Autumn Rain

A few days after they returned from the autumn hunt, a soaking rain fell over the capital.

The rain began in the middle of the night and still had not stopped by morning. The glazed tiles of the Eastern Palace had been washed gleaming bright, and water dripped from their ends, hanging like a curtain of pearls beneath the eaves. Many leaves had been beaten off the parasol trees, carpeting the courtyard in yellow and green, soft underfoot.

Xiao Huaijin leaned on the windowsill, watching the rain. He did not have to go to the imperial study today-Zhou Rucheng had caught a chill yesterday and sent word that lessons would be suspended for a day. His nanny put a light padded jacket on him and brought him a bowl of hot ginger soup. He held the bowl and drank in small sips, his eyes fixed on the window all the while.

"Nanny, will Second Brother come today?"

"With rain this heavy, His Second Highness probably won't go out."

Xiao Huaijin thought for a moment, finished his ginger soup, and tucked several sheets of handwriting practice from the low table inside his robe. He also tucked away a packet of osmanthus cakes and went to the door for an umbrella. His nanny stopped him. "Where are you going, Your Highness?"

"To the Palace of Nurtured Elegance. If Second Brother isn't coming, I'll go see him."

His nanny wanted to tell him to wait until the rain eased, but swallowed the words before they left her lips. The boy had changed a great deal over the past six months-he used to wait, too, for his imperial father, for the Grand Tutor, for anyone at all to come and see him. Now he no longer waited. He went himself. She took the umbrella, put a straw rain cape on him as well, and led him out by the hand.

The palace path stretched away through the rain, its bluestone paving soaked a deep gray. The red walls on either side were wet, several shades darker than usual, like congealed blood. Wearing his little straw rain cape, Xiao Huaijin walked ahead of his nanny, deliberately stepping in puddles and sending water splashing everywhere. His boots were soaked through before they had gone halfway down the lane. His nanny hurried after him, calling, "Your Highness, don't splash in the water!" He looked back with a smile and kept splashing.

The gates of the Palace of Nurtured Elegance stood half closed. When the eunuch guarding them saw a little figure in a straw rain cape emerge from the rain, he froze, then hurriedly knelt to pay his respects. Xiao Huaijin pushed back his hood, revealing his rain-wet forehead.

"Is Second Brother here?"

"In answer to Your Highness the Crown Prince, His Second Highness is inside-this servant will inform Her Highness the Noble Consort at once."

The result was that Shen Mingzhu came out to greet him herself. Today she wore a casual pale blue-green jacket, her hair loosely pinned up with scarcely any jewelry. She paused slightly at the sight of Xiao Huaijin standing in the doorway, his rain cape covered in water, his boots soaked through, and a small puddle gathering at his feet.

"Your Highness the Crown Prince-why have you come alone in such heavy rain?"

"I'm not alone. Nanny came with me." Xiao Huaijin gave a proper bow. "Your Highness the Noble Consort, I've come to see Second Brother."

Shen Mingzhu watched the five-year-old standing in the rain. His rain cape was too large and had slipped halfway off one shoulder; part of the robe beneath was wet as well, yet he still bowed with perfect propriety. The corner of her mouth moved in an expression impossible to name, and then she stepped aside.

"Come in. Yu'er is in the warm chamber."

Xiao Yu was lying on his stomach on the warm chamber's heated platform, an open copy of the Three Character Classic before him and a barely touched plate of pastries beside him. At the sound of footsteps, he looked up. Seeing Xiao Huaijin enter, he sprang off the platform, nearly stepping on the hem of his own robe.

"Crown Prince Brother!"

"Second Brother!" Xiao Huaijin took off his rain cape and handed it to his nanny, then pulled out the packet of osmanthus cakes from inside his robe-the paper wrapping had been sheltered by the cape and was still dry, with only the corners a little damp. "I brought these for you. Osmanthus cakes. Nanny made them fresh this morning. They're still soft."

Xiao Yu accepted the osmanthus cakes, looked down at the paper packet in his hands, then looked up at Xiao Huaijin's sodden boots and rain-speckled face. He opened his mouth, said, "Thank you, Crown Prince Brother," then turned to the maid beside him and told her to fetch a dry cloth. The maid hurried to get one. Xiao Huaijin waved a hand.

"It's all right. I'm wet already, anyway."

He sat down on the edge of the heated platform, took the handwriting sheets out of his robe as well, and spread them out for Xiao Yu.

"These are the characters I wrote yesterday. Grand Tutor said this 'frost' was well written-look, isn't the end of this right-falling stroke nice and clean?"

Xiao Yu leaned closer, their heads touching. He pointed at the character for frost. "That one's so hard. I can't even write 'rain.'"

