River of Betrayal

  River of Betrayal

  A Shadowgate Tale

  J.D. Bowman

  Edited by

  Quincy J. Allen

  River of Betrayal

  River of Betrayal A Shadowgate Tale

  J.D. Bowman

  edited by Quincy J. Allen

  Shadowgate Tales

  Copyright © 2019 Quiny J. Allen

  Published in the United States by Heads & Tails Publishing

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the copyright holder, except where permitted by law. This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  1. The River Changes Course

  2. The River is Dammed

  3. The River Meets the Sea

  4. The River Betrays

  5. A New Day on the River

  6. The River comes to Rest

  7. The River Stoppered

  8. The River Runs Red

  9. The River Betrays Once More

  10. The River Finds a Way

  11. The River Smashes All in its Way

  12. The River Waters Run Still and Deep

  About the Author

  Also By J.D. Bowman

  About Quincy J. Allen

  Also available from Quincy J. Allen

  Also available from Heads and Tails Publishing

  1

  The River Changes Course

  Ying Yue listened to the voices coming from the entryway. Male. That meant the visitors were there for either her father or brother. As one of the librarians in charge of acquisitions at the Imperial Wenyuange library in Beijing, her father had many visitors come to see him. Her brother, Lan, was studying to follow in her father’s footsteps, so while there might be someone calling for Lan, it was more likely the visitor was there to see her father.

  It meant that she would able to escape outside to the garden within the courtyard. She did so and hurried to the far corner, to the gardener’s shed where she and Lan used to build their machines. Now that Lan was preoccupied with studying, she was the only one who visited their shed anymore.

  Ying Yue opened the door, caught a gleam of copper and brass on the shelves, and inhaled deeply. It made her feel better to be here, among her gadgets and machines. They had no ambiguity, no lack of surety. They either worked, or they did not.

  Not like people.

  Her older sister, Meilin, had been gone for over two years. She had married a scholar within the court and was now mistress of her own home. Lan was preparing for his life, which left her as the last to work with the machines.

  What would become of her?

  Meilin had the golden lilies; the small feet that proclaimed to one and all that she was a woman of worth. But their mother, Huan, had refused to bind Ying Yue’s feet when she was young, proclaiming one daughter was surely enough to secure honor for the family.

  It was the only time Ying Yue had ever seen her parents fight. Her father had insisted it would ruin her, forever. Ying Yue had hidden in Meilin’s room under the blankets with Lan, singing a song their mother usually sang while she hung out the laundry, trying to drown out the anger in their father’s voice.

  That had been when things had changed. When her father had given way to his wife’s wishes, his attitude had also changed toward Ying Yue. Nothing was said, but she’d felt it.

  As she got older, Ying Yue realized this wasn’t such a bad thing. It was why her father allowed her to join Lan in tinkering in the garden shed, building small machines to help with the housework. It was why, when Shaolin monks were engaged to teach her brother martial arts, she had been able to take lessons with him. No one in her family ever mentioned that her skills were superior to her brother’s. When Lan refused to spar with her any longer, she was forced to spar with the monks who taught them, and, after a year, they’d stopped treating her as a student.

  Unlike her father, the monks didn’t find her presence offensive. Xiao-ping, the monk who was their most frequent teacher, told her that he felt all women should know how to defend themselves.

  Against what, he never said, but as she grew, Ying Yue came to understand it was to protect her from other men.

  She set to work on a small machine that would help with the planting of vegetables in the kitchen garden. Her mother entered the shed, startling Ying Yue. She dropped the mechanism she was holding. “Ying Yue, come inside and please tidy yourself.” Her mother’s soft voice held a note of rebuke.

  Ying Yue looked down at her grease-grimed hands, her fingernails rimmed with black.

  “Of course, Mother. May I ask why?”

  “Your father wishes to speak with you.”

  Something in Huan’s tone made Ying Yue look closely at her. Her mother’s eyes were red, and her face cast down, a frown upon her lips.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You must speak with your father,” Huan said as she closed the door and left the shed.

  This felt… wrong. Delaying would change nothing, however. Ying Yue hurried in and washed up, paying special attention to her nails. Her father would be sure to note them and glare at her mother.

  She walked quickly to her father’s study, composing her face and slowing her steps. Since she didn’t have golden lilies, when she walked fast, her father complained that it sounded like the stomping of a herd of oxen.

  The door was ajar, but she heard no voices, so the visitor from earlier must have gone.

  “Father?” she called through the open door.

  “Come in, Ying Yue,” he said.

  Bai Chao Jiang, whose name meant river of excellent purity, sat at his desk looking every bit a scholar of the imperial library. He maintained his air of formality, even at home, and today wore a green silk coat embroidered with the colors of the sun. He did not look up when she entered.

  Ying Yue stood in front of her father’s desk, hands clasped in the sleeves of her qiupo, head bowed; the attitude of the demure woman.

