“So what do you say, Father?” Prince Yo laughed. “You never cared about me. You sent me into exile. For what? I did nothing wrong, I told you. You wouldn’t listen. You never listened. During the months of my exile, I swore that since I could not make you listen to me while you were on your feet, I must have your ears while you are on your knees.”
“You are as foolish as you are devious.” The Emperor’s voice, slow and slurred, was filled with venom. “I do not have a son like you.”
“Are you sure, Father?” Prince Yo leaned over. “Can’t you see it? I am your true son. I did precisely what you have done. I am like you, exactly like you, and when I rule, I shall rule like you.”
The Emperor’s body trembled, as though he were seized and shaken by an invisible hand again. For a moment, I thought he would tumble to the ground, just like he had surprised us in the Audience Hall. But he did not. He held on, his head jerking repeatedly.
“You’re an old man, Father. You’re going to die.” Prince Yo shook his head. “You will die now. Tonight. Face it.”
“I—will—not—”
“Then be proud of me! Look at me! Why are you not proud of me? What do you want that I don’t have? I deserve so much more. I can do so much more. Why? Why?” he screamed.
The Pure Lady put a hand on his arm.
“Very well,” Prince Yo said, panting. “I will finish you myself. But you should have seen this coming, Father.”
I wanted to close my eyes. I had never loved the Emperor. He was not a good man or a good lover, like Jewel had said, but had I wished him to die?
Perhaps.
But not like that.
Prince Yo raised his sword. I shivered, and without thinking, I closed my eyes.
“No!” a voice shouted.
My eyes flew open. Pheasant!
His sword paused in the air. Prince Yo turned.
From behind the tree stump, many shadows sprang, carving the night’s black shade like thunderbolts. For a second, I thought the rebels had all converged from the corners of the kingdom and tried to cut a slice of the Emperor and us. Then I saw the Captain’s bloodstained face, his men swarming behind him, and among them, riding on a horse, was Pheasant.
I straightened. Oh, Pheasant! The bonfire blazed near him and illuminated his face. He looked golden, supreme, and magnificent, and his motion, steady and determined, glimmered with brightness. He thrust his arm forward, shouting, and the men around him roared, invigorated.
Tears rolled down my cheeks. I wanted to run and embrace him. I could not, because a surge of commotion had engulfed me. A scream rent the sky, and around me, shadows leaped and fell, chasing one another. Swords, daggers, spears, and lances flew in the air and entangled. Men groaned. Bones crushed. Knuckles cracked. Skulls collided against one another. I drew back, my gaze still fixed on the lithe figure on the horse.
“Pheasant!” I shouted.
He turned his head in my direction but did not seem to see me. It did not matter. I ran. Every part of my body ached as I limped toward the arched gateway. I found Daisy and helped her rise. Another palace woman groaned at my feet, and I pulled her up too. Together, we trudged across the sticky ground, while the sharp clang of weapons rang in my ears. Finally, we crossed the archway of the Tongxun Gate and arrived at the vast area in the Inner Court. I slid down the wall and stretched out my legs. I was spent.
“I’ve got the Emperor!” someone cried out on the other side of the gate. “Keep him safe!”
“No one touches my brother!” Pheasant’s voice. “Leave Taizi to me!”
“My son!” a woman shrieked. The Pure Lady. “Oh, my son! You murderer—”
Then all of a sudden, her piercing voice ceased.
I wanted to see what was happening to her, but I was too exhausted. Warm liquid splashed my face, and I did not trouble to wipe it away. I was used to blood, the sticky liquid with a thick odor. A man wielding a sword raced through the archway and dove toward us. He was about to reach me when he fell to his knees. A sword—the Captain’s—had sunk into his back. More rebels poured through the passage but sagged, and finally, the only people who stood before me were the Captain and his men.
40
Lights—shining and brilliant—pierced my eyes. Dots of red, green, and orange swirled before me. It was morning. The sky looked clean, tinted with a shade of indigo the silkworm workers used to dye the threads. For a moment, I thought that what had happened the previous night was a nightmare. Then I looked around me.
