Because it was the month of the Huangdi's Jubilee, the fiftieth anniversary of her rule, the sky was a perfection of deepest azure, decorated tastefully with pillows of white clouds. Because it was the month of the Huangdi's Jubilee, spring deigned to arrive a few weeks early: flowers bloomed in a determined barrage of unadulterated hues from the boxes below nearly every window and in the dozens of great and small public gardens of Orbis. Because it was the month of the Huangdi's Jubilee, the sun, which until the last week had been a pale apparition easily overcome by the cold winds and snow off the Ocean, girded its celestial loins and beamed renewed warmth down on the city. Because it was the month of the Huangdi's Jubilee, the days were full of ceremonies and rituals, all of which were occasions for those whose family names were prefaced with a wan' or shu' to attend and be seen, to mingle and gossip and at least pretend that they were universally joyous at this milestone in the current Huangdi's long reign over the Satellites.
Because it was the month of the Huangdi's Jubilee, nothing would be allowed to mar the perfection.
Lishi shu'Ling made certain that she wore yellow for her afternoon's appointment at the shrine, since the Huangdi had appointed the trumpet flower with its sun-tinted petals as the official flower of the celebration, and one never knew when the Huangdi might deign to take her carriage for a turn around the Main Boulevard. Besides, yellow enhanced the golden-brown tones of her skin and contrasted nicely with the nightfall black of her hair. When the Huangdi had declared the trumpet flower as her symbol, there'd been an immediate rush on the last harvest's stock of sapnuts, from which the richest golden dyes were derived. Sapnut-dyed cloth had become difficult to find and expensive to buy, but when the invitation had come from the Guji's own office requesting Lishi to view the Guji's afternoon blessing, Lishi's papaqin had managed to find a small bolt at Oldtown Market.
"No, Papaqin, you don't need to do that."
"But it's what I want, Lishi," he'd said to her. "You're going to see the Guji, and I want you to look beautiful."
He'd reached out to her then, and she'd turned quickly away. She kept her face averted until he dropped his hand back to his side. When he returned that afternoon, he'd given the bolt to the upstairs servant Zoushi, not to Lishi. He'd left the house again without another word.
The hue of the cloth was perhaps more subdued than the optimum, the dye diluted or mixed with less expensive dyes, but the shade was acceptable. Lishi had fashioned a robelike jōa from the cloth, the folds drawn tight just under her bosom and then falling free to the sandals on her feet, a Yunnan fashion that had been adopted for the last several years in Orbis.
"They're here, Miss Lishi. They've sent an open carriage for you." Ahui, one of the two remaining lower-floor servants, was bowing at the door to Lishi's dressing room. "It's being driven by a torii," she added. Lishi glanced a final time at the mirror, waving off Zoushi, who was wielding a brush as she arranged Lishi's hair and tied it with ribbons.
"Tell them I'll be down directly," Lishi told Ahui, who inclined her head once more. They could hear her footsteps on the stairs.
"An open carriage," Zoushi said quietly. Zoushi had been Lishi's wet nurse, and had stayed on in the family's employ to become an upperfloor servant. She still seemed to consider Lishi her special charge, and had stayed on even as the family's fortunes had declined and the staff that had formerly kept the house was reduced. "The Guji wants you to be seen. As you should be."
"Or he wants the wind to tangle my hair," Lishi replied, and managed to laugh despite her nervousness. "In any case, it's not the Guji I'll be meeting, just one of the lesser toriii."
"But they're going to give you your Sign, then," Zoushi said. "They wouldn't be sending for you if you hadn't passed. You're to be a torii yourself."
Lishi didn't dare to hope that was true; she wasn't going to think it. If anything, she feared that she'd be given worse than a Note. "We've learned how you've abused your gift. We know what you've done with your mamaqin..." If that was why she'd been summoned, she would not be returning here, not as a whole person.
She shuddered. "Are you cold?" Zoushi asked. "I can get a shawl . . ."
"No. I'm fine." It can't be that. Please, Inari, don't let it be that. They wouldn't have sent a carriage to take me to the Gaol, certainly. Maybe Zoushi's right....
She forced the image away. Lishi desired her Sign more than she could admit—because of the work and tears; because of the expense to her family; because of the way the wealthier acolytes had treated her, or the way the torii who staffed the school had done nothing but criticize her. Three years ago, there had been over seventy students accepted in her class; only twenty remained in the final year. Three of the twenty of her class had received their Sign on saturday last week, giving them the rank of in'torii and placing them in the service of the Inarian Faith. The gossip among the acolytes was that the rest had received their Notes of Dispense, though none of them admitted such—Lishi feared the way her papaqin would respond if she were given a Note. It would be worse than anything he'd done yet.
"Don't expect more than a bare few of you to receive the Sign," Hu'Torii shu'Chang, in charge of the acolytes, had told them when they'd started their studies. "Of the seventy here, it will be five at most, and likely fewer. The majority of you will leave early and receive neither Sign nor Note. For those of you who manage to stay, nearly all of you will fail to go any further in your instruction with the Misogi."
Lishi had heard nothing from the shrine or Hu'Torii shu'Chang. Still, if impossibly Zoushi was right, Lishi could leave this house and forge her own life.
That was what she wanted most of all. To be away from here.
To be away from Papaqin. No matter how guilty it might make her feel for abandoning Mamaqin.