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

by Weina Dai Randel

  “I don’t know.” The Noble Lady shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  She had never sounded more worried.

  • • •

  My heart heavy, I bid the Noble Lady my leave and stepped into the corridor. People were busy in the compound, and I paused to look at them. In the center of the courtyard, a group of maids were crouched over a board, playing weiqi. Near the small mountain, some maids were embroidering, some were sweeping the ground. I turned to look at the lady’s chambers. At my right was Lady Obedience’s chamber, where she was swaying her hips, fluttering her arms, dancing to the rhythms of a waist drum. At my left side was Lady Virtue’s house, where a few seamstresses, carrying bolts of cloth in red, indigo, and green, gathered in front of the corridor. The Pure Lady’s chamber was shut. I wondered what she was doing. I had not seen her since her son, the hot-tempered Prince Yo, was exiled last year. She did not attend the feasts, fruit distributions, or other gatherings, and most of the time, she shut herself in her chamber. But I would be a fool to think she had decided to become a recluse. The Pure Lady was the type of woman who would grab something to go down with her if she were drowning.

  I looked at Jewel’s house. There were some shadows floating around inside, but I could not tell what it was. Why was she not eating?

  I decided to return to my chamber. When I passed the knobby pine trees near the small mountain, I noticed a blanket of frost had capped the mountain’s peaks and covered the crevices of the stones. The whiteness had not covered the rocks completely, and there were speckles of black tips poking through the frosty sheet like spiders’ feet. In the pond, the water was still but not frozen, and a piece of thin floe hung near the edge.

  I pulled my sheep coat tighter around me. I did not like the frost or the snow. I preferred storms and thunder, and the furious power of the two joined to wash away the grime and dust.

  It had been so cold at night lately that I had not slept well. Often I lay in bed, staring at the moonlight that shone through my windows. It printed pretty black patterns on the ground. Sometimes Pheasant came to my mind, and I shut my eyes to stop thinking of him.

  “I hear you’re spying on me.” Jewel’s voice came from behind me. She stood under the eaves of her house near the end of the corridor.

  I lowered my head to bow. She was still Most Adored. “You came out.” Should I call her by her real name? I should not. I could not alert her.

  “Of course I did. I wish to ask you a big favor, Mei. You will indulge me, won’t you?”

  I smiled charmingly. “As you wish, Most Adored.”

  She pulled her red fur cape around her. Her white hair cascaded down her back. On her cheeks, beauty marks of pink peonies bloomed. “I knew you would say that.”

  “What’s the favor?”

  “When he summoned you a month ago, I heard he talked to you, and he slept in a circle of candles.”

  Who was her spy?

  “Yes.” I expected her to ask how my service to the Emperor was, but she did not speak.

  She looked up at the sky for a moment. The wind swept her white hair like invisible fingers. “Have you been sleeping well, Mei? It is so cold lately I couldn’t sleep. Last night, the moonlight shone through my windows and left patterns like black plum flowers. I wish you could have seen it. I would like to paint it, but I haven’t painted for a while.”

  How odd. We had noticed the same thing. But she was my enemy and she had gained the Secretary’s support. “You have been busy.”

  Her shoulders rose as though the wind had touched her neck and she was cold. For a moment I could not see her lips, only her catlike eyes as she peered above the red fur. “What did he tell you?”

  “Many things, but nothing about you.”

  “That’s not a surprise. But were you frightened when he mentioned the dead?”

  She knew more details than I had supposed. I kept a straight face. “What dead?”

  She stared at me, her eyes still as the frozen pond. Then she looked away. But a glimmer flew across her eyes, and I caught it—a glimmer of unease, or perhaps even of pain. It was faint, subtle, fleeting, and it died the moment it was lit. I had a feeling she had found what she had been looking for, but I did not know what it was or what I had done or said to give it away. I was disappointed.

  “I bid you good day, Mei.”

  “How did you make Secretary Fang speak for you, Jewel?”

  She shook her head. “Better luck next time, Mei.”

