I hold up a hand. “I won’t be leaving home. Any doctor can treat an eye infection. I’m not needed.”
“They aren’t asking for any doctor. They’re asking for you. As you say, this is a simple task.”
I hadn’t wanted to share my news this way, but I put my hand over my child palace and announce, “I’m pregnant. I can’t go.”
He lights up. “Will it be a son?”
“We won’t know until he comes out,” I answer, but my use of the word he does not go unnoticed.
Maoren beams, but I also see concern as he weighs this information. He taps the scroll. “A wide sea lets fish jump; a high sky lets birds fly.”
“But—”
“We—you—cannot ignore an imperial request. You must obey. And who knows? Treat an eye infection one day and the next day you could be named a doctor to the imperial household. Think of the honor it will bring to our family.”
He’s right, but I don’t feel honored. I feel irritation at Meiling for putting me in this position. Was it not enough that fate gave her an auspicious opportunity? Why not leave me to my own life—to my husband, my daughters, and the coming baby? But I can’t dwell in my discomfort. There are too many other things to discuss and plan.
“I don’t want you to travel alone,” Maoren says.
“When I left my childhood home, my father provided bodyguards—”
“You will have bodyguards, but my father and I also want you to have a companion.”
I look at him quizzically. “A companion?”
“As you had when you first came to Wuxi. My mother and father were informed of this trip at the time of our marriage negotiations. The matchmaker arranged a meeting with Miss Zhao. She confirmed there had been no opportunity for…” He looks away, embarrassed.
“I was only eight!”
“But pirates were on every ocean wave, and the countryside was thick with bandits. Your Miss Zhao was able to vouch for your—”
I put up a hand to keep him from saying another word. Until now, I hadn’t known that Miss Zhao had been brought in to verify my virginity. And now Maoren wants her to certify my behavior while I’m gone?
“Miss Zhao is my brother’s mother,” I say. “I’ll be happy to have her watch over me for you.” I believe—I hope—that I’ve fully concealed my emotions.
“For my mother,” he corrects. “For our family.”
Maoren spends the night with me. He lies next to me, his stomach and chest along my spine, tucking his knees into the backs of mine, with one of his hands splayed across my belly. I know he loves me and cares for me and our family, but this decision will have consequences. When I’m away from the Garden of Fragrant Delights, he’ll be able to spend as much time as he likes with Snowpink. She could get pregnant; she could already be pregnant. I could have a fourth daughter; she could have a son. An aphorism tells us A clever man shapes his actions to opportunity, but couldn’t that be said about a concubine too?
* * *
Poppy, who’ll also join the traveling party, begins to pack for me while I visit my grandparents to get their advice and to pick up a broad selection of herbs and other ingredients to treat an eye infection of unspecified cause that will probably be long gone by the time I reach the capital. Grandfather offers this guidance: “Even if the patient is the emperor’s favorite concubine, don’t forget that she is no different from any other woman—ten times more difficult to treat than a man.” Only someone who’s been married as long as my grandmother would have the audacity to bat at her husband’s sleeve in dismissal—first, at the idea that I’d be called upon to help someone so exalted, and second, because of her intolerance for that ancient belief. Her eyes sparkle as she speaks the basic truth: “A woman is a woman whether born in the dirt or on silk.”
My brother, Yifeng, wishes me luck, reminding me that what I’m doing will be good not only for the Yang family but for the Tan family as well. “My wife, our children, and I thank you,” he says. He knows, though, that everything rests on the outcome of my treatments.
Miss Zhao has no say about whether she accompanies me, but then she’s had few, if any, real choices in her life. I hope she’ll enjoy the trip and that her past experiences will provide me with useful information.
The most difficult goodbyes are to my daughters. I tell my eldest girl, “You are of an age when temptations may come. Don’t allow yourself to become a jade hairpin that falls in the mud.” To which Yuelan laughs lightly and asks, “Where would I meet a stranger?” To my second girl, I say, “I’m relying on you to assure your older sister does nothing to stain her reputation so near to her marriage and to stick close to Ailan to make sure she walks each day.” Chunlan nods, her expression solemn. And little Ailan? She cries and cries. “Don’t leave me, Mama. Don’t leave me.” Her tears threaten to crack my composure, so my words are as much for me as they are for her: “Be brave.”
The entire household comes to the front gate to bid me farewell. Poppy stands nearby, hopping from foot to foot, ready to run alongside the palanquin to the dock as she has for every important journey in my life. My trunks, boxes, and satchels have been sent ahead to the boat.
My husband and I act formally, as the occasion requires. I bow to him; he bows to me. And that’s that.
Miss Zhao and the bodyguards are already aboard the boat when Poppy and I arrive at the dock. My father’s concubine and I are to share accommodations, with Poppy sleeping on the floor. We open our trunks and lay out those items that will be useful during the journey—brushes, ink, and paper for writing, capes of different thicknesses for whatever weather we might encounter, jars with candied ginger in case of nausea.
“Do you plan on staying in our room for the entire voyage?” Miss Zhao asks. She is not the beauty she once was, but her acceptance of the passage of time exudes a quiet loveliness that to my eyes is both endearing and admirable.
“I do not, and I hope you don’t either. I learned from you many years ago to travel with my own money. I’m prepared to pay whatever it takes to allow us to sit on the deck.”
Miss Zhao smiles. “So we are to see the world again.”
* * *
When we have favorable winds, the sails are hoisted. When the winds are against us, men on towpaths pull the boat upstream with ropes. In shallow waters, the boatmen use poles to propel us. If the water is deep, they rely on oars. We pass through locks that raise or lower the vessel to the required levels. We go day and night, covering about ninety li between sunrises. The greatest surprise is that the person who steers the boat is a woman. Her face is brown from the sun, her body wiry. She is, without doubt, lowly to have a position in which she works with her hands. As such, she sleeps under a lean-to on the deck.
Fall is upon us—the weather temperate, and the skies clear—which allows Miss Zhao and me to spend a lot of time on the deck taking in the scenery. Here in the south, we see abundance in every direction. Villages are well populated, with houses and other buildings made of brick, with tile roofs. Fields spread wide and lush with autumnal crops. Occasionally, we glimpse a woman drawing water from a well or pounding grain. Otherwise, it seems the land is so bountiful and rich that even the wives and daughters of farmers can remain inside to weave and embroider.
Miss Zhao engages me in conversation, inquiring about my daughters and husband. I’m truthful about my daughters and circumspect about my husband. Maoren and I are lucky to have love for each other, but I’m still hurt that he would send me from our home and my responsibilities to our daughters—and what I hope is a son inside me—in his pursuit of glories for the Yang family. Miss Zhao considers what I’ve said—and left unspoken—and makes a suggestion. “You should write to him.” She would not have maintained her station, precarious as it is, all these years if she weren’t sophisticated in the ways of men and their families. “You don’t need to share endearments, although they won’t hurt.”
“But how would I send a letter? The mail system is for the emperor and government alone.”
“You could hire a courier. Or you could wait to see if the palace will send a letter for you.” She watches me consider these possibilities. “The main thing is to show your husband and your mother-in-law that you kept him in your heart despite the time and distance apart.”
But when I try to compose a letter, I find myself at a loss for words because all I want to write is I want to go home. I want my baby to grow well and safely. I want to give birth to a son. I give up and don’t write again.