After saying farewell to the Gusitafu father and son, Xialuote followed her father into a four-wheeled carriage. The baron's personal servant stood on the iron stand at the rear, and the coachman sat up front, leaving the two of them the privacy of the compartment.
To the regular beat of hooves, the carriage moved slowly along a road that was none too wide. The crude springs kept the compartment pitching and swaying, and gave Xialuote, long used to the smoothness of modern vehicles, a feeling like seasickness.
She had no attention to spare for that discomfort just then. Opposite her, Baron Lawuer Suolun sat with his brows locked tight, pale green eyes fixed upon her.
The two of them faced one another and said nothing. They were silent for several minutes in the rocking compartment, until the carriage, following a road with a streetlamp only every few dozen meters, crossed a bridge and entered Saint Luoke District, where the ground lay level. Only then did Lawuer speak.
"As for Ma'ersuo's death, you must not let it weigh on you. From any point of view, it was necessary self-defense.
"Even if there is some trouble in law, I will make it go away for you."
That sounded exactly like a line from some great villain. If a transmigrator were to turn up at Aidian Ma'ersuo's home at a moment like this, what followed would be the protagonist's rise, and the overthrow of Baron Suolun's tyranny... Xialuote muttered it without a sound, yet the worry in her heart over Aidian's death did not pass.
It was not that she doubted her father's ability, as a noble, to arrange such things. After losing the woman he loved and two children, one after another, this baron's love for Xialuote, the only daughter he had left, showed itself in every way. He would certainly use every means he had to clear her of blame.
But Xialuote had a modern person's soul, and a modern sense of right and wrong. She did not feel herself above others merely because she was a noble, and she still could not accept that she had killed a living person.
Drawing a dagger and striking back in desperation was one thing. Looking back on the killing once she was safe was another... Aidian's pale face, and the chest with blood welling from it, rose again in her mind. She could not help reaching for her waist, for the dagger she had slid back into her sash.
Seeing Lawuer's gaze follow the movement to the long dress stained with broad patches of blood, Xialuote spoke as if to change the subject.
"Father, do you know why Aidian wanted to deceive me, and to kidnap me?"
"That is what I wanted to ask you." The baron lifted his head. His gaze rested on his daughter's face, and his expression was somewhat grave. "So far as I know, this lawyer's income was by no means small, and he had no debts. He did not seem the sort of man to stake everything for money.
"So what, exactly, happened tonight?"
Xialuote had already told him everything she met with after waking in the alley. She knew he was not asking about that stretch of time. Yet she could not possibly lay bare that she was a transmigrator. She could only frown, a thoughtful look on her face, and after a moment she shook her head.
"I don't really remember. There seemed to be screams around me, and the smell of blood, and then I woke and found myself in an alley in the Old City..."
She did not hide those few fragments of memory, hoping her father might reveal something more. Unfortunately, his face showed only puzzlement, and he murmured:
"Memory loss... screams and blood?"
He looked at his daughter's commoner's clothes, unfit for her station, and at the blood on them that likewise was not hers. Suddenly the baron bent forward, lowered his voice, and asked:
"You were not harmed, were you? I mean in body, or in mind...
"Do not be afraid. Be brave, and tell me."
Harmed? Xialuote started. She looked at the worry in her father's pale green eyes, and only after a moment understood.
He thought she had been... violated, and then, unable to accept what was real, her mind had gone wrong? How could that be? She felt nothing amiss in her body at all... Caught between tears and laughter, she hurriedly shook her head to deny it.
"Of course not."
Only then did the baron draw himself upright again, and his expression eased.
Seeing that, Xialuote put forward another question of her own.
"Could what happened tonight have something to do with the Old City murder case the night watchman spoke of?"
If Aidian had not been after money, but was one of the killers in this serial case, then everything would make sense...
"Impossible!" Lawuer burst out in rebuttal, his tone stern. "Do not guess at that, and do not mention it to anyone else."
He turned his head toward the carriage window and looked at the outlines of the street under the crimson moonlight and the streetlamps. At the far end of his gaze, a golden-domed bell tower, huge glass oil lamps burning all around it, lit the magnificent onion-domed building beside it like a sun.
That was the episcopal cathedral of the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun in the Suxite Diocese: Saint Luoke Cathedral.
Just as Xialuote thought her father would fall silent there, he added, in a heavy voice:
"That was no ordinary killing. Many people died. People from the Church will act tonight."
The Church... Aidian had said something similar. Did they all value religion that highly—even more than the army, and more than the magistrate?
At that thought, Xialuote too pressed close to the window and glanced toward the church, whose look gave her a faint sense of déjà vu.
* * *
Only when the bell tower, visible from all of Saint Luoke District, had been left far behind did the carriage turn in at a residence of no small grounds.
Looking at the courtyard walls faintly outlined in the dark, and at the brightly lit detached building of three stories, Xialuote at last had some real sense of the wealth and standing the rank of "baron" represented.
It seemed a great deal richer than the Gusitafu residence... No. The location of this estate could even be counted as the outskirts. Uncle Lai'ang's house was in the center of the city. The two were nothing alike in price... As she stepped down from the carriage, she weighed the means of the two barons she had met today, and realized with a sinking heart that her own family was not so wealthy as the family of Luosaier, whose social etiquette had been none too practiced just now.
Saint Luoke District, where Baron Suolun's residence stood, lay in the east of Suxite, beside the Suona River. To the north was Anai Fortress, where the army was garrisoned; to the south was Fuweier Mountain. It was the oldest part of the city. It had the city's first church and its first bridge, and it was where most of the nobility kept their houses.
