The Moon in the Palace (The Empress of Bright Moon Duology)

by Weina Dai Randel

  The night Emperor Gaozu defeated the Sui army, Emperor Taizong was only twenty years old and a duke commanding a small cavalry. While his father celebrated in the palace, he sought out the Sui ruler’s young son and nephew and took the children as prisoners, sending them to the Sui general, who escorted the fleeing ruler to the south by Grand Canal. Taizong proposed that the general should rule the kingdom in the south with the imperial descendants if he killed the defeated ruler. The general agreed and assassinated the Sui ruler while he was drinking on his five-story dragon boat. But when the general delivered the body to the shore, he was greeted by Taizong’s army, who held sabers at his neck.

  Still a duke, Taizong would later persuade his father to give the throne to him instead of his older brother, the heir, or his younger brother, Emperor Gaozu’s favorite son, and claimed himself as the One Above All.

  “We are here,” Jewel said as we turned right on the pathway before a pear grove. At the end of the path stood a one-story house I had never seen before. “Remember the court protocol? It is the first and foremost requirement that no dirt or grime shall cling to your body before you step into his bedchamber.”

  I nodded. “What else should I know?” When the etiquette teacher cited the rules to me after the announcement of the summons, I had been too excited to pay attention.

  “That should be all,” she said, and paused to let me walk ahead of her. “The bookkeeper and other helpers will wait for you when you arrive. You need only to follow their directions.”

  I turned to her. “Why did you help me, Jewel? When the head eunuch was taking me away?”

  “I don’t like the Selects. Besides, what could the eunuch do to me? Come.” She pushed open the bathhouse door.

  I stepped inside. A wave of hot steam rushed to my face, blurring my vision. Batting the steam away, I saw a wooden tub at the center of the room. It was so large it could have held my whole family. I walked toward it, passing shelves holding bowls of red soap beans, brushes with long handles, stacks of towels, and balls of dried vegetable fiber used for scrubbing. Then I stopped.

  A group of men emerged before me. Some carried pails of hot water and poured them into the tub while some scattered flower petals in the water. One walked toward me, his hand extended.

  “Where are the women servants?” I asked Jewel. Usually, the female servants performed the intimate task of bathing.

  “This is the eunuch in charge of the Emperor’s night summons. We call him Eunuch Uncle Ming.” Jewel, already disrobed, stepped into the tub. “Is there a problem?”

  “No…” I did not realize Jewel would bathe with me. But I should not object. She had been so kind to me. “I just did not know, that’s all.”

  “You will get used to the eunuchs,” she said. “And they will take you to the Emperor’s bedchamber when the water reaches the line six.” She pointed at a water clock on a stool.

  “All right.” I undressed and joined her in the tub. A eunuch, who appeared to be deaf and mute, came to me with a bowl filled with soap beans, while the others all filed out of the room, except Eunuch Ming.

  I hunched my back to let the water cover my chest and inhaled the sweet flower scent, all the while deeply aware of how transparent the water was. Jewel looked relaxed, leaning against the tub with her eyes closed. The water reached just below her breasts, her pink nipples leaping in and out of the petals floating in the water like curious children playing hide-and-seek. A clear stream glided down her pale neck and plunged between her breasts.

  I sank farther. I was not as pretty. Her breasts looked supple and perfectly sized while mine were small and unimpressive. She had lush hair under her armpits and below her stomach, blooming gracefully like a collection of ornamental grass in a garden. But mine was sparse and ungainly, shriveling pitifully like a handful of weeds in a desert.

  “Are you nervous?” Jewel’s voice drifted in the vaporous steam.

  “No,” I said quickly. “Well, maybe just a little.” I arranged my long hair to cover the front of my chest. Pink petals floated toward me, and my hair drifted in the water like black clouds. “I just realized I don’t have decent gowns.”

  Jewel pursed her lips as if to suppress a smile. “Gowns? You don’t need any.” She pointed at a red mantle hanging on a peg near a bucket I had not noticed before. “Eunuch Ming will wrap you in the thick cover and carry you to the quarters.”

