by Natsu Hyuuga
Muttering to herself, Maomao put the raucous scene behind her. I need something to write on, she thought. She was so busy thinking it, in fact, that she didn’t even notice the person passing by.
Chapter 3: Jinshi
“They’re at it again,” Jinshi muttered glumly to himself. It was unseemly, the way the blossoms of the palace carried on sometimes. It fell to Jinshi—one among his many responsibilities—to quiet things down.
As he waded into the crowd, Jinshi saw one person walking along as if the uproar didn’t concern her. She was a petite girl with freckles peppering her nose and cheeks. There was nothing else distinctive about her, except that she paid no heed at all to Jinshi as she walked along muttering to herself.
And that could well have been the end of it.
It was not quite a month later that word spread the young prince had died. Consort Lihua was consumed with weeping, and was thinner now than ever; she no longer looked anything like the woman who had once been considered the blooming rose of the court. Perhaps she suffered from the same illness as her son, or perhaps it was an affliction of the spirit that blighted her. Regardless, she could hardly hope for another child in such condition.
Princess Lingli, the half sister of the deceased prince, soon recovered from her indisposition, and she and her mother became a great comfort to the bereaved emperor. Indeed, it seemed likely Consort Gyokuyou might soon bear another child, given how often His Majesty visited.
The prince and princess had both suffered from the same mysterious illness, yet one had recovered while the other had succumbed. Could it be the age gap between them? It had been just three months, but such a span could make a significant difference in an infant’s resilience. And what of Lihua? If the princess had made a recovery, then there was every reason the consort should be able to as well. Unless she was suffering chiefly from the psychological shock of losing her son.
Jinshi turned these thoughts over in his head as he reviewed some paperwork and pressed his chop to it. If there was any difference between the two children, perhaps it lay with Consort Gyokuyou.
“I’m going out for a while,” Jinshi said as he stamped the final page with his chop, and promptly left the room.
The princess, cheeks as full and rosy as steamed buns, smiled at him with all the innocence a child could muster. Her tiny hand clasped into a fist around Jinshi’s finger.
“No, child, let him go,” her mother, a red-haired beauty, scolded gently. She wrapped the infant in swaddling clothes and put her down to sleep in her crib. The princess, apparently too warm, kicked the coverings off and lay watching the visitor, gurgling happily.
“I presume you wish to ask me something,” said the consort, always a perceptive woman.
Jinshi got right to the point. “Why did the princess recover her health?”
Consort Gyokuyou allowed herself the smallest of smiles before pulling a piece of cloth from a pouch. The cloth had been torn off of something and was adorned with ungainly characters. Not only was the handwriting uneven, but the message appeared to have been written using grass stains, so in places it was faded and difficult to read.
Your face powder is poison. Don’t let it touch the baby.
Perhaps the faltering quality of the handwriting was deliberate. Jinshi cocked his head. “Your face powder?”
“Yes,” Gyokuyou said, entrusting the child in the crib to a wet nurse and opening a drawer. She took out something wrapped in cloth: a ceramic vessel. She opened the lid to a puff of white powder.
“This?”
“The very same.”
Perhaps, Jinshi conjectured, there was something in the powder. He remembered that Gyokuyou, already possessing the pale skin that was so prized at court, didn’t need to use the powder to try to make herself more beautiful. Consort Lihua, in contrast, looked so sallow that she used more of it every day to conceal her condition.
“My little princess is quite a hungry girl,” Gyokuyou said. “I don’t make enough milk for her, so I hired a nurse to help.” Sometimes mothers whose children had died shortly after birth found work as wet nurses. “This face powder belonged to that woman. She favored it because she felt it was whiter than other powders.”
“And where is this nurse now?”
“She took ill, so I dismissed her. With ample funds for her livelihood, of course.” Spoken like a woman who was both intellectual and perhaps too kind for her own good.
So say there was some kind of poison in the face powder. If the mother were to use it, it would impact the child; if whatever was in the powder got into the mother’s milk, it might even end up in the child’s body. Neither Jinshi nor Gyokuyou knew what such a poison might be. But if the mysterious message was to be believed, it was how the young prince had met his end. By simple face powder, makeup used by any number of people in the rear palace.
“Ignorance is a sin,” Gyokuyou said. “I should have taken more care with what was going into my child’s mouth.”
“I’m guilty of the same crime,” Jinshi said. It was ultimately he who had allowed the Emperor’s son to be lost. And there may have been others who had died in the womb.
“I told Consort Lihua about the face powder, but anything I say only makes her dig in her heels,” said Gyokuyou. Lihua had dark bags under her eyes even now, and used ample helpings of the white makeup to conceal the poor color of her face, never believing it was poisonous.
Jinshi gazed at the simple cotton cloth. He thought it looked strangely familiar. The hesitant quality of the characters appeared to be a ruse, but the hand had an unmistakably feminine quality. “Who gave this to you, and when?”
“It came the day I demanded the doctor examine my daughter. I’m afraid I only succeeded in causing you trouble, but this was by the window afterward. It was tied to a rhododendron branch.”
