There was a small hum at this unexpected treat before the girls filed out, their voices fading as they clattered down the corridor. “Xiaoting, you have made a mess of things,” Zheng He said. He sounded regretful.
Her back stiffened at the informal use of her name. Allies or friendsthey might be, but this was an unwelcome intimacy. Nor did she like his insinuation that she was naught but a silly woman. It was as bad as her husband’s resentment of her for being too much like a man. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You sold to the wrong people, ones with flapping tongues. The power of a witch who could call love was the first story I heard when I came into the city. By the time I reached my own compound, it had grown to a sorceress who could create both love and hate.”
Xiaoting laughed and pushed aside the unease that tingled along her arms. The Hua family gift had been shrouded in the shadows for generations, their scents selling only to a tiny insular group of concubines and rich matrons. No longer. She’d looked at her little daughters, with their soft cheeks and wide eyes, and had known that it had to change. The Huas were wealthy, but not wealthy enough. They needed to be able to protect themselves, and that meant wealth.
After mulling over the problem, she’d come to the only solution and had expanded their client list to anyone willing to pay. Her mother had protested at the beginning, but Xiaoting was a fifth daughter. Her moli fragrances were the ones that brought in the caskets of gold and taels of silver, the ivory and the jade. It gave her the right to make the decisions.
“Better for business,” Xiaoting said, leaning down to tidy Liaobing’s workspace. The girl was talented but messy. “I’m curious as to why you think I need to explain my actions to you.”
Zheng He frowned at her. He might be a eunuch, but he was still a man and did not appreciate impertinence from a mere woman. “You sold to the Li family.”
“Only to one.” The second wife was a confident woman, small, sure, and discreet—or so Xiaoting had thought. She didn’t usually misstep.
“The first wife has died.”
She fixed her sleeve. “The first wife has been unwell for over ayear. My perfume has nothing to do with that. The second wife only wanted to confirm her place in her husband’s heart as she aged.” The woman had been certain her husband was her true love and wanted a moli fragrance to bind them tighter.
Xiaoting hadn’t bothered to correct her as to the truth of the moli power—that sometimes one’s true love was not who one thought or wanted. After all, money was money, and if the woman was so deluded about her role in the household, so be it. Let her mistake safety for love. Perhaps her real true love would change her heart, if she was open to it. Or perhaps not. She might be grasping, as well as gullible, and reject true love if it came in the form of a servant or maid.
“They think she poisoned the first wife,” said Zheng He.
She laughed lightly. “They say that every time a first wife dies. If men could keep themselves to only one woman as we are constrained to one man, there would be fewer problems.”
“They say your perfume was the poison she used,” continued Zheng He. It was as if he hadn’t heard her.
Now Xiaoting became angry. “How could that be? It’s a fragrance.”
“They say it was cursed. That you cursed it because a witch who can bring love can easily call death.” He raised his eyebrows. “Especially if that death creates an opportunity for an adversary.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she said, giving Liaobing’s workspace another swipe with her sleeve. She would have to punish the girl by making her clean the whole workroom again. “It was a sachet of camphor and cinnamon, nothing more.” Not very original, but neither was the second wife.
“They also say that the perfume has been lost and now anyone can use it, even against the emperor himself.”
Xiaoting wanted to slap her hands on the wall to release some of her anger, but the impulse died quickly. “That’s not true. The first person to use the scent is the one to get its benefit. It’s not a cloud, indiscriminate in what its shadow covers, but a stream poured froma pot into a single cup.”
“The truth never matters. You know that.”
She looked at him closely. “What do you know, Admiral?”
“I know such rumors are already being planted by the Lis. They are your rivals at court, and they’ve taken the opportunity to blacken your name to the emperor.”
“We are already powerful enough to withstand those little arrows.” She tried to keep the prideful note from her voice.
“The Lis are also powerful. More than that, they are snakes and they will poison the emperor further against you. The eldest son is one of his advisers. Are you greater than innuendo and rumor? Than the pleasure people take in bringing down a woman with power?”
She shook her head. “I bought a place at court for my uncles.” Not her husband, who was good only to curse at her from his studio, where he drank wine and composed bad poetry while pretending his failure as a scholar didn’t sting. “They will fight for us.”
“Your uncles have not been there long enough to fortify their power base,” countered Zheng He. “They have no weapons to fight against the subtle attack the Lis have brought. Plus, your mansion is elegant and your gardens the talk of the city. The emperor already looks upon such things with envy, and the Lis have used that to their advantage.”
She had assumed they had another few years to transform the Huas into the emperor’s most trusted advisers—time to buy enough favors and prove themselves. Her uncles had been making progress, but only with those in the lower ranks, who wielded mostly household and unofficial power. It was a start, but not enough to combat the Lis.
“There is no direct threat,” she said as calmly as she could. “I have time.”
Zheng He raised his hand. “No. I came as soon as I heard the whispers. The Lis plan to have your husband summoned and possiblyarrested. I don’t know when.”
“My husband!” Xiaoting laughed out of astonishment. “This has nothing to do with him.”
