Chen Feiyan II

the Monastery, Heguri Empire

a Safe Haven

Chen Feiyan woke to the sound of a broom on stone. When she opened her eyes, her vision was blurred. Her head hurt; it was a splitting headache. Sun rushed into the room, but Fei could not make out much more than the general shape and color. It seemed like an empty stone room with a high ceiling. She was lying down in a small bed which felt low to the ground. Fei felt the padding under her. It wasn’t comfortable like her bed at Guo Xue’s estate; it felt like straw.

Was I caught? Am I in a cell? No, too much sunlight for a dungeon.

She looked around the room as her vision started to return.

Not much.

There was a small wooden bookcase with a handful of dark-bound dense texts. Fei stood up and walked over to the bookcase to confirm that that was the case.

Books - at least I have words again.

Fei was limited to sneaking into the library as a concubine at Guo Xue’s estate.

The floor was stone and felt cold on her bare feet. It was a welcome relief with the hot, humid sun beating down into the room. Suddenly the broom on stone resumed. A broad figure in the doorway swept, blotting out some of the sunlight. Fei still couldn’t make out the figure.

She held her arm up over her eyes to try to block out the rest of the sunlight.

“Hello?” Fei called.

A woman’s voice responded in a calming low register, “Hello.”

“Where am I?”

“You don’t remember?”

Fei wiped her eyes. The room started to come into focus around her. The sun was still intense, and it was hot and humid.

The woman went on, “I heard you made quite an entrance.”

Fei remembered; she was at the monastery. She made it to the end of the dirt path and up the stone steps.

Where were the cloaked figures? Did they hurt the trackers?

She remembered the blood on the blades. She recalled the moonlight.

The woman continued, “It’s already mid-morning little lady. Did you sleep alright?”

“Sleep? Yes, I think so,” Fei responded but didn’t give it much thought, “Did you... was that, was that you in the cloak last night?”

The woman laughed, a deep sound that filled the room—a warm laugh. Fei felt a bit safer.

“You have a lot to catch on, little lady. No, that wasn’t me, and that wasn’t last night either. You’ve slept for a few days now.”

“What? Days!”

“Bobtail - er, one of the priests put you to sleep. They felt you needed some rest before you began your work.”

Fei thought back on what Aso told her.

“The priests of the moon goddess?”

The woman shrugged, “Mostly correct, yes.”

“All women?”

The woman in the doorway continued to sweep as she replied, “Dogma is strong enough an evil influence on a person; we think it’s best not to add male blood to that mix. Too potent.”

Fei was confused. It was all a lot of new information, and her head hurt. The sun was still streaming in as the woman worked swept. She covered her eyes with her arm again.

“And I suppose you wonder who I am? I go by Badger. I’m the head custodian of the monastery. Some here learn the gods’ teachings and become priests; many others cook, clean, and look after the land. Most of us don’t become priests. For every one of them, there’s ten of us.” She paused, “You know you’re lucky I’m one of the few that speak your tongue. I grew up around the border. You’re even luckier that one of the priests on the wall that night knew your tongue!”

Fei thought back to the night on the stone staircase.

Of course, how did they even understand her?

Her bloodied feet ached. If the priest at the gate had not opened it for her, the trackers might have killed her on the spot; or, worse, dragged back to Master Guo Xue. She worried about the language difference at the time she fled but felt she had no choice.

I’m lucky to be here. I’m fortunate to be alive.

Badger spoke again, “Where were you born? How’d you end up here?”

“I’m from a small village on the east coast of the Xiao Empire.”

“Does it have a name? Maybe I’ve heard of it.”

“Loghua.”

“Haven’t heard of it. Sounds like a place I know from a long time ago. Is that where you came from, though? A few nights ago, I mean. That’s a long trip, all the way from the east coast of the Xiao Empire,” the sweeping continued, “That’s not where you came from, right?”

“No.”

The woman smiled; she was starting to come into focus, “That’s what I thought,” she laughed, “I can always tell! You were on the run; Bobtail said as much, and the way you said Loghua, I can tell it wasn’t from there. That’s home, right?”

As Badger spoke, Fei thought of home. She thought of her family and of the day Guo Xue took her.

Why didn’t they come for me? They were supposed to protect me. Will I ever see home again?

She felt the tears well up in her eyes. It had been a long two weeks on the run.

Badger stopped sweeping, “I’m… Hey, listen, I’m sorry. I get carried away. I’m sorry. You don’t have to tell me anything.”

Badger’s voice was soothing. Fei wiped her eyes and returned to the moment.

“That’s alright, Badger. It’s alright. Sorry, is there somewhere I can pass water?”

