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I was relieved when Lord Kwan’s brother left. It felt like everyone breathed out a held sigh, sharing the same sentiment. In the shuffling about, returning the house to its state prior to receiving visitors, a newly planted sapling snapped. It’d gone ignored, and, not wanting it to die, I tried to mend it. I didn’t have so many chores now, and was in the way otherwise.
With sap from a clipped branch of a bigger tree, I glued the strained wood back together. Fast as my fingers would allow, I fashioned some twine from straw. I used a stiff bamboo stick to act as an anchor, and the twine to wrap around the two pieces. Hopefully, that’d keep the small tree upright and help it to heal.
In trying to remember how an elder assisted in the recovery of several tea trees, I gathered ash and fallen leaves, tilling it gently into the soil. At the very least, I did something rather than watch it wither. All that was left was to wait, checking in on it every morning and eve.
For a long time, it stayed as it was. Neither growing nor dying.
Summer came, ushering in seasonal rains. Worried, I checked the sapling more often. It held.
On a clear day, when I headed back to it, Lord Kwan stood there. He looked at my handywork in trying to mend the tree, staring with the same quiet intensity as he did with everything.
“Hisa.” I stiffened at his soft call. “Can you explain this to me?”
I approached, unsure if he was displeased or testing me in some way. “It accidentally broke, my lord. When the house was getting back in order. So I—”
His gaze moved to me, reading me.
“I’ve been trying to mend it, my lord. With sap and twine and the bamboo for support.”
He blinked, slow, mulling over what was said. That’s what it felt like, anyway. He answered things in his own time, while all else answered right away. I learned after nearly a year spent here that he never hurried to speak, and considered what to say when he spoke to anyone at all. The exception being his brother.
“I have a lazy gardener, who only today informed me about this and asked what ought to be done.”
“My lord?”
He looked back at the sapling, his hand reaching slightly for his fingers to brush against the leaves. “If this happened that long ago, it should have been pulled out and replaced. You’ve been tending it instead?”
I nodded. “Every day.”
“Devoted to it, I see.”
It surprised me how quickly he responded, letting only a few seconds hang. More, his eyes somehow appeared softer when he looked at me again. That hint of a smile there as well. He approved. For whatever reason, that made me glad.
“Your brother came for you not long ago,” said Lord Kwan, looking back to the leaves of the young tree, and that small happiness vanished from me. “What did you talk about?”
I wanted to deny it, deny I’d even seen anyone from my village since coming here. It was my instinct to protect my family in whatever meager way I could. But... if he already knew. Whether a guardsman spotted us, spotted Raeden, or if Lord Kwan himself saw us, he’d know it was a lie. I wanted to protect my brother. And I didn’t know how.
“He,” I had to swallow hard and clear my voice. “He wanted to know that I was alright, my lord. A message was sent, I know, but no one in my village knows how to read. I told you that.” I tried to keep my voice steady, watching as he kept his attention fixed on the sapling.
“You were gone some time.”
“I didn’t leave the estate, my lord. I promise. He didn’t come to steal me back. It was only to see that I could bear myself. And... I did have questions about our village as well. To know that my family was looked after, and to tell him how best to sort through some things until I get home. I only wanted my father and brothers to be well off while I’m here. Wouldn’t you do that same for your brothers?”
A slight wince marred his face. If I wasn’t looking at him so intently and unblinking in my scramble to explain, I might’ve missed it. Seeing it, however, I thought I’d said the wrong things. But they were the honest things. Now I worried perhaps I’d lose all my privileges; that I’d be back in the kennels and would have no more writing lessons or drawing paper or any comfort I’d earned.
“My lord?”
“Get an ewer and come to my room at the end of lunch. My guest wants you there.” He turned quick on his heel, walking back to the house.
“Guest?”
He didn’t answer.
****
I did as commanded, attempting to appear dignified like the rest of the household staff. The bronze ewer weighed heavy, filled with water, causing me to hold it close while I walked with caution, trying not to spill. To my surprise, Lord Kwan’s doors were open. I stepped into the antechamber, taking off my sandals. In his room, Syaoran stood ready again. The guest however, confused me.
