Chapter One
It was lateafternoon when Zhi Hao arrived in Peking, and well past dark when he found his way to what he hoped was Master Gao’s home. But one look at the marker in front of the huge compound told him he was in the wrong place. The address he’d been given was clearly the estate of the Song family. And if the size of the walls were any indication, the Songs were very important people.
The person Zhi Hao sought—Master Gao—was a lowly instructor for men seeking to pass the imperial exam.
Fortunately, he still might be in the right place. Every major family had an attached home for a tutor. Likely, Master Gao had instructed the Song family boys until they grew of age, and now—to supplement his income—he took in other students.
Zhi Hao was likely one of dozens of men who had sought out Master Gao’s help over the years. Like them, Zhi Hao’s entire future rested upon the slim chance that he could pass the exam, and therefore get a good appointment as a magistrate or better.
Unlike some of them, Zhi Hao was determined to do anything it took to pass. It was the only way he could uphold his family honor and repay his parents for the crippling cost of his education. Plus, his sisters needed dowries.
But all that hope was in vain if he couldn’t find Master Gao.
And so he walked—rather, he trudged—along the Song family compound until he found a door in the wall along the street. Thiswould be where deliveries came. Perhaps someone here knew where he could find Master Gao.
His knock was not answered. Neither was his second polite bang on the wooden door. Finally, weariness overcame him.
“Master Gao!” he called. “Master Gao, it is Ko Zhi Hao! I am your newest student come from a very long way to learn from your greatness.”
Nothing.
Damn it, now what was he supposed to do?
He banged again with his whole fist.
“Master Gao!”
“He can’t hear you. He’s in the back drinking.”
Zhi looked around, wondering at the female voice. He couldn’t find it, but that wasn’t surprising. The walls were high, the moon was waning, and the garden inside the walls appeared to be lush.
“Up here.”
He tilted his head, scanning the top of the wall until his gaze landed on a bright face with accented eyes. A girl, obviously, but one who wore makeup. That meant she was not a servant. And yet what would the Song daughter be doing up on the wall?
“Hello. I am Ko Zhi—”
“I heard. Master Gao is in the back.” She leaned forward, and he saw a flash of a silk dress as she pointed down the street. “Go down there and around the corner. You’ll have to walk for a minute or two, but eventually, there’s a gate into the back. He never locks it. You’ll find him there.”
“Thank you,” he said, without looking to where she directed him. He was more interested in her. “How are you up so high?”
She laughed and then did something so shocking, he quickly revised his opinion of her identity. Grabbing hold of a thick tree branch, she neatly hauled herself up onto the stone wall. It wasclearly wide enough to walk, and she did so with light steps, balancing upon thin slippers.
This could not be the Song daughter. No wealthy virgin of status would dare expose her trim ankles, much less allow her skirt to billow open with her movements. Not with a strange man standing beneath her.
She had to be someone else, perhaps a maid with a wild streak. One who wore her mistress’s cast-off gowns and slippers.
It was possible, he supposed.
But that was all to the good. As a lowly student, he wouldn’t be allowed to meet the Song daughter, but a maid was well within his reach. He wouldn’t mind a few pleasant moments with her between his studies. A man couldn’t live on Confucian texts alone, now could he?
“How far can you walk on the wall?” he asked. “Can you show me the door?”
“If you cannot follow simple directions, you will fail at the exam.”
He winced. That, of course, was his abiding nightmare. His family had put everything into his education, but less than one percent of applicants passed and most of them were from wealthy families with ties to the Imperial Court. He, on the other hand, came from a family of artisans. They were famous porcelain makers in the south, but that had little sway in Peking and even less at the imperial court.
“I can follow directions,” he said. “But perhaps I would like to keep talking to you.”