35 Run for the Hills

~TIEN LYN~

"Fool!" barked the Captain of the Guard, and unsheathed his sword. Zha Yao backed into the crowd before Tien Lyn had a chance to thank him for his intervention. Or her mother for that matter, for Lady Chen Guang was nowhere to be seen. That was unusual since of late she openly used her real name in support of Zha Yao's cause and left Chong's household to join the rebels. Tien Lyn strongly suspected that at least in part her mother's actions were driven by her misgivings about the misalliance.

"Prefect Bu Liang was corrupt!" Zha Yao shouted, shielded by his supporters from the shoving guards. His voice sounded hoarse but it had weight to it and a memorable timbre that made it stand out. Tien Lyn did not think he strained to be heard above the din. The unmistakable challenge in his single utterance was potent enough for her to listen in as she dragged Yu along.

"His possessions belong to the righteous he offended!

To you!"

Zha Yao recited, and the cheers erupted around the square, the crowd's energy quickly building up. Tien Lyn did not realize how little it took to inflame them. They were the dry underbrush ready for Zha Yao's spark.

Here is the answer to the riddle. Mother did not wish to be caught in a riot.

Tien Lyn spotted another, more immediate, danger arising. Mother Weynala and her escorts pushed their way towards the only man who tried to maintain order, the captain of the guards. The faery's voice carried just as far as it did on the day of Tien Lyn's wedding. Except those weren't blessings she bestowed on Chong Ho and his young bride this time around.

Ancestors, but the faery is one stubborn shrew! So am I.

Tien Lyn let go of Yu's shoulders, threaded her forearms through his armpits instead, locked fingers across his chest, and backpedalled towards the litter, pulling him along. The healer's body amounted to little more than torn skin over broken bones, hardly much heavier than herself, but the press of the crowd made the task dangerous. Sweaty strands of hair fell into her eyes, but she blew it out stubbornly, and struggled on, trying not to imagine being stampeded over.

Ho, shuffled out of the way by the guards and the rioters, screamed at the top of his lungs for her to wait, not to strain herself and other equally useful advice, as he elbowed his way back to her side. When he finally made it, he tore Yu away from her with a final angry shout, slung the healer over his shoulder and herded her to their litter. The pale-looking servants received a withering stare for doing precisely the right thing, guarding their vehicle.

"Sorry," Ho exhaled. The berserker glint in his eyes went out, replaced by the familiar calculating squint when he saw her settled in the relative safety with Yu. "Don't mind me."

"Oh, I do not mind it, dearest." Tien Lyn brushed a kiss on her husband's cheek and peered around the curtains. The faery priestess screamed, pointing them out to the scowling captain. The man balled his hands into giant fists but did not shake them in the air.

Ancestors! Tien Lyn pounded the roof with her own tiny ones. "Go, go!" she screamed in a voice shrill enough to put the rioters to shame.

The litter did not take off like a dragon propelled by a magic gale and showering the onlookers with rainbow dust. As the porters tried to force their way through the throng, she had ample time to anxiously watch the spectacle unfolding behind her. The din of the crowd overpowered anything that was said, but as the slowest getaway in the history of getaways progressed, she could see her enemies regroup.

The captain staggered away from the faery, but Weynala gained on him, and stretched upwards, at least a full head taller than the humans. She swayed a little from side to side, like a snake hypnotizing its victim, and jerked a demanding thumb at their desperate group again.

The captain, an exceptionally tall man, with the upper torso of an ox, reached out to grab the faery by her chin with his left hand. He twisted her head forcing her to look around not down on him while yelling something back at her. The flat of his sword tapped impatiently against his right ankle.

Weynala recoiled and furiously pushed his hand away. The faery escorts deftly slipped between the captain and their mother superior. One of the acolytes, that Tien Lyn thought might have been Sayewa, spoke, moving her hands in calming waves.

She then nodded to her partner. The two linked their hands and chanted. The hymn brought up a small whirlwind that might have been packed with flowers but shoved anything and anyone away from the faery group. It also kept the Serene Mother Weynala in.

The captain frowned, but nodded his approval at the Serene Mother being removed from the scene. He squared his shoulders, and beckoned for his lieutenants, then sent them running in every direction.

To Bu Liang's residence, to the Prefecture, and to the Low Ward, Tien Lyn guessed. Thankfully, none went after their litter.

The captain himself shook his head in resignation, took a deep breath, and charged the crowd angrily to where Bu Liang had fallen in a valiant attempt to recover his fallen superior's body.

The maybe-Sayewa then turned her head almost completely round, owl-like. Behind Weynala's back, the faery looked directly at Tien Lyn.

She had had no luck reading the faery's expressions even in close quarters. Here, with all the people jostling across her line of sight, she had no inkling of what Sayewa wanted, but it spooked her anyway. Tien Lyn ducked inside the litter and jerked the curtains closed. She closed her eyes too for good measure. And did not peek till they were clear of the square.