  “Huan,” her father called.

  Her mother drifted in, looking as though she were sliding on a pond of frozen ice, so gracefully did she move.

  Ying Yue didn’t know how her mother did it. Her sister, Meilin, did not walk as gracefully as their mother did. The fact that their mother came from a farming village in the north was a point of contention for Meilin. That a farm girl was more graceful than she was difficult to accept, even if that farm girl was their mother.

  Ying Yue loved to see her mother walk. She’d told her as much when she was younger, after the fight over binding Ying Yue’s feet had been decided.

  Her mother had sighed. “I ache with each step I take. I wish more for you, my daughter.”

  “Not Meilin?” Ying Yue had asked.

  “I could not deny your father,” Huan had whispered, using Nushu, the woman’s language still used by women in the north. In their household, only Huan and Ying Yue spoke it. “I tried, but I did not win, to my everlasting shame.”

  “I don’t understand,” Ying Yue had said.

  Her mother smoothed Ying Yue’s hair and leaned down to kiss her. “You will one day, my moonlight reflection,” she said, calling her by the meaning of her name. She’d always loved that her full name referred to the moon walking on the water of a river.

  Once her mother arrived at the side of her father’s massive desk, he began. “Daughter, despite your shamefully unbound feet, and your inability to bring honor to the family,” Bai Chao eyed hi
s wife with scorn, “a situation has arisen that will allow you to redeem yourself.”

  Ying Yue looked at him. She’d ignored the slight against her feet, but his words brought a wave of foreboding that washed over her, threatening to drown her. “In what manner, Father?”

  “There is a debt of honor that this family must pay. You will satisfy it,” he said, as though that explained everything.

  Ying Yue dug her fingernails into her palms. “What debt of honor?”

  “There is a man to whom I owe a great debt,” his face flushed. “He has asked me for you.”

  “To be married?” Ying Yue asked.

  Huan’s head dropped lower, and Ying Yue saw that her mother was crying. The rush of foreboding grew into a tidal wave.

  “No. You will go to America, to serve this man’s master.”

  “Serve? In what capacity?” Ying Yue asked.

  “In whatever capacity may be required,” Bai Chao said, looking directly at her. “That is my command to you. You will go with the agent of Ming, and you will do as you are told. For once in your life, you will behave as a young woman of good family ought!” His voice rose, a sign of impending anger.

  “Why must I go with him? What debt has this family incurred that I must pay by leaving my home, my family?”

  “This is your fault.” Her father turned to her mother, frowning. “If you had bound her feet as is appropriate for a woman of her status, this would not be happening.”

  “But then we would be ruined, anyway,” Huan said softly. “Isn’t that why you have agreed to this? So that we might not be ruined? If she had the golden lilies, she would already be married. What child would you sacrifice then, husband? Lan?”

  “I am doing this for Lan!” Her father banged the table with his fist.

  Ying Yue swallowed. “So I am to be banished to whatever this… this Ming may see fit to give me as my fate? For you? For Lan?” Her voice shook with rage. Tears threatened, but she willed them away. They would be seen as weakness, even though she knew they were tears of fury. “What have you done, Father? What have you done that I must give my life over for it?”

  “I owe a debt. Kuo, the man I owe, has decided that money is no longer suitable for repayment. He wants you. If I do not agree, we will be ruined. Your brother will not become a scholar, and I will lose my place. Is that what you wish?” He leaned forward, glaring at her.

  “So I must leave, to become… what? A fallen woman? A slave? All so you may keep this house and my brother may one day have his own fortune?” She waved her hand around the study. “What of me? Have I no say?”

  “Your duty is to do as you are told.” He no longer looked at her, but at his desk. “You have not been asked to follow the tenets of duty much for this family. You do not have golden lilies. You study with the monks. You have your shed full of useless trinkets in the garden. When have you ever sacrificed for this family?”

  “When have you?” Ying Yue shouted. “If a debt is owed, it is your debt, yet I alone am being made to pay it?”

  “You will not speak to me this way!” Bai Chao sprang from his seat, slapping his hands on the desk. “I have agreed to Kuo’s request. You will go with him.”

  “You are a monster,” Ying Yue breathed, unable to hold the tears back any longer. “You would sell me into slavery for your honor?” she spat the word. “You call it honor when it is forced upon the back of your child? That is not honor. You are a coward!” she shouted.

  Her father moved around the desk, his hand raised to hit her.

  Huan slid between Ying Yue and her father, grabbing at his raised arm. “Bai Chao, no.”

  He looked at his wife, his face red, his eyes wild.

  “No,” Huan said again.

  If he strikes me, Ying Yue thought, I shall show him all that I have learned. As I’m to be sent away anyway, what would it matter?

  “This is on your head,” Bai Chao said to Huan. “Get this ungrateful child out of my sight. She is to remain in her room until Kuo comes to remove her from this house.”

