Chapter 33 - Hard Romance

“What’s in a name? That which we call a roseBy any other name would smell as sweet.”

- William Shakespeare

By the time the last of the Flower General’s soldiers had passed beneath the balcony, the Avenue of Heavenly Peace had disappeared beneath a carpet of crushed flowers. Petals filled the gutters. They clung to helmets, horse tack, tiled roofs, and the shoulders of those spectators who remained in the street, unwilling to accept that the spectacle had ended. Children darted beneath the arms of exhausted soldiers to gather the least-damaged blossoms, while enterprising merchants were already selling commemorative ribbons, painted fans, cheap wooden swords, and hastily printed woodblock portraits of Fan Xiwei.

Seraphina remained seated while Tianhua slowly recovered from its patriotic delirium and finished her tea. Her expression remained pleasantly composed throughout.

Fan Xiwei had not even done anything particularly clever. She had merely returned from war after defeating an invading army. Any minimally competent person could have managed the same. There was no reason at all to be impressed. No reason whatsoever.

“Are we returning to the palace?” Desdemona asked carefully.

“In due course,” the blonde girl replied, placing her hands on her lap.

“That means no, then.”

Seraphina looked at her friend. “It means that the streets are presently filled with commoners. I see little benefit in forcing my carriage through them.”

Desdemona glanced down at the road, where thousands of people were already dispersing in reasonably orderly streams beneath the watchful eyes of the soldiers.

“Of course,” de Savant admitted.

Wen Meilin covered a smile with one sleeve.

A faint commotion came from somewhere beyond the inner doors. There was the heavy tread of armored feet, followed by Frest’s lower voice and another man speaking too softly for Seraphina to distinguish his words.

A few moments later, Sir Frest appeared at the threshold.

He had removed his helmet beneath the teahouse roof, though he remained otherwise armed and armored. His expression carried that particular mixture of caution and amusement he wore whenever he suspected his mistress was about to make his life more difficult.

“Milady,” he said, bowing.

The young noblewoman held her teacup out for Miriam to refill. “Yes?” 

The former bandit rubbed the back of his neck. “There is a gentleman below asking to speak with you.”

Seraphina’s brows rose by the slightest degree. “A gentleman?”

“So he claims.”

“And does this gentleman possess a name?” she asked with a small sigh.

Frest’s mouth twitched. “I believe he calls himself Chen,” he said evenly.

The irritation left Seraphina’s heart so quickly that it was almost embarrassing. Desdemona turned her head sharply enough to send a lock of brown hair tumbling loose beside her cheek. Haze stopped pretending not to listen. Miriam’s spectacles caught the light as her eyes widened behind them. Only Meilin appeared confused.

“Young Master Chen?” Desdemona repeated with entirely too much interest.

Seraphina set her cup down with deliberate care. “How very unexpected.”

It was not unexpected at all. Men were, for the greater part, remarkably predictable whenever pride, guilt, or attraction disturbed the tranquil shallows of their thoughts. The First Prince had now come here for political purposes. Or perhaps he had simply missed her, which was a considerably more pleasing prospect.

“Did he come alone?” Seraphina asked as casually as she could.

“Without a formal retinue,” Frest answered. “Two men pretending not to be bodyguards are waiting in the rear courtyard. Either he is who he claims to be, or he is the most confident assassin I have ever met.”

“Oh, he is considerably more dangerous than an assassin,” Seraphina murmured.

Meilin looked between them, realization dawning slowly across her face.

Desdemona’s smile became provocatively predatory. “Sera, darling, surely you cannot mean—”

“I mean nothing at all.”

Seraphina rose. Miriam immediately moved forward to straighten the fall of her sleeves, though there was nothing wrong with them. The maid’s fingers trembled faintly as she worked.

“Lady Desdemona, you will remain here with Lady Wen and Mistress Finleigh,” Seraphina instructed.

Desdemona’s smile vanished. “I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me,” de Sariens responded flatly.

“But surely propriety…” came her friends' protest.

“Has never troubled you before.”

Seraphina ignored her and turned to Frest. “Show Young Master Chen to the eastern inner room. Have fresh tea prepared.”

“Lady Seraphina,” Frest questioned slowly, “are you certain?”

The Knight waited patiently.

