by Julie C. Dao
“You’re asking too many questions,” the nursemaid warned. “Be careful not to annoy Xifeng more or you may never learn the answers.”
Despite the chill, Jade slid open one of the bamboo window panels. On such an overcast day, the lanterns glittered even more brightly in the Great Forest. “We came to the palace for a reason. If nothing is being done about my father or the missing women, then the task must fall to me.” She looked at Amah. “My father never summoned me, but what if he did need me here? What if the Empress kept us apart?”
A tap sounded on the door of Jade’s apartments. It slid open and Wren stepped inside, her face suspicious. “You sent for me, Your Highness?”
“Please come in. Amah, meet my new chief attendant.” Jade couldn’t help giggling at the identical expressions of bewilderment on their faces. “Well, I can’t keep borrowing my stepmother’s ladies, can I? I need my own handmaiden to help dress me and do my hair.”
Wren stared blankly at her. “I only know how to scrub pots. Is this a joke?”
“Partially,” Jade said, waving her to the seat beside Amah. “I know you hate working in the kitchens, and I thought this would solve two problems at once: get you away from the dirty pots, and give you more time with your grandmother. You’d be my handmaiden in name only. I can take care of myself, and you won’t have to do anything at all.”
There was a long silence.
“So it’s pity, then?” Wren asked.
Jade’s heart sank. “No, of course not . . .”
Wren leapt to her feet, her face reddening. “You thought it would be charming to play a princess rescuing a peasant! To elevate a lowly kitchen wench out of charity!”
“That is not what I . . .”
“Well, Your Highness,” Wren said, her voice dripping with disdain, “perhaps you ought to realize that I was born to scrub dirty dishes, just as my grandmother was born to care for you. Instead of for me, her granddaughter by blood.”
“Wren!” Amah cried.
“As for the rest of my family, my grandfather served in the stables and my father polished weapons,” Wren continued, ignoring the old woman. “My brother, who taught me how to use a sword, was born to be a foot soldier and die in your brother’s failed overseas mission. We may be servants, but we still deserve dignity. We deserve to live without pity from patronizing royals.”
Her topknot quivered as she spoke, exactly as Amah’s hair did when she was angry. It was this that saved Jade from firing back, for she had been growing more and more furious.
“I’m sorry that you are always ready to believe the worst of me and that you blame me for your family’s servitude,” Jade said evenly. “I made this offer because of the reason you just mentioned—that because of me, you lost years with the only family you have left.”
Wren stared at her, panting.
“I knew this wouldn’t make up for the time you’ve lost with your grandmother,” Jade said. “Nothing ever could, though it was her choice to raise me because she promised my mother she would. Still, I wanted to make things right with you, and this was the only way I knew how, so forgive me for its inelegance.”
Some of the color drained from the young woman’s face. “I . . . you . . .”
“Have you ever heard the advice listen before you speak?” Amah asked her tartly. “Did you know the princess could have you executed for the way you raged at her just now?”
“There will be no executions,” Jade said quickly. She ran a hand over her hot forehead, wishing she had never suggested the idea. “I’m not offended if you decline my offer, Wren. Please feel free to return to the kitchens.”
“So this wasn’t charity?” Wren asked, her voice very soft.
“No.”
“You were only trying to make amends.”
“Yes.”
They stared at each other.
Wren tugged at the hem of her worn tunic, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “I . . . I would like to accept your offer, Your Highness. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to . . .” She took a deep breath and bent at the waist, lower than she had ever bowed to Jade. “Thank you. I would like this chance to spend more time with my grandmother,” she added gruffly.
Jade could have laughed from relief. “And you understand you’re my handmaiden in title only? That you don’t have to do anything you don’t wish to do?”
Wren bowed again, her mouth downturned with shame. “Thank you, but I don’t like to be idle. I’ll be happy to do any tasks you require. Will you let me know?”
“I will,” Jade promised.