  I did not expect anything from her anyway. I turned to leave. But how did she know what the Emperor said on my night? And why did she look troubled after she heard my answer? I paused and looked back. She was still there, standing under the eaves, staring at me.

  But she was no longer alone. Beside her stood a slim figure with a sharp, triangular face.

  Rain.

  My heart dropped. I hurried on.

  AD 643

  the Seventeenth Year of Emperor Taizong’s Reign of Peaceful Prospect

  SPRING

  28

  There was a feast tonight, I was told, even though it was not a festival occasion. Following behind the other ladies, I went to the feast hall. The moment I walked in, I knew something was awry.

  The ministers had come, and the musicians lined up at the door. On the tables sat many bouquets of flowers carved out of watermelons, oranges, and pears. Next to the Emperor sat Jewel, cloaked in a red damask gown printed with patterns of peach blossoms, vermilion birds, and parrots.

  I took my seat among the Talents as the servants brought trays of food to the table. Bird’s nest soup in ceramic bowls painted with bamboo leaves. Broiled camel humps in rectangular plates. Stewed bear’s paws in small pots. Steamed, silver-striped mullets from the Po Sea with tangy ginger sauce. And many of the Emperor’s favorite foods and rare delicacies I had only heard of. Jewel covered her nose and waved the fish away. I frowned, and my eyes caught her other hand stroking her stomach. My heart sank.

  How had I missed it?

  Jewel was pregnant.

  “Heaven be blessed! Finally! My blood. My progeny!” The Emperor’s voice shook the hall. “I have a great announcement to make!”

  The servants behind me asked me something, but I was so shocked that I hardly heard them. They removed the food from my table and brought out small saucers containing bites of meats.

  “Heaven promises me another child! Let it be a son, who shall be a witness to the halcyon kingdom I have created.” The Emperor’s whiskers shook as he shouted. He looked in high spirits. “Counselors! Listen up. I shall bestow the crown on this woman, who brings me honor and pride. Yes, this is my woman, and she will be the next empress of this kingdom!”

  I could no longer see people’s faces or hear the waves of deafening praise. The only sound I heard came from inside me.

  Jewel. Empress.

  In the corner, someone strummed a lute, the sound a deep groan like a dying wolf. The voluptuous Lady Obedience rose and moved to the center of the tables. She clapped her hands, signaling the musicians to play music, and swung her arms like graceful wings. The sound of guzheng, jovial flutes, and the clear tinkling of bells filled the hall. It was the song of “Towering Mountains and Trickling Streams.”

  The ministers lined up before the feast table to deliver their praises. The Ladies followed. The Noble Lady toasted first. Slowly, she walked, her face ghastly pale and her eyes teary, as though she were in a funeral procession. But what a remarkable lady she was. As soon as she approached the table, she smoothed her gown and bowed deeply.

  I could not watch. Jewel did not deserve the Noble Lady’s bow. She did not deserve anything.

  Lady Virtue, her eyes also red from crying, looked away from her bronze mirror and came to bow too, and then Lady Obedience. The Pure Lady was absent as usual.

  Next came the Ladies-in-W
aiting. Beauties. Graces.

  My turn came. I gave Jewel a bow and held out the cup to toast her. “Gong xi.” Congratulations.

  “I shall accept your good wishes from the bottom of my heart,” she said.

  I bit my lip.

  “After the coronation, I shall need some personal attendants.” She sipped her wine.

  “There are many girls in the Inner Court for you to choose from,” I said.

  She shook her head. “Not them. They’re too pretty and clever.” She gazed at me, her catlike eyes glinting. “Clever girls are troublesome. They’ll distract me and the Emperor. I will not allow that. I think they need to step aside, and I will summon some new maidens from the kingdom. I need to have new faces around me.”

  She wanted to get rid of me. I felt my face chill. “Of course you can do anything you wish. You will be the empress.”

  She sighed. “I am so sorry, Mei. I like you. Truly. I do. It is not my wish to harm you, but I made a promise to a friend.”

  Rain. My hand shook, and the liquid spilled on my fingers.