“That’s right, of course! You’ve been out for a few days. I’ll show you to the waste rooms. You know what? After that, we’ll run you a bath too. Then we’ll feed you. After that, we’ll talk about work. But for now, please try to relax.”

Badger gestured for Fei to follow, but now she paused.

“I don’t know what you’ve been through to get here. But you’re not alone. We all risked something to come here. It may not be the warmest place at first, but once you start to get to know everyone, I hope it’ll feel a bit like home.”

It was true, she was tired and alone, but the act of kindness touched Fei, “Thank you.”

Fei took in her surroundings as the two women walked across a spotless, large stone yard. The courtyard was rectangular; old maple trees stood between the yard and the surrounding stone buildings. Vines and weeds crawled up the outer walls of the buildings wherever they could grab hold. Bugs chirped from the canopies and forest below the monastery. The maples were in their summer foliage, and thick green canopies provided shade over wood benches. Fei occasionally saw a small maple at Guo Xue’s estate. But they were never very tall, nor did they last very long. Guo Xue had money and bought his way out of poor groundskeeping.

What does it matter how long a plant lasts when the garden always looks nice? Master Guo paid his way out of every problem.

In contrast, these maples looked to be over thirty meters tall with thick trunks. She wondered how old they were and imagined the first priests planting the maples on a summer day like today.

Above the monastery stood the rest of the mountain face. The monastery was high up in the Gods’ Mountains. The towering figure of the mountain overlooked the monastery on two sides; the west side and north side, Fei gathered. The high stone walls covered the other two. Fei crossed through those walls on the night she arrived. From the inside saw stairs leading to protected ramparts on the inside of the walls. Even now, four blue-silked priests prowled the ramparts above the courtyard.

Why are they protecting the monastery? One very long overgrown path leads out to the stone staircase. Surely watching the choke point is enough. And who is attacking?

Perhaps the priests needed a way to keep busy. Fei never believed in the gods. Back in her village of Loghua, the local priest, Priest Shan, was more of a scam artist than a pious man. Even at a young age, she watched Priest Shan artfully guilt her parents and others here and there, knowing that a donation to his temple was a way to repent.

Priests need a way to stay busy when their actual work doesn’t exist. Perhaps these women protect nothing because there’s nothing else to do on this mountain.

Elsewhere in the courtyard, a dozen women swept the stone like the Badger. The women wore the same simple wools as Badger; their brooms scratched across the stones. Cicadas continued to sing as the heat beat down on them all.

So she does have help. Sweeping doesn’t sound like fun. I’ll take what I can get, I suppose.

There was thick black smoke rising from one of the rooms on the corridor to her right. Fei wondered if those were the kitchens. Next to the kitchen flush against the mountain, stood a lone tower. It was stone and stood tall over the other buildings on the monastery grounds. There were fortified openings at the top of the tower. Like most of the monastery, there wasn’t much color. However, the central tower had light blue trim. From what pigment the blue came from, she did not know.

Where are all the stonemasons to build this tower? How was all this made?

Two cloaked figures strolled into the opening at the front of the tower. Like the priests on the ramparts, their light blue cloaks looked like silk.

Convenient for the warm weather; they look good, too.

Their blades, if they carried them, weren’t visible. Perhaps they hid them in their cloaks.

Perhaps only the women on the ramparts carry the blades.

As Fei took inventory of the people at the monastery, she thought of Badger’s comment.

The ratio should be ten workers to one priestess.

So far, there were about a dozen workers in the courtyard, plus the Badger. The surrounding building complex in between the walls and the yard was vast. She wondered where all the workers were. The building where the smoke spilled out from was long. However, it still didn’t all add up.

“Badger?”

“Yes, little lady? You know, we’re going to need a name for you. We all drop our old names when we come here.”

Fei stayed on the subject, “Where is everybody? You said there were more workers than priests?”

“About ten to one, yes. Good eye,” the Badger paused and pointed behind them towards the east wall, “Little lady, if you turn around, do you see that archway there?”

In between the end of the walls and the tower was a small open archway. She hadn’t seen it earlier.

“That’s our farm. If we walked through there, you’d see our crops, built right into terraces on the mountain. There’s no view from here, but we have land built into the mountain face outside the walls. We plant rice, millet, fruit trees, soy, cucumber, tea, snow peas, squash; you name it. Our workers also look after our pigs, chickens, and sheep. Not bad, huh? We don’t go hungry even up here on the mountain,” she patted her well-fed stomach, “Which is good news for me, eh? We must sustain ourselves,” Fei noticed the Badger had a large, muscular frame under the small pouch of a stomach.

