"Thank you, Zoushi," Lishi said, moving her head away from Zoushi's brush. "If you brush it any more, you'll pull the hair right from my head. I should be back to take evening supper to Mamaqin, and I'm still planning on attending the lighting ceremony tonight with her and Papaqin, so make certain her carry-chair is ready and the help hired for the evening."
Lishi walked slowly from her rooms to the main stairs, forcing herself to keep a leisurely pace even though she wanted nothing more than to hurry. Ahui was at the front doors with an acolyte in pale purple robes, the broken-world crest of the Guji on the boy's left shoulder. He lowered his head as Lishi came down the steps, lifting his eyes up to her only after she stopped before him, but there was no subservience in his eyes, only a penetrating regard. She'd seen that attitude before, many times. His unconscious bearing told her that he was probably the younger son of one of the wan'-and-shu' families placed into the temple's service, too new to Inari to be someone she would know by sight. She wondered whether he noticed how few servants there were in their house, or how the hall needed to be repainted and that there were cobwebs in the high corners, wondered whether he knew that she had once been like him. Whatever he might be thinking, it never reached his impassive face.
"If you'd follow me, Miss ..." he said, gesturing to the carriage waiting on the street.
She followed behind him, into the air that still held a faint kiss of winter in its embrace despite the sun. She shivered and wished, briefly, that she'd brought the shawl Zoushi had offered with her, though that would have spoiled the effect of the jōa. She could see a few of their neighbors standing outside in their front gardens, pointedly not staring at the carriage adorned with an ornate gold-and-enamel fractured globe, the sign of Inari and the Inarian Faith. She lifted her hand to them; they nodded back, as if happening to notice her and the carriage for the first time. "Why, good morning, Miss Lishi. How is your mamaqin today? When does Mister shu'Ling return from Gansu ...?"
"Mamaqin is still very weak from the Fever and still can't talk or move on her own, but she is beginning to recover, thank you for asking. We expect Papaqin back later today or this evening," she answered as the acolyte opened the door of the carriage for her and helped her inside, then closed the door and took his place standing on the step outside. The driver was indeed one of the torii, and as he turned to nod to Lishi, she glanced at the doubled white slashes on the shoulders of his purple, cowled robes. "In'Torii," she said, addressing him by the rank denoted by the slashes, the lowest of the torii positions. "I'm ready."
He nodded again, turning. She heard him muttering softly—the sibilant chanting that she'd heard many times over the years, his hands gestured—and the wheels of the carriage began to turn in response to the incantation. They moved off onto the street.
The carriage proceeded at the stately pace of a person walking energetically, with the acolyte ringing a small bell occasionally to warn the pedestrians: out from the streets onto the wide, landscaped expanse of the Main Boulevard at the South-Gate. Two immense stone heads of past Huangd flanked the city gates there, rotating slowly so that they always faced the sun; below each of the sculptures, in an open room carved from the pillars of the ancient city wall, was an in'torii whose task it was to chant the spell that allowed the heads to turn—quickly exhausted by their task, each would be relieved on the turn of the glass with a new in'torii.
Lishi had always wondered if one day she might be there, chanting as the stone groaned and grumbled overhead on its daily rotation.
Just past midday, the Boulevard was crowded: throngs of strolling couples and families near the central, tree-lined divider; buyers gathered around the stalls set up against the government buildings to the north side of the boulevard; crowds moving past the street entertainers on the south side; the occasional carriages, all of those horse-drawn except for hers. Most were moving slowly in the direction of the Guji's temple, the sextet of domes radiant in the sunlight. Lishi sat in the carriage, trying to pretend that she didn't notice the attention she was receiving. The sun glinting from the fractured globe mounted by the door, the lack of horses, the torii chanting on the driver's seat, the tenor clatter of the acolyte's bell—all brought eyes around to their carriage. Some stared— mostly those of the lower classes—but the families in their finery would only wave, as if it were altogether a common occurrence that one of the Inarian's torii-driven carriages was sent out to convey someone. Lishi could see them peering squint-eyed even as they inclined their heads politely, and she could nearly hear the whispered conversations as she passed.
"Is that one of the wan'E daughters? Or one of the Huangdi's grandnieces? Perhaps Luyu wan'Tsung, the Guji's niece; I hear she's a favorite for the Huan's hand. What? Tao shu'Ling's daughter? Truly? Oh, yes, I've seen her before; wasn't she at the Huan's Winter Ball? Why, her family is just barely shu', I hear. My cousin is on the Keepers' List, and he says that the family might become just wei'Ling next year. What is she doing being taken to the shrine, I wonder?"
Lishi wondered herself, and hope and fear battled inside her.