The Sword Dancer. Jeannie Lin
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had been right to leave Bao Yang and his band of rebels. There was a time when she had thought she fit in perfectly among them. That they were the only people who would ever accept someone like her.
Shifu had taken care of Li Feng after finding her in hiding and alone in the woods, but he had always treated her like his disciple rather than a daughter. It suited her fine to call him shifu, to respectfully refer to him as her master, because she already had a mother and a father. They had been taken from her by force.
Maybe that was why she had been charmed so easily into Bao Yang’s cause as well as his bed. Two years ago, she had just left the isolation of Mount Wudang to venture back into civilisation. In her heart, she had always dreamed of one day finding her family, or at least discovering what had happened to them. She had been too young to remember anything but fleeing with her mother’s hand clasped around hers. Mother had told her to hide. Li Feng remembered they had been running, but she couldn’t remember why. She also remembered the men with the swords who were chasing them.
After an indeterminately long time, she raised her head. It was getting dark inside the cell. She heard the sound of a door opening, followed by footsteps which stopped outside. She stood and peered through the cell door to see a young man holding a tray of food.
‘This must be the most generous village in the province to feed prisoners so well,’ she remarked.
The boy lacked the grim countenance of a watchman. ‘This is from your admirer.’
Admirer? She read the answer from his lopsided grin. ‘Thief-catcher Han?’ she asked in disbelief.
He nodded. Apparently he found it funny as well. ‘The other prisoners in the next stall are eating watery rice porridge. Your dance must have made an impression.’
Zheng Hao Han must have had a strange sense of humour to lock her up yet see that she was fed.
‘Should I take this back?’ he asked.
Li Feng shook her head and he slid the tray through the opening in the door.
‘Tell me,’ she said as he turned to go. ‘Is the thief-catcher standing guard out there?’
‘No, he’s at the tavern drinking with his cronies.’
Celebrating, more like. The dog.
She had first noticed him during her performance. The intensity of his eyes had been enough to break her focus. There was a broadness to his nose and chin and he had an overall rough-boned look that was tempered by the subtle curve of his mouth. She’d noticed because he had been smiling at her, or rather smiling to himself while he was watching her. It was a sly sort of smile, with one corner lifted higher than the other, as if he’d figured out all her secrets.
And of all the thief-catchers that came for her, it had to be the famous Thief-catcher Han that captured her. The formidable warrior, the relentless hunter, the this and the that. Though Han was tall, he certainly wasn’t the giant ox of a man she’d expected, yet he was still strong enough and fast enough to catch her.
Zheng Hao Han had stood out from the surrounding crowd, dressed in a sombre dark robe, with the hilt of a weapon protruding from his belt. She should have known to flee then.
Her shifu had trained her to fight so she wouldn’t have to be afraid, yet seeing those men brought back not only that old fear, but also all of the untold anger she had kept inside her. All her life, she had hated those nameless, faceless strangers who had taken her mother away.
Her anger was without focus until she had met Bao Yang. He had provided the perfect target. General Wang was a tyrant, he’d told her. All of the local authorities were afraid to challenge him and he was intent on seizing more power.
So Li Feng had joined Bao Yang’s group of dissidents. They had disrupted the General’s supply lines, stolen back the grain and livestock he would commandeer to feed his garrison, and worked to cut away at General Wang’s stranglehold over the district in any way they could. But the moment she had seen that extravagant cache of jade and gold, Li Feng knew it was not the typical tribute demanded by General Wang of the local aristocrats and merchants. She had become involved in something more dangerous than she had realised.
Something else in that shipment had finally pulled her away from her alliance with Bao Yang and his rebels. Something that reminded her of why she had originally returned to Fujian province. For the first time in nearly twenty years, she had seen something that was possibly connected to her mother. It was a sign from heaven.
Li Feng knelt before the tray. There was a bowl of rice with a mix of bamboo shoots and mushrooms. It was a simple meal. The real extravagance was the small lamp set beside it. The flame danced within the saucer, providing a tiny orb of light so she wouldn’t have to eat in the dark. Li Feng finished every last grain of rice. When adrift on endless roads, one never knew when the next meal would be.
It was late into the evening now and the sounds of the village outside the prison house had quieted to a murmur. The constable would be off to his bed. The night watch, if there was one, would be settling in for their vigil. She could hear the sound of muted voices through the wall. The poor members of the dance troupe who’d had the misfortune of being in her company.
Li Feng waited a little longer. It was difficult to exercise such patience when trapped as she was. Once she was certain the sky was dark outside, she stood and wrapped one hand around the other. She pushed at her knuckles and shifted the joints beneath the ring of iron. After some twisting, she tugged her hand free. The other manacle quickly followed. She dropped the heavy chain at her feet and blew out the lamp, leaving the cell in complete darkness.
Chapter Two
After escaping from the prison house, Li Feng was forced to leave her companions behind. The thief-catchers and constables would be searching for a dancer so she thought it best to stay away from the performance troupes she typically travelled with. Besides, her quest was now a personal one.
Li Feng approached the jade shop as she did all the others—with a sense of hope. An artisan in the last village had directed her to this mid-sized town, indicating that the shop here was a successful one that would know more about the type of piece she was interested in.
It was only a few hours until the closing of the market. Soon after that, evening would be upon her and she needed to be in a safe location for the night. A woman on her own had to be careful of these things.
There were two worlds beyond the solitude of Wudang Mountain. There was the realm of the cities, an orderly and structured place separated by walls and governed by law. A gong dictated what time merchants were to bring their wares to market and when to close up shop and go home. Then there was another world alongside it. A place of roads and dust and dark city corners that didn’t adhere to the same boundaries. The inhabitants here were dancers and musicians, monks and beggars. This was also the world where smugglers and bandits operated.
An unspoken fellowship existed among those that travelled the roads for the sake of both companionship and protection. When Li Feng left her shifu, she had met up with a dance troupe that travelled from village to village. Sword dancing had become popular with the crowds, and with some practice she had executed one that was entertaining enough that the performers welcomed her into the fold.
With the dance, a part of her had reawakened. Mother had been a dancer, she was certain of it. Li Feng had a memory of her in colourful costumes: a princess in mourning, a flying goddess, a flower bearer. Li Feng could almost hear a firm, but gentle voice from long ago, telling her to hold her head high and keep her back straight, her toes pointed.
She also remembered travelling with her family as a child. They would sleep under a different roof every night or sometimes beneath the stars with Mother curled up beside her. She had had a father, too, but his face was blurred and faded like all the others in her memory. She was afraid that if she didn’t come back and reclaim her own past, one day her mother’s face would fade as well.
When she had joined Bao Yang in his campaign