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

by Weina Dai Randel

  “Destroy it. Before anyone else sees it.”

  “I will.” I composed myself. Secretary Fang had searched for Mother but found no trace of her. The Captain, the man in charge of the Gold Bird Guards, had nothing to do with the search. “How did you find her? Why are you helping me?”

  “Not helping you,” he said, turning to leave. “Your mother found me. I knew your father. We went to war together. He was a good man.”

  “Wait!” I followed him. “How can I see her?”

  “You can’t,” he replied without looking back. “Leaving the palace without permission is against the Emperor’s law. I’m his captain. Don’t forget.”

  But I had to see her, and I could not wait any longer. She was already at the age of Knowing Heaven’s Mission. If I delayed, I might never see her again.

  How could I leave the palace? I could not ask the Emperor, who was still unconscious, and even if he were awake, I would not dare to ask him. Who could help me? I gnawed my knuckles.

  I went to look for Eunuch Ming. I could not find him. “He died,” one eunuch told me when I inquired. “Stomach ulcer. Died two months ago.”

  I passed the bustling servants who delivered hot water to the other ladies, and I paused. Of course. I could ask for their help. The servants who purchased the groceries in the market had the freedom to leave and enter the palace every morning. They used an exclusive entrance near the kitchen on the west side of the court, where neither ladies nor guards would set foot.

  36

  “I’m not going to the market tomorrow.” The pockmarked eunuch shook his head as he shuffled in front of a stove. “I can’t help you.”

  “Perhaps I didn’t make it clear,” I persisted. “I won’t get you into trouble. I’ll wear kitchen staff’s livery when we leave. On our return, you can pile the vegetables on top of me. No one at the gate will know.”

  “I’m too busy.”

  “I’ll make it worthwhile, I promise.” I took out two silver ingots. He peered at me. I added one more in desperation.

  “Come here at the hour of chou tomorrow.” He snatched the silver from me and stuffed a greasy robe into my hands. “Don’t be late. It’s a long drive to the monastery you want to go to, even with my mules.”

  • • •

  We left the palace three hours after midnight. By the time we reached the mountain outside the city wall, the dawn’s pale light shone on the edge of the horizon. I climbed out of the grocery cart.

  The mountain was so immense, I could not see its top where the thick fog floated. Some steep, narrow stairs, covered with green moss, wound around the mountain and vanished behind towering junipers. And there, high on a cliff, perched a small building: the Buddhist monastery.

  I climbed the stairs, imagining my reunion with Mother. We would embrace, we would laugh, we would cry, but most of all, we would be ourselves—a daughter and a mother. I thought of her tenderness and wisdom, and my limbs became alive with energy, and my heart pumped with happiness. Oh, how I missed her. Mother! My tree. My mountain. I should never part with her again.

  I reached the monastery. It looked worse than it had in the distance. It had mud walls, a thatched roof, and the front door was a thin, wooden board where many termites crawled.

  A nun with her hair wrapped in a skintight cap answered the door when I knocked. She was the abbess, she said, and she gestured to the back of the building when I told her I was there for Lady Yang, Mother’s maiden name. I passed the small courtyard and reached the kitchen door. There, I composed myself and then pushed it open.

  Facing me was a small dining table, but no stools. Near it, a sliver of sparkling sunlight lit up a neat trail of dust on the dirt floor. In the corner, water bubbled in a pot. Its sonorous simmering almost soothed my nerves. Almost. Stooping under the low doorway, I held the door frame, my heart racing faster than when I had climbed the steep stairs.

  I did not see Mother.

  “May I be of service?” a voice asked near the cooking pit. A Buddhist nun put down a handful of dried mushrooms and walked to me.

  “I’m looking for my mother. The abbess told me she was in the kitchen,” I replied, disappointed.

  “We are all Buddha’s children,” the nun said.