A forest of head-pierced stakes sprouted in front of me, while sharp blades, severed limbs, and headless bodies littered the ground. A few paces from me, some guards, holding their legs, groaned; near them the ministers, their hats askew, their beards speckled with blood, slumped against the wall, like me; and farther along were the ladies and eunuchs, their arms supporting one another, limping along the wall.
We had survived, but we would never be the same, or feel the same, or think the same of the life in the Inner Court again.
“Hey, there,” a voice said beside me. His hands held my shoulders.
“Pheasant.” I faced him, my heart warm with happiness. “You’re here. You saved us. You came! I was so worried about you.”
“It’s over.” He slid down the wall to sit with me.
“I know. I saw it all.”
“I was too late.” He drooped his head, his face speckled with blood.
I touched his sleeve. “What happened to you? Why did Taizi say he did not see you?”
“I was kidnapped by the Pure Lady’s men, right after I left you.” He grimaced. “I thought they would kill me. But the Captain came out of the feasting hall. The men were frightened. They hid me behind a tree and tied me up. I don’t know why the Captain would go to the Eastern Palace—”
“I told the Emperor about Taizi’s plot.”
“You did?”
“Please don’t be angry. I was worried about you.”
“I suppose I must thank you. If you hadn’t, the Pure Lady’s men would have killed me.”
“So the Captain saved you?”
He shook his head. “He didn’t see us. But the lady’s men saw him and were worried something was wrong. Two fled to warn her, and the rest ambushed the Captain. Only one man was left to watch me. I kicked his manhood when he was distracted and escaped. I came across the Captain so I told him about Taizi’s plot.”
It was then he heard the bell tolling from the watchtower, Pheasant said. He knew the palace was being attacked, but he did not know it was Prince Yo, and while he fought against the rebels with the Captain, the Emperor had ordered the Duke to hold the front gate and had gone himself with his uncle to subdue Taizi. But the Uncle deceived him, leading him directly to the Pure Lady and Prince Yo.
I gazed at the guards who were throwing some bodies into a wheelbarrow. I recognized the Pure Lady’s gown. The body of her son, Prince Yo, was next to her.
“Where is Taizi?” I asked carefully. Somehow I pitied him. Unlike Prince Yo, he was not evil. Perhaps he had never even cared about the throne; perhaps he had cared about his lover more than anything. He had made a choice too, and Pheasant was right to love him.
“The imperial physicians are caring for him right now.”
So he had survived. I hoped he would recover soon. But he would need to pay, either with his life or something else.
Pheasant stretched out his legs. With the wall against our backs, we stared at the gruesome scene without saying anything. He reached for my hand.
“What a night,” he said. “So many lost their lives. Is this worth it?”
His words, tinged with sadness, drifted in the air. His face was serious and weary, marked with lines of determination and sorrow that did not belong to his age. I wished I could say something to make him feel better.
“I don’t know,�
� I said.
He squeezed my hand.
“And the Emperor?” I asked finally.
Pheasant nodded at a group of people under a tree. They hoisted up a stretcher upon which the Emperor lay. He had lost his hat, his robe was torn, and his whiskers, curled in a sad shape, stuck to his cheeks. When the porters passed us, I could see he was trembling, his right hand bent awkwardly to his chest, his eyes closed. Then suddenly, he opened his eyes and gazed at me. Instantly, I looked away and shied away from Pheasant, my throat tightening. Would he order my death?
Nothing.
“I have to go.” Pheasant rose. “Will I see you…again?”
Of course. I would run through a forest of fire to meet him if necessary. I wished to tell him just that, but then I remembered the people around me. I dipped my head. “Yes, Prince Zhi. Yes.”
He walked to follow the stretcher, a waterfall of golden lights covering his back like a cape. Near him, the branches of the elms and oaks swayed gently. A soft whistle rang as a gust raced down the street, sending a wave of fetid air toward me. I covered my nose. When I put down my hand again, the breeze had changed to a breath of fresh morning air.
Greedily, I inhaled. Thinking about Pheasant’s question, I asked myself, Is it worth it going through all this trouble for him?
