Page 59 of The Cinders
The shout came from behind, and Lim jumped sideways.A trio of men barged past, faces flushed with exertion, each with a barrel hoisted on their shoulder; sloshing liquid within.
‘Careful, you shabi.’The voice came from down at Lim’s feet.‘What’s wrong with you?’
Lim startled to see he’d almost stepped on a woman crouched beside a wide metal basin where black eels slithered over one another as they twisted about in the confined space.One slid its oily head over the lip, and she whipped it from the basin and delivered a life-ending blow with the flat piece of wood she held.
She knelt in the shelter of a stack of straw-filled crates; the structure had kept her from being trodden on until Lim had come at her.He glimpsed the contents of the crates; bamboo casings, their contents smelling strongly of gunpowder.
Fireworks for celebrating the New Year when the sky darkened.
‘Forgive me, mistress.Which way is it to the kitchens?’
The woman peered up at him, her hands wet and slick with the juice from the eel’s innards.‘Do I look like your guide?’
Impatience rattled through Lim, but he took a breath.‘Master Ren has entrusted me to deliver these lotus for him.’
Her thin lips wriggled, much like her eels; the living ones.‘Got a way of having handsome men do his bidding, that Master Ren does.’It was very evident now she was grinning, though it was not a pretty sight for the blackness of her gums.‘Bet he appreciated your helping hands very much.’
Lim frowned.‘Do you know the way or not?’
‘Course I do.’She pulled another eel from her basin and dispatched it with the same ruthless accuracy as the last.‘Where do you think these eels are headed?’
Her gaze lifted, but her hands worked upon the eel with a short knife, slitting it open with a deftness that was both startling and impressive.
‘Mistress, I’m in a great hurry,’ Lim glanced about in the hope he might spy the kitchens without need of help from this sharp and scrutinising woman.‘If you can’t help me then—’
‘Don’t get snippy with me, boy.’She pointed her knife; entrails dangled from its tip.‘Head up that way, about a hundred steps, then turn left at a hutong with a yellow awning at its entrance.You won’t miss the kitchens for the smell.Turn left, remember, too easy to end up wandering into the Mandarin’s inner courtyard from there.Easy for Xinling to organise the delivery of the meals that way, but for you it will just mean getting into big trouble.Captain Duan’s guards won’t take kindly to a merchant being in those esteemed grounds, no matter how fetching your face might be.Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’
Lim flinched at mention of the captain, but thanked her quickly, and carried on in the direction she’d showed.What good fortune!He was within reach of the heart of the palace.Lim’s throat tightened at the thought of glimpsing the prince.Could he hope for it to be so easy?Or was Xian being kept hidden away, as he had been in Kunming?
Eagerness swept him, the weight of the slipper in its pouch heavy against his thigh.He strode along, cursing the crowded passageway, using the bucket as something of a battering ram to make his way, earning himself no friends in doing so.
‘Watch it!’
‘We’re all in a hurry, you brute.’
A large man in a black shanku with red trim nearly knocked him off his feet as he passed by, carrying another of the straw and fireworks-stuffed crates.His queue swung like a club between his shoulder blades; thick and heavy.
‘Out of the way,’ he growled, sounding more bear than man.Lim had the oddest thought that perhaps that was exactly what he was.
He shook his head, resting the bucket for a moment on the edge of an unattended cart.Lim wiped his eyes; the dust churned from the ground by all the activity.Ren’s talk of Mercy, of ghostly guardians, had unsettled Lim, though he’d been trying hard to keep his thoughts elsewhere.
A cry went up further ahead where the man with the crate forged his way through the crowd like a whale through the ocean.
‘Careful!’Came the defiant shout.‘You want to tell the Mandarin he won’t be having century eggs tonight?’
An exchange of insults followed, then that too was swallowed by the din of the harried and hurried folk going about their business.
Lim carried on and found the yellow awning at the head of the hutong.But the woman had been right about the waft of the kitchens.The sumptuous smell alone could have led him down the right path.The waft of roasting meats and lemongrass and ginger came most strongly from the alleyway, while the ducks dangling beneath the awning were as much a giveaway; stripped of feathers and their skin orange from the basting they’d received before being cooked.
Lim gripped his bucket tighter, and passed by the hutong, moving over to the right of the thoroughfare.Only a handful of steps later, he came across another hutong; little more than a gap between two of the buildings, hardly wide enough to accommodate him, and shadowed almost to darkness.But a soft cry of delight escaped him.
Beyond the long length of the hutong, bathed in the light of the late winter sun, lay a vast courtyard.One he would wager the slippers themselves on was the Mandarin’s inner courtyard; the heart of the Palace of Endless Prosperity.
With his heart thumping, Lim leaned casually against the wall, pretending to examine the contents of his bucket, waiting until there were not so many people about, and he could slip into the gap unnoticed.The wait felt a thousand years long but at last only an older man, leading a weary donkey with a cart filled with barrels, was in sight, too preoccupied with encouraging his animal along to take notice of Lim slipping down the narrow passageway, and into the darkness it offered.
The mud squelched under his feet, the sweeping eaves above robbing the ground of sunlight.Spiderwebs played at Lim’s face, catching on the small tuft of beard on his chin.He shook his head, trying to rid himself of the web, and several lotus seeds toppled from the bucket into the mud.
‘Should have shaved you off a year ago,’ he grumbled.The hair had grown no longer than his chin, ending his notion of having a distinguished flowing beard long ago.