Feng.
A small luncheon was set on the table, breads and rice and sliced fruits and steamed vegetable. Soft conversation was held; more from Feng than from Lord Kwan. It shouldn’t have surprised me. She’d said herself that she fell in love with him, and made up her mind to become his wife.
I remembered my manners, making a polite entrance and bringing in refreshment for them before standing beside Syaoran. Still, I couldn’t keep a smile from my face. I wanted to see love triumph, wanted to see my friend be with the man of her dreams. And I did believe we were friends.
I’d not been paying attention, daydreaming as I waited for cues to attend. When she turned her head sharp, a grin painted on her face, I forgot myself.
“You agree, don’t you?”
“Agree?”
She turned back to Lord Kwan, who’d said hardly a thing and looked off with wordless disinterest often. “Since I’ve already taught her, I may as well keep her as my servant. She can stay in the same room, of course, it’s the smallest one anyway.”
I blinked, stealing a glance to Syaoran for some clue as to what I should do or say. He stayed still, glancing back with a hint of worry.
“Maybe I’ll claim another from the villages when she’s getting too old to serve,” said Feng, unbothered. “Humans are like that. She can help to select my next servant. Won’t that be novel? That this house always retains a human servant? Though, I’d have preferred if she was a bit taller.”
“I’m,” I started, baffled by the conversation and trying to understand. I remembered that a servant wasn’t supposed to speak first, let alone interrupt, but both of them were already looking at me, expectantly. “I’m only here for four more years.”
Feng blinked. “But you would stay if Lord Kwan and I said to.”
I gave a slow shake of my head, sure that I was somehow overstepping. “I want to be with my family after my service is up.”
“In that run down little village?” asked Feng, brow quirked and tone in alarm. “Wouldn’t you rather be here as a servant where you have a nicer room and better food? You wouldn’t need to forage ever again if you were the servant to Lord Kwan’s bride.”
“It’s not—” I wanted to argue with heated words, tempered by the quiet watch of Lord Kwan and the soft grunt from Syaoran. “It’s my home. Where my friends and family live.”
She frowned. “Are you saying that living among Juneun is beneath you?”
I shook my head with a gasp, trying to make myself small enough to hide behind the ewer I held.
Lord Kwan raised his cup, looking off into some part of the room rather than to anyone there. Syaoran answered, replenishing the pomegranate wine. Feng winced at the smell, working hard to hide the expression and keep herself composed.
“If it’s the company you want, we’ll have a full staff once we’re married. I can claim other village girls, and you can instruct them like I taught you. That should suffice. Now, you will stay.”
“That’s not what I meant,” I said, looking between Lord Kwan and Syaoran in a silent plea for help.
“How can you stand there and refuse your master’s bride?” scolded Feng.
“You forget,” said Lord Kwan after a long while. His eyes returned to her, that quiet intensity staring from his stony face. “I’ve made no offer of marriage. Nor will I.”
Feng gave a look of shock.
I heard an odd sound by my side. Syaoran’s face was crinkled, locked tight as he held in laughter.
She stared at him a while in disbelief. “But, my lord—”
“I will make no bride of someone whose goal is to achieve status in marrying into a higher family. I have no use for a greedy woman that would become a demanding wife.” He looked away, slow and unconcerned, towards the door and the sunlight beyond.
“How can you say these things?” demanded Feng, face scowled and at the brink of tears. “I’ve loved you since I was only a girl. You would treat me so cold? With such contempt? Do centuries of love mean nothing?”
His gaze went back to her, a predator about to lash at a rival. “And the length of time makes you entitled to my heart?”
“At this moment, I wonder if you even still have a heart.” She’d spoken out of anger, and a look of horror—realizing her words and her tone—came in the next second.
