Free Hidden Cities by Daniel Fox Page B

strange life, to teach him such lessons.
    Her own life had been strange enough, this summer. Perhaps that was why she wanted to keep him. Perhaps it was only for herself, for the man he would grow into, for the sake of the man she had lost and the son she never had. She was surrounded by women here and all the men were soldiers, nothing that she wanted. She would have liked a boy.
    It seemed that she could not have this one. She said, “Stay,” and he laughed aloud.
    He said, “I must find Tien,” though it wasn’t clear to Ma Lin what he meant for her when he found her. She had done this, apparently, to him and to the dragon both: with whose consent and at whose command, there was no telling.
    “Well,” she said, “I will give you food for the road, because you have to eat. And a shirt. The captain might want to send a man or two with you; that would make the way easier, and help yoursearch perhaps. He might think you need watching over.” He might think that he would lose his place, if he let the dragon’s boy wander unsupervised into Santung. He might think that he would lose his head.
    He might be right.

two
     
    his sudden hurry was apparently all Mei Feng’s fault.
    She liked that, rather.
    Left to himself—as if he ever was!—the emperor would surely have stayed in Santung for weeks, perhaps for months: rebuilding, raising fortifications, scattering Tunghai Wang’s defeated forces to the winds.
    In his head, at least, that’s how it would have been. In fact, if Tunghai Wang had been quicker to organize after the typhoon, the emperor might have found himself leading another desperate defense of the indefensible city. More likely, he would have found himself once again on the first boat to Taishu, sent away to safety like a child while his generals tried to save something of his army and his empire.
    But Mei Feng had come, had chased him across the strait and across the city with her pregnancy like a banner held aloft, and now everything was different. Now he was eager to take her home, to see her safe and show her off, bragging young father,
see what I did
.
    It was a blessing, in almost every way.
    For once this morning he had gotten up before her, even. She wasn’t sure that he had slept at all. He had kept her awake with talking, with touching, his long hand covering all the breadth of her belly, wondering how long he would be able to do that before she swelled. And how should he tell his mother, what would theold woman say, how immeasurably much would she welcome this? And …
    And Mei Feng had fallen asleep at last to the onrunning murmur of his voice; and had roused this morning to the clatter of his trying to find the way out of an unfamiliar room in unfamiliar darkness, he who never rose before the sun was high. His substitute in bed was much smaller, softer to the touch, not necessarily less demanding: the little cat, Jiao’s gift, who had been told to sleep in his basket but had manifested himself somehow beneath the covers, in a tight little curl against her flank.
    Lacking the emperor—and not wishing to spoil the emperor’s fun, by waking before he was ready for her—she reached down to stroke the cat good-morning. Her fingers spread through warm fur and felt a gratifying vibration; this cat purred with his bones, seemingly, silent and contained.
    Then he uncurled himself beside her, stretched luxuriously—like a puddle of molten steel stretching itself into a tao, she thought, all edge and purpose—and sank little needle-claws into the flesh of her armpit.
    She hissed, and squirmed away. He emerged from beneath the quilt to make first vociferous inquiry about his breakfast.
    Happily, by then the emperor had finally found the door and sidled out. So she could tuck her hands behind her head and discuss matters openly with the cat where he perched on her chest, agree that service was shoddy in these times of war, that armies might come and go and typhoons too but there was never any