  I did not know how I returned to my table. Sitting there, I stared at the trays of food in front of me. There were plates of duck, quail, mutton, pigs’ feet, cows’ tongues. They were either stewed, roasted, or fried—animals dead, cooked, and sliced.

  • • •

  A woman I had never seen before stood in front of the wardrobe chamber. “Most Adored wished me to tell you,” she said, “that I would take care of the Emperor’s wardrobe from now on.”

  “It’s my duty.” I tried to control my temper. “She cannot overturn the Emperor’s order.”

  “If you wish to ask the Emperor, you may do so.”

  “Where is he?”

  “In Most Adored’s bedchamber.”

  Desperate, I went straight to the Quarters of the Pure Lotus. But when I reached the courtyard, I turned back. I would only make myself look pitiful if I confronted him. Besides, I could not find any reason that he would side with me.

  I felt desperate. Jewel had started to push me aside, and she was not even the empress yet.

  And Plum told me nothing that I did not already know. Everyone had thought Jewel was only an old Select, and no one could recall the name of Snow Blossom.

  • • •

  The imperial astrologers gathered in the Emperor’s library to discuss which day was most auspicious for the coronation. Among them was the barefoot astrologer. I stood behind the other maids and lowered my head. I did not like the astrologer, and I was glad he did not notice me.

  With the incense lit, he chanted with the others, crouching over a ball instrument held by a tripod with toads for legs. A famous instrument built three hundred years ago, it was said to be able to detect Heaven’s intention. The men pointed their fingers here and there, frowning, nodding, and murmuring. There were some days good for weddings, fishing, traveling, riding outdoors, and some days we should wear wooden ornaments rather than jade, don garments of plain colors instead of red, avoid the topic of snakes, or refrain from lighting fire and cooking.

  “For coronation”—they studied the instrument together—“let’s see…”

  I hoped they would never find an auspicious day for that occasion in the next two hundred years. But after a while, they clapped their hands and shouted. “The twentieth day of the third month!”

  Only one month away.

  Suddenly, the court was crowded with seamstresses, musicians, jewelry makers, wine specialists, and eunuchs who reviewed lists of specialties around the kingdom for the banquet. Jewel pranced around. Her maids supported her arms as she walked, as if they were worried she would trip and kill herself, while the nutrition provosts trailed behind, instructing her on what food would fatten her and the fetus. My ears hurt from listening.

  • • •

  Too soon, the third month of the year came.

  “Still didn’t find anything?” the Noble Lady asked when I came to her bedchamber.

  I shook my head. Plum was talking to an old laundry woman, but that would surely lead nowhere.

  “I’m sorry to hear that. I’ve spoken to the Chancellor about the Emperor’s intention. He said it was up to the Emperor to make the decision about the Empress.”

  I rubbed my forehead, disappointed.

  “I knew he would not support me. I was asking too much from him.” She sat on a stool near her bed, her hands on a metal warmer. “I also asked the Emperor’s uncle. The old man received me and asked me what I thought of the Duke. He gave me a tirade about his foe, telling me how unworthy he was and how the Emperor had wronged him. I’m afraid he is growing angry and senile.”

  There was nothing to stop Jewel now.

  • • •

  On the eighteenth day of the month, two nights before Jewel’s crowning, I stood in the courtyard of my chamber, watching the night sky. There was no moon, only stars, scattered like frozen sunflower seeds. I thought of Father. I was sorry. I could not fulfill his dream after all.

  Then I heard a piercing howl from the east side of the Inner Court, the Quarters of the Pure Lotus. It was Jewel’s scream. Without thinking, I dashed to the quarters.

  All over the court, many servants scuttled around. Near Jewel’s chamber, her maids rushed out with bedding stained with blood.

  She had lost her baby.

  Heaven help me! Perhaps Jewel would not be the empress now.

  From the Noble Lady’s chamber, I watched women who came to visit Jewel. It was protocol for the Ladies to offer condolences, even though we all knew it was sheer pretense. When the Noble Lady returned from Jewel’s chamber, I asked her, “Is the Emperor going to delay the coronation now?”