Back home in Loghua, the village’s fields sustained endless wheat and millet farms and other crops. Fei could not imagine herself farming on a mountainside.

I need to toughen up if I’m going to earn my keep.

“I’d like to see it later... the farm. If that’s alright?”

Badger laughed at her again, “Don’t hurry, you’ll spend plenty of time at the farm. We’ll have that rich ghost skin tanned and weathered in no time. We all spend a lot of time there,” the Badger gestured to her, “Come on, come on. Let’s get you to the waste room and bathed.”

The holes in the waste room privies opened up over a small river that ran down the mountain and under the monastery, emptying out well below the farms. The gap between the floor and the river below was high, though. The earth below was very steep, and the current very strong where the river carved through the mountain. She thought back on the chamber pots at Master Guo’s. Fei never enjoyed living in close proximity to Duan He and Zhong Bai. In Loghua, their home was more compact and crowded. Yet somehow more comfortable. At the estate, everything was dependent on the flow of goods through the central wall entrance. Here, they grew everything they needed.

She squatted over the hole longer than she needed to. She was free. Not entirely, of course. The Badger mentioned work, and rightly so. She was under no illusions that her stay would be free. But she thought it better to earn your stay with honest labor than by giving away your body. She disagreed with Zhong Bai on that point.

Fei looked forward to having tan leathery skin and strong muscles like Badger’s. She didn’t want to look like a sheltered lady anymore. She didn’t want anyone’s eyes on her at all.

The Badger was waiting for her as she emerged from the waste room.

“I’ve filled a bath. It’s cool, of course. We don’t warm the water outside of winter.”

“Cool water sounds lovely, thank you, Badger.”

“And you’ll want to take these.”

Badger handed her a small stack of clothing, folded and clean. They were meager clothes, not like the silks that the priests prowling the ramparts wore. Instead, they matched what Badger wore: plain brown wool pants that went down just below her knee and an off-white wool wrap top.

These are perfect. I would look at home in Loghua wearing these.

The monastery had a separate room for bathing next door to the waste room. There were stone tubs built into the walls, and Badger filled one. The space was empty. Fei removed her dirt and sweat-stained clothes. She had little sleep and little food over the past two weeks on the run. Her body ached. Her feet were bruised and cut. Fei let her head drop under the water and dug her nails into her scalp as she washed her hair. She ran her fingers through her hair to get rid of the bird’s nest of tangles as she let the cold water wash over her. Fei thought back to running around Loghua as a child with Meifang. Back then, she was free to do as she pleased so long as she made it back for dinner.

As she bathed, two women entered the bathing room and filled tubs on the other side of the room. They chatted amongst themselves as they filled their tubs with water and eventually jumped in to bathe. Fei couldn’t understand what they were saying but knew it was the Heguri tongue. Their clothes were worn and dirty. They matched the set of clothing Badger handed her earlier.

So this is what all the workers wear.

Unlike Badger, whose wools were clean, these women looked like they came from the farm. Fei remembered Badger’s comment, “You’ll be seeing plenty of the farms. I wouldn’t be in a hurry if I were you.”

The women paid her no notice as she emerged from the tub to dry off and changed into her wools. Fei couldn’t tell if they were used and washed or new. She guessed the former. As she emerged back into the courtyard, she spotted the Badger talking with two priests across the way.

Best not interfere. I’ll wait for Badger to finish.

Fei took a seat on a bench under one of the large Maples. It was in the shade, and a light breeze was crossing the monastery—temporary relief from the summer heat.

I wonder if it gets cold on the mountain at night. What would I be doing at the estate right now? Best case scenario sitting alone in my quarters, resting. Worst case scenario Guo Xue would be knocking on my door.

Eventually, the priests made their leave. It was hard to tell body language from across the yard, but it looked like they made a slight bow as they left the Badger, and she gave them one in return. The Badger spotted Fei and slowly walked across the yard to meet her.

“Let’s fill your stomach. Brace yourself for a delicacy of rice, bitter greens, and a bit of fried pork if we’re lucky.”

“That sounds delightful.”

“You know, it is. For someone who eats the same meals all the time, I don’t get tired of them. Maybe I just like to eat,” Badger smiled.

The dining hall was on the other side of the courtyard from the waste and bathing rooms tucked into the mountain. The kitchens were attached to the dining hall, and there was an open door between the two rooms. Women wheeled around carts of the food that was available and served those seated. The tables were low and long, with bamboo mats underneath to sit on. Fei looked around the room and saw many dirty and hard-worked women eating their fill of rice, greens, and pork and bone broth. They all wore wools like the two women from the bath house, and the women sweeping the yard.

