The Secrets of Jin-Shei

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One

It had been the hottest summer in living memory. The letters thatcame to the Summer Palace from those left behind to swelter inthe Imperial Court in Linh-an were full of complaints about theheavy, sultry heat that wrapped and stifled them until they gasped forbreath, the clouds that built up huge and purple every day against thebleached white sky but never brought anything except dry lightning and adistant threatening rumble of thunder. And it was barely the middle of themonth of Chanain. Summer had only just begun.

But there were few left in Linh-an. At the Summer Palace in themountains, although it was still hot enough for servants with enormouspeacock feather fans to take up posts beside the royal women's beds untilthey fell asleep at night, one could raise one's eyes to the distant whitecappedpeaks and be comforted with the dream of coolness. There wasalways a breeze in the gardens, too, whispering in the leaves of the dwarfmountain magnolia trees planted around the inner courtyard. It was pleasantto linger there in the early morning, when the bird chorus was juststarting up, or in the late afternoon with its long shadows and golden light.The voices of wild crickets mingled with captive ones in tiny wickerhouses which hung concealed in the trees. There were cool ponds andfountains where water played over the smooth mottled gray stone broughthere from a great distance by a long-dead Empress to grace her gardens.There were white flowers and red ones, some with a golden cast, andsome with heavy purple petals making their heads nod in the breeze. Andthere were the butterflies.

It was the butterflies that brought Tai there. She was not of the Court,not even of the Court's retinue; by rights she should have had no realaccess to the Imperial Gardens at all. Imperial life was complicated. Downin Linh-an, the great capital city, the lives of the women of the ImperialCourt were governed by endless rounds of etiquette and protocol. There were people to see, petitioners to receive; the higher-ranked Princesses andconcubines held their own courts, and were expected to grace publicceremonies with their presence and attend to the day-to-day business oftheir own households. All of this required strict rules about attire andadornment. Summer was the only time when a woman of the ImperialCourt of Syai was permitted to appear outside her bedroom without themandatory hours of preparation and perfection. Here, in the SummerPalace, the Court was on holiday; the women were allowed to wear theirhair down, to emerge from the seclusion of their rooms without the heavyceremonial outer robes, to go barefoot in the gardens.

And summer was the only time that the ladies had the time to devoteto the preparation of the necessary ceremonial garb for the Autumn Courtat which they were all to appear to mark their return to Linh-an fromtheir summer frolics. Everyone required a brand-new formal suit of robesfor that occasion, and the Summer Palace was always a happy muddle ofbolts of sumptuous silks, bright velvets, furs for lining hoods and tippets,and a thousand embroidery hoops with half-finished flowers andhummingbirds.

Tai's mother, Rimshi, was always part of the entourage which theImperial ladies took to the Summer Palace. Rimshi was a sorceress withthe needle. She could transform silk and velvet and brocade into lavishrobes, and her services were much in demand. Ever since she had beenwidowed, three years ago now, Rimshi had taken Tai with her to the SummerPalace. Tai had been just six when she had first come here clinging toher mother's skirts, and had been fussed over and petted and spoiled withsweets and the royal castoffs from princesses unlikely to be seen in publictwice wearing the same suit of court garb. Tai had a closet full of luxuriousrobes which her mother carefully recut and reshaped into clothes suitablefor her to wear. She was nine now, but she had become so much a part ofthe Summer Palace gardens by this time that nobody even thought aboutquestioning her presence there.

She would find an unobtrusive perch in some out-of-the-way courtyardand dream her way through lazy summer mornings listening to the cricketchorus and watching the bright butterflies flutter from flowerhead toflowerhead, contrasting white and blue and violet and vivid orange againstthe blooms and foliage. One of the gifts that had percolated to her that particularsummer, from a bored royal concubine who could not master the artof using them, was a set of colored chalks and a sheaf of thick creamy rag paper. Tai had loved the idea of drawing the somnolent summer gardens.She was only just beginning to have an idea of how the chalks worked, andher first few efforts were crude and garish, in an attempt to overcompensatefrom what she was used to, brushes and inks and the cheap thin paper shecould get back home in Linh-an. But she was learning, and these dazzlingsummer butterflies were her favorite subject.

She was smudging the finishing touches to a surprisingly delicate renditionon a hot, slow afternoon, sitting in the mottled shade of an ancienttwisted chestnut with her feet tucked tidily away under her robe andoblivious to everything else around her, when she was startled to hear avoice from behind her.

"That is actually very good," the voice observed, a young woman'svoice, sounding at once lofty and warmly approving.

Tai, who had paused in her work and had been sitting with her eyestightly closed and her head lifted in a pose of furious concentration,dropped her paper and scrambled gracelessly to her feet ...

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Excerpted from The Secrets of Jin-Shei: A Novel by Alma Alexander
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.