  Out of courtesy, I nodded, although I was in no mood for the religious talk. Behind the kitchen, someone dropped a bucket into a well. Perhaps Mother was fetching water. She must have worked as a kitchen helper while she sought refuge in the temple. Hardly containing my excitement, I bowed to take my leave.

  “You’ve grown up to be a true gem, a woman with astounding beauty and grace,” the nun said. “Your father would be so proud.”

  My head hit the door frame. “Mother?”

  She looked shorter, and her long hair, into which I had often buried my face, was gone. Her face, which had refused to shed the tears of a hard life, looked leathery and bore marks of the sun and the wind. She looked so different from the graceful noblewoman I had remembered, but she was indeed my mother.

  I threw my arms around her. I had been lost, and now I was home.

  “It has been so long.” Mother patted my back. “Five years, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” I nodded. So many things I yearned to ask her. Why had Qing banished her? How had she come to the temple? Had she heard anything from Big Sister? “I was so worried about you, Mother. What are you doing here? Why are you dressed like this?”

  “I have found profound comfort and solace in following the path of Buddha. Five years of solitude draws me closer to nature and far from the human world. I did not expect to see you again.”

  “I didn’t think I’d see you again either, Mother.” I touched her cheek. “You’ve lost weight.”

  “And you have grown.”

  “I know.” I gazed at her, preparing for her next question. She would ask me about how I was doing at the palace. “Everything is fine,” I would say. But she did not ask. Instead, she went to a small niche above the stove where families prayed to their ancestors. Her hands pressed together, she closed her eyes and murmured.

  I stared at the small figurine sitting in the niche. Tears blurred my vision. Mother had not forgotten Father; she kept his altar in the temple’s kitchen.

  “I must confess something to you, Mother.” I went behind her.

  She would be disappointed, but she had to know: I would not become the empress.

  “To him, the true warrior for all souls.” Mother pointed at the white figurine in the niche.

  It was not Father, but rather a monk, sitting underneath a tree with leaves shaped like palms. “When he returns, he’ll bring salvation and spread the true messages of Buddha. He shall deliver us all.”

  The pious tone of her voice stunned me. Mother had become a devout Buddhist nun. I bit my lip.

  “Buddha returns?”

  “No,” Mother said. “The great monk. The warrior who broke the Tang’s law to embark on a pilgrimage to India, the birthplace of Buddha. His only companion being a horse, he will return and bring us the true words of enlightenment and nirvana. I pray for that day to come.”

  I squeezed out a smile to please her. But in my heart, I wanted her to love me, not an unknown monk. “Don’t you want to know how my life is in the court, Mother?”

  “You don’t remember him, do you?” she said, as if not hearing me, and her fingers busily pushed the wooden beads of her rosary. “You’ve met him. Tripitaka.”

  I remembered the name. “Yes.”

  “When he left for Buddha’s land years ago, he passed by our home. Your father asked him to read our family’s future. It was he who foretold your future and your father’s death. Do you remember?”

  Of course I did. I turned away to stare at the bubbling pot. “Did you know, Mother.” I swallowed. “Father died because of me.”

  The beads stopped flowing.<
br />
  “I could not remember it all these years, but now I do. It was not an accident. I was there when the beast came. Father died to protect me.” I choked on my words. “It was my fault. If he had not died, we still would have lived in Wenshui. Little Sister would have been alive, and you, you would be home too.”

  “You were there?”

  “Forgive me, Mother.” I buried my face in her lap, unable to keep back my tears. “I brought down our family.”

  “So that was why he cried out for you.”

  “What?” I raised my head.

  “Your father came to me in my dreams. Your name was the only one he mentioned. That’s why I asked the Captain to deliver the message to you, so I could talk to you. I met him in the market. He and your father fought in the war together. He remembered me.”

  “What did Father say?”

  “Father said not to blame you.”

  I gazed at her. “He…forgave me?”

  “I did not understand that at first. Now I do.”

  I burst out in tears again. “That’s all? Did he say anything else?”

  She shook her head.

  I sniffed. A weight lifted off my shoulders. “He forgave me…just like that?”