I had risked my life and pleaded with the Emperor. I had stumbled across the blood-soaked ground. I had watched people lose their heads and knelt before a tree stump, waiting for my own death. I had almost been beheaded. I had survived, and the Emperor had simply gone away.
It was worth it. I had made my own destiny.
Before me, the sky brightened, the hue of indigo dissolving, replaced by an intense shade of milky white.
• • •
Soon after, the punishment for the rebels was announced. The Emperor’s uncle was beheaded, along with all his immediate family, including his wife, his wife’s family, his concubines, his concubines’ families, their children, their grandchildren, and their families. Their family’s estate, their wealth, their titles, and their yearly allowances were confiscated.
The Pure Lady’s entire family line was eliminated. All of her blood-related kin—her parents, her grandparents, her siblings, her siblings’ families, their children, and their children’s families—were beheaded.
On the day of their deaths, I heard, the execution grounds in the Western Market were flooded with rivers of blood.
Because Pheasant begged for Taizi’s life, the Emperor banished him to the southern edge of the kingdom, where he would live in oblivion, but at least he was still alive. His household, however, was disbanded, and all his women and servants became slaves. All his associates, tutors, aides, and even the wrestlers invited to his bouts were all beheaded.
I heard Chancellor Wei Zheng had died that night too, but no one seemed to be aware of his involvement in the revolt, and the Emperor decreed a generous funeral and sent condolences to his family. Secretary Fang had a minor injury to his shoulder. It took him a month to recover.
The Duke survived. When the Emperor ordered him to hold the front gate, he had taken some guards with him, but by the time he’d arrived, the gate had already been broken into. He had been forced to pull back and never quite faced the rebels himself. Nonetheless, he was rewarded for his stalwart support. When I saw him days later, he did not have a scratch or a bruise on his face. I suspected there was more to the story as to what really happened that night. Perhaps he had hidden in a latrine.
I told Prince Ke about his mother. The poor prince’s delicate face crumpled, and his willowy frame doubled over. When he went to fetch her body, he cried like a child. My eyes growing misty, I recounted to him how brave the lady was at the moment of her death. I did not tell him what she had said about poisoning Jewel. It was better for him not to know.
The wind of the rebellion did not die off easily. A few months later, one of the Emperor’s vassals in the northeast, a Koguryo general, encouraged by the rebellion, murdered the obedient boy king the Emperor had groomed and proclaimed his own dynasty. The Emperor, infuriated, decided to start a punitive war and led the army himself. Unable to mount a horse, he put on his breastplates and a cape, hiding his useless right arm, and rode in a cushioned carriage to the eastern border while he ordered the Captain to lead with the cavalry.
The Captain proved to be the most vital force on the battlefield. His cavalry broke through the rebels’ front line, leaving many dead and entire villages engulfed in fire. In three months, he took over ten forts, driving the Koguryos all the way back to the heart of their land. It was said that the Captain was so fierce, the mere mention of his name would send the rebels fleeing. But when the army arrived at Anshi Fort, the final stronghold of Koguryo, the army was threatened with food shortages and brutal winter weather and was forced to withdraw. Finally, the Emperor returned home, without touching the rebellious general’s flag.
Nonetheless, a song of victory was sung across the kingdom to praise the Emperor’s valor and supremacy. Indeed, the Emperor had taught his vassals a lesson, people said, and the ministers cheered.
But the Emperor, haggard, sickened by the weather and rough traveling conditions, would never walk on his own again. Unable to see well or stand on his own feet, he was carried in a stretcher draped with thick curtains when he attended the audiences, and for the next two years, he spent many months in a mountain spa in hopes of regaining his health.
When he was well enough, he took Pheasant with him to the Audience Hall, and he asked Pheasant to sit with him, dine with him, and together they watched polo games and laughed.
Naturally, people whispered. Would the Emperor name Pheasant his heir?
For the disgraced Taizi had died in exile, and with two sons gone, the Emperor had to choose one among his remaining sons. Two were toddlers, and the others were borne by women with low ranks; thus, they were out of consideration for the throne. Only Prince Ke, Prince Wei, and Pheasant were serious contenders. Both princes, Ke and Wei, were senior to Pheasant, and the succession rule favored them, but Pheasant had saved the Emperor’s life.