Seraphina smiled sweetly. “That will be all.”

Frest bowed and withdrew, deciding with impressive speed that whatever happened next would not be improved by his continued presence.

Desdemona rose as well. “Sera, you cannot possibly receive a young man alone.”

“He is not a stranger,” she assuaged, patting her friend lightly upon the cheek as she rose. “Remain here, dear Desdemona. Eat something sweet. Your advice has been heard, and your concern noted. However, this decision is mine.”

The de Savant girl looked betrayed, watching her friend’s back as she left.

Seraphina paused before the inner corridor. “Miriam, you will wait outside the room.”

The maid stopped. “Outside, milady?”

“Immediately outside.”

“But there will be no chaperone within,” her Palisa Slug maid insisted.

Seraphina glanced toward the apparently empty air above Miriam’s shoulder.

There would be one, although Tia’s interpretation of chaperoning would likely involve listening to everything and stabbing the Prince through the eye if his rhythm became unpleasant.

“I am sure I shall somehow preserve my virtue,” Seraphina replied.

Then she entered the inner room.

***

“Young Master Chen” stood beside an open lattice window overlooking the teahouse courtyard.

He had dressed much as he had on the day of their first meeting: a dark blue outer robe, understated embroidery along the cuffs, and his hair bound back with a simple silver clasp. There was nothing Imperial about his clothing, nothing that openly announced he was the son of the Jade Dragon Throne and its recognized heir.

Nevertheless, now that Seraphina knew him in both guises, she could see the Prince even in the young master. It was in the straightness of his back. The confidence with which he occupied a room belonging to someone else. The easy certainty that no one would truly prevent him from going wherever he wished.

He turned at the sound of her footsteps, and for a moment, neither spoke.

Then Huan smiled. “Catherina,” he started.

Seraphina closed the door softly behind her. “Young Master Chen.”

Something in his expression eased at the name, though whether from nostalgia or relief, she could not yet tell.

The room had been decorated in the restrained fashion of expensive establishments that wished to appear humble. A low table stood between two cushioned seats. Painted screens concealed the farther wall, depicting cranes walking beside a moonlit river. A faint fragrance of sandalwood lingered in the air beneath the sweeter smell of pastries and tea.

Seraphina crossed the room and sat, but Prince Huan remained standing.

She looked pointedly at the empty place opposite her. “Are you waiting to be formally announced?”

“No.”

The young girl laughed delicately. “Then sit. You are making me nervous.”

He laughed softly and lowered himself onto the cushion across from her.

Miriam entered just long enough to set down the fresh tea. Her eyes moved between them before she bowed, withdrew, and closed the door again.

Silence followed before Seraphina broke it, lifting the teapot and pouring for the prince. “Tell me, Young Master Chen, is this entirely appropriate?”

Huan blinked. “Is what appropriate?”

“You coming secretly into a teahouse to meet an unmarried young woman without so much as a chaperone,” the Aranthian noblewoman said demurely, her eyes downcast.

“I entered through the courtyard,” he replied, as if this was all the answer that would be required on the matter.

She gave a delicate snort. “That hardly improves matters.”

“I did not climb through the window,” he replied laconically, rubbing the back of his neck and smiling despite himself. “Should I leave?”

Seraphina poured the tea slowly now into her cup. “I am considering whether I should protect my innocence. People might talk.”

He bit his bottom lip before giving his reply. “I was given to understand that people already talk about you. But I apologize if I am endangering your immaculate reputation.”

“As well you should,” she added primly.

His eyes lowered briefly to her hair, to the little wooden fox resting among the gold of her hair. It was a common thing that had no real place on the head of a woman of her station. 

Huan looked at it for a moment too long. “I did not know whether Catherina would keep a gift from Chen once Lady Seraphina learned who had given it.”

Seraphina lifted her cup and breathed in the steam. “A rose by any other name is no less beautiful, is it? Nor, for that matter, is A little fox less charming because a prince purchased it.”

A faint smile touched the prince’s mouth.

“And you are supposedly a prince,” Seraphina continued. “Yet here you are sneaking into teahouses under a false name. Truly, it seems that people do not always behave according to their titles.”

Huan’s smile faded by degrees and he set down his cup. “I owe you an apology.”