Jinshi remembered the commotion that day. Had someone in the crowd noticed something, realized something, left a word of warning? But who? “No doctor in the palace would resort to such circuitous methods,” he said.
“I agree. And ours never did seem to know how to treat the prince.”
All that commotion. On reflection, Jinshi did remember a serving girl who had seemed distanced from the other rubbernecks. She had been talking to herself. What was it she had been saying?
“I need something to write on.”
Jinshi felt the pieces fall into place. He started to chuckle. “Consort Gyokuyou, if I were to find the author of this message, what would you do with her?”
“I would thank her profusely. I owe her my daughter’s life,” the consort said, her eyes sparkling. Ah, so she was keen to discover her benefactor.
“Very well. Perhaps you would allow me to keep these for a short while.”
“I eagerly await whatever you may discover.” Gyokuyou looked happily at Jinshi. He returned her smile, then collected the jar of face powder and the cloth with the message on it. He searched his memory for any cloth that felt quite like this.
“Far be it from me to disappoint His Majesty’s favorite lady.” Jinshi’s smile had all the innocence of a child on a treasure hunt.
Chapter 4: The Nymph’s Smile
Maomao first learned of the prince’s passing when black mourning sashes were distributed at the evening meal. The women would wear them for seven days to demonstrate their sorrow. But what caused more frowns than anything was the announcement that their serving of meat, already miserly, would be eliminated entirely for the duration. The women servants ate two meals a day, chiefly millet and soup, with the occasional vegetable. It was enough for the petite Maomao, but many of the women found the meals something less than filling.
There were many kinds of women among this lowest class of servants. Some came from farming families; others were city girls; and although uncommon, a few were the daughters of officials. Children of the bureaucracy could expect a modicum more respect, but even so, the work a woman was given to do depended on her own accomplishments. A girl who cou
ldn’t read or write could certainly not expect to become a consort with her own chambers. Being a consort was a job. You even got a salary.
I guess maybe it didn’t matter, in the end.
Maomao was aware of what had killed the young prince. It was Consort Lihua’s and her serving women’s liberal use of white powder to cover her face. That powder was so expensive, the average citizen couldn’t expect to use it a day in her life. Some of the more established ladies in the brothel had had it, though. Some of them made more money in a single night than a farmer would earn in his entire lifetime, and they could afford their own makeup. Others received it as an expensive present.
The women would cover themselves in it from their faces down to their necks, and it would eat away at their bodies. Some of them died from it. Maomao’s father had warned them to stop using it, but they ignored him. Maomao, attending at her father’s side, had witnessed several courtesans waste away and die with her own eyes. They had weighed their lives against their beauty, and in the end had lost them both.
That was why Maomao had broken off a couple of convenient branches, scrawled a brief message to each of the consorts, and left it for them. Not that she had expected them to heed a warning from a servant girl who couldn’t get her hands on so much as paper or a brush.
After the mourning period was over and the black sashes disappeared, she began to hear rumors about Consort Gyokuyou. People said that after the loss of the prince, the Emperor, sick at heart, had begun to take comfort with Gyokuyou and his surviving daughter. But to Consort Lihua, who had lost her child just as he had, he did not go.
How convenient for him. Maomao drained her bowl of soup—today furnished with the smallest sliver of a piece of fish—then cleaned up her utensils and headed to work.
“A summons, sir?” Maomao was carrying a laundry basket when she was stopped by a eunuch, who told her to report to the office of the Matron of the Serving Women.
The Office of Serving Women was one of the three major divisions of service in the rear palace, and encompassed responsibility for the lowest-ranking of the women servants. The other two divisions were the Office of the Interior, which dealt with the consorts, and the Domestic Service Department, to which the eunuchs were attached.
What could she want with me? Maomao wondered. The eunuch was talking to other serving girls nearby, as well. Whatever was going on, it involved more than just Maomao. They must need more hands for some chore or other, she reasoned. She set the basket outside its proper room, then went following after the eunuch.
The Matron of the Serving Women’s building was situated just to one side of the main gate, one of the four gates that separated the rear palace from the world outside. When the Emperor visited his ladies, this was the entrance through which he passed.
Despite being there on an official summons, Maomao didn’t feel comfortable in the place. Although it was somewhat lackluster compared to the headquarters of the Office of the Interior, located next door, it was still noticeably more ornate than the residences of the mid-level consorts. The railing was worked with elaborate carvings, and brightly colored dragons climbed the vermilion pillars.
Urged inside, Maomao was somewhat less impressed than she had expected to be: the only furnishing in the room was a single large desk. Ten or so other serving girls besides her were present, and they seemed animated by anxiety, anticipation, and a strange sort of excitement.
“All right, thank you. The rest of you may go home,” the eunuch said.
Huh? Maomao felt unnatural, being singled out this way. She went alone into the next room as the remaining women left with suspicious glances in her direction.
Even for the chamber of an appointed official, it was a large space. Maomao looked around, intrigued, whereupon she noticed that all the serving women in the room were looking in one particular direction. Sitting unobtrusively in the corner was a woman, attended by a eunuch, and not far away was another, somewhat older woman. Maomao remembered the middle-aged woman to be the Matron of the Serving Women, but the haughty-looking lady she didn’t recognize.
