The Secrets of Jin-Shei. Alma Alexander

that it was unlikely that she would ever marry, or at least unlikely that she would marry well – she was the daughter of a washerwoman, with no inheritance or dowry to speak of, and the handicap effectively removed any possibility of entering some wealthy house as a concubine whose children, taken as such children always were to belong to the primary wife, might stand a chance of inheriting something of their own.

      Nhia’s life had been written for her by the Rulers of the Four Quarters long before she was born. This much she knew from her conversations with the acolytes of the Third Circle. There would probably be no marriage, no children for Nhia – but there might be something different, something else. She just wished she knew what. Her mother still regularly haunted the booths of the ganshu readers for answers concerning her crippled child, answers which had a more and more direct bearing on her own life and needs as the years slipped by, but Nhia herself had spent a few precious coppers on a couple of readings from the cheaper ganshu readers – those in the bazaars, not the ones allowed access to the Great Temple, she couldn’t even think about spending that much money on a whim. The readings had been inconclusive and vague, or the readers had been less than adept. Either way, the path Nhia was to tread remained opaque to her.

       Six

      If Nhia had any gift that set her apart from the rest, it was to make people trust her – not necessarily like her, because she was a bright and intelligent child who appeared to know far too much for her age, and didn’t hesitate to tell what she knew. But people would tell her things, people who otherwise had no business telling her anything, and it was partly this that pushed her into the path of the Gods when she came stumbling into the Great Temple barely a week after her thirteenth birthday, in that hot summer which held all of Linh-an in its iron grip.

      The Temple was blessedly cool after the steamy streets, and Nhia paused to catch her breath and rest her aching foot in its special sandal. Her mother always had a spare copper or two for the Temple if Nhia asked, and she had come armed with a handful of coins with which she hoped to buy enough in the way of offerings to get her into the Third Circle.

      Thin strips of garden separated each Circle from the next, complete with a handful of carefully cultivated trees bearing plums or peaches, symbols of knowledge and immortality, or just blooming with great scented flowers in their season. But the inner garden of the Third Circle was particularly lush and pleasant. Scattered pools held golden fish, and tiny artificial waterfalls added the murmur of running water to the serene hush of the inner Circles. It was in these gardens that Nhia often found the acolytes who were willing to talk to her about the things that interested her. The Second Circle was full of a chattering and a muttering, and desperate attempts to hush whimpering or wailing children, and shuffling feet, and the occasional squeal or shout; it was hard to gather one’s thoughts here, although Nhia sometimes came there to do just that as an exercise in concentration. But she preferred at the very least the quietness of the Third Circle or, if she had a choice, the hushed holiness of the Fourth.

      She was out of luck with her offerings this time – her hoarded coins managed to suffice for barely enough incense to placate one of the Second Circle Sages. But her luck turned when she met up with one of the acolytes she had got to know better than most in the time she spent at the Temple, and was invited to come through with him into the Third Circle as his guest. Nhia accepted gladly, contemplating half an hour or so of pleasant conversation, but they had barely crossed into the inner court of the Third Circle when another acolyte hurried up to them and whispered something in Nhia’s friend’s ear with an air of agitation.

      ‘I apologize,’ said Nhia’s acolyte courteously, ‘but it seems I am urgently required elsewhere. We have one of the Nine Sages in the Fourth Circle today, and he has been …; demanding. But please, walk in the garden. I will see if I can return when my duty is done.’

      ‘Thank you,’ Nhia said.

      He bowed formally, and hurried away with his companion.

      The Nine Sages were almost mythical beings to Nhia. They were learned men and women, great Sages, most of whom would gain niches in the Second Circle of the Temple at their passing and many of whose predecessors already inhabited their own niches there. They were adepts of great power and knowledge, Imperial advisers, the first and most honoured circle of the Imperial Council. One of them had crossed into the Later Heaven fairly recently; Nhia had been in the street crowd at his funeral parade, and had been deeply impressed at the cortège and at all the implements, meticulously recreated in folded and painted paper, which he required to take with him to the Afterworld. His successor – each Sage named his successor in the circle before he died – was a mystery; nobody had yet seen or heard of the new Sage, none of the common people anyway. All that was known about him was that he was male. He had already been the subject of much street gossip. Stories had it that he was no greybeard; he was not young, to be sure, because no youth could be a Sage – certainly everyone knew that much. That left a virile man, in the prime of his life, and everyone from the portly matrons making virtuous sacrifices in the highest Temple Circles to the painted bazaar strumpets was speculating on whether he had taken a wife or a concubine or whether he intended to do so. Nhia wondered briefly and with a spark of passing curiosity whether it was in fact the brand-new Sage who had sent the acolytes of the Great Temple into such a frenzy of activity, but it was unlikely that this would be something that she’d ever get close enough to find out.

      Left alone in the gardens, Nhia sat for the better part of an hour contemplating the languid, overfed fish in one of the pools, happy to snatch a moment of perfect peace. It was as she was getting ready to leave that her disability returned to haunt her. She put her weight on her crippled foot in an awkward manner while stepping up onto the paved path leading to one of the gates, and the weak ankle gave way. Nhia crumpled to the path with a gasp of pain.

      A hand extended in assistance swam into her field of vision, blurred by the sudden tears that had come into her eyes. Surprised, she took it, and was helped gently to her feet and supported until she gained a steady balance. Only then did she raise her eyes, blinking owlishly, to look at who had come to her aid.

      The man’s face was young, unlined, the hair long and lustrous and tied back in a plaited queue like the workers wore – but his hands were not worker’s hands, and his eyes were not a young man’s eyes. The hands were smooth and white, nails manicured, a sure mark of an aristocrat with servants at his beck and call, even if it wasn’t for the telltale fall of expensive material of his gown that spilled in carefully arranged artless folds as he bent to help Nhia up. The eyes were opaque with ageless wisdom, dark and kind and utterly mysterious.

      ‘I …; thank you, I am fine now,’ she said, knowing as surely as she knew her own name that she was addressing someone a thousand times removed from her in rank and stature and appalled at her temerity in saying anything at all to such a personage. By rights she should have stood quietly with her eyes downcast until addressed directly.

      The man dropped one of his hands from her shoulders, and Nhia attempted to stand unsupported but made the mistake of supporting her weight on her weak foot again. She tried to hide the inadvertent wince, but obviously failed when a cultured voice with a Court inflexion and intonation said, ‘I think not.’

      He slipped an arm around her shoulders and helped her off the path, steering her to the nearest bench in the gardens, and letting her subside gently onto the seat.

      ‘Thank you,’ she said again, helplessly.

      ‘Did you come here to pray about this?’ the man inquired courteously, inclining his head the merest fraction to indicate her foot, not naming the affliction, as politeness demanded.

      ‘No, sei. No, my Lord, that is my mother’s reason for visiting the Temple.’

      ‘Oh?’ he said. ‘And not yours?’

      ‘I come here to understand, not to beg for petty miracles,’ Nhia said, and then bit her lip to prevent a small gasp from escaping. She had offered a discourtesy, at the least, and he could take her remark