Lord Kwan’s expression remained unchanged. In that moment I wanted to run to her, hug and comfort her. I knew she loved Lord Kwan, speaking of little else than her dreams of what life would be like with him. I didn’t think she pursued him for status or wealth or anything like that. Then again, those few days outside the walls taught me that I didn’t know much at all about the way things are done with noble families. Was it not at all sincere? It couldn’t be.
She stayed in stunned silence; silence that Lord Kwan allowed to hang over at his leisure.
“Leave,” said Lord Kwan, in as close of a growl as I’d ever heard since the morning I arrived.
Feng fled, crying, whipping by impossibly fast.
I felt for her, and my feet started to chase after. Syaoran stopped me, quick to take my arm and shake his head. I studied his pitying expression, slow to move my watch away to Lord Kwan, who sat still and breathed in deep. There was something more to this strange event. Something that no one wanted to speak on or tell me.
“Sit,” commanded Lord Kwan.
I stepped in line with Syaoran, following his example. Though, in taking a place at the table, he flicked my thigh, reminding me that the way a man sat was different from how I (as a woman) was expected to sit. I disliked it for how uncomfortable and unnatural it felt, dreading that I’d be made to stay that way for long; I didn’t want my leg to fall asleep and pain me when I was allowed to stand and walk again. Despite that, I obliged. Our ewers set aside, hands placed politely, I felt a strange pressure to be better than my very best behavior.
“When she leaves,” said Lord Kwan at long last, though he didn’t look at either of us, “I want the gates closed.”
Syaoran dipped his head slightly in a show of understanding. I copied.
“I will not be holding court this year.”
“Understood,” said Syaoran.
“Let us hope this is the last of foolhardy pursuits,” said Lord Kwan, glancing between us. “I refuse to entertain these games.” He held out his cup for water, and I acted on the cue.
“But, don’t you think that that was harsh—” I spoke without thinking, my mind a mess of confusion.
Syaoran’s hand, hidden beneath the table, grabbed my thigh, the nearest hidden part of me, to stop me. I held fast to the ewer, a shiver of surprise surging through me. Warm and strong fingers begging me to hold myself while his eyes stayed on Lord Kwan. A heat entered my gut, my heartbeat out of rhythm as his hand lingered there.
Lord Kwan watched me, stoic. He waited until I’d set aside the drink and resumed my seat. “It will always appear harsh from an outsider’s perspective. They’re not the ones being emotionally manipulated.”
I stayed still. It felt like I was being scolded, but not quite so cold.
“Lengthy talk on what might be, the allure of a perfect life by her standards and lofty to the standards of onlookers. Accusations of unrequited love. And the summoning of insincere tears. Every lady of breeding has these weapons at her disposal, an attempt to try and shame any refusal to her.”
Weapons? He implied that this entire thing was set up. An act on Feng’s behalf. And that I was victim to her manipulation of the truth.
“Do you owe a man in your village your heart, even if you have never loved him, purely because of spectacle or expectation?”
“No, my lord,” I answered quietly.
“Even if he declared you beautiful? And brilliant beyond your peers?”
My voice became quieter as I understood. I was not a beauty, nor was I particularly skilled in a great many things, and barely learning to read. If someone came to me and said this was true, contradicting what I otherwise knew, I would see he was shamelessly lying. And if I’d said so, I would seem ungrateful, unreasonable. “No, my lord.”
Syaoran loosened his grip, fingers relaxed and feeling like they would dip further against my inner thigh. Out of reflex, my own hand moved to halt his, hidden on this side of the table.
Lord Kwan sipped from his cup, in complete control of every smooth movement. He looked away, over his shoulder at the window, eyes fixed on something. “What would it take to convince either of you to marry?”
“Each other, my lord?” said Syaoran in a tone of confusion. His hand flexed, palm pressing down only just.
I felt my neck, face, and ears starting to warm, and tried to think of anything else to help keep it from showing.
“In general,” said Lord Kwan.
“I confess I hadn’t thought about it. I’m not quite four hundred yet.” With his free hand, he massaged at his neck and through his hair. “I suppose, a woman who is beautiful and loves to race on horseback. And who can laugh with me. And with an appetite for rice wine.”
