Hidden Cities Read Online Free PDF Page A

aside and stolen her away, even then Dandan had been willing. Someone had to staywith the little fisher-girl, however wild she ran. She was the emperor’s favorite, his only love; and, what, should she go ramping off in wartime on her own? It was unthinkable. Unpardonable. There would be heads hewn from necks if it was discovered.
    Besides, Mei Feng was her friend, which made it unthinkable in a whole other way.
    And besides again, Dandan knew a secret. Mei Feng was pregnant. Or might be. Or hoped that she would prove to be, perhaps. It was a slithery kind of secret, different every day, depending on her mood: whether she had quarreled with the emperor again, or with his mother, or with the court. Pregnancy was a weapon that she didn’t know how to use.
    For her own sake, Dandan would have gone. For Mei Feng’s sake, she would have gone. For a baby, an imperial child, just for the possibility—well. There was no question.
    Which Mei Feng knew, even before she asked it.
    D ANDAN WAS neither built nor dressed nor fit for a hard slog on mud roads. No more was Mei Feng dressed for it, but then they met Jiao and her soldier-troop along the way. Mei Feng slit her skirts and kept up with the pirate, trading one companion for a better, leaving Dandan to flail along at the troop’s tail.
    And then there was a boy come from somewhere, bare-legged and bruised, and they could flail together. Dandan had decided by then to be angry with Mei Feng, that this was not at all the behavior of a friend.
    She took the boy in charge because that was her nature, and, yes, because she had been told to. That was her nature too. The troop moved more slowly, coming into the city; there was time to find him trousers, time and breath enough to bully him a little. He was called Gieh, and he was a peasant through and through. Like any peasant he had been hungry even before the soldiers came. Then he had been hungry and afraid. Then he had been hungry and afraid and charmed, a little, by rough kindnesses. Now he wasall of those things and hopeful too. What peasant boy couldn’t be lured away by a passing army, gifts of food and the promise of another life, sweeter and more interesting, less hard …?
    She might have struck him, just for his simplicity. She might have struck Jiao for laying those casual inducements, except that the woman was taller and stronger and certain to strike back even while she laughed. And was besides at the head of her troop, while Dandan and the boy were raggle-taggle at the tail.
    It was easier to stay resentful, and cloudedly angry at Mei Feng. Even when she dropped back to walk with you after all, pale and shaken from some rooftop adventure that she didn’t want to talk about. Even then. You might stop seething because she was after all your friend, and needed perhaps to hold your hand for a while, till the trembling in her fingers stopped. Your anger might fall like sediment to leave your spirit clear because she needed you as she knew you, calm and accepting and unchanged. Even so, it was still there like sediment and could be stirred up again.
    You might learn so when she dragged you back a little, you and the boy both, to allow the troop to pull ahead; when she tugged you suddenly into a shadowed alley and away, the same trick again, without a word again, with only the boy at your heels; when once again she ran ahead and left you, with only the vaguest instructions what to do and how to follow her.
    D ANDAN AND the boy together found their way up to the governor’s palace, arriving at the great gate just in time to find Mei Feng tumbling out. This time she couldn’t be forestalled, couldn’t be delayed. Babbling incoherently, some threat against the emperor, conspiracy and traitors—but Mei Feng was always unreliable about traitors, seeing them everywhere at court, even among the emperor’s generals—she barely paused long enough to give fresh orders. Find two men in the palace, guard them and give them over to