Chapter Thirty-Nine: Reconstructions, Part II
A new arc begins, as characters struggle to rebuild old lives.
Anybody present at the meeting between Liu Bei and his two most trustworthy tacticians would have immediately been able to discern which troubled general Zhuge Liang had been talking about.
The last shimmering rays of sunset found Zhao Yun sitting moodily before a small lotus lake, a pale rose handkerchief in his hands and an unreadable frown on his face as he gazed into the golden horizon. The filmy green branches of the weeping willows growing behind him effectively formed a live curtain, rustling rhythmically in the wind and obscuring his face and body from view. It was almost as if Nature herself understood the disconsolate warrior's desire for privacy, and was doing her best to accommodate his wishes.
So were, for that matter, the two Tiger Generals who encountered this scene. Guan Yu and Zhang Fei paused briefly upon sighting their comrade in arms, and the latter even looked like he wanted to say something. However, at the meaningful headshake from the leader of Shu's Tigers, the two quietly resumed their walk, leaving Zhao Yun to be alone with his silent thoughts.
"He's been like this ever since returning from Wu," Guan Yu, once out of the younger man's hearing range, observed with a hint of sorrow in his voice. "I suspect that the scandal involving his handmaid and her ensuing return to Wei has affected him more deeply than anyone could have predicted."
Zhang Fei coughed and gave a series of uncomfortable harrumphs, before finally admitting, "And thanks to this lovesick mess, my daughter's now not speaking to me!"
"Oh?" Guan Yu's voice didn't audibly fluctuate in tone, as he raised one hand and calmly stroked his beard.
"Apparently, Xing Cai finds the notion of forbidden love hopelessly romantic," Zhang Fei grumbled, "and she blames me for playing a role in breaking up Zilong and his wench!"
Guan Yu didn't respond to that, but his sworn brother had a sneaking suspicion that he was hiding a smile behind that famously luxuriant beard.
Cherry lips.
Sooty lashes.
Tired golden eyes.
Xi Tian absently watched her reflection in the mirror as she tried to brush her hair. It didn't take long for her to decide that she looked terrible. Her forehead was creased along tiny lines of exhaustion, her eyes were swollen and lackluster, and her cheeks appeared an uncharacteristic pale shade. Of course, all those hours of non-stop travel by boat and by carriage hadn't exactly done wonders for her. Perhaps a good night's rest might restore her youth and vitality, Xi Tian hoped, as the ivory comb in her hand moved through her raven locks at a slow, ineffective pace.
She failed to turn around when she heard the doors to her room open and close, but instead chose to observe her visitor's movements in the mirror, as Amah entered and bustled busily about. Upon catching sight of what her young mistress was trying to do, the stout old nurse strode forward and pried the comb out of Xi Tian's hands.
"My little miss looks rather quiet and serious tonight," she commented, as she began to briskly and efficiently brush the girl's long, black hair.
"Do I?" Xi Tian's lips barely seemed to move.
"Poor child, you've had to do a lot of growing up over the past year, haven't you." Amah's words came out sounding more like a statement rather than a question, and what she chose to say next surprised both her charge as well as herself: "But, it's just as well—I dare say the House of Jiang wouldn't want to receive a naïve child for its daughter-in-law."
Xi Tian stiffened in her chair, and Amah herself appeared to have realized that she'd said something that wasn't in her place to say, for she immediately bit her lips to stop herself from blabbing out anything else. Yet the damage was already done, as the young girl in the chair slowly turned to look up at her nurse with a face that was as white as the moon outside her window.
"What?" Xi Tian asked in a strangled whisper, sounding almost as if the wind had been momentarily knocked out of her.
Amah looked flustered, shuffling around and coughing guiltily as she tried to avoid looking at her Young Miss in the eye.
"Amah." Xi Tian's voice was firm. "Amah, what did you say about the House of Jiang seeking a daughter-in-law?"
For the first time since Xi Tian could remember, Amah actually blushed, as the old woman confessed, "I'm sorry, Miss Xi Tian, I wasn't supposed to tell you this tonight. Your father—the Jiang family—in fact even our Lord Mengde—they were all planning to announce the engagement at a banquet next week…it was…it was supposed to be a surprise…Now, I must admit this all seems a little bit extravagant that even the Lord of Wei himself has a hand in planning this party, but of course, my little girl's special, and deserves everything—"
Now Amah was simply gibbering in her nervousness. Xi Tian put out an arm as if to reassure her nurse, although she soon found that it wasn't much help, for her own hand was trembling.
"An engagement?" she repeated.