Back at Master Guo’s this would be another meal alone in my quarters. I’ll take the company.

“Badger, is this a new recruit?”

A woman approached. She wore a smile on her face, even with the evidence of manual labor on her body and clothes. She wore the wools like everyone else, but her hands and arms dirty from work.

“My name is Hare; welcome to the monastery.”

Hare was short, with sinewy muscles and short-cropped black hair. The streaks of white were starting to show themselves. She looked about the same age as the Badger, perhaps of forty years. She was small, but her hips were wide with compact pigeon-toed legs.

Fei nodded her head to the Hare, “Thank you. I’m happy to be here. Did you come from the fields?”

Hare held up her dirty hands, “Where else?”

As she sat down with them, she began to wash her hands in the water basin that sat in the middle of the table. Fei looked around and saw other women doing similarly around the room.

“Badger told me about how you sustain yourself by farming up on the mountain. I’m impressed.”

The woman laughed, “You’re easily impressed. Judging by the look of you, you weren’t doing hard labor before coming here? A runaway princess, perhaps?”

Am I that noticeable? Pathetic.

She quickly scanned the room again. It was true, to some extent. Most of the women looked hard worked; their skin tanned and worn.

“Something like that. A story for another day.”

The Hare laughed, “Mysterious, I see. Alright, alright,” She threw her hands up as she spoke, “You won’t hear any questions from me. You’re going to need to learn our tongue, you know. Otherwise, it’ll just be you, me, the Badger, maybe Frog, and our company gets old!”

Fei looked to Badger, “Did you tell her I…”

“Guilty, guilty. We didn’t want you sitting alone on your first meal, did we. As you already know, Hare speaks your tongue too, along with three other workers. Mouse, Ant, and Frog also know it. Frog is a Daming, too. About half of the priests know both. They tend to be more educated than us common folk. You aren’t the first to arrive without the Heguri tongue, don’t worry. Everyone learns it eventually. We have a long history of taking in all those that need the protection of the monastery. Look closely, and you’ll find someone here that does not look like the others.”

Fei scanned the room one more time. A tall older woman with skin and features from the western continent sat at the long table’s far side.

“Is she… is that a Dinn?”

“Something like that. That’s Gourd. She grew up in the kingdoms of the west. Some say her father was a wealthy man, but she doesn’t talk about the past. Most don’t. You don’t have to either if you don’t want to.”

The Badger raised her cup and used it to point at Gourd, “Still, after all these years, it’s funny watching Gourd speak the Heguri tongue. She’s good, too! Her dialect is strong. Sounds like a southerner by the border.”

Badger and the Hare laughed, and they ate from their bowls.

The Hare finished a mouthful of pea shoots as she spoke, “So I take it you don’t have a name yet?”

“Not yet, no. How does it work?”

Badger responded, “Random draw. We have a list of names, and anyone may add to it. Plants and animals, mostly. If someone dies, we add them back in a year after they pass. Not too complicated. No ceremony. We can draw now at dinner.”

“So exciting,” said the Hare as she clapped her hands together, “So this is your first night?”

“Not technically; I’ve been... asleep for a few days.”

Badger explained, “Bobtail put her down for a while when she got here. She seemed very tired.”

Hare pouted, “Poor thing. You made it to safety, though. You may work hard, but you’ll live an honest life. That we can guarantee.”

Fei enjoyed Hare’s warm smile.

“That’s all I can ask for,” Fei replied.

Badger left Fei alone with Hare as she went for the bowl of names. Hare was friendly and casual. She arrived at the monastery around ten years prior and turned out to be just over forty years old. Hare didn’t talk about her life before the monastery but promised Fei the story some other time. Fei pledged her the same. No one else joined, but no one else stared at her, either.

Are they used to new arrivals?

Either way, she did not care. It had been a long time since she didn’t have eyes on her. It felt nice being in a room so full and warm after years of isolation. Soon, Badger strolled back through the hall with a small wooden bowl. Her presence in the room was substantial. She sat down again and moved the bowl towards Fei.

“Here you are, little lady. Close your eyes, and choose wisely.”

Fei shrugged and closed her eyes. She reached into the bowl and felt dozens of tiny slips of parchment. They were all equal in size and shape. After fumbling around for the moment, she decided she might as well just pick one.

It won’t make a difference what they call me.

Fei withdrew the next piece she touched and handed it to Badger. Hare leaned in and watched closely.

“Well, well, well. From this day forward, you are our Moth!” Badger laughed, and Hare joined in, “That’s a good one, you’re lucky, don’t fly too close to the flame, little Moth!”