chapter 1

# chapter 1

I was down by the river washing my pig-slaughtering knife when a fine lady came tumbling onto the bank.

She was completely unconscious, and her silks and satins had been slashed to ribbons by the rocks in the water.

Through the tears, ugly purple bruises showed.

Yet her hand was clamped tight around a peace-lock pendant cast from solid gold.

I held my hand under her nose. Still breathing.

So I stripped off my outer coat and draped it over her.

Then I grabbed my slaughtering knife with one hand, hoisted her onto my back, and hauled her home.

The straw mat on the bed was clean enough. I changed her out of her soaked clothes and laid her down on the mat.

Then I pulled a cotton quilt out of the cabinet and tucked it snugly around her.

Even so, she kept shaking, cold all the way through.

I fetched an armful of thatch from the pile out back and got a fire going on the brick bed.

The whole room warmed up nicely, and gradually the warmth worked its way back into her body.

But she still wouldn’t wake up. She was murmuring a name over and over.

“Ah Nian. Ah Nian.”

Whoever that was, they clearly meant a great deal to her.

I crouched by the fire drying her clothes, and worry started gnawing at me.

She couldn’t just stay unconscious forever. Something had to be done.

By the look of her, she was sick.

Ordinarily when I get sick, I never go to a doctor.

Costs too much. They come over, take one glance, write out a couple of prescriptions, and that’s several taels of silver gone just like that.

Absolutely shameless.

You’re better off with a bowl of pepper broth and a bowl of rice stirred with lard. At least that does something real.

But.

I glanced over at the woman on the bed. Her skin was as fine and smooth as mutton-fat jade.

One look told you she’d been pampered since the day she was born.

I dug around in the hidden compartment at the bottom of my trunk and pulled out a pouch of loose silver.

I gritted my teeth and sent for the doctor from the north end of town.

The doctor was every bit as shameless as I’d expected. The call-out fee alone was a string of copper cash.

He felt the woman’s pulse – another two strings.

Then he wrote out two prescriptions. A full five strings of cash.

When I added it all up, the man had walked off with nearly half my pouch of silver.

I was wincing the whole time I counted out the money. The doctor, meanwhile, was eyeing the woman with a suspicious look. “Girl,” he said, “you don’t know this woman from Eve. Why go to all this trouble for her?”

“Unless – you’ve got your eye on that gold peace-lock she’s clutching.”

“That’s quite the treasure, that is. Worth a pretty penny.”

I slapped the silver into his palm and booted him straight out the door. “Mind your tongue.”

“And if I hear one word of today’s business has gotten around, don’t you or your household ever expect to buy meat from my stall again.”