But as silk weaving and finance had gone on developing, the heart of the city had long since shifted to the peninsula formed where the Suona River and the Laien River met. Both the crowded, chaotic Old City and Bo'ersi District—where the Municipal Hall, the Exchange, and the High Court stood—were more prosperous than this place. House prices had naturally kept rising, and the Gusitafu house near Municipal Square was not necessarily any cheaper than the Suolun family's old mansion.
She put away the urge to compare that had sprung up out of nowhere, followed her father through the gates of the residence, and came into the front hall. Several menservants and maids who had long been waiting came forward at once. One maid, of whom Xialuote had some impression in her memory, saw her covered in blood and went white with fright.
But Xialuote's gaze passed beyond her, to the broad landing opposite the door, the way up to the second floor. A huge oil painting hung there. Under the oil lamps set deliberately to either side, its colors were deep, and the figures seated or standing in it were vividly alive.
The red-haired one among them, in a velvet coat, standing before a desk, was none other than Lawuer Suolun, who at this moment was being helped by a servant as he changed his coat. He was the focus of the picture. His features were a little younger than now, his red hair bolder, and a nobleman's pride filled his brows and eyes.
Seated beside the baron was a brown-haired woman in a pale silk gown, her features soft and lovely. Her eyes were lowered toward the infant in her arms, her expression gentle and serene. Beside the chair sat a girl of five or six, the lace of her skirt spread like petals, an innocent smile on the little face she tilted up. On the baron's other side stood a young man nearly his own height, in a military uniform, two medals on his chest, one hand resting on the hilt of the sword at his waist and the other behind his back, his expression stern.
It was a family portrait of Lawuer Suolun's household, yet it had not been painted at any single moment. It was a work the baron himself had made from memory, restoring each member of the family in the fairest likeness of a different time.
The woman seated in the armchair was the young Baroness Suolun. The child in her arms was Xialuote, not long after birth. Yet Xialuote had scarcely any impression of that woman's face, because less than a year after she was born, her mother had died in an accident.
Then there was her elder sister, Danna, and her elder brother, Leinuo... This family had died one after another, as if under a curse, until only Father and I were left... Xialuote stared blankly at the warm scene in the painting, and a chill rose in her.
"...te, Xialuote?"
Lawuer's concerned call reached her ear. She came back to herself, looked at her father, smiled in apology, and said:
"I was only a little wistful, seeing that painting. If not for Uncle Lai'ang's help tonight, I fear I too would have..."
"Say no more, Xialuote." The baron's expression darkened, and he cut her off. "It is enough that you are back. Rest well tonight. Think of nothing. When you wake tomorrow, all of it will have passed."
I hope so... Drowsiness did rise in Xialuote. She took her leave of Lawuer, followed the maid up to the second floor, and walked toward the room that was hers.
Before she entered the corridor, she looked back. The baron still stood in the front hall, his head raised toward the painting, motionless.
* * *
"I need to rest a while. Go and heat water. I will want it shortly."
As soon as she entered the room, Xialuote sent her personal maid away, shut the door, and locked it. Only then did she truly let out a breath, and she all but collapsed to the floor.
From the moment she had woken after transmigrating, one thing after another had held her nerves stretched tight. Only now, back at the residence and in a private space of her own, had it come to a pause.
She looked around the bedroom. It was not large, yet it was arranged with great warmth. Her gaze passed over the four-poster hung with bed curtains, the floor-to-ceiling window that opened onto the balcony, and the wardrobe that filled one wall, and came to rest on the dressing table by the window, with its huge oval mirror.
On hesitant feet she came up to it, sat on the cushioned round stool, brought her eyes level with the mirror, and, in the swaying light of the oil lamp, looked at the figure there.
The person in the mirror had long auburn hair. Part of it was braided into a loose plait looped at the back of the head; the rest fell naturally over the shoulders in distinct layers. The eyes, opened a little wide, were a clear blue with a touch of green. The brows were thick, the bridge of the nose straight, the line of the lips distinct and their color rather pale. The face was a cold white, its contours soft with a girl's gentleness. The lines of neck and shoulder were long and graceful, and the bloodstained linen long dress traced a figure slender, yet not slight.
Slowly she raised her right hand and set a long index finger against the tip of her nose. The person in the mirror made the same movement, and once again there came that touch she had felt on first waking in this world—fine, with a thread of coolness in it.
So it was true. She really had become a woman... The thought she had kept buried, with no quiet moment to examine it through one upset after another, rose in her. It crumpled that face of Xialuote's, at once soft and handsome. Her nose stung, and even her sight grew blurred.
How am I about to cry? This body was far too fragile. I was a man...
She drew a sharp breath through her nose, forced the feeling down, rose from the dressing table, and paced back and forth beside the floor-to-ceiling window, using the other thoughts that kept welling up to press down the dejection within.
First, tonight's business had to be closed. Baron Suolun ought to be able to handle the aftermath of Aidian Ma'ersuo, so that it would not drag her in... Then she had to recover the memories Xialuote Suolun had lost, and determine what had really happened to this body before she woke... Last was the truth of the transmigration, and a clue that might lead her home... The thoughts surfaced one after another. Xialuote's steps grew slower and slower, until at last she stood before the window.
She looked at the Red Moon hanging high in the sky, nothing like the moon of Earth, and slowly let out a sigh.
Suddenly a translucent face appeared outside the window, nearly overlapping the outline of Xialuote's face reflected in the glass, staring fixedly at her.
Who was it? She took a step back without thinking, and at once noticed that the size of the face had changed as well.
It was a shadow from inside the room!
The blood in Xialuote's whole body nearly froze. She jerked her head around to look behind her.
Chapter 6