’s wife. “I’m happy to take you to see Lady Vu. I have to go there myself, for Master Huynh charged me with delivering medicine.” He felt the hatred in her gaze like a splatter of hot oil.

“Impertinent and ungrateful,” she muttered. “The only reason you’re still working for my husband is because ofmygenerosity.Ilet you live in my house and eat my food. I could have had him throw you on the streets years ago, but I didn’t.”

He shut out the woman’s nagging voice. It was easy, since he had been doing it for eight years, ever since he had come to live with the Huynhs. All he had to do was call up a pretty melody, perhaps one of the ones Tam played on the flute, and pretend to be alone. Madam Huynh’s words had hurt more when he was little, but at almost twenty, he had learned to spare himself the pain by becoming a wall.Wall, after all, was her favorite insult for him, with his long lanky frame and wide shoulders, and he liked the idea of twisting it into a shield against her.

Bao knew he had earned his place through hard work and relentless study. Master Huynh was a kind teacher, but he couldn’t always be around to deflect his wife’s abuse. She wasn’t a noblewoman like Lady Vu, but she had been born to one of the wealthiest families in the Sacred Grasslands, one that had been esteemed by the Emperors of Feng Lu when the continent was still an empire. Marrying her had elevated Master Huynh, a low-born scholar, to court physician, andthough he had long since retired from the king’s service, his wife still ruled his household.

I’m the only decision he ever made without her approval, Bao thought.

That was why she hated him—that, and the fact that rich people like her and her precious son, Tam, believed that a person’s birth determined their worth. Tam had always resented the orphan his father had brought home like a stray dog. Better blood flowed in him and his mother; a penniless orphan like Bao was no more important than the dirt beneath their feet.

But Bao reminded himself that not everyone thought that way. Minister Vu was not just rich, but also highborn, and he had always been kind to Bao. And as for his pretty daughter... Bao had never seen Lan treat anyone with less than courtesy or civility, from her father’s guests to the lowliest servants, and she had spoken to Bao like a human being at tea. Like an equal. The thought of her warmed him in the face of Madam Huynh’s coldness.

He pulled the carriage to a stop in front of the wooden gate carved with the Vu emblem: a circle ofhoa maiaround a meadowlark, a symbol of the family’s pride in their Grasslands roots. Bao wondered what it was like to belong to a clan like that.

“Well, go on and help me down,” Madam Huynh snapped.

Bao obeyed, trying not to grimace as her cloying perfume overpowered his nostrils. As a servant escorted them through the courtyard, Bao checked to make sure he had the packet for Lady Vu. It was only a simple herbal tea, but Bao knew that Master Huynh had to give her something. She was terrified of illness and was constantly convinced she had caught some horrible disease or another. If she had been near Khoa that day in the market, Bao thought wryly, she would be on her “deathbed” right now—not walking around like Bao, after a dose of snake’s-blood tonic.

They found Lady Vu in the sitting room, looking fresh and elegant in her pink-and-goldao daiwith mother-of-pearl clasps at the double collar. Though many people considered Madam Huynh to be a beauty, Bao liked Lady Vu’s face much more—perhaps because she shared her wide, dancing eyes and rounded, dimpled cheeks with her daughter, Lan.

The two women exchanged warm greetings. “Please forgive my daughter’s tardiness,” Lady Vu said, glancing toward the doorway. “Today marks one year since my husband’s mother died, and Lan wished to spend a bit more time in prayer. She was very close to her grandmother.”

“That loving girl of yours must take all the time she needs, then,” Madam Huynh said in a sweet, breathy voice reserved for people she regarded as equals. “What a treasure she is.”

“As is your Tam,” Lady Vu said politely, to which the physician’s wife smiled, though lines of tightness formed around her eyes. Lady Vu raised her eyebrows at Bao, and he quickly handed over the packet of tea. “Please thank Master Huynh for me. You may leave us now.”

The women continued conversing without a second glance at him. Bao left, torn between disappointment at not seeing Lan and relief that she hadn’t witnessed her mother dismissing him like a servant. On the day he had come for tea, he had been so ready to tell Lan that he loved her, but his resolve had wavered. After all, he was as strong as a horse, and it was clear that he had not contracted Khoa’s bloodpox.I should still tell her, he thought.A healer’s health is never certain.

And there were other things he had to say, too... truths she deserved to know.

Bao lingered in the corridor, searching for an inconspicuous place to wait, when he heard her soft voice coming from a nearby room—the family shrine.

“Hieu is growing fast,” she was saying. “He’s the biggest of all mynephews, and he has your sweet tooth. He loveschè ba maubecause of the colors of the bean paste. How I wish you were here to see him, Bà n?i.” Her voice cracked, and Bao felt a pang at the love and longing in it. He crept past the door, hoping to make it out to the courtyard without her seeing.

“Bao?”

He froze as Lan appeared in the doorway, blinking away tears. He reached into his pocket for a handkerchief, but his fingers shook so much that he ended up dropping it on the floor. He knelt to retrieve it, cursing his awkwardness, and held it up to her. “It’s still clean on this side.”

Lan accepted it and dabbed at her cheeks. Her composure had returned, and so had her expression of polite disappointment whenever she looked at him. Bao bowed his head, knowing she had hoped, as always, that he was someone else. “Madam Huynh is with my mother?”

“Yes, I drove her here. I was bringing your mother medicine.”

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