I loosened my grip on his hand, reasserting it as he moved up my thigh only slightly. My heart slowed in sadness. I was not beautiful, nor had I ever ridden a horse, and I didn’t like the rice wine enough to say that I had an appetite for it.
“Hisa,” commanded Lord Kwan.
I realized then that he’d been expecting an answer, and I’d been absent minded. “For me, my lord?”
Syaoran’s fingers slid a little more on my inner thigh, and I reflexively tightened my grip.
“I,” I stuttered, distracted. “Someone who is honest, my lord. And kind. Most of all, kind.”
“Not handsome or wealthy?”
I put both my hands on Syaoran’s, trying to keep from further distraction. “I wouldn’t care how he looked, my lord. Or if he was as poor as I am. Not if he loved and treated me so well.”
That hint of a smile returned. For almost a full moment, I thought I could see he was planning at something. “I’ll inform Lord Juro, and make arrangements. He was quite taken with you.”
“Lord Juro?” I said, more panic-stricken than I realized. My shoulders rose up, and my head tucked down at the memory of the former Kurai.
“You said yourself that appearances don’t matter. And he is a Juneun attracted by smell more than he is by beauty.”
I shook my head, vigorous and fearful. My hands held tight to Syaoran, and I looked to him with a wordless plea. Again, his face crinkled, holding in a laugh.
“You wouldn’t want him for a husband?” said Lord Kwan. “Then appearances do matter.”
“It’s not his appearance, my lord,” I said, louder than I meant to in my defensiveness. “It’s... when he spoke to me. I felt uncomfortable. It was as if I was being looked at like thick, sweet cream and ripe fruit, rather than as a person.”
Lord Kwan rested his head in his palm, leaning over the table. His expression went unchanged, but I thought I could tell there was a level of amusement in his eyes. “So, there is more to your willing to love and be married, then.”
“I suppose,” I said, calming. “It’s a complicated feeling.”
“In fairness,” said Syaoran, reclaiming his hand, “Juro has a reputation of gluttony and womanizing. I don’t doubt he would be good the woman he marries, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say he would always be faithful to her. And we might say that behavior is not kind.”
His amused gaze moved to Syaoran. “We might agree on that. But it is common for a higher lord to have consorts as well as a wife. The humans imitate this as well with their kings.”
“I believe that is your way of saying you desire a harem,” teased Syaoran. All previous tension was broken at my expense.
I was glad at the ease from it, if not annoyed by the method.
“One often speaks his own desires as someone else’s,” said Lord Kwan, placing a cup to each of us.
I chanced it, to be even a little bold. “What about you, my lord? What would entice you to marry?”
Syaoran didn’t waste his opportunity. “Hisa is planning to court the master directly.”
Flustered, I snapped at him. “That’s not what I said! I only meant, since we were asked...”
His fox ears went flat, but his smile remained as he poured the wine for me. I wanted to say a dozen things. Something to taunt him back with. But I didn’t know how far I could allow myself abandon in the presence of Lord Kwan.
“Something different,” said Lord Kwan at last, diverting our attention. “The courts are filled with women who paint their faces to hide how they really look, and carry a practiced demeanor to conceal how they really behave. I think I should agree with you both. Someone who is honest, and who also enjoys a race across my lands.”
“Do we speak literally of your lands, my lord? Or metaphorically?”
I didn’t quite catch what Syaoran meant. Judging by the sly grin, it was probably best that I didn’t.
Lord Kwan elected to ignore it. “And someone who chooses to be patient. Working through tough times and hard decisions, rather than give up or want to start over. A breath of fresh air. Something away from castle walls and paved roads.”
“Sounds like you might fall into conflict more often than fall in love with that sort of person, knowing you,” said Syaoran.
“Because I am set in my ways?”
“And because everyone you can bear to tolerate already lives here,” said Syaoran, ears still flat as he teased.