When she finally dared to look, she saw her poor Ho loping alongside the litter in the most undignified way imaginable. Tien Lyn wished she could do the running in his place, but these days he did not let her lift a teapot to fill his cup without an argument. Better keep mum then about how she was tossed around in the litter, clinging to Yu like a shipwrecked sailor to a piece of driftwood.

The important thing was they were getting away from the growing cacophony of the rioting Low Ward. And, even more importantly, that her tiny mirror miraculously came away fogged up every time she pressed it against the healer's bloodied lips. Twice she pushed the tangled red hair back, but could not see any other signs of life on his wax-like face, so she let the bangs be.

Chong's home was not a castle by any stretch of the imagination, but Tien Lyn felt like they had escaped all danger once they'd safely made it inside their courtyard and the gates shut behind them. A dangerous feeling, of course, but she wanted to revel in it if only for a short time. She leaned back, resting her head on the wall and closed her eyes. A few deep breaths... then she pulled the curtains open. Doubled over by the litter, Ho clutched his knees, sucking in air. "Husband, I am in the company of one dying man, so don't you dare! It lost its novelty."

The porters exchanged amused looks. "Walk a little, Master. It will ease your breath."

Ho let go off one of his knees and forcefully thrust his thumb in the general direction of the servants' quarters. "Diss...miss...ed." The men obeyed, still grinning as they walked away.

"Is... he... Is... Yu?" Ho wheezed.

"Alive," Tien Lyn assured him quickly. "But only just."

"That... should be... enough." Ho straightened up with a groan.

"Then all is well." Tien Lyn put her arms around Ho's neck. "The blessed healer lives, and you were quite the hero!"

"Don't get used to it." Ho pushed a stray wisp of hair back behind her ear. "The way it turned out the safest course of action is for us to flee to the countryside. Someone's bound to give the authorities our names. Zha Yao's shenanigans will cost me everything."

"Not everything," Tien Lyn whispered and moved his hand to feel her belly.

Ho froze, mollified. "Still, did he have to start a riot?"

"What did you expect? He is Zha Yao, the firebrand." She hesitated, then added, quietly. "They would have torn the Prefect limb to limb, even if he had missed his shot, I think. But he never misses, does he?"

Ho shuddered before saying with a faraway look on his face. "No, he doesn't."

"What's wrong?" she asked him gently.

He turned sad eyes on her. "Dearest, he now aims as high as it gets with your mother whispering into his ear. And your mother... well, she would rather have you give birth to princes, not merchants. I fear for what would happen to us if Zha Yao loses. And I fear for what would happen to me should he win."

Tien Lyn put her hands around him. "Mother will come around after the baby is born, you'll see."

He sighed, looking doubtful. "What's done is done. We could do nothing else, this was the only righteous course."

"Yes, it was," Tien Lyn said.

The dark shadow of the healer's misfortune clouded the otherwise happy year for them. Yu had not promised to come back to report, of course, but he did not seem to have many places to go and they'd expected him to see him after his quest. A few days had passed with no news, until the grand faery procession wound its way through Sutao to announce the end of the Inscrutable Contagion. Indeed, the cases had begun diminishing, then went away altogether.

Next they heard of him, was the rumours that the blasphemer Demure Yu had prevented faery healing of the Inscrutable Contagion by consorting with demons. It was not a formal accusation, so perhaps even the Temple could not support a charge this absurd, or the officials were unwilling to risk the panic of a demon-hunt in the already decimated city. Instead, he had been detained on a generic charge of blasphemy.

Ho had greased a few palms to find out that the healer was 'forgotten' amidst Sutao's joyous revival.

The Contagion retreated from Sutao house by house, street by street, ward by ward. The dead were buried, the inheritance cases sorted out, the port reopened, new officials got appointed in place of those who succumbed to the disease.

But new or old, the bureaucrats unanimously found something else to take priority over Yu's case.

Tien Lyn had managed to buy her way in, and the changes that the jail had wrought in the healer terrified her. When she was there, Yu became more lucid, but if he talked at all, it was gibberish. He raved about Celestials, rats, faeries, and demons. As the year went on, he stopped recognizing her and refused to speak.

Chongs had almost despaired to find a bureaucrat who could make their 'nephew's' case important enough, when it suddenly moved to the top of the pile.

It was suspicious on its own, even without an anonymous letter in an unfamiliar hand warning them to be wary of the faeries' treachery. For once, Tien Lyn was happy for Ho's reverent treatment of her pregnancy, because he did not dare upset her by arguing. She went to her mother for help, despite Lady Chen Guang's growing resentment of 'that merchant' that reached its apogee when Tien Lyn told her she was pregnant.

No, there was nothing else she could do to save the healer, but she was sorry for the mess her mother had started.

"I am sorry for what happened today, but I am sure that mother would not dare---" she started, but Ho kissed her before she could finish.

"I will need to write a few letters before we leave," he told her, with a decent enough imitation of a smile.

"Go on, make the arrangements. I will see that the blessed healer is tended to." Tien Lyn bowed to her husband's retreating back. Being married, she thought, is too much like being a child.