For, it seemed as if all she could do was echo Amah's words, her shock preventing her from forming coherent sentences of her own.
Amah stopped gabbling, and beamed a huge smile down at the little ingénue she'd come to think of as her own child.
"To the young and handsome General Jiang Wei of Tianshui," she positively chirped in her happiness. "Oh, isn't this wonderful news, Miss Xi Tian?"
Xi Tian's face was like stone when she finally made her obliging reply: "Yes. Yes it is."
Oblivious to the girl's distress, Amah continued to happily chatter on, reiterating all the good things attached to the Jiang family name and gushing over what a beautiful bride her Young Miss was going to make. Xi Tian sat frozen in her chair, letting her kindly old nurse blather on in her ignorant bliss. She tilted her face down in a daze, and caught a glimpse of a single length of silver-embroidered green brocade that sat folded on her dresser. The sight brought back a rush of memories, many of them painfully recent, and for a moment the room seemed to spin dizzyingly, causing her to close her eyes and rest her forehead against the palm of one hand.
When Xi Tian had recovered a few seconds later, there was a dull, empty tinge in her eyes that Amah would have noticed immediately had she not been so busy singing Jiang Wei's praises.
"…Not to mention what a fine young gentleman General Jiang is. He truly is quite a catch you know, and, of course, he's so very handsome…"
"Of course," Xi Tian parroted obediently, as she reached over to grasp the length of luxurious fabric dyed the same shade of emerald as Shu's dragon flags.
Zhao Yun's green headband.
"…And of course, Lord Xi is very pleased with this match…"
"Of course."
Xi Tian had long learned to chime in with the appropriate response, her mind a thousand li away from the one-sided conversation with Amah, as with her other hand she brought over a small, multi-pronged brass candelabra. Almost as if in a trance, she took Zhao Yun's ribbon and held it above the hottest flame. And yet…and yet she couldn't quite bring herself to do it. Her fingers lingered just above the tiny dancing flickers of scarlet and gold, one edge of the brocade dangling dangerously close to the candlelight.
"…And I'm sure he'll be such a wonderful husband…Miss Xi Tian, this is one of the happiest days in your life, knowing you'll be marrying such an illustrious young officer…"
"Of course."
Xi Tian squeezed her eyes shut and let her fingers go lax, and Zhao Yun's green ribbon fluttered down…down…down…
She let out the softest of moans and turned away, unable to bear watching the first tongue of fire blacken and consume the only token she had from the Little Dragon of Changshan.
"…Miss Xi Tian?" Amah finally seemed to have realized that her mistress was acting less than enthused about her upcoming nuptials. "Miss Xi Tian, are you feeling well?"
"Of course."
By now, that phrase had become a grotesque chant, and Amah was not quite so old that she couldn't detect something was wrong. Her hand reached over and turned Xi Tian's face around, and she was startled to find twin lines of tears sparkling on the girl's cheeks.
"Miss Xi Tian, what's going on? Why did you just burn that piece of green silk?" she demanded, placing her hands on her hips and preparing her weapons for a hard battle ahead in case her charge tried to conceal anything.
"Nothing's wrong," Xi Tian lied in a broken whisper.
Amah narrowed her eyes disbelievingly. A lifetime of working for the House of Xi had taught her better than to ever trust those two seemingly harmless words. She had certainly spent her share of time caring for not only the four Xi girls, but their spirited handmaids as well, and all those years dealing with their little crushes and heartbreaks had wised her up to their defensive white lies.
"Miss Xi Tian, don't you be trying to fool your own nurse," the old woman warned, crossing her arms over her chest. "I know something's wrong here—"
Xi Tian interrupted before the rant could really get started, and the voice with which she used to accomplish that task so was so cool and lifeless that for a moment, Amah was startled into silence.
Later that night, long after her mistress had presumably gone to bed, Amah found herself continuously reliving those last few moments of her confrontation with the girl. Xi Tian had sniffled once, twice, then reached out across her dresser and toward the pile of smoky ashes that had once been a green brocade ribbon. With her fingertips, she'd carefully flicked the remains out of sight, never once offering a word of explanation as to why she'd performed such a peculiar ritual in the first place.
Only until after that chore was done did she finally look up. The smile that she'd then bestowed upon her nurse had been the prettiest, most hollow one Amah had ever seen in her sixty-four years of life.
As the old woman loosened her gray hair from its tight buns and laid her head on her pillow, Xi Tian's last words came swirling back to haunt her dreams:
"I'm going to be marrying General Jiang Wei of Tianshui. Of course nothing's wrong."