  Nodding, she stroked my hair. “Let all that was gone be gone. Worry no more, child.”

  Tightly, I hugged her. She was all I had, and I wanted to stay with her, sweep the floor with her, fetch water from the well, cook for her, eat with her, watch her hair grow, wash her stole, and talk to her until we fell asleep.

  “You should return to the palace,” she said gently.

  “What about you?”

  “I’m happy here.”

  I straightened and looked around the dirt floor and cracked walls.

  As though reading my mind, she said, “When you’re older, you will understand this—what happiness means. It is an illusion men promise to deceive themselves. I have learned so much from Buddha. All people lead a life of torment and suffering, from infancy to death, and after death, the souls suffer an eternity to make amends.” Her fingers pushed the beads of her rosary. “It’s true, child. Life has no worth, no meaning, no happiness.”

  I drew back. “What about family? They are not illusions. They mean something.”

  “What do they mean? Family, children, love, and honor. Where do they lead us?”

  I could not find a word to say.

  “They are only secular ties and deceiving vanities that pull us like a yoke and force us to mill. Remember, in the end, nothing is important, and all return to dust.”

  “Dust?”

  “I pray all shall come to peace. I pray all the lost shall be found.” A chant came at the door. The abbess appeared, her hands pressed together. Mother rose and returned her a similar gesture.

  I watched them. Their motions were smooth, their expressions calm and identical. Mother did not need me. She did not need my embraces, my love, or my protection. She was at peace, on her own terms. Or on Buddha’s terms. It did not matter.

  After a while, I bowed to Mother and the abbess. I wished them good health, promised I would visit again, and took my leave.

  I stepped out of the monastery. The opaque mountain mists shifted around me. A falcon screeched over my head and vanished in the stands of mountain pines on a distant cliff. I thought of Father, his forgiveness, and Mother’s retreating to the religious world, and slowly I walked toward the stairs.

  Under my feet, only a few flights stretched, the rest hidden in the thick clouds of mists. A single misstep and I would plunge into the rocky depth.

  But I understood it now. Somehow, sometime in our lives, we all needed to find a path through the clouds of our destinies and walk down. Alone.

  Slowly, I descended the mountain stairs.

  AD 644

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

  WINTER

  37

  Soon after I returned to the palace, the Emperor finally opened his eyes. He was extremely weak and unable to speak. All of us, concubines ranked seventh degree and above, were relieved of our usual duties and ordered to stay with him day and night, caring for him. A month later, he was able to take some broth and herbal drinks and sit with assistance. Gradually, he uttered words, though with a thick and strange slur, and held his meetings in a hall adjacent to his bedchamber. He could not hold his calligraphy brush, so he met the Duke and dictated to him. The Uncle and the Chancellor were not summoned, so I did not need to spy on them.

  The New Year came. The whole kingdom was immersed in celebrations, and the Emperor took an opportunity to rest, although he ordered the word spread that he was wholesome and riding horses, for fear of doubts over his health.

  The Noble Lady planted trusted people to watch the Pure Lady and even her maids. Every day, their movements were reported to the Noble Lady and her son, who analyzed them carefully. “If she sends a signal, a letter, or a message, she’ll go meet Jewel’s spirit,” she said confidently.

  I was not sure. A letter would certainly incriminate the Pure Lady, but what if she did not send out a letter? What if it was something that we could not see?

  The Pure Lady seemed to be aware she was being watched. She did nothing more than sit in the sun, play weiqi with her maids, or stroll in the open, her cat in her arms. When the weather was fine, she went to the Eastern Palace to admire the plum blossoms. Once, she stopped at the stable to watch a mare giving birth to a foal. I thought it strange she would go to the stable, Taizi’s haunt, but she did not speak or spit at the heir, as I had expected she would do. She only watched the foal, they said.

  Something was wrong, terribly wrong, but I did not know what.