"Rain is easy! I'll teach you-"

Xiao Huaijin looked around, picked up Xiao Yu's brush from the little table beside the platform, dipped it in ink, and wrote the character for rain on the paper. The horizontal strokes were level, the vertical strokes straight, and the four dots evenly spaced, all written with meticulous neatness.

"Look, the horizontal stroke on top is a cloud, the vertical stroke in the middle is a column of rain, and the four dots on either side are raindrops-Grand Tutor Zhou taught me that. It's easy to remember."

Xiao Yu took the brush and copied it, drawing a tiger by following a cat. His four dots crowded together, looking like a bunch of grapes. Xiao Huaijin studied it and said it was already very good for a first attempt; his own handwriting at four had been uglier. Beside them, his nanny's mouth twitched, but she did not expose him-she had already saved a whole chest of the Crown Prince's writing from when he was four, and it was much better than Xiao Yu's now, yet His Highness had said "uglier" without so much as a change of expression. Xiao Yu believed him, however, and happily wrote another. This time the four dots were separate. Though uneven in size, at least they looked like four dots.

"Crown Prince Brother, teach me something else."

"All right. What shall we write?"

"'Yu.'" Xiao Yu raised his head. "My name."

Xiao Huaijin picked up the brush and wrote the character "Yu" on the paper. It had many strokes, so he wrote very slowly, making each one clear. The fire radical needed to be narrow, and the "Yu" component on the right wide, with a "stand" above and a "stand" below; the final horizontal stroke of "stand" had to be a little longer to give it balance. When he finished, he handed the brush back to Xiao Yu and added one more thing.

"This character means light shining brightly."

Xiao Yu took the brush and began writing "Yu." Halfway through, it went crooked, but he set the brush down in dissatisfaction, then picked it up again to start over.

Shen Mingzhu stood at the warm chamber's doorway without entering. She watched the two children's backs on the heated platform-their apricot-yellow and sapphire-blue robes side by side, the wet little rain cape hanging by the door, still dripping. Her son was writing a crooked "Yu" with his left hand. Halfway through, Xiao Huaijin took his hand to correct it, and then he wrote it again-this attempt was a little better. She turned and walked out beneath the eaves. The rain outside had eased to a soft patter, tapping against the banana leaves. She remembered Xiao Yu asking at the Dragon Boat Festival banquet, "Crown Prince Brother sat with Imperial Father. Can I sit there too?" Then she remembered the day they returned from the autumn hunt, when Xiao Yu had jumped down from the carriage holding his gray rabbit and told her how Crown Prince Brother had taught him to draw a bow.

Her son was drawing closer to that child day by day. Yet everything she was doing was intended to drag that child down from his high place. If Xiao Yu learned of it all one day, would he still hold that gray rabbit and tell her, "Mother, you're the best"?

The maid behind her approached softly. "Your Highness, His Highness the Crown Prince says he would like to have lunch here."

"Have it prepared."

The maid answered and was about to leave when Shen Mingzhu called her back-add some ginger soup; the Crown Prince had been caught in the rain. The maid took her orders and left. Shen Mingzhu remained beneath the eaves, watching the rain-soaked banana plant without another word.

Lunch was served on the little platform table in the warm chamber. Four dishes and a soup, simpler than the Eastern Palace's allotted fare-the food at the Palace of Nurtured Elegance had always been refined but never extravagant, and Shen Mingzhu exercised extreme restraint in this respect. Sitting beside Xiao Yu, Xiao Huaijin put a piece of sweet-and-sour pork rib into his mouth, chewed, and brightened.

"This is delicious! Your Highness the Noble Consort, these ribs are even better than the Imperial Kitchen's!"

Seated opposite them, Shen Mingzhu paused with her bowl and chopsticks in her hands. She watched Xiao Huaijin-he was picking up a second piece of rib, placing it in Xiao Yu's bowl before taking one for himself. She lowered her eyes and slowly stirred the rice in her bowl.

"They were made in our own kitchen. Have more if you like them, Your Highness."

Xiao Yu chimed in beside him.

"Mother's sweet-and-sour fish is even better. Next time Crown Prince Brother comes, let's have Mother make fish."

Shen Mingzhu's chopsticks paused.

Xiao Huaijin, however, answered readily.

"All right! I'll come when the weather clears. You should come to the Eastern Palace too, Second Brother. I'll ask Nanny to make braised pork-hers smells wonderful. Fifth Brother eats two bowls of rice every time he comes."

"Fifth Brother goes too?"

"Of course. And Sister Lan-Sister Lan likes fish, but she doesn't like meat."

The two children chattered over the menu for their next meal together while Shen Mingzhu sat opposite and listened. Suddenly, she put down her chopsticks and rose, saying she would go to the kitchen to see whether the ginger soup was ready, then turned and walked out.

