The Cold Minister and the Substitute Bride novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Bedsheet

A censor's matron demands the morning cloth, and Zhiruo marks it with her own blood to save them both; Gao invites the couple to a banquet.

The floorboard outside the door creaked once more, and then it was silent.

Biyan let go of Zhiruo's wrist.

She crossed the room without a sound and pressed her ear to the lattice for a long moment.

"One listener," she whispered. "The Censor's matron is not here yet. She comes at dawn."

"For what?"

"The cloth."

Zhiruo looked at the bed.

The sheet was white silk, spread smooth, with a square of red embroidery in each corner.

"I see," Zhiruo said.

"The Chief Censor arranged this marriage himself." Biyan's voice was flat. "He sent the matron to inspect the sheets in the morning. If they are clean, he will say the minister cannot perform a husband's duty. A man who cannot is a man to question."

"And a woman who cannot is a woman to hang."

"Yes."

Biyan drew a short dagger from her sleeve and laid it on the table.

She turned up her left palm.

"I will cut it. It heals, and I have sleeves."

Zhiruo looked at the pale line of the minister's palm.

Then she took one of the twelve pins out of her hem and held it up to the candle.

"No," she said.

"Madam."

"Zhiruo. My name is Zhiruo."

"Zhiruo," Biyan said, and the name sounded careful in her mouth, like a coin she was trying for weight. "Put that down."

"It's my bed, isn't it?" Zhiruo said. "The sheet is meant to be mine. So it will be mine."

She sat on the edge of the mattress, pressed the pin into the soft pad of her thumb, and held it over the silk.

A bead of blood rose.

It fell on the white and spread into a small dark flower.

She pressed again and made a second.

Biyan knelt beside the bed.

She took Zhiruo's bleeding thumb between her own fingers and wrapped a strip of clean cloth around it, firmly, once, twice, with a neat knot.

Her hands were cool and very careful.

"Do you want the bed or the floor?"

"The bed is large enough for a regiment," Zhiruo said. "And someone is listening."

Biyan's eyes lifted to hers.

For a moment neither of them said anything at all.

Then Biyan blew out four of the six candles, took off her outer robe, and lay down on the far edge of the bed with her back to the room.

Zhiruo lay down on the near edge, in her wedding gown, with her back to Biyan's.

Between them stretched a hand's width of cool silk.

She listened to the minister breathe.

It was a long time before it slowed.

She woke to gray light and the sound of a bell.

Biyan was already sitting up with her hair tied back in a rough knot, and she was frowning at the window.

"Someone is at the gate," Biyan said. "It's the matron. She is early."

Zhiruo sat up.

Her stomach dropped through the mattress.

They had slept, she realized, both of them, properly.

The cloth was still spread in the middle of the bed, with its two small stains, and it looked frighteningly small in the daylight.

Biyan stood, snatched the hat from the table, and caught her hair up under it in four swift movements.

"Stay on the bed," she said. "Look tired."

She went out.

Zhiruo pressed the cloth against the sheet, smeared a third mark with her thumb, and then stopped and listened.

Through the window came a high clear voice in the courtyard, raised in complaint.

"I am the Censor's own matron. I demand to be taken to the bridal chamber at once."

And below it, slow, unhurried, a man's old voice.

"Of course, madam. But the old custom of the house requires that every honored guest take tea first."

Zhiruo went to the window.

An old man in a grey gown stood at the gate with a tray in both hands, a grey queue down his back and a ring of keys at his belt.

He bowed to the matron the exact depth that custom allowed and not a hair lower.

Behind him, five servants carried out a table, a kettle and nine little cups.

The matron said something sharp.

The old man replied with perfect courtesy and began to pour.

It was a very long pour.

He took one cup, turned it round, offered it, and began another.

Across the courtyard, Biyan stood on the veranda with her face cold and her eyes narrow.

Zhiruo saw her glance at the old steward, and saw her mouth tighten a fraction.

She thought, this is the household she trusts.

The matron finally swept up the stairs, and Zhiruo was in bed with her eyes half closed when the door opened.

The woman was sour-faced, with a sharp nose.

She peeled back the quilt, looked at the sheet, and looked at the three small dark marks.

She looked at Zhiruo's bandaged thumb.

Her mouth thinned.

"Hm," she said, and folded the silk into a lacquer box.

At the door she paused, turned, and held out a folded card.

"From the Chief Censor Gao, to the Minister and his lady. A banquet at his house. Three days from now. He particularly asks that the new wife come."

Biyan took the card and read it twice.

Her hands did not shake.

"Madam Xue will be delighted," she said.

Zhiruo heard the name and almost looked round to see who was meant.

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