Amah began to scold the moment the young woman sat down, looking awkward and out of place among the flowered cushions.
Footsteps sounded on the walkway outside. Jade practically ran to the door with relief and admitted three noblewomen who fluttered in like graceful butterflies. The first was a short, pleasant-faced woman in her fifties, her features framed in wrinkles and laugh lines. She wore dark rose silk with two strips of pure white satin encircling each arm. Jade watched in surprise as Amah rose with her hands outstretched to this woman.
“My dear Lady Tran,” the nursemaid cried, delighted.
The two women bowed formally to each other before embracing.
“It has been too long, Auntie. I wondered how you and the princess fared all these years.” Lady Tran bowed to Jade, then presented her daughters, Plum and Peony, who might have been fourteen and fifteen. “Your Highness, I was friends with your honored mother almost all my life. I still wear the gift she gave me when I first became her lady-in-waiting.” She touched a pendant of pale green jade that hung around her neck, her kind eyes crinkling at Jade.
“I’m glad my mother had such a loyal friend,” Jade said warmly.
“Lady Tran’s family comes from the Sacred Grasslands like ours,” Amah told Wren. “It’s a custom to wear jade pendants for good luck, and it was just like Empress Lihua to honor that.”
Lady Tran nodded. “She was one of the few who ever showed such respect. There’s never a good time to hail from the Grasslands, especially not when the king may be building an army against Her Majesty. Many at court are prejudiced against my land,” she explained, seeing Jade’s puzzlement. “They believe the Great Forest to be superior and more cultured. Some openly ignore my daughters and me because of our origins.”
“How absurd,” Jade said. “Haven’t royal and noble families intermarried for centuries?”
“It’s easy to look down on a small farming kingdom, I suppose,” Lady Tran replied. “I’m proud of my roots, but don’t tell Master Kang. He thinks the Empress too kind for inviting my family to Your Highness’s birthday banquet.”
“If Kang has anything to say about a dear friend of my mother, he can speak to me.”
The maids began serving tea once the other noblewomen joined them. Most of the ladies were merry and educated, and ranged in age from twenty to fifty. Whenever Jade turned to speak to one of them, she felt the intense appraisal of the others. No doubt they all wondered how a girl raised so humbly would do as a princess.
The monks had been learned women, but with so many hours devoted to prayer, they had seldom wasted words. The court ladies, however, danced from one topic to the next.
“What do you think of the palace so far?” a lady in pink asked Jade.
“It’s different from what I’m used to,” she admitted. “I thought I would be shown to a comfortable room, not an entire floor in the same building as Her Majesty’s apartments.”
The women laughed.
“You’ve had a simple upbringing, Princess,” another woman remarked. “Do you think court life will soon spoil you?”
“Yes, if the attached bathhouse has anything to say about it. The system of ropes is ingenious,” Jade said, recalling the hot bath the maids had prepared that morning by hauling buckets of boiling water up
to the second floor. “I’ve only ever bathed in a stream.”
“Goodness. Wasn’t it cold?”
“Not in the summer. Amah always had trouble getting me back out. I wish I could say that was only in my childhood, but I seem to recall it happening just a few months ago.”
The noblewomen giggled again.
The conversation turned to one of the ladies’ sisters, who was married to a Dagovadian noble and had just inherited a vast mountain estate from his father. Jade took the opportunity to ask Lady Tran, in an undertone, if she had known these women for long.
“Some of the married women, yes. They live at court, as I do, when their husbands have business. As for the younger ladies who serve as the Empress’s attendants, they never stay longer than a year,” Lady Tran whispered. “Her Majesty likes to change them frequently.”
Jade pondered this strange and isolating practice. Xifeng likely did so to keep anyone from getting too close to her, either out of a lack of trust or a need for self-protection.
At that moment, a small boy burst into the apartments, pursued by two out-of-breath eunuchs. He kept one arm behind him and hugged Lady Tran’s legs with the other, goggling at the women.