“For which offense? You will need to be more specific.”

“For deceiving you.”

Seraphina gave a soft, musical laugh. “Did you now? But, that hardly changed anything. I knew who you were from the beginning.”

He stared at her, and the surprise was gratifying. “From the beginning?”

The young girl giggled despite herself, a sound filled with innocence but laced with feminine wiles. “From the first moment you so gallantly rescued me from a predatory ornament seller.”

“And you said nothing,” he said with a shake of his head.

“You said nothing first, and gave a false name. Fooling, I might add, a foreign dignitary.”

At this the prince looked slightly flustered. “That is not a defense,” he shot back.

She waved her hand airily. “It is an excellent defense. You simply dislike it because it leaves us equally guilty.”

“Not equally,” Huan objected. “You knew everything.”

“That merely means I was wiser of us.”

For a moment, he looked almost offended. Then the absurdity of the matter defeated him, and he laughed.

It was the same laugh she remembered from the market: warm, unpolished, and startlingly free of the control worn by the First Prince at court.

Seraphina felt something tighten beneath her ribs and immediately dismissed it as indigestion.

“I only realized after your appearance before my father,” Huan admitted. He shook his head. “You truly are an astonishing woman.”

“Yes.”

The answer came so naturally that he laughed again, then the quiet returned.

Huan rested one hand around his cup but did not drink. “I did not come only to apologize.”

“No,” Seraphina replied. “I assume you came because of General Fan.”

The girl noticed that his fingers tightened slightly. 

How tediously easy men became when one spoke the name of the woman occupying their conscience, she thought.

The young man looked at her seriously. “I have been led to believe that the general may hold some animosity towards you. The general is a patriot above all. And, Fan Xiwei is not a court lady, Lady Seraphina.”

She laughed again. “No. Court ladies generally wear less armor.”

“I am serious. She is very strong. And, I do not mean merely in reputation. She is physically very strong. And very skilled,” warned the prince.

Seraphina almost looked offended. “Do you imagine I am fragile?”

Huan continued more carefully. “But Xiwei does not always understand the limits other people take for granted. When she was fifteen, she broke the arm of a grown man who tried to strike her. She did not intend to break it. She merely caught his wrist.”

“How clumsy of him.”

Seraphina had to stop herself from yawning.

“She once carried an injured cavalryman for half a league,” added the prince.

“Was the horse unavailable?” laughed the blonde girl.

Huan looked toward the open lattice window. For the first time since entering, the First Prince appeared uncertain—not politically cautious or strategically reserved, but uncertain in the deeply personal manner of a man approaching a memory he had never properly understood.

Here it comes, she thought, reading the prince’s expression. Here comes the exposition. She would have literally killed for a dialogue skip button.

“Before she was General Fan,” he said, “before she entered the eastern army, she was the daughter of a village butcher.”

Seraphina lowered her cup. 

That was almost unbearably appropriate for common muck, she commented to herself dryly in the halls of her mind.

The heroine of the eastern army had once carved pigs apart for a living. It was precisely the sort of past dramatists adored: humble, bloody, honest labor transformed by courage into martial glory. That was, she now realized, why the crowds had been most unbearable in their reception of the general.

“She worked in the shop herself,” Huan continued. “Her father had injured his back, and her brothers were too young. She could split a carcass faster than any man in the village. One winter, several years ago, I traveled east without the knowledge of the court.”

“Under the name Chen?” cut in the girl.

“Under one of several names.”

The young girl recalled that nearly every period drama featured royalty wandering the countryside incognito and causing all manner of trouble for the common folk. Much the same happened in modern-day Korea with the scions of chaebol families, and it usually ended up with more than unwanted pregnancy. 

She sighed. “How very… predictable. Banal almost. The trouble young men get up to without proper protection,” commented Seraphina before realizing that the crude joke would be completely lost on him.

Huan ignored her nonetheless. “I was investigating the theft of military grain. Someone had been selling provisions meant for the border garrisons. I believed an official close to the provincial governor was involved.”

Seraphina gave him a thin smile. “And being a prince, you naturally decided to investigate personally rather than employ someone trained for the task.”

He gave her a dry look before continuing. “The men involved learned I was asking questions. My escort was attacked on the northern road during a storm. My horse was killed beneath me. I was wounded here.”

