Free River of Stars by Guy Gavriel Kay

this. Her heart is racing, she notes. She is truly not fearful, though. Words are important. You don’t think or write
afraid
when it is the wrong word.
    She is still wearing the blue jacket with gold buttons from dinner, there are phoenixes on it. Her hair is still pinned, though without the flower now, which is in a vase by the bed.
    She bows to him. You can start with a bow.
    He says, not smiling, “I shouldn’t be here.”
    Of course he shouldn’t, Shan thinks. It is an offence against courtesy—to her, to her father, to their host.
    She does not say that. She says, “I should not have left the door open.”
    He looks at her. His eyes are grave above a long nose and the neat, grey-and-black chin beard. His own hair is also pinned, no hat, the men had removed their hats at dinner, a gesture meant to indicate freedom from restraint. There are lines at the corners of his eyes. She wonders how much he’s had to drink, how it affects him. The stories, widely shared, say it doesn’t, very much.
    He says, “I’d have seen a light under the door. I could have knocked.”
    â€œI would have opened it for you,” she says.
    She hears herself say that and is amazed. But not afraid.
    He is still beside the door, has not come farther in.
    â€œWhy?” he asks, still quietly. He has been cheerful all day, for the three of them. Not now. “Why would you have opened it? Because I am being sent away?”
    She finds herself nodding. “That is also the reason you are here, isn’t it?”
    She watches him consider it. Is pleased he hasn’t offered the too-easy, quick denial, flattering her. “One reason,” he murmurs.
    â€œOne reason for me, then, too,” she says, from where she stands by the desk, by the bed, near the lamp and two flowers.
    Something shrieks from the garden, sudden and loud. Shan startles, catches herself. She is too much on edge, not that it is surprising. Something has just died outside.
    â€œA cat hunting,” he says. “Perhaps a fox. Even amid beauty and order, that happens.”
    â€œAnd when there is no beauty, no order?”
    She regrets that, even as she says it. She’s pushing again.
    But he smiles. First time since entering. He says, “I am not going to the island intending to die, Miss Lin.”
    She can’t think of what to say to that.
Say nothing, for once
, she tells herself. He is looking at her from across the room. She can’t read that gaze. She has brought only ordinary hairpins to travel, but wears her mother’s earrings.
    He says, “People live on Lingzhou Isle, you know that. I just said the same thing to Wengao.”
    People who have grown up there, she thinks. Who grow accustomed to (if they survive childhood) the diseases and the endless, steaming rainfall and the heat.
    She says, “There are … there are spiders.”
    He grins at that. She has meant for him to do so, wonders if he knows. “Enormous spiders, yes. The size of houses, they tell me.”
    â€œAnd they eat men?”
    â€œPoets, I am told. Twice a year a number of spiders come from the forests into the square of the one town and they must be fed a poet or they will not leave. There is a ceremony.”
    She allows herself a brief smile. “A reason not to write poetry?”
    â€œI am told they make prisoners at the
yamen
compose a verse in order to receive their meals.”
    â€œHow cruel. And that qualifies them as poets?”
    â€œThe spiders are not critical, I understand.”
    He will be another kind of prisoner there. Not in a jail, but watched, forbidden to leave. This folly is not as amusing as he wants it to be, Shan thinks.
    He seems to come to the same conclusion. “I asked if you would offer me one or two of your songs, if you remember?”
    Remember?
Men can say the strangest things. But she shakes her head. “Not now. Not like this.”
    â€œPoetry