“We should follow them quickly,” Jewel said, returning. “Where is my girdle? Mei?”
I composed myself and pulled up my trousers. “Yes, your girdle is near the futon.”
She took it and wrapped it around her. “It’s a great honor to have the Emperor bestow a name upon you.”
“I know. I’m honored. Shall we go now? Where are we going?”
“To the Eastern Palace.” She stuffed the unsigned golden paper in her pocket. “If you don’t wish to go, you could stay here.”
I wanted nothing other than to hide in a corner, but if I stayed, Jewel would suspect something was wrong.
She cocked her head toward me, her catlike eyes glinting. “Are you all right?”
I could not arouse her suspicion. I squeezed out a smile. “Of course. I am disappointed, that’s all.”
“Disappointed?” She arched her painted eyebrows. “Are you blaming me for ruining your night?”
“No. I’m not.”
She nodded and walked toward the door. “Did you see how Prince Zhi stared at you?”
My hands froze on the ties of the skirt. “How did he stare at me?”
She chuckled but did not answer. I could not understand whether she was fishing for clues or simply testing me. I tidied up my skirt and tucked my hair behind my back. When I was ready, I folded my hands across my abdomen and followed her out.
We soon caught up with the Emperor, who was riding on a sedan carried by four porters, and Pheasant, who walked behind him with a number of servants holding lanterns. The Eastern Palace, separated from the Inner Court by a tall wall, had one entrance, Tongxun Gate, which opened to the Inner Court. It required a long walk from the Emperor’s chamber, and we would need to pass the back of the Imperial Silkworm Workshops before reaching it.
I walked slowly behind them, putting some distance between Pheasant and me. Pheasant’s gait looked stiff, and he nodded while the Emperor talked.
“So what happened, Prince Zhi?” Jewel asked, walking near the Emperor.
“Taizi and Yo had a wrestling match near dusk. Yo lost. He insulted Taizi.” Pheasant turned sideways and glanced at me.
I stumbled, my face burning and my heart racing faster. Look away, look away, Pheasant.
“I’m certain it didn’t mean anything,” Jewel said. “Brothers banter with each other all the time.”
“He cursed Taizi’s women too and said they were barren.”
“That was thoughtless of him.” Jewel sighed. “However, he does have a point. The heir is a grown man and has twenty concubines. But he has not fathered a child. Shouldn’t he have a son by now?”
Neither Pheasant nor the Emperor answered as they ascended the stairs to enter a gate. I lifted my skirt to walk easier, gazing at the light dancing before me. I prayed Jewel would keep focusing on the heir so she would not pay attention to me or Pheasant.
“And I suppose Taizi insulted him back?” Jewel asked as we left the gate and entered a corridor.
Pheasant cleared his throat but did not speak.
“Nothing? That’s unlike the heir.”
“He pissed on Yo.”
“Pissed! How inappropriate! I certainly would not have imagined that. Did you hear that, the One Above All?”
The Emperor grunted. We finally reached the Tongxun Gate.
“What do you think about the heir, Mei?” Jewel turned to me while we waited for the guards to open the gates.
She would not leave me alone. I felt the Emperor’s gaze on me, and Pheasant’s too. My heart pounded. “I… Most Adored…I’m afraid…I don’t know.”
“Don’t know? What does that mean?” Jewel asked.
“Enough talk,” the Emperor said.
The gate opened. He entered the passage under the archway, his back red in the lantern’s light. Fortunately, Jewel said no more and we entered the Eastern Palace, heading toward the heir’s stable, where many shadowy figures were gathered.
“Halt!” The Emperor got off the sedan and went straight to them. Pheasant followed. The crowd parted, and a clamor arose as the men shouted.
“Father, this swine insulted me!”
“Father, he pissed on me!”
“I think this is the moment,” Jewel said, standing close to me. A group of ladies came before us, blocking our view. I stood on tiptoe, watching the two princes, their faces lit by the bonfire in front of the stable.
“What moment?” I asked.