  He turned to Ying Yue. “You are a disgrace.”

  Huan let go of his hand and whirled around to Ying Yue. “Come,” she said in Nushu. “Come.”

  With tears on her cheeks, Ying Yue allowed her mother to lead her away.

  2

  The River is Dammed

  They moved through the house to Ying Yue’s room, and, once the door closed behind them, Ying Yue fell to her bed, sobbing. “Why, Mama? Why does he send me away to die a slave?”

  “You don’t know that you will be a slave.”

  Ying Yue sat up. “Mama, it’s time to be open. No secrets, no pretending. I am being given over to a man, a stranger, for some debt of Father’s. Why?”

  Huan sighed, then spoke in Nushu. “I will tell you, but you cannot mention this. No!” She held up a hand when Ying Yue opened her mouth to protest. “If you betray my trust, I will suffer. Your father has sworn me to secrecy. I tell you because I love you, my daughter.” Huan put a hand on Ying Yue’s shoulder.

  “Your father purchased a scroll, an important, ancient scroll. He was preparing to present it to the library when Kuo, the man who sold it to him, arrived to tell him it was counterfeit—a fake. The forgery was so well done that your father—a scholar trained in these very scrolls—could not tell. But it was a fake, and Kuo, who works for the tong, demanded money in exchange for his silence. Your father has been paying not only the money he owes the library for the purchase, but this man as well. Today, Kuo arrived and said that if your father wished to discharge his debt, his master, Ming, would accept his daughter. It was a difficult choice, but your father agreed.”

  “It was not a difficult choice,” Ying Yue said. “His heart has been hardened to me for many years.”

  Huan sighed, tears falling down her cheeks. “That is my fault, my daughter. I did not allow your feet to be golden lilies. I taught you Nushu. I insisted you be allowed to learn to tinker, to fight.”

  “No, this is his fault,” Ying Yue said. As she spoke, she felt her heart close off to her father for good. “He could have chosen to love me, but he has not. And now he gets rid of me because he is an old fool, riddled with pride, who values his son over his daughter.”

  Huan didn’t reply. There was nothing to say.

  Ying Yue knew well that sons were more valuable than daughters. She wiped her face. There was no escape from this. Her father had sealed her fate. She would go to America and face whatever awaited her there. “Mama, go. I must consider what I am to take with me.”

  Huan cupped Ying Yue’s face with her hand. “I will bring you what you need.” She bowed and left the room.

  Sleep did not find Ying Yue that night. She sat in bed, watching the moon move across the sky. She’d never worried about her future, trusting that her mother would, if nothing else, ensure she had a good place. Oh, how wrong she’d been. Her father had tossed her into the world in the worst way—as chattel, a slave, as the property of another—and not even a member of her own family—which meant she would be as a cow, or a pig to this man, to Ming.

  Ying Yue steeled herself for what was to come. It is I who must take care of myself, she thought. There is none other. She repeated it over and over until it became a mantra, written in blood upon her heart.

  Over the next two weeks, Bai Chao spread the word that his daughter, who was most obedient, was going to America to help his aging uncle Ang. Ang, he told everyone, had helped him become a scholar when he was young, and now, in ill health and failing, Ang needed assistance. So Ying Yue would go to him, to care for him, to try and repay the debt the entire Jiang family owed to Ang.

  Friends of her parents came to visit, to say goodbye, clucking over Ying Yue. She bore it in silence, and she could hear the women giving praise to her mother. “Such a good girl, so stoic! She is a credit to your family,” they said.

  Huan merely bowed her head in thanks, often unable to speak or to meet Ying Yue’s gaze.

&nbsp
; She wanted to be angry at her mother, but her mother had no power to challenge her husband. His word was law.

  The night before she was to depart, Ying Yue rose from bed and walked through the house. In the weeks since her world fell apart, the house had taken on the guise of a stranger. It was as if she had been split in two, leaving her childhood self here at home while her adult self left for America.

  She stepped into the garden, seeing the moon reflected in the small pond. River reflection of the moon, she thought. Ying Yue Jiang. The name felt as though it belonged to a stranger.

  As a stranger, then, was she not free from the rules of the home?

  “It is I who must care for myself, there is none other.” She knew what she had to do.

  Ying Yue padded lightly to her father’s study and crept inside. She tip-toed to his desk, feeling under the shelf for the hidden key. She slid the key into the lock at the foot of the desk and opened the drawer where her father kept the family’s valuables.

  Ying Yue took three golden hair ornaments her mother had given her, and then, on impulse, pocketed her father’s heavy gold and white jade ring. Deeper in the drawer, she spotted his puzzle box.

  She’d never been allowed to touch it after she had solved it quicker than Lan did. She hadn’t thought of it since, but now she realized the ban for what it was. She took the box; it would hide the hairpins and the ring, along with anything else she was able to find. If she were ever to find her way to freedom, she’d have to buy it.