  I sat up. “Just the mantle, nothing else?” Eunuch Ming was examining something among Jewel’s clothes. He picked up a small golden thing, Jewel’s bangle, and pocketed it. He was stealing! I gestured to alert Jewel, but she only shrugged.

  “I am only trying to tell you this is the routine,” she said and stretched out her arms as Eunuch Ming returned and washed her with a ball of dried gourd fiber. “You go there naked and empty and come back naked, but with his seed.”

  The bedroom affair. It sounded crude coming from Jewel’s mouth. “Oh…”

  She gazed at me, her eyes sparkling. “It’s always difficult the first time.”

  The deaf eunuch waved a ball of gourd fiber and gestured for me to raise my arms. I obeyed, relieved to be distracted.

  “Well, I assume you’ve heard of this…” Jewel paused as Eunuch Ming whispered something in her ear, and she continued, “bedding. The Emperor requires special instructions.”

  I watched the two of them. I wondered what the eunuch had told Jewel. “What special instructions?”

  She chuckled. “Knowing The Manual for a Pure Maiden is not enough, Mei. After all, he’s the Emperor, not an ordinary man.”

  “What manual?” I wanted to bite my tongue. I had heard of it, of course. When a daughter’s wedding night approached, her mother usually hid the manual at the bottom of the clothing trunk. It contained various ideas to conceive boys as well as many rules, taboos, and suggestions about the bedroom business. Its importance was similar to scriptures for religious followers who sought guidance and principles. But I had never seen it. Mother had not given it to me.

  Jewel swam to me, her eyes boring into me. “You haven’t heard of The Manual?”

  There was something light and flirting in her eyes. I felt my cheeks warm. I hunched my shoulders. “No, I was just asking…”

  “Have you seen it?”

  The eunuch scrubbed hard on my raw skin, and my nose touched the hot water. “Well…”

  Jewel swam back to her side of the tub. “What are you going to do now? You don’t know anything.”

  The challenging tone in her voice made me straighten my back. “I’ll do whatever is asked.”

  Surely I would not be the first woman who did not know any bedding secrets, and if I were, it would not be a disaster either. The Emperor, among all men, should be most familiar with his battle.

  Jewel shook her head. “That’s not enough, Mei. You need to do more than is asked. This is your first chance, and perhaps only chance, to win his affection. You do not wish to ruin it. If you like, I can teach you the tending, the intimacy, and all.”

  Teach me?

  “Or I have another idea.” She leaned outside the tub, squeezing her breasts against the rim. When she straightened, she held a wine cup in her hand. “Drink this. It’ll give you a man’s valor.”

  “I don’t like wine.”

  During festivals, my parents had filled my cup with specially prepared plum wine. I had sipped some, but what I really enjoyed was the company of my family.

  “Do you want to ruin your first, and probably only, chance?”

  She had a point. I grabbed the cup and drank the liquid in three gulps. “Thank you.”

  I gave the cup back to her and leaned against the tub. The deaf eunuch began to wash my hair with soap beans, his nails scraping my scalp. “Tell me about the Emperor, Jewel. What have you heard about him? What did the eunuchs tell you?”

  There was silence.
“He could be many things you imagined and hoped, save for one.”

  “What?” A bonfire of heat erupted in my stomach and rushed to my chest then my head. It was so powerful I shivered. Jewel’s drink was much stronger than Mother’s homemade plum wine.

  “A lover.”

  There was something in her voice, something subtle that made me sit up. “You have met the Emperor before, haven’t you?”

  “Hmm?” She turned to me. Her face was wet with vapor.

  A lover. Only a woman who had a history with the Emperor would say something like that. “You told me you never met him. But you did. You know him. You know him well.”

  She blinked, as though I had wronged her, but I knew I was right. She was hiding something from me. “Are you lying to me, Jewel?”

  She sighed. “I would never do that. You are a good friend of mine. If you really wish, I shall gladly tell you my story over the warmth of fire and music someday. I fear I shall bore you.”

