Free Everything Under the Heavens (Silk and Song) by Dana Stabenow Page A

so much as the lift on an eyebrow did Dai Fang reveal any knowledge of the information the spies in the honorable Wu Li’s house reported daily to Gokudo. Her plans were laid and Wu Li so completely in her thrall that she felt confident that she would be able to see them through.
    The marriage took place a month later. Dai Fang’s mother’s nurse, an invaluable consultant, was able to supply her with an effective means of convincing Wu Li of her innocence. He was entirely beguiled, displaying a tenderness for her that first night that was as touching as it was tedious.
    She left the nurse with her mother, but she took Gokudo with her as her personal bodyguard when she moved into Wu Li’s house.
    And so infatuated with his new wife was Wu Li that he did not recognize Gokudo as the guard he had hired in Edo at the end of his last voyage to Cipangu.

Six
1322, Cambaluc
    “MY HUSBAND IS DEAD,” the widow said.
    Not “Your father.” Not the more formal “The head of the house of Wu.” Just the exclusive, proprietary “My husband.” The widow was selfish even in her alleged grief.
    There was also a hard glitter of triumph in her dark eyes, for those with the wit to see it.
    “I know,” the girl said. The words were calm, devoid of grief or sorrow, devoid, indeed, of any expression at all.
    The widow’s mouth tightened into a lacquered red line. “How?” She had forbidden any communication between the mongrel’s servants and her own, on pain of severe punishment.
    The girl shrugged without answering. Her eyes met the widow’s without expression, without humility and, most inexcusably, without fear.
    The widow felt the familiar rage well up in her breast. Her hands trembled with it, curling into claws, the resemblance enhanced by the long, enameled fingernails. She saw the little mongrel looking at them, still with no expression on her alien face, and inhaled slowly, straightening her fingers from claws into hands once more.
    Behind her Gokudo stirred, a brief movement, a rustle of clothing, but it was enough to remind her of what was at stake. The little mongrel still had friends at court, associates of Wu Li who remembered him with respect and fondness and who might be persuaded to listen to any grievances Wu Li’s daughter might have with her father’s second wife.
    Gokudo was of course quite correct. The Khan’s attention must be avoided, and it required only her own self-control. The widow caused her rage to abate by sheer willpower, until she was able to look on her husband’s daughter and only child with at least the appearance of indifference. Soon the little mongrel would be out of the house and out of her life.
    The mongrel wasn’t little, being indecently tall, towering over everyone in the house and over most of the citizens of Cambaluc for that matter, but the widow never thought of her any other way. The little mongrel was nothing but a blight on the honored ancestors of the house of Wu, upon the sacred ancestors of Everything Under the Heavens itself, and what was worse, the little mongrel cost more than any two other members of the household to feed and clothe. Since the widow had cajoled her honorable husband Wu Li into letting her take over his accounts after his accident, she knew just how much extra silk it took to keep the length of the little mongrel’s legs and arms decently covered, and how many bowls of noodles it took to fill her apparently bottomless belly.
    If the little mongrel’s size had not damned her beyond redemption, her features surely would have. Her eyes were not a decent, modest brown or culturally acceptable black but instead a blue so light the irises were almost gray, with no hint of fold in the eyelid. The little mongrel lacked even the common courtesy to drop her gaze out of respect in the presence of her elders, and especially her betters.
    And as tightly confined as fashion and tradition decreed in a single braid that reached her waist, the little mongrel’s hair