Hrm? Now she registered that the person’s shoulders were rather broad for a woman’s, and their dress was so plain. Their hair was mostly held back by a sort of scarf, the rest of it cascading down behind them. He’s a man?
He was surveying the female servants with a smile as soft and gentle as that of a heavenly nymph. Even the Matron was blushing like a girl. Suddenly Maomao understood the flush in everyone’s cheeks. This had to be the immensely beautiful eunuch of whom she had heard so much. He had hair as fine as silk, an almost liquid presence, almond-shaped eyes, and eyebrows that evoked willow branches. A heavenly nymph on a picture scroll could not have competed with him for loveliness.
What a waste, Maomao thought, not remotely blushing herself. The men in the rear palace were all eunuchs, deprived of their ability to reproduce. They now lacked the equipment they needed to bear children. Precisely how gorgeous the offspring of this man would have been would remain a matter for the imagination.
Just as Maomao was thinking (with no small amount of impertinence) that such almost inhuman beauty might ensnare even the attentions of His Majesty, the eunuch stood up with a flowing motion. He went over to a desk, took up a brush, and began to write with elegant movements of his hand and arm. Then, with a smile as sweet as ambrosia, he displayed his work to the women.
Maomao froze.
You there, with the freckles, it said. You stay here.
That, at least, was the gist of it. The beautiful man must have noticed Maomao’s reaction, because he turned his fullest smile on her. He rolled up the paper again and clapped his hands twice. “We’re done here for today. You may all go back to your rooms.”
The women, with plentiful disappointed glances back over their shoulders, exited the room. They would never know what had been written on the nymph’s paper.
Maomao watched them leave, and after a moment it occurred to her that they were all petite women with prominent freckles. But they hadn’t heeded the sign, which must mean that they couldn’t read.
The message hadn’t been for Maomao alone. She made to leave the room with the others, only to feel a hand placed firmly on her shoulder. With much fear and trembling, she turned around to find herself confronted with the almost blinding smile of the nymph-man.
“Now, now, mustn’t do that,” he said. “I want you to stay behind.”
That smile—so bold, so bright—wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Chapter 5: Attendant
“Most interesting. I was given to understand that you couldn’t read,” the beautiful eunuch said slowly, deliberately. Maomao followed uncomfortably behind him as he walked along.
“No, sir. I am of lowly birth. There must be some mistake.”
Who the hell would teach me? she thought, but she would hardly have said the words if she’d been under torture. Maomao was set on acting as ignorant as she could. Maybe her language was a little off, but what could she do about it? Someone of such mean origins could be expected to do no better.
The lower-ranked serving girls were handled differently depending on whether or not they could read. Those who were literate and those who were not each had their uses, but if one could read yet pretend ignorance—ah, now that was the way to walk the fine line in the middle.
The beautiful eunuch introduced himself as Jinshi. His gorgeous smile suggested he wouldn’t hurt a flea, but Maomao felt something shifty behind it. How else could he needle her so remorselessly? Jinshi had told Maomao to be silent and follow him. And that brought them to this moment. Maomao was aware that, as a servant of no import, shaking her head at Jinshi might be the last thing she ever did with it, so she had obediently done as he said. She was busy calculating what might happen next, and how she would deal with it.
It wasn’t as if she couldn’t guess what might have inspired Jinshi to summon her; what remained mysterious was how he had figured it out. The message she had deli
vered to the consort.
A piece of cloth dangled with affected nonchalance in Jinshi’s hand. It was festooned with unkempt characters. Maomao had told no one she could write, and had likewise kept silent about her background as an apothecary and her knowledge of poisons. He could never have tracked her by her handwriting. She thought she had been careful to ensure there had been no one around when she delivered the message, but perhaps she had missed something, been seen by someone. The witness must have reported a petite servant girl with freckles.
No doubt Jinshi had begun by canvassing all the girls who could write, collecting samples of their calligraphy. One could attempt to appear a less competent wielder of the brush than one was, but telltale signs and identifying characteristics would remain. When that search had proved in vain, he would have turned to the girls who could not write.
Suspicious fart. Too much time on his hands...
As Maomao was having these uncharitable thoughts, they arrived at their destination. It was, as she might have expected, Consort Gyokuyou’s pavilion. Jinshi knocked on the door and a placid voice responded, “Come in.”
So they did. Inside they discovered a gorgeous woman with red hair, lovingly cradling an infant with curly locks. The child’s cheeks were rosy, her skin the same pale tone as her mother’s. She was the picture of health as she lay dozing sweetly in the consort’s arms.
“I have brought the one you wished to see, milady.” Jinshi no longer spoke in the jocular manner of earlier, but comported himself with perfect gravity.
“Thank you for your trouble.” Gyokuyou smiled, a smile that was warmer than Jinshi’s, and bowed her head to Maomao.
Maomao looked at her in surprise. “I possess no station to warrant such acknowledgment, milady.” She chose her words carefully, trying not to offend. Although, not having been born to a life where such care was necessary, she wasn’t sure she was doing it right.