  “I shall not be bored.” I felt deceived, and the wine simmered in my stomach, burning quietly and persistently.

  She drew a line in the water with her finger. The water rippled; the petals leaped up and down. “I was once the Emperor’s favorite. He adored me, giving me a chamber inside the Inner Court and bestowing on me many gifts and servants. He even promoted my father and brothers within the court. But then he exiled me to this place—this doomed Yeting Court—like a slave.”

  I could hardly believe my ears. “Why? What did you do?”

  “I did nothing. Someone hated me and said something about me, I suppose, so he lost his interest in me.” She paused. “But that was not all. He took everything, and everyone, from me. All my family members, my father and brothers, all the people who served me or were related to me, gone.”

  I shivered. That was the most horrific story I had ever heard. “When did that happen?”

  “Seven years ago.”

  She had been exiled to the Yeting Court for seven years. I stared at a petal in the water. My anger dissipated. “That is a long time.”

  “I was eighteen when he exiled me. Now I am twenty-five. I spent my most precious years here, inside the Yeting Court. No one knows me. No one wants me. I am no longer the same girl I used to be. And the Emperor? His wife is dead, and he likes one woman today and another tomorrow, changing them like cups of wine.”

  I could not help pitying her. “This must be hard. Do you…” I swallowed the word hate. “Do you still wish to see him?”

  “You wish to know if I hate him?” She had read my mind anyway. “Of course I did. For a long time. But then I learned it was not him, really. He was deceived. He still favored me, I knew, or he could have ordered me killed. But that was seven years ago.” She leaned back. “And all these years, I have tried to see him. Giving him unique gifts. He has never summoned me. He perhaps has forgotten me already.” She sighed. “Seven years is a long time.”

  That was why she sent the Emperor her portrait—to remind him of her.

  I wiped sweat off my face. I was growing hot. “When I see him, I will speak for you.”

  “You will?” She sounded delighted, but then she sighed again. “I wish I had not been so naive then. Had I known what kind of a man he was, I would not have ended up here.” A veil of emotion vibrated in her voice. What was it? Regret? Resentment? Determination? Eunuch Ming coughed, and Jewel lifted her head, smiling at me. “But this is your night. You must prepare yourself. Don’t you wish to please him? And become Most Adored?”

  “Most Adored?” I had heard of the honorific, an unofficial title referring to a woman who won the Emperor’s favor and received as many bestowals and privileges as the high-ranking ladies. In the past, some of those women with that title had been elevated to Ladies, second only to the Empress, and brought eternal glory to their families. Perhaps that was what I had to do—become Most Adored and then request the Emperor to restore my family’s fortune.

  “Yes, you would need to share his bed more than three times during two moon’s cycles, which means he must upset the court bedding schedule—”

  “What bedding schedule?” I had never heard of it.

  “Oh, I’ll tell you more when you’re ready. For now, all you need to know is you must keep his interest so he’ll summon you again.”

  I agreed. She was very sensible. It was almost six o’clock, and I should not waste time. “Are we finished?”

  “Almost,” she said, her eyes on me. She seemed to watch me, expecting something, and Eunuch Ming was staring at me too. His eyes were sharp and unkind. I did not like him. “Are you certain you do not need my help to please the Emperor?”

  “Yes.” It was so hot. I wiped my face again. I could hardly breathe.

  “Then let him rinse you.”

  The deaf eunuch poured water over my head, and I sighed. It felt good to have cold water on my scalp. But I wished I had not drunk the wine. It was giving me a headache. I leaned back and gazed at the ceiling, where mists surged from the tub and clung there. Lightly and tenaciously. I could see that someday a crack would appear in the wood, and then the moisture would rot the whole ceiling. I blinked. The mists seemed to drift, and slowly, they converged to form a familiar face. Father’s.

  I reached out, but how strange. I could not raise my hand. I tried again. My hand, stiff, remained under the water.

  “This is odd,” I said. Hot steam ran across my forehead and flowed into my eyes. I shook my head. The house seemed to whirl around me. The roof wavered, slowly driving toward me like an enormous net.

