arriving there.
He is going to Lingzhou Isle. The expectation is that he will die. That is what happens there. There is a weight of pain, almost of panic inside Shan when she thinks about it. And something else she canât identify. Bereavement? The bitter wine of loss-to-come? She feels a strangeness, almost wants to weep.
Men broke willow twigs when parting from friends, a gesture of farewell, entreating heaven for a return. But could you break a twig for someone going where Lu Chen was going? With so many rivers and mountains between?
She had been too bold in those first moments this morning. She knows it, knew it as she spoke. Sheâd felt awed by his arrival, overwhelmedâbut fiercely determined not to yield to that or show it. Sometimes, Shan is aware, she feels so strong a need to be seen and heard that she forces an encounter, declaring her presence.
Look at me!
she can hear herself crying. And no one wants to be ordered to do that.
In a way, she is too much the opposite of her father, who stands among others as if ready to take a step backwards, saying with his posture, his clasped hands,
I am not even here if you donât wish me to be.
She loves him, honours him, wants to protect him, wants
him
to be properly seen as well, even if he is happier withdrawing towards shadows. There are only the two of them in the world. Until she weds and leaves the house.
It is too easy to dismiss Lin Kuo, his daughter thinks for the hundredth time or more. Even his small book on the gardens here, presented to Master Xi today. Of course it isnât an important work, but it is carefully, wittily done, offers observations that might last: a portrait in words of Yenling, a part of it, in these years of the dynasty under Emperor Wenzong, may he reign a thousand years upon the Dragon Throne.
It is called the Dragon Throne again. She must be tired, or overtired, her thoughts are drifting. Shan knows why it has that name once more. She has learned such things because of her father. They are there for her, in her mind. Can you
unlearn
? Go back to being something else? A girl like all the others?
At their dynastyâs founding, the court sages and philosophers had decreed that one reason for the fall of the glorious Ninth had been their deviation from right behaviourâan overindulgence in the ways and symbols of women. And foremost of these had been renaming the imperial throne the Phoenix Throne.
The phoenix is the female principle, the dragon is male.
Empress Hao of the early Ninth made that change while ruling as regent for her young son, and then ruling in spite of him when he grew older and wantedâin vainâto govern in his own name.
He died, instead. It is generally believed he was poisoned. The title and decoration of the Ninth Dynasty throne was not changed back after Empress Hao herself passed to the gods. And then, at the height of that dynastyâs glory, came General An Li, accursed in Kitai and in heaven, bringing terrible rebellion.
Even after peace was finally restored, glory was never the same. Everything changed. Even the poetry. You couldnât write or think the same way after eight years of death and savagery and all theyâd lost.
The lion in the wild, wolves in the cities.
And then, years later, that diminished dynasty finally crumbled away, so that still more chaos and war came to blood-soaked Kitai, through a hundred years of brief, failed dynasties and fragmented kingdoms.
Until the Twelfth rose, their own, a new glory.
A more limited glory, mind you, with the Long Wall lost and crumbling, barbarians south of it, the Silk Roads no longer Kitaiâs, the Fourteen Prefectures lost.
But they called the throne the Dragon Throne again, and told cautionary tales about ceding too much influence to women. In the palace, in the home. Women are to remain in their inner quarters, to offer no opinions on matters of ⦠on anything, really. They dress more soberly now. No
He is going to Lingzhou Isle. The expectation is that he will die. That is what happens there. There is a weight of pain, almost of panic inside Shan when she thinks about it. And something else she canât identify. Bereavement? The bitter wine of loss-to-come? She feels a strangeness, almost wants to weep.
Men broke willow twigs when parting from friends, a gesture of farewell, entreating heaven for a return. But could you break a twig for someone going where Lu Chen was going? With so many rivers and mountains between?
She had been too bold in those first moments this morning. She knows it, knew it as she spoke. Sheâd felt awed by his arrival, overwhelmedâbut fiercely determined not to yield to that or show it. Sometimes, Shan is aware, she feels so strong a need to be seen and heard that she forces an encounter, declaring her presence.
Look at me!
she can hear herself crying. And no one wants to be ordered to do that.
In a way, she is too much the opposite of her father, who stands among others as if ready to take a step backwards, saying with his posture, his clasped hands,
I am not even here if you donât wish me to be.
She loves him, honours him, wants to protect him, wants
him
to be properly seen as well, even if he is happier withdrawing towards shadows. There are only the two of them in the world. Until she weds and leaves the house.
It is too easy to dismiss Lin Kuo, his daughter thinks for the hundredth time or more. Even his small book on the gardens here, presented to Master Xi today. Of course it isnât an important work, but it is carefully, wittily done, offers observations that might last: a portrait in words of Yenling, a part of it, in these years of the dynasty under Emperor Wenzong, may he reign a thousand years upon the Dragon Throne.
It is called the Dragon Throne again. She must be tired, or overtired, her thoughts are drifting. Shan knows why it has that name once more. She has learned such things because of her father. They are there for her, in her mind. Can you
unlearn
? Go back to being something else? A girl like all the others?
At their dynastyâs founding, the court sages and philosophers had decreed that one reason for the fall of the glorious Ninth had been their deviation from right behaviourâan overindulgence in the ways and symbols of women. And foremost of these had been renaming the imperial throne the Phoenix Throne.
The phoenix is the female principle, the dragon is male.
Empress Hao of the early Ninth made that change while ruling as regent for her young son, and then ruling in spite of him when he grew older and wantedâin vainâto govern in his own name.
He died, instead. It is generally believed he was poisoned. The title and decoration of the Ninth Dynasty throne was not changed back after Empress Hao herself passed to the gods. And then, at the height of that dynastyâs glory, came General An Li, accursed in Kitai and in heaven, bringing terrible rebellion.
Even after peace was finally restored, glory was never the same. Everything changed. Even the poetry. You couldnât write or think the same way after eight years of death and savagery and all theyâd lost.
The lion in the wild, wolves in the cities.
And then, years later, that diminished dynasty finally crumbled away, so that still more chaos and war came to blood-soaked Kitai, through a hundred years of brief, failed dynasties and fragmented kingdoms.
Until the Twelfth rose, their own, a new glory.
A more limited glory, mind you, with the Long Wall lost and crumbling, barbarians south of it, the Silk Roads no longer Kitaiâs, the Fourteen Prefectures lost.
But they called the throne the Dragon Throne again, and told cautionary tales about ceding too much influence to women. In the palace, in the home. Women are to remain in their inner quarters, to offer no opinions on matters of ⦠on anything, really. They dress more soberly now. No
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