Flash Fiction Month, July 09, 4: Daughter of the Dawn


His fourth wife was his favorite. Her name was Jian Shu. The other wives were jealous of her, and for reason.

It was she whose hands were like porcelain lilies when she poured jasmine tea on palace terraces. She who had eyes for line, ears for the forms of words. She whose fingers were steady and deft when they held the brushes to paint mountains, wild streams, rock crags, and bamboo shoots. She whose mind flowed into the characters of her poetry that would delight him with thought and image.

And it was he who whispered to her, after passion had taken and spent him, and when no one else in the universe could hear it, that she was as capable as a man in those lofty arts. Only at those times when it was seemingly harmless did he say this.

But such things are never harmless.

Soon, all of China would know.



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