  “Is something wrong?” Jewel’s voice sounded far away.

  She looked strange too, her limbs twisting like ropes and her head bouncing like a ball. “Jewel?” I struggled. “What’s happening…”

  “Steady.” A pair of slippery arms held me. It was Jewel’s voice. “We can’t let her drown… Get her out… Put her on the towels here…”

  “No…wait…why…” My eyelids grew heavier and heavier. Then I could no longer see or speak.

  • • •

  I awoke to eerie silence. Jewel and Eunuch Ming were not there. It was only the deaf eunuch and me. I sat up, looking for the water clock. It was reaching the line of seven. I should have gone to the Emperor’s bedchamber an hour ago.

  I leaped to my feet, but I stumbled, my legs weak and my head dazed. I could not understand what had happened to me. But the summons!

  “Wake up.” I nudged the eunuch, dozing on a step stool. “We’re late.”

  He rubbed his bleary eyes. Then he grabbed a cover from a peg and wrapped me from head to toe. Carrying me above his chest like a bundle of firewood, he headed into the dark night.

  “Stop.” The guards outside the Yeting Court blocked us. “What is the purpose of your leaving the court?”

  “Ah…ah…ah-ah…” the deaf eunuch answered.

  “The Emperor’s order?” one asked.

  They hesitated. Then they whispered among themselves for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, the heavy gates opened. The eunuch continued to walk. More guards and more questions. At last, a voice announced we were to enter the Inner Court.

  My heart pounded. Pulling away the folds around my head, I peered out. Nothing, save the starless night, dark as the bottom of an abandoned well.

  I wiggled more determinedly. But the wrapping wound tightly around me, and I grew tired, my neck hurting from straining below the eunuch’s shoulder. I was going to give up when the eunuch flipped me around as if to ease his arms, and the wrapping loosened.

  I pulled down the folds and turned my head.

  The Inner Court looked like a deep cavern, with many buildings sitting around like small mountains. The buildings’ flying eaves protruded like ragged cliffs while the red rays from glowing lanterns streamed like a river of rubies. The eunuch walked up a platform, stepped down into a cou
rtyard, and then entered a hallway. Then another platform, another courtyard, and another hallway. It seemed he would never stop walking.

  Sometimes, I heard murmurs of women from the chambers, their light footsteps, their labored coughs, and their heavy sighs. I wished I could see their faces. Were any of them the Four Ladies, the highest-ranking ladies?

  Finally, we arrived at a large courtyard adorned by a single tree. The eunuch put me down. Gesturing at the central chamber, he mumbled something and left me.

  This must be the Emperor’s quarters.

  I stared at the latticed windows, where warm, yellow lights illuminated the opaque window covers. Some soft shuffling came from inside, but no one greeted me. And there were no bookkeeper or helpers.

  I was alone.

  Gripping the cover, I ascended the stone stairs flanked by a pair of stone kylins, the mythical unicorns. When I arrived in front of the chamber, I pushed open the door. There, I hesitated for a moment and stepped across the high threshold.

  In front of me stood a bed, the largest and most ornate bed I had ever seen. The headboard and footboard were encrusted with jade and rubies, and red cloth draped across the frame held by four round posts. On top of the posts sat dragons, whose heads raised skyward, each holding a green ball in its mouth. The bed was empty and bare. There were no quilts or pillows, as though no one had ever slept on it.

  In the corner, fire sputtered in a tripod brazier and reflected on the scrolls of couplets hanging on the walls. I would have loved to get closer and read them, but it was not the time.

  A sweet aroma drifted in the air, perhaps from perfumed candles, the rare type made of beeswax, but I was too nervous to tell what scent it was.

  Where was the Emperor?

  The mural on my left seemed to tremble. I looked again. It was not a mural, but twelve painted screens with embossed frames. A shadow flew across the screens. My chest tightened. Before I could speak, a breeze swept my nape. Something icy pressed against my neck, and a grim voice said, “Speak! What are you doing here?”