“What kind of Emperor would he be if he gives his kingdom to an uncouth heir like Taizi? He’s finished. The Emperor will depose him.”
Of course Jewel wished Taizi to be deposed so the Pure Lady and her son could rise. I could not stand her tone. “This is rather hasty, in my opinion. Taizi is a good man.”
She tilted her head at me, and I looked away, afraid she could read my mind.
“We’ll see.” She faced the Emperor.
Some guards held Taizi and Prince Yo apart, but they still argued with fists and spittle. Their arms thrust violently, and their heads jerked this way and that. Pheasant stood between them, pushing them apart. Poor Pheasant. It must have been hard on him to see Taizi suffer such a disgrace.
“Has he met you before?” Jewel said, her voice smooth.
My heart tightened. “Who?”
“You know whom I’m talking about. Empress Wende’s youngest son,” Jewel said. “He has grown up to be such a handsome man. So delightful and charming. Do you know he lives in the Eastern Palace with Taizi, and the Emperor allows it?”
Only Taizi was supposed to live there, and the other princes, those older than fifteen, lived in the wards outside the palace. I said honestly, “I did not know.” After all, I had thought he was a groom of Taizi, who was always surrounded by many men.
“Wouldn’t you say he is a man of many girls’ dreams?”
There was something in her voice that made me pause. Suddenly, I recalled that Jewel used to live in the Inner Court. So she must have known Pheasant when he was young. I looked at her levelly. “Well, you seem to like him, Jewel, very much. Is there something I should know?”
“Oh, Mei. How clever you are.” She chuckled. “Certainly I like him. Without a doubt. He’s the Emperor’s son! Everyone likes him. He has the softest heart and is the gentlest soul of all. Even his half brother, Prince Yo, doesn’t complain about him. Can you imagine that?”
“I certainly can’t.” I cleared my throat, thinking about what she had told me when we bathed together a few years ago. “But, Most Adored, I wish to ask you, you never did tell me who exiled you to the Yeting Court. If you had done nothing wrong, like what you have said, why were you exiled?”
The smile on her face faded. “Exiled?” Her voice was suddenly stiff. “Where did you hear that?”
She was going to deny it? She had told me herself.
A cry came from the crowd. I raised my head, searching. Howling, Prince Yo hurled something into the air. A dark shadow hit the Emperor. He staggered back, covering his face.
The crowd quieted in shock.
“What’s this?” The Emperor wiped his face. His voice was shocked. “You threw horse dung at me?”
“I told you he’s crazy! Why don’t you listen to me?” Prince Yo shouted.
“Do not question me!”
“You’re blind. He pissed on me. He did it first. Why did you not say anything about that? Why do you blame only me, not him?”
I sucked in air and heard the crowd gasp as well. Prince Yo had gone too far. He needed to stop. But he fumed, his thick eyebrows twisted dangerously. He looked ready to throw himself at the Emperor.
“He’s a freak,” the prince shouted again. “Like his dead mother. Can’t you see it? I’m better than him!”
The Emperor pointed at Prince Yo, his hand shaking. “Out of my sight. Out! I don’t
want to see you again.”
Prince Yo was not finished. “I have had enough of his shit. A champion wrestler. So what? Give me two years. I’ll make him weep like a girl. I beat him in the polo game. Didn’t you see that?”
“I said out, now!”
Prince Yo spat. “Fine. I’m going.”
“Stop,” the Emperor roared, his whole body trembling. I had never seen him so angry. “That way.” He jabbed to his right. “That way you go. Do not come back.”
“Where?”
“Shandong Prefecture.”
Gasps rose around me. Shandong Prefecture was one thousand li away from Chang’an City. The Emperor was exiling the prince.
“Yes. You go. Go! Take him. Take him now!” The Emperor was fuming with anger.
“He’s drunk,” Jewel said, her voice faint as though she had lost all her strength.
I was too shocked to speak. I had no sympathy for Prince Yo or his brash behavior, but to ruin his life by banishing him, a mere twenty-year-old, to a remote land, separated from his mother and the rest of his family, was most harsh and unforgiving.
