Pheasant came to me at night, climbing over the wall into the garden as though he was still young. Together, we rode, he on a white stallion and I on a black one. The garden was not vast, but it had enough space for us to roam. We passed the groves of bamboos and birches. We hiked on the small hill at the back of the garden. We laughed. We shouted. We chased each other. And when the moon was high, when the breeze was warm, I took off his robe and then mine. We gazed at our nakedness and embraced, so naturally, as though we had never parted, as though we were two seeds sown together.
A long time ago, we had been close to each other, and we had explored each other with youthful passion and desire. We yearned for each other with the fierce passion of the sun, lured by the veiled temptation of the moon. And now we were each other; we were passion and desire; we were lovers bound by temptation. As the night went on, the moon our lantern, the garden our bed, we tempted each other, we let our love flow, and we drank each other, again and again.
When dawn came, we played polo. Our robes loose, our sleeves flying in the air, we chased the scarlet ball. I was not skillful, but all the same, the dawn sport was captivating. Soon, the sun rose; the warm rays brushed my moistened face. Smiling, I watched Pheasant as he struck at the ball, and it soared like a bird set free to the sky.
Sometimes Pheasant mentioned troubles near the border with the Tibetans. Their old king, Srongtsan Gampo, had died, and the new king had discarded our peace pact and ransacked many towns on our border. I asked Pheasant how serious the matter was, and he gave a heavy sigh. The Regent had dispatched the cavalry, Pheasant said, his head dropping low. Then he added that he was not requested to attend the daily audience, so he did not know the details.
I nodded in silence, but I could not forget his helpless tone and the pain in his eyes. I remembered how confident he had been the night when his father died. Pheasant would have been an extraordinary emperor if he had not been robbed of his chance to rule.
Oftentimes, Pheasant brought me gifts, baskets of sweetmeats, honeyed cakes, and dried persimmons rolled in powdered sugar, which I gave to Apricot. I used to enjoy these treats, but after living in the monastery, my tastes had changed considerably. I did not fancy meat or sweets. I did, however, crave chilled lotus roots, water chestnuts, and pickled plums.
Two months later, I told Pheasant I had a gift for him as well.
“It’s about time.” He put his hand on my stomach. “Do you think it is a boy or a girl?”
“Do you wish for a boy or a girl?”
He looked thoughtful. “A boy, if you don’t mind the trouble.”
I understood what he meant. A girl could live quietly in a walled garden, but a boy with Pheasant’s blood could never live in peace, especially since we all knew the Empress was barren. Apricot, my bashful maid, had told me Pheasant had two sons. I knew of one, named Zhong, who must be at least eight years old now, borne by Rain, a court etiquette teacher during Emperor Taizong’s reign. And Rain, Apricot said, had conceived again during my exile but had died in childbirth. The other son of Pheasant’s was named Sujie, borne by a woman now known as the Pure Lady, one of the Four Ladies in Pheasant’s Inner Court.
So if I had a son, he would join the battle of heirship whether I liked it or not. Before my exile, I would have welcomed the possibility with thrill and hope, but now I wished for nothing but a quiet and peaceful life.
“A girl then,” I said.
I soon felt the first flutter inside me, the pulse of life, gentle but profound. My appetite increased. I devoured the food placed in front of me, while my body craved to breed more bountifulness of life. I also suffered moments of mystery, when tears came to me unbidden and words eluded me, no matter how hard I searched, but those moments always passed quickly.
I thought of my family. Big Sister must surely have been a mother as well, and Mother would have been happy to have a grandchild. She would have talked to me, from one mother to another, teaching me the taboos of pregnancy and tips for having a healthy child. We would have shared a mother’s pain, joy, and pride. We would have laughed and cried. The thoughts warmed my heart, and I wanted to ask Pheasant to have Mother visit me. He would have given me permission, I had no doubt. But then people in the palace would have talked, and the Empress would have known someone was hiding in the garden. I could not risk being discovered.
Mother had to wait.
When winter came, I felt bloated. My hands grew larger, my fingers grew thicker, and my stomach became round. A sweet ache followed me each time as I tried to rise or when I stood for too long. When I looked at my reflection in the pond, I could see myself walk in an amusing gait, strutting, my shoulders thrown back, my stomach protruding like a well-fed duck on the way for a good swim with ducklings. I smiled. I would soon have my own duckling, and I would lead and protect like a mother duck.