He touched his left side, beneath the ribs.

“And here.”

His fingers moved to the outside of his thigh.

“The snow covered the road within an hour. I remember reaching the edge of a forest. After that, very little.”

“Fan Xiwei found you,” she commented, hoping that he would wrap up this little story soon.

“She was returning from a neighboring village. A household there had purchased two pigs for a wedding feast and paid her family to prepare them.” A quiet amusement entered his voice. “She said she nearly left me where I lay because she thought I was dead, and dead men were troublesome. However, She checked whether I had money first.”

Don’t roll your eyes, he is royalty, the young girl warned herself. 

“She found I was breathing,” Huan said, “then dragged me onto the same handcart she used for transporting meat.”

The image presented itself with almost theatrical perfection: the future heir to the Jade Dragon Throne lying half-dead beside dressed pigs while the future Flower General hauled him through the snow.

Seraphina covered her mouth, stifling a cruel laugh.

Huan narrowed his eyes. “You are mocking me.”

“She carried you home beside dead pigs. Next, you will say that you fell in love with her.”

“I did not say that.”

“But my prince, You did not need to.”

Huan looked away again. “She hid me in the rear room of the butcher’s shop. There were men searching the village, and she knew enough to understand they were not ordinary bandits. She told them she had seen no one. Later, when they were gone, she spent almost everything her family possessed on medicine. When that was not enough, she sold the only piece of jewelry her mother had left her.”

Huan’s voice had changed. It remained controlled, but that control now covered something old and tender. 

“I did not tell her who I was. I told her my name was Chen and that my family was gone. She believed I was some minor gentleman robbed upon the road. For three weeks, she fed me broth, changed my bandages, and slept outside the rear room with a cleaver beside her in case the men returned.”

There it was. A bond formed before rank. Before ambition. Before either of them had known each other properly. It was, Seraphina admitted to herself, a powerful foundation. The raw naked truth often was, but it seemed that the prince had a habit of starting romantic dalliances with a lie.

How very inconvenient.

“When I was strong enough to leave, I promised I would repay her,” Huan continued.

“And did you?”

“I tried. She refused most of it,” he admitted. “She accepted enough to buy back her mother’s ornament and repair the roof of the shop. Nothing more.”

“How dreadfully noble of you,” she remarked, fighting a yawn.

“She later joined a local militia when raiders came through the eastern villages. By then, I had returned to the capital. I arranged for her to be considered for the army.”

“So you made her a general?”

“No.” His answer came with quiet firmness. “I opened a gate. She crossed everything beyond it herself.”

Fan Xiwei’s accomplishments were not the invention of a prince attempting to elevate a favored village girl. Huan had given her an opportunity, but she had converted it into victory through her own strength. It made her considerably more dangerous.

“It was real,” Huan said.

Seraphina traced one finger around the rim of her cup. “What was?”

“What existed between us, before the court began measuring whether our marriage would strengthen my claim. It was real,” he confessed

“I see,” said the girl, growing quite tired of the prince heaping praises on another woman.

“I thought you should know,” he replied, looking guiltily away.

“Why?”

“I do not know.”

It was strange to see uncertainty sit upon him. As First Prince, he had been raised to conceal hesitation as carefully as others concealed treason. Yet in the small private room, dressed as Young Master Chen, he allowed it to show.

“My bond with Xiwei is not false,” he admitted. “I owe her my life, but it is more than obligation. When she was sent to war, I thought of her every day. When reports stopped coming, I could not sleep. When word reached us that her army had cornered Enkarn, I wanted to ride out of Tianhua and find her myself.”

“But you did not.”

“My father forbade it,” he said with a shake of his head, his mouth tightening. “Then I met you.”

Seraphina said nothing. The porcelain of her cup clicked against the table with a small, final sound.

The girl sighed. “I simply do not care.”

Huan stared at her and she smiled pleasantly back.

“About what?” he asked, looking most perplexed.

“Your history. Any of it,” explained the beautiful girl with a wave of her before continuing. “I do not care that Fan Xiwei rescued you from the snow. I do not care that she sold her mother’s jewelry, slept with a cleaver beside your door, or carried you home with the evening’s pork. It is a charming story. I am sure poets will mutilate it beautifully one day.”