“Father.” Pheasant stepped up to him. “Let’s not rush into decisions.”
“This has nothing to do with you, Pheasant.”
“I brought you here.” He looked chagrined. “I shouldn’t have.”
“He hit me with horse dung and spat at me.” The Emperor turned to Prince Yo again. “You will leave by dawn’s light.”
Pheasant looked as though he would speak more, but two guards had already wrung Prince Yo’s arms from behind.
“The One Above All.” The Pure Lady rushed out of nowhere. Her cat leaped from her arms, and she dropped to her knees. “May I plead on behalf of my son, his impudence and stupidity—”
The Emperor threw up his hand to silence her. “Take him.”
“You can’t do this to me,” Prince Yo screamed. “You can’t!”
The guards dragged him away, and he disappeared into the night’s darkness. The Pure Lady rose stiffly, her tall frame sharp and unbending like a spear. She had enjoyed much attention and esteem with the ascendancy of Prince Yo in the court these days, but in a moment, she had lost her son and her hope of becoming the Empress.
And Jewel looked as though she had been struck dumb. Her carefully chosen ally had fallen. I wondered what the Noble Lady would say when she heard about it. She would probably sigh, but out of relief rather than sadness.
“Come!” the Emperor shouted, walking toward the stable’s entrance.
I looked up. He was beckoning to me. But I did not wish to go. I wanted to see what Pheasant was doing. I wanted to talk to him, to explain, and to comfort him too. But the Emperor was waiting. Quickly, I moved toward the entrance, feeling Pheasant’s eyes chasing me in the dark.
24
The Emperor asked for me when he had his morning meal, and I stood behind him while he dined. I accompanied him to the imperial library, where he reviewed the petitions—an honor only the second-degree Ladies and Most Adored would receive. While he made decisions and gave grants, I ground the ink chalks in the ink stone. Once, he was in an especially jovial mood and encouraged me to write. I showed off my calligraphy, quoting Tao Yuanming’s “Song of a Serene Garden Life” and Wang Xizhi’s “The Preface of Orchard Pavilion.” He was delighted. He gave me a bolt of silk embroidered with exquisite patterns of thrushes and peach blossoms as a reward.
Everywhere he went, he took me with him. His five imperial stables, the feasting halls, the library, and the Archery Hall. More and more bestowals were sent to my bedchamber: a ceramic bowl with blue flowers, a toy horse with a red bridle, and a vase painted in yellow, green, and white. I shared all the gifts with Plum, Daisy, and the other Talents.
The Emperor liked me. He really liked me. I was his new favorite concubine, and everyone knew it. People in the Inner Court turned their attention to me again. They began to treat me more courteously, and chunks of meat filled my bowl. I was also given the chance to choose whatever color, whatever pattern of silk I liked for my silk stipend, a privilege of which I had never dreamed before.
I knew why he liked me. He liked the girl he had seen that night, the soft, feminine, tempting woman who swayed her hips and arms with charm. If I wanted to keep his attention, I must continue to give him that woman.
I practiced those steps more often. I studied Jewel, the way she smiled, pouted, nodded, and even frowned. I observed secretly how she gave in, how she made a request without making it sound like one, and how her eyes misted up one moment but then twinkled with laughter the next.
I could do all those and more.
I learned how to form my hair into many innovative shapes. One week I would braid my hair in ropes, the next I kept them straight and erect like a rabbit’s ears, and another week I would build twin mounds wound with silk ribbons around my ears. In a month’s time, my fashions were duplicated by the maids and even Lady Virtue.
Plum taught me how to apply makeup. She fussed around me, plucking my eyebrows, applying white cream to my face, and coloring my lips. When I stared at my image in a bronze mirror, I hardly recognized myself. A sheet of whiteness blanketed my face, a red dot smudged the center of my lips, and above my eyes were two lines, shaped like the wings of a fluttering moth—fragile, fleeting, and destined to die.
