Chapter 12: Names

"Thirty coppers," said Lord Bei. "She paid thirty coppers for me." He was still on his knees in the south landing's mud. Mei had told him twice to get up. The passengers had gone, though the nuns kept stopping on the path to stare back. "If you mean to repay a life," Mei said, "you can begin by getting off my landing." Lord Bei pressed his forehead deeper into the mud. "Twenty years ago this spring, I was drunk." "You're drunk now." "I was drunker." He sat back on his heels. Mud striped his beard. Behind Mei, Fish brought the ferry against the stones and held it there with one hand on the pole. "I was asleep in the shallows in my own shape," Bei said. "A soup man from the county town caught me in a net." Mei eyed the hump under his robe. "That must have been a…