Daiyu nibbled her pan-fried, pork-filled dumplings. She and Shaohua sat on wooden crates, with a taller one in between them, tucked into the corner of the small food shop. The makeshift table held a steam-powered lamp shaped like a spider on brass legs, dimly shining with amber light.
The air was as heavy as her heart. “I must make my parents see reason,” she said.
“Love does not always follow reason,” Shaohua replied.
“You think they act from love?”
“I do.”
“Well,” she harrumphed a snort of mirthless laughter, “—they drive me mad, with their love.”
“In their heart, they stand with you.”
Daiyu dashed a hard glance at him. “I can stand alone,” she said.
Following a moment of silence, Shaohua gingerly laid down his bamboo chopsticks, and levelled a humble gaze on her. “I am a cut sleeve person,” he said, as if confessing.
Daiyu was familiar enough with the story of Emperor Ai of Han, who cut his sleeve rather than disturb his male lover sleeping on it. “A ying-yang person?” she questioned.
“Yes … I am duan xiu … neither man, nor woman.”
“And do you—do you have a shared peach?”
Shaohua dropped his eyes, but not before Daiyu glimpsed the ache in them. “He is a soldier at the Taku Forts,” he replied.
The Second Opium War raged. A month earlier, the British had been successful in battle and seized the previously Qing-controlled forts at Taku.
Daiyu firmed her mouth with determination. “That is where we will go,” she announced.
“What? No! It's folly!”
“We have not met by accident,” she said, with confidence. “We were put on this same path. Both of us seek a natural way of living. Both of us seek light. For you, it is found with him. For me, it is found away from here.”
“What would we do there?”
“That will come, in time. But at the present rate, the unknown appears preferable to the known.” Her head swam with possibilities. She must bring paper and ink. The journey would be rife with inspiration.
“Your parents?”
“Yes, yes, I must first talk with them … Even if it is only to say goodbye.”
***
She went home. Li Ming was still there. “I knew you would come back,” he said. “My offer is the best you can do.”
Daiyu’s chest rose and fell. “I would rather eat glass than submit to you.”
“It is not a crime to obey,” her father cried.
Her mother wrung her hands. “How did I raise such an obstinate daughter?”
The uselessness of her argument struck her full force. She marched to her bedchamber, stuffed a few articles of clothing into a canvas pouch, and strode past the enemy. At the door, she paused with her hand on the latch. Eyes glaring at the floor, she tried to collect herself, then pierced her father with a red-hot gaze. “This is no longer my home,” she said, and then exited into the night.
The last thing she heard was her father shouting her name. “Daiyu!”
***
Sleep eluded her, on a cot in the room Shaohua rented. He lightly snored, and she felt alone. She thought of the pretty whisper-bird she had seen at market. A brass automaton resembling a magpie with an obsidian beak, clockwork wings, and jade-lens eyes, it could read emotions, and respond appropriately.
She longed for that whisper-bird, and would go and acquire it before they went anywhere.
***
In the heat of midday, Rennie narrowed an eye on Zimo, the aged tinker manning his stall in the crowded marketplace. A tableful of mechanical contraptions, salvaged for resale, separated them. “How much do ye want for the whisper-bird?” Rennie asked.
Zimo placed an oil-stained finger on the brass automaton resembling a magpie with an obsidian beak and clockwork wings. Its jade-lens eyes rolled up to the old man, as if to see how much it was worth. “Ah,” he replied, “—a very special piece.” Puffs of steam escaped through tiny valves along the bird’s spine. “Your best friend, if you let it.”
“How much?”
“Four taels of foreign silver.”
Rennie was unwilling to pay such an exorbitant price. Besides, truth be told, he’d rather not reveal his heart, not even to a mechanical bird. “Ye drive a hard bargain, Zimo.”
His eyes landed upon a jewelled device shaped like a human heart, forged in burnished copper etched with delicate filigree. Its valves, cogs and gears were silent. “What have we here?” he asked.
“A broken heart,” Zimo replied. “Known as the third.”
Rennie’s eyebrows popped up. “Why the third?”
“For it to sing once again, it is in need of wing and blade.”
“So the story goes.”
“Yes, yes, so the story goes.”
A dead heart intrigued Rennie. He felt a connection. Morbid it might be, but the non-beating talisman seemed to offer validation. If nothing else, it would serve as a reminder to steel himself against what a heart might feel.
Normally, he avoided impulse, but decided he must have it. “How much?” he asked.
“For you, one tael of foreign silver.”
Rennie nodded. He paid for the stopped heart, tucked it away in his satchel, and turned about. To his surprise, there before him stood the young Chinese woman he had rescued from the British sailors. “’Tis ye,” he blurted out.
She dipped her chin. “I am Daiyu.”
“Rennie. Rennie Macpherson. Ye took your leave in such haste, there wasna time for any proper introduction.” He wondered why his tongue was running away from him. “Are ye well, then?”
“I am, great thanks to you.”
“Good, good—good to hear.”
A moment of awkward silence was followed by Daiyu announcing, “I’ve come to buy a whisper-bird.”
“Have ye, now? Bonnie. Zimo’s got a fine one.”
They turned their attention to the mechanical bird Rennie has recently rejected. Daiyu ran a finger along the valves of its spine. “It’s beautiful,” she said.
“Four taels of foreign silver,” Zimo put in.
Daiyu’s face fell. “I can’t pay more than two.”
Rennie shifted from leaning on one leg, to the other. “I’ll cover the difference for ye,” he said.
She lifted an open face to him. “Why do you do these things for me?” she wondered, in a small voice.
He felt that he could fall into her eyes. “Dinna rightly know, my own self. I’ll no’ question it, lest it proves me barmy.”
She grinned. “You are a kind man.”
Rennie adjusted Daisy on his shoulder. He felt like an imposter. “An’ what will ye call your bird?”
“Shiyun,” Daiyu replied, without hesitation.
“What’s its meaning?”
“Poem cloud.”
The transaction was completed. Shiyun flapped its brass wings, rising with grace, then dipped steam pressure to perch on Daiyu’s shoulder, its brass talons finding grip. Merrily, it chirped.
“Happiness found,” Rennie said.
Daiyu cast shy eyes up to him. “We leave for the Taku Forts in the morning.”
He recoiled. “What? Why? ‘Tis a dangerous place.”
“I must leave this place here.”
“What’s at Taku for ye?”
“Well, nothing—”
“Then, lass—dinna go.”
She furrowed her brow. “I am not accustomed to taking orders from men,” she said.
“Someone has got to separate ye from your foolishness.”
Her eyes widened. “Thank you for the whisper-bird,” she clipped, holding her chin high. “And now, I must be on my way.”
She spun on a heel, and stalked off, into the crowd.
Rennie, gaping, was left standing there. Truly, he concluded, humans were not worth the trouble.
His heart beat a little faster than was usual, reminding him that he had one.
He reached into his satchel and pulled out his recent purchase. To his amazement, the clockwork heart ticked once, like a heartbeat, while emitting one pulse of amber light, and then it went silent and dark once more.