“My humblest apologies, Your Highness,” Lady Tran said, embarrassed. She frowned at the eunuchs. “It seems my nephew cannot be kept from me.”
“What’s your name, little one?” Jade asked kindly, bending down to the boy, who hid his chubby cheeks against his aunt’s legs. “He’s shy, isn’t he?”
“Answer the princess when she speaks to you,” Lady Tran coaxed him.
He peeked out at her with one eye. “Minh.”
“What have you got there behind your back? Will you show me?” Jade asked.
“The little sycophant is starting at a young age,” a lady said with coy amusement. “He’s brought a present with which to win your favor, Princess.”
Minh toddled toward Jade. “It’s a noodle,” he said, and whipped his hand out to reveal a slender black snake writhing between his fingers. Red eyes glittered at Jade, matching a forked tongue. The old memory came flooding back in a rush: splashing in the stream inside the monastery gates, meeting the eyes that watched her like blood drops, and screaming for Amah.
Jade cried out and fell back as the noblewomen emitted piercing shrieks, jumping up from their seats and running to the edges of the room.
Startled by the commotion, the child dropped the snake and began to cry. The animal lay still for a moment, stunned, then slithered toward the sofa. The women screamed again, and Plum and Peony hopped onto a low table, hugging each other and crying. Wren ran to help the breathless eunuchs as they tried to seize the snake. One of the men finally caught hold of it as it was crawling beneath the furniture.
“Why would you bring that into the princess’s apartments?” Lady Tran scolded the boy, who was sobbing into her silks. “You frightened her half to death.”
“It’s all right—there’s no need to upset him further.” Jade shivered at the sight of the wriggling serpent. “Would you please take it outside?”
The eunuch obeyed, and the ladies uttered cries of relief, some fanning themselves.
“It’s all right,” Jade repeated to the child, though her heart still beat like a frantic drum. “I’m not angry with you, Minh. Don’t cry anymore.” He peeked at her with one wet eye and quieted as she rubbed his back.
Lady Tran pushed her nephew toward the other eunuch. “See that he does not disturb Her Highness again. I apologize, Princess. He’s been acting up, what with his mother gone.”
“Yes, when is Hana coming back?” one of the women asked.
“Soon, I’m sure,” Lady Tran answered curtly.
It wasn’t until later, when the ladies took their leave, that the woman in pink shared the gossip with Jade. “Poor Lady Tran. Her husband and her brother died of illness, and now her brother’s wife has disappeared. She’s had to care for the child herself. There is no one left!”
Pity swelled in Jade’s heart for the boy. The deaths in Lady Tran’s family would explain the white armbands sewn onto her tunic, for mourning. “Minh’s mother is gone? Where?”
“No one knows, Your Highness. Hana was always flighty. She likely ran off with a soldier or got tired of her crying son. Wherever she is, the Empress isn’t pleased about it, because a lot of women have left the palace without permission lately.”
Jade watched the lady go uneasily. She did not join in Amah and Wren’s excited chatter about the escaped snake, for one word was echoing over and over in her mind.
Disappeared.
A few days later, Wren came into the sitting room where Jade sat reading by the window. With her rigid topknot and military stance, the young woman appeared more like a bodyguard than a handmaiden. “The Imperial physician will be here in half an hour, Your Highness.”
“Thank you,” Jade said shyly. Though Wren had been nothing but civil and helpful since accepting the position, a remnant of awkwardness still lingered between them. “Don’t feel like you have to stay if you have something more important to do.”
Wren arched an eyebrow. “Like what?”
“I don’t know. Dangling from trees, pulling yourself up on railings, carrying heavy buckets of water.” Jade shrugged helplessly.
The older girl’s lips quirked. “You forgot running in the underground tunnels, where no one can see me except an occasional guard.”
“Is that something your brother taught you, too?”
Wren’s tentative smile dissolved. “Yes.”