I looked foolish, like one of the Noble Lady’s maids. But that was the style all the ladies worshipped, and my intention was to embellish rather than distinguish.
Plum asked what beauty marks I would like to paint on my cheeks. I paused to think. I could have a rabbit, a cherry, or a peony, like everyone else, but I decided on a bird. Like the pheasant.
But if someone asked, I would say it was a pigeon.
I also put my womanly figure on good show. I had an alluring body, I noticed, more pleasing than anyone else’s. My bosoms had swelled, and my body was well proportioned. I was not too short like Lady Obedience or too tall like the Pure Lady. When I passed Lady Virtue, I felt her eyes linger on me with envy.
When the Emperor was around, I donned sheer gowns that complemented my curves. I revealed the inner wrist of my hands when I ground ink, and I wore gowns with wide collars that showed my bare shoulders and nape. When he looked in my direction, I let the shawls slip.
A few days later, while we were feasting in the garden, the Emperor asked us to entertain him. Lady Obedience danced, Lady Virtue played the zither, and Jewel, to my surprise, wrote a poem. She recited:
“Cutting the finest qi silk,
White as frosty snow.
I shape a pair of love fans,
round and round like the bright moon.
To go in and out of your sleeve,
and give you cool breeze as you move.
But often I worry the coming of autumn,
when cold draft drives out summer’s heat.
And you toss me in the hamper,
your love and affection forever asunder.”
It was actually Lady Ban Jieyu’s work. The ancient court lady had written “The Sad Song of Round Fans” after she lost her emperor’s favor. I doubted the Emperor knew Jewel had stolen the verse, but it did not matter. I had to do better than her.
I looked up at the night sky where a crescent moon hung. Words came to me:
“Like an unstrung bow,
The new moon stands by,
Don’t say it’s tiny as a moth brow,
When it’s round, it shall illuminate the sky.”
“Well said!” The Emperor clapped his hands, laughing. “I have never heard of a woman with such a fine spirit. Tell me, my fair Talent, what do you wish to have?”
I could not let the opportunity slip away. I leaned over and cupped my hand around his ear. With the fragrance of wine wafting from his breath and his whisker touching my cheek, I told him about Mother and said
how much I would like to find her.
“The Secretary shall take care of that. Tomorrow. He will have the notices pasted all over Chang’an.”
Happiness filled my heart. I bowed.
“But you deserve more than this. I have another announcement to make.” He stroked my cheek. “You shall be my personal attendant from now on.”
He had promoted me. Personal attendant. My hours at the wardrobe chamber would be reduced, and I would attend to him while he went to the Outer Palace, where he received foreign ambassadors and dealt with state affairs. I would see him in two courts, the Inner Court and the Outer Palace, a great honor and privilege. Jewel made an excuse to leave the table.
Sitting near the Emperor, I felt dizzy with happiness. Everything was perfect. Mother would be found, and she would be safe and sound, and my future, like the candles before me, finally glowed with radiance.
• • •
On my first day as the Emperor’s personal attendant, I walked down the wide streets of the Outer Palace lined with maples and elms. In my right hand I carried a tray of apples. A few paces ahead of me, the Emperor sat on a sedan carried by four porters. Beside him were seven other attendants, holding parasols and banners.
I was eager to go to the Audience Hall to observe the audience, to listen to the details of state affairs, to learn how the Emperor governed, and most important of all, to find and forge an ally among the men who had the Emperor’s ear. For it was with the support of the ministers that an empress would be born, and it was in the Audience Hall that an empress would reign.
The air was fresh in the dawn’s light. We passed several buildings sitting on raised platforms, where many ministers and scribes knelt at the door, waiting for the Emperor’s passing. In the distance, I could see many majestic buildings, the famous Cuiwei Hall with red corridors and white stone fences, the Zhengshi Hall, and the solemn Taiji Hall, where enthronements for emperors and empresses took place. It was a building with blue roofs and three bridges, each with a long, steep staircase.
The Moon in the Palace (The Empress of Bright Moon Duology) Page 19