Chapter 4
The day I left the Hundred Arts Troupe, no one pitied what had happened to me. My fellow apprentices gloated.
Only the master’s wife shared two farewell drinks with me.
When I climbed into the carriage, she stood at a distance and gave me a few meaningful looks before vanishing from sight.
I turned away with determination, without the slightest lingering attachment. Clutching the acrobatic tools in my bundle, I planned where to stay once I left the city.
But the carriage had gone only a few li before I realized something was wrong.
My body began to feel weak and limp, as though I had been drugged.
I lifted the curtain. We were plainly not taking the road out of the city.
My heart hammered. Frantically, I grabbed the driver’s sleeve and demanded an explanation.
He flung me back viciously. “You still don’t know? Five years ago, the troupe took in another girl. She used her looks to seduce the master, got pregnant, and tried to take madam’s place. Somehow the child died in her womb. The master thought it bad luck and let madam send her off to a brothel.”
She had decided from the start that she would not let me go.
That cup of farewell tea had contained the strongest sedative.
Seeing my stricken face, the driver sneered. “I’ve been paid to deliver you, and deliver you I will. Behave yourself. If you annoy me, I won’t mind being the first to have you!”
I felt as though I had plunged into ice. Dread crept over me.
There was only one low-class brothel in the city, catering to men from every disreputable walk of life.
Going there would be a hundred, a thousand times worse than Rouge House.
I forced myself to stay calm.
Then I pulled the silver pin from my hair, gritted my teeth, and drove it into my thigh.
Blood gushed out, staining my plain skirt red.
The fierce pain cleared my head a little.
Driven by the need to live, I threw myself out of the carriage.
I rolled several times in the street before staggering to my feet.
The driver recovered from his surprise, swore, and chased me.
The pain in my wound grew sharper.
I ran, shouting for help.
The people around me merely watched, cold-eyed.
But if he caught me, there would be no way back.
At my most desperate moment, the crowded street suddenly cleared to either side, making way for a small military procession.
A dozen or so soldiers escorted a finely made little sedan chair. Behind them trailed only a few servants who looked worn by hardship.
The man at their head wore gleaming armor. His deep eyes were like cold stars, frightening to behold.
People whispered around me. “That’s the famous Marquis of the Northern Marches. I hear His Majesty demoted him for some offense and sent him here to defend the city. He really has fallen. Bringing his whole household, and he can’t even muster decent servants.”
It struck me that this might be my chance.
Steeling myself, I flung myself beneath the marquis’s horse, forcing the entire procession to halt.
“General, save me! A wicked man is pursuing me! Please help!”
He did not even raise an eyebrow. “Move if you don’t want to die.”
I was close to tears, but forced myself on. “I’m registered as a free woman. I have no parents, and my background is clear. I’ve served noble people before. Take me as a maid, if you will. I’ll do any dirty or exhausting work!”
He remained unmoved.
He merely lifted a hand, and armed guards surged forward behind him.
In that instant, a woman’s gentle voice came from the sedan chair. “Wait.”
A veiled woman in green stepped out.
Her hair was arranged in a married woman’s style. She was exquisite; even the alluring eyes visible above her veil made her seem a heavenly beauty descended to earth.
The marquis’s expression softened at once. He dismounted and put an arm around her.
She glanced at me, then spoke to him with a fond little reproach. “This girl looks honest. We came from the capital so hurriedly that I have no close maid beside me. Since her background is clear, why not bring her home to serve me?”
He rubbed his brow, then encircled her waist. “I should have thought of that, my dear. If you like the look of her, take her home.”
No sooner had he spoken than the furious driver charged up to drag me away. “That’s my wife! Is the general using his power to abduct a common woman?”
I looked innocently at the marquis’s wife and produced my identity papers.
The marquis frowned slightly. “Take him away. Don’t let him disturb my wife.”
The driver went deathly pale. He struggled in terror, but the guards dragged him away while he could only despair.
The relief of surviving loosened my guard.
Soon afterward, I fainted from blood loss.
When I woke, I was already in the marquis’s residence.