“Of course, Prince Zhi shall be the heir. He saved us, every one of us,” I once heard the sweepers saying under the eaves. “What did Prince Wei do?”
Even the Duke made a formal petition to the Emperor. It was time the kingdom chose a new heir, he said, and the heir should be the eighth living prince, Prince Zhi.
And then, on a warm summer night, after the Emperor returned from the mountain spa, for the first time since the rebellion, he ordered all of us to attend a feast. Even though he did not declare it openly, his meaning was clear.
He would announce his heir.
AD 648
the Twenty-Second Year of Emperor Taizong’s Reign of Peaceful Prospect
SUMMER
41
The music of zithers, lutes, flutes, and chime bells filled the hall, and Lady Obedience, leading a group of dancers, twirled in the open space between the tables. The feasting hall was crowded with ministers, princes, titled ladies, and servants.
Sitting near the end of the hall with the other surviving Talents, I peered at the Emperor. He slouched at the feasting table in the center of the hall, for he was easily tired and could not sit for long periods these days. He wore a bejeweled mortarboard, the crown reserved for audiences in the Audience Hall, and his face, clouded with grave sullenness, remained crooked. But he looked somber and at ease.
My heart clenched in anticipation. Would the Emperor choose Pheasant? Would he announce it now?
The three princes, Prince Ke, Prince Wei, and Pheasant, sat near the Emperor, but as it had often appeared lately and against the traditional seating arrangement, Pheasant sat closest to the Emperor. And the Duke, who had often been serious and scowling, grinned, his hawkish nose looking less sharp. I wondered if he had succeeded in persuading the Emperor to choose Pheasant
as the heir. He certainly wanted that, for he was his uncle, and he would be a powerful man if Pheasant became the Emperor.
Secretary Fang sat with the other ministers. They ate heartily, although they looked expectant, their eyes flicking from the Emperor to Pheasant, Prince Wei, and then Prince Ke. Even the servants, pausing in the midst of serving, cocked their heads, glancing from the Emperor to the princes.
The only person who seemed detached from the crowd was the Captain. Standing a few paces behind the princes, he was not eating, nor was he looking at anyone. His purple birthmark smeared across his face like a pool of dried blood, he stared at a pillar silently. I wondered what was in his mind. During the rebellion, his sword had slashed many rebels’ throats, and it had slashed more when he broke into forts in Koguryo. The Emperor had promoted him, praising his might and loyalty. He was now the General, the commander of all armies in the Four Garrisons, ninety-nine legions of Gold Bird Guards, and all the cavalry. He was the sharpest sword the Emperor would ever have.
I looked at the titled ladies gathered around me. None of them were smiling, but they all looked calm, as though they were not concerned about the announcement of the heir. I thought of Pheasant’s wife, Lady Wang, whom he had been married to for almost three years, and Rain. Both were living outside the palace and had not been invited to the feast tonight. If they had been here, they would certainly have been excited.
The servants placed some saucers filled with cooked leeks, stewed donkey meat, and slices of marinated tiger meat on the Emperor’s table. The leeks would improve his appetite, and the meat would repel evil spirits and lift his mood. But he did not touch them. I was not surprised. He had long lost interest in eating, and these days, he dined only on soft, glutinous rice cakes.
Finally, the Emperor cleared his throat. The hall quieted, the music ceased, and only the scent of food and wine drifted through the air.
“Ministers, I have gathered all of you to witness the crucial moment of our kingdom. I shall announce my heir today and show the kingdom what a capable son I have.” The loose skin on his right cheek swayed visibly, and his voice was a slow, slurred drawl. Those who had not seen him lately would have been surprised at his indistinct voice, but I could tell he had put great effort in enunciating the words, and I could also tell the effort was costing him strength. He was having a hard time catching his breath. “From this moment on, our kingdom shall rejoice, for I declare one of my sons has proved himself, for all his valor and honesty, as a worthy heir of mine. Come up, Pheasant.”
The Moon in the Palace (The Empress of Bright Moon Duology) Page 33