“I always wished for a brother I could grow up with,” Jade said wistfully. “It was lonely, with only sticks and rocks and flowers to play with.”
Wren frowned. “I thought you had the best toys. Carved puppets and miniature teapots.”
Jade couldn’t help chuckling. “I grew up in a monastery, remember? Abbess Lin discouraged luxury, and besides, no one knew who I was. Amah kept it a secret so I would be treated the same as everyone else.” Another pang of homesickness knifed through her gut. Back home, Auntie Tan would be drying herbs and making tonics without Jade to help, and the other monks would feed the animals and do other tasks that had been Jade’s. Even the thought of her and Amah’s little room, bare and silent now, hurt. “Have you ever felt like you were born the wrong person? Like you should have been someone other than who you are?”
“Yes,” Wren said, with a flicker of surprise.
“I loved the women who raised me and the way they lived, full of faith and compassion. I would have dedicated my life to the monastery if they’d let me. But it was silly to think I could stay there forever.” Jade’s heart and mind had been on the monastery as she spoke, and she had nearly forgotten Wren’s presence. She angled a glance at her, but Wren’s face held no scorn.
“It wasn’t meant for you.”
“It wasn’t meant for me.” Jade gave her a tentative smile. “So I know what it is to wish for a different life, like you. You would be a soldier, if given a chance?”
“I’ve wanted to since I was little, but I had to hide it. It was exhausting.” Wren mimicked a high voice. “Proper girls don’t fight or use swords. Proper girls cannot be warriors.”
“What about the Crimson Army?”
“That’s my idea of freedom. To protect myself, defend the helpless, and go anywhere in the world I wished, at any time . . .” Wren inhaled, as though the words were air and she could fill her lungs with them. “I’d be in control of my own life. And I wouldn’t answer to anyone.”
“A kitchen wench who longs to be a warrior, and a princess who wants to be a monk,” Jade said, with a rueful shake of her head. “I guess we aren’t so different after all.”
“I’m sorry. For everything.”
“So am I.”
They looked at each other, their lips curving into matching smiles.
“Thank you for being here and saving me the grief of having a real attendant like Madam Ong,” Jade said with a grin. Yesterday, her stepmother had sent one of her sour-faced ladies-in-waiting to serve as Jade’s personal handmaiden, but Jade had sent a courteous note of thanks, explaining that she had already filled the position herself. “I need someone I can trust, someone who will be honest with me.”
“I’m rather good at being honest,” Wren admitted. “You know, I haven’t had a thing to do except deliver the occasional message for you.”
“Is that a complaint?” Jade joked.
“No complaint,” the girl said mildly. “But I wouldn’t mind doing more for you, truly.”
“All right, then. You can stay while I interrogate Gao.”
The Imperial physician arrived shortly with a black medicine case. He was a small, bald man in his sixties, with nervous, watery eyes. He took a seat on the sofa beside Jade while Wren stood at attention behind them. “Your Highness sent for me?” he asked politely.
As Jade described some fake symptoms, he pulled bottles of herbs from his case. “I’m not used to the rich palace food yet,” she told him. “I’m sure it’s just indigestion. I know the symptoms—I saw many cases of it among the villagers when I was helping at the monastery.”
“Your Highness has experience with medicine?” Gao said, surprised.
“I apprenticed under a monk who taught me much about herbs and healing.”
He measured out some dried green leaves and crushed ginger root on a square of paper. “Have your attendants make you tea with this every evening. The ginger should calm the stomach and ease digestion, as you already know.”
“I will,” she promised. “Is this a remedy you’ve prescribed for my father?”
Gao glanced up, on his guard at once. “I may have in the past.”
“Stomach issues seem to be common everywhere,” Jade said conversationally. “I used to help Auntie Tan—the monk who trained me—make salty chicken congee to soothe bellyaches.”
“A good and mild dish. It settles the nerves, too, and I always recommend a diet of rice and boiled vegetables for digestive troubles.”