  “I don’t think so.” She shook her head.

  “But she has a cold womb.” A fetus could not thrive in a cold womb, I had heard.

  “I thought so too. But Most Adored claims that is not the case.”

  “What else could have happened then?”

  “She said someone put aconite in her wine.”

  I was shocked. Aconite was a poisonous herb that aborted an unwanted fetus. “Who would do that?”

  She sighed. “No one would be so heartless to do that. But she is angry. That’s the reason. You should be careful. Don’t let her see you. You don’t want any attention right now.”

  My heart sank. Would Jewel accuse me of poisoning her?

  That night, when I lay on the mat, I could not sleep. Would I be sleeping on the cold floor in the Yeting Court tomorrow? Or worse?

  • • •

  The night before Jewel’s coronation, the Emperor summoned the Talents to serve him. The other eight Talents and I arrived in our silk gowns and waited on a large mat in a corner. The Emperor sat inside the ring of candles, drinking. The news of Jewel’s miscarriage had shaken him, I could tell, and he looked sad, his eyes bleary, his whiskers sagging. He did not ask us to take off our clothes or approach him. Soon, the other Talents grew tired of waiting and began to whisper about tomorrow’s coronation.

  “Mei,” Plum whispered in my ear as he leaned over me on the mat. “I found out why Jewel was banished.”

  “You did?” I almost bolted upright. The Emperor, holding a jug with his left hand, was trying to grab his sword with his right. He seemed to have trouble doing it. “Why did he banish her?”

  “Not the Emperor. It was the late Empress. She was jealous, because Jewel was beautiful and the Emperor liked her. The Empress made an excuse, killed all of Jewel’s family, and banished her to the Yeting Court.”

  “Really?” I glanced at the other Talents, who were growing quiet and turned around to sleep.

  “That’s not all. Here’s the best part,” Plum said. “Jewel was the Emperor’s older brother’s concubine before she became the Emperor’s.”

  I sat up. “The Emperor’s older brothe
r?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “No doubt about it. I came across an old woman with a bad hip at a eunuch’s burial. She told me. She was in the Emperor’s brother’s household many years ago. She did not recognize Jewel at first. But when I mentioned Snow Blossom, she remembered.”

  “Did the Noble Lady see her when she was in the court nine years ago?”

  Plum peered at the Emperor. He had grabbed the sword, but his hand shook, and he dropped it. He cursed. “Oh, no, I do not think any of the ladies did. The Emperor put her in a special hall, hiding her from the Empress. That was why it angered her.”

  No wonder no one had heard of her. What would the Noble Lady think when she heard of that scandal? She would be surprised, for sure, but Jewel’s coronation was tomorrow. It was too late. We could not stop her even if we worked up the gossip overnight.

  “I wish I had known this sooner. She’ll be crowned tomorrow.”

  “There’s something else.” Plum cupped her hand around my ear. “Jewel keeps a special handkerchief.”

  “Special?” It was common to keep a handkerchief, of course. Everybody had one.

  “It belonged to a man.”

  “The Emperor?”

  She made a face. “If it belonged to him, it wouldn’t be special.”

  “Then to whom did it belong?”

  “Wine!” The Emperor’s loud voice echoed in the chamber, startling me.

  Plum rose. “Wait for me. When I return, I’ll tell you.”

  The hem of her skirt brushed my knee as she passed me.

  I gnawed my knuckles. Finally! I knew Jewel’s secret. What an interesting past she had, and she had kept a man’s handkerchief?

  “Tell me, Plum,” I urged when she padded back. “Whose handkerchief is it?”

  “All I can say is it has a man’s name stitched on it.”

  My heart pounded. “What kind of name?”

  “It says Jiancheng, or something like it. I can’t be certain. Jewel keeps it close to her.”

  I knew that name. Emperor Gaozu’s firstborn, the Emperor’s older brother. So Jewel had indeed been his concubine. “How did you find out about it?”