In the kitchen, ginger soup bubbled in an earthenware pot, sending up steam. Shen Mingzhu stood before the stove and stirred the ginger slices with a spoon. Steam washed over her face, obscuring her expression.

His nanny was eating with the supervising palace matron of the Palace of Nurtured Elegance in the west side room. Both old women were veterans of the palace, each smoother and more courteous in her speech than the other. The supervising matron said the Noble Consort's temper had improved considerably of late, perhaps because His Second Highness had recovered. His nanny said His Highness the Crown Prince talked about the second prince all day, too; even with today's rain, he refused to wait for it to stop and insisted on coming himself. The two exchanged a glance and smiled, then lowered their heads to their food again. Both knew what stood between the Noble Consort and the Eastern Palace, but both also felt that the two children being close was, after all, a good thing.

The rain stopped.

After lunch, the sun showed half its face from behind the clouds. Several shallow puddles had collected in the courtyard of the Palace of Nurtured Elegance, reflecting the washed blue sky. Xiao Huaijin's boots had not dried completely, but he did not care. He pulled Xiao Yu into the courtyard to splash in the water. The two children stamped noisily through the puddles, splattering each other with mud. A ring of mud coated the hem of Xiao Yu's newly made sapphire-blue robe. A maid nearby wanted to stop them, but Shen Mingzhu waved her back. Shen Mingzhu stood beneath the eaves, leaning against a pillar and watching the two children running around the courtyard with flushed faces. Sunlight fell, stretching her shadow long.

Once they had splashed enough, Xiao Huaijin said the courtyard was too wet for archery, so they should play something else. Xiao Yu ran inside and returned carrying a little wooden box containing his treasures-a few pretty stones, a copper coin, and a little horse carved from wood. He took out the horse and said his uncle had given it to him. Xiao Huaijin accepted it and examined it. The carving was delicate, every cut in the horse's mane distinct, even finer than Kong Wu's work.

Xiao Yu put the wooden horse back into the box and suddenly asked, "Crown Prince Brother, do you have an uncle?"

Xiao Huaijin thought for a moment. He did indeed have an uncle-his imperial mother's family was naturally his maternal family. But he had never met any of them. No one had ever come to the Eastern Palace to see him or sent him anything.

"Yes, but I've never met him."

Xiao Yu blinked without asking further and lifted the wooden box to rub off the mud stuck to its bottom-he was always accidentally getting things dirty, and always worrying about little things he should not have worried about.

Toward evening, his nanny reminded Xiao Huaijin that it was time to return. His rain cape had dried, and he had changed into a clean pair of boots. Xiao Yu saw him to the door and stood behind the threshold holding the gray rabbit. Since returning from the autumn hunt, the rabbit had grown plumper. Its ears hung from the crook of Xiao Yu's arm and swayed lazily.

"Crown Prince Brother, will you come again tomorrow?"

"I have to make up Grand Tutor's lesson tomorrow. I can't."

Xiao Huaijin fastened his rain cape and glanced back at him.

"You can come see me at the Eastern Palace. I'll be free tomorrow afternoon after Grand Tutor leaves."

"All right."

Xiao Yu lifted one of the gray rabbit's paws and waved it at him.

Xiao Huaijin walked back through the thin dusk. The rain-washed paving stones shone gold and red in the setting sun, and the puddles reflected the colors of the sky. Following behind, his nanny heard him begin to hum a little tune he had picked up somewhere. He was off-key, but hummed with great enthusiasm. The corners of her mouth curved-this child had not hummed a tune in a very long time. The last time had been at last year's Dragon Boat Festival, when he sang "Deer Cry," which Zhou Rucheng had taught him. His voice cracked at the second high note, making Zhou Rucheng double over with laughter in class for the first time.

That night, in the Palace of Nurtured Elegance, Shen Mingzhu sat before her dressing table, removing her hairpins one by one and placing them in her jewelry case. Xiao Yu was already asleep; before bed, he had still been talking about when Crown Prince Brother would be free tomorrow. She looked at herself in the bronze mirror. Fine lines had appeared at the corners of her eyes-they had not been there in previous years, but had suddenly appeared this year. She took the rewritten letter from a drawer. The envelope still bore no name. She handed it to the maid behind her and told her to send it out of the palace tomorrow. The maid accepted the letter and withdrew. In the bronze mirror, Shen Mingzhu gazed silently at herself, expressionless.

Early the next morning, Shen Boyong received his daughter's secret letter in the study of the chancellor's residence. He opened it, read it, and held the paper to the candle flame. The ashes fell into the brush washer, where leftover tea soaked them into black mud. He spoke a single sentence to the adviser standing behind the screen, his voice very low.

"Prepare the second plan. The Crown Prince cannot be allowed to remain."

The adviser made no reply, merely bowing slightly before retreating into the deeper shadows.