“Seraphina—”

“Lady Seraphina,” she corrected with a flash of emerald fire. “It has nothing to do with me.”

“But..”

“It excuses you for nothing,” she judged.

Her voice remained soft. That softness made Huan fall silent far more effectively than anger would have.

“I did not ask you to betray her,” Seraphina reasoned. “I did not ask you to come here. I did not ask you to enter a market beneath a false name, purchase me a fox, spend many afternoons flirting with me, or visit me alone after your promised bride paraded beneath ten thousand flowers.”

“I was not playing with you.”

“Were you not?” she mocked, letting some venom enter voice now.

“No,” he tried to refute with a shake of his head.

“Then what were you doing, pray tell?”

“I told you. I do not know.”

“And I have told you that I do not care,” Seraphina rejoined, and the words struck him harder the second time.

Good.

Uncertainty might have been painful for him, but Seraphina refused to let a man’s confusion become the axis around which her own life turned. She had endured that once already.

She had waited upon Velens while he allowed himself to be pulled toward Este Lize, waiting for him to decide whether affection, divine favor, political convenience, or the soft silver-haired creature at his side mattered more than the woman to whom he had already given his word.

She would not do so again. “I came to the Empire to choose a husband,” Seraphina said, each word precise. “Not to stand patiently beside a pond while one indecisive prince gazes at two reflections and wonders which he finds prettier.”

Huan’s jaw tightened. “That is not fair.”

She sneered. “Crying to fairness is the desperate prayer of those who possess no leverage.”

“I am trying to be honest with you,” he wheedled.

“And I am rewarding that honesty by being honest in return. You have a history with Fan Xiwei,” she continued. “A true one, apparently. You care for her. You may even love her… despite the obvious differences between your stations.”

His eyes returned to hers, but she hardened her heart.

“And perhaps you feel something for me,” she admitted. “Perhaps you merely enjoyed being Chen. Perhaps I am an escape from the obligations represented by General Fan. Perhaps you desire me because I am foreign, difficult, beautiful, and presently forbidden. Or perhaps, a match with myself would be more convenient to your aspirations? Another stepping stone to power?”

“You think highly of yourself.”

“Someone must, if you do not.”

A reluctant flicker of amusement crossed his face, or perhaps regret, but it vanished quickly.

Seraphina plowed on. “You may decide what you feel. You may marry Fan Xiwei. You may break your promise to her, anger half the army, and ask for my hand instead. You may become a monk and spend the rest of your life contemplating the infinite stupidity of the universe. Those are all choices available to you.”

“And what will you do?”

“I will continue making my own.”

His eyes narrowed slightly. “Without waiting.”

Seraphina laughed. “My dear Young Master Chen, I have kings, princes, heirs, lords, generals, and wealthy men from half the civilized world competing for my attention. I will not hold my life hostage to your indecision while you determine whether the village butcher who saved your life is more precious to you than the foreign lady who holds the keys to a kingdom—and who amused you through so many idle afternoons.” 

He looked at her, truly looked at her. “You were more than that.”

“Then prove it through action, not hesitation.”

The Prince became very still.

There it was, the little knife she had been sharpening throughout the conversation had finally found its proper place. Seraphina did not ask him to choose her. Asking would place the power in his hands.

The prince stood up for a moment, paced about the room, then finally returned to his seat.

“I did not come to threaten you,” he offered in a weak explanation.

“Yet you warned me that Fan Xiwei is strong and jealous.”

“I warned you because she is not accustomed to court games. And, Xiwei will not trade clever insults with you.”

The lout had the temerity to call her by her first name in front of her.

“She may challenge you directly.”

“To what? A duel?” she scoffed. “I do not fear Fan Xiwei. Nor will I alter my conduct because she is jealous.”

“She has reason to be.”

The blonde girl shook her head, feeling that despite her very young body, she had at least a decade on the prince in mental maturity. “Then perhaps you should consider why.”

Naturally, Huan had no answer to that. It was a remarkably efficient means of escaping responsibility. Seraphina rose, for the audience was now, and truly, over.

Huan looked up at her but remained seated for another moment. “I am sorry,” he managed to say.

This apology sounded no different to all the other apologies she had heard in her life.