  The servants appeared at ease. Most of them believed the Emperor would live. Here and there, they greeted each other, even smiled at times, their cheeks red with holiday celebration and their stomachs sweetened by glutinous rice cakes, dried dates, and persimmons.

  Plum mentioned Pheasant had wedded Lady Wang in his house outside the palace. I wished to hear more about the wedding, the bride, Pheasant, and how he thought of his new bride, but Plum did not elaborate other than saying Lady Wang was very tall.

  Lantern Festival arrived. Lanterns carved in the shapes of deer, rabbits, and turtles paraded in the Inner Court and illuminated every corner. Paper artworks crafted as eagles, parrots, and swallows hung below the houses’ eaves. Everywhere, the colors of red, mauve, indigo, green, and other iridescent hues greeted me. The last day of the long New Year holiday, the festival of lights, was supposed to bring us luck for the entire year.

  I was hanging two paper cardinals in the garden when I glimpsed Pheasant at the gate. He put his hand on his left shoulder to attract my attention. I was surprised. Since he lived outside the palace and was married, I seldom saw him. Sometimes I would catch a glimpse of him gazing at me when he came to visit the Emperor, and that look would stay with me for days. I would walk in the corridors thinking of the intensity of his gaze and then go to sleep, pretending he was holding me, not his wife.

  But when there were people around, he rarely looked in my direction, let alone asked to see me in private.

  I nodded slightly to let him know that I had seen him and then turned away, waiting for an opportunity. Finally, a group of eunuchs came over, carrying a tree decorated with gold leaves. People swarmed over to admire it. I slipped out.

  I went down the bridge and found him behind a garden rock at the back of a hall.

  He stood in the rock’s shadow. The lanterns cast a pool of red light near his feet. He was the same Pheasant for whom I had waited in the pavilion. But he looked solemn, solitary, and much older. I was worried.

  “What’s wrong?” I walked to him.

  He was not himself. He fidgeted, and his feet kept kicking the ground. At my voice, he straightened, turning around
to make sure no one was watching us. “I’m sorry to put you at risk again. This is the last time I will ask you to meet me, I promise.”

  “Don’t worry. No one saw me.” The Emperor, his high-ranking ministers, and the Ladies were celebrating the festival in the feasting hall in the Outer Palace, and many servants were there as well.

  He placed his hand on the rock. There was a pause before he said, “I came to warn you, Mei. It’s not safe here.”

  I could not help myself. I stepped closer to him. “What’s going on?”

  “Something disastrous is going to happen. You must leave the hall. Now. Run to your chamber as fast as you can and bolt the door. Or”—he took off his hat and combed his hand through his hair—“go to our pavilion. Somewhere unknown and safe, and hide there until tomorrow night.”

  Was the Pure Lady about to take action? “Why?”

  “It’s my brother.” He inhaled deeply. “I think he’s out of his mind.”

  I was relieved it was not about the Pure Lady. “Taizi,” I said. He was deeply unhappy; we all knew that. “What is happening with him?”

  “I found weapons hidden away. Weapons. You know what I am saying, don’t you? Lancers, swords, armors, bows, and arrows.” He balled his hands in fists. “Bundles and bundles of them, in a stable.”

  I gasped, fully aware of its meaning. The law banned people from bearing arms, even princes. “Is he planning something? Why would he amass such a large amount of weapons?”

  Pheasant’s head drooped. “It’s because of the flutist. I know it. Father should never have ordered Taizi to kill him.”

  “It’s too late to say that. What is he going to do with all those weapons?”

  A wave of laughter wafted in the night air. I could not tell where it came from. Both Pheasant and I stood still.

  “It might be nothing. He likes to try weapons. Perhaps now he wants to become a swordsman.”

  His voice was raspy, and his chest heaved rapidly. I wanted to pull him into my arms and smooth his hair. I wanted to believe him, to tell him that was exactly why Taizi had bought the weapons and smuggled them into the palace. But the word treason pummeled my head, and I knew I could not indulge myself or Pheasant.