My back hurting, I sat on a warm garden bench to rest. Hope leaped into my arms, and I leaned over him, stroking his fur. The red peonies and pink roses near me had lost their blossoms, but the bushes stood strong and proud. From the pond, silver carp and goldfish splashed across the shiny water. The wind blew across the garden, brushing the tops of the trees, sending the scarf on my head dancing behind me. I felt sleepy and happy.
And I prayed, every day, that tomorrow would not change. But even though I tried not to think, even though I tried to remain calm, I knew the Empress had returned to the palace months ago, and sooner or later, she would find me in the garden.
• • •
I was taking a nap in my bedchamber when I heard a sharp voice coming from the garden’s entrance.
“How dare you deny my entrance? Who said it was the Emperor’s order? I would like to take a walk in the garden.”
I leaned on my elbow, my drowsiness gone.
Finally, she had come. The Empress. She must have heard the eunuchs or the guards gossip about a mysterious guest in the garden, or she simply suspected something from Pheasant’s behavior. Nothing escaped her eyes.
Apricot raced into my chamber, fear mapping her face. “My lady…”
I nodded slowly. “I will go.” I turned to the side and rolled out of bed. I was seven months into my pregnancy. Simple movements like rising and getting out of bed had become rare challenges.
I covered myself with a rabbit fur coat Pheasant had given me. The Regent’s voice rang in my ears. A scandal… He had exiled me on that account, and what would the Empress say when she saw me? She would whip me with a tongue of thorns, I was sure, but I had to face her. She would find me anyway.
I stepped into the yard outside my chamber. It had snowed last night. The air was chilly, and a thin veil of snow spread on the flower beds. Gingerly, I crossed the ice-covered trail near the pavilion. Pheasant had told me many times not to walk there, worried that I would slip.
Hope followed me, growling as if he sensed danger. I passed the stone lamps and a cinnamon tree with snow-powdered branches, heading toward the moon-shaped entrance. There, the two guards posted outside my garden scratched their heads. Standing near them were the Empress and a group of maids, craning their necks.
I stopped, growing nervous. If only I could turn around and hide in my chamber.
“Where is the Emperor?” Empress Wang pushed the guards aside and strode into the garden, her large feet crunching over the pebbles. She was wearing the ceremonial phoenix crown, even though it was a casual day. “Is he here? I would like to see what he has been doing here every night. Announce my arrival. He shall be glad to see me—” She stopped dead when she saw me.
Blood rushed to my head. For a moment, I did not know what to do. Trying to stay calm, I folded my sleeves over my stomach and bowed—it was difficult with my large belly, but I had to show my courtesy. “Greetings, Empress. You have just missed the Emperor. He was called to receive a group of foreign messengers this morning.”
“Who are you?” She w
as thinking, or perhaps remembering. “You are… I know you. You are the late Emperor’s concubine.”
I could feel the curious stares from the maids behind her, and I knew my peaceful life in the garden was officially over.
“He’s hiding you? You? All these nights, sneaking around? For you? But you were banished,” she said, stepping closer to me, her face dark with confusion. “How did you come here? Did he summon you back? Why didn’t I know this? Why didn’t he tell me?”
“Empress…” I did not know what to say.
She was as tall as Pheasant, and I could barely reach her shoulder. But with her massive phoenix crown, she looked even taller, towering like a giant. I drew back despite my will, feeling like a dwarf. But I could see clearly how she had changed. Her forehead, carved with wrinkles, looked like a newly plowed field, her candleholder-like nose jutted out on her flat face like a rocky ridge, and her closely set eyes, which had been small and gloomy, seemed round and bulging, like those of a startled fish. She was still big boned and strong built, with broad shoulders and wide hips, and there was a thick herb odor around her, a sign of her effort to conceive.
She grabbed my wrist and twisted it, forcing me to look up at her face. “You!” she shouted, and her voice changed from being confused to furious. “No wonder he would not want me. No wonder he hates me. You seduced him. You took him away from me.”
“No. It’s not like that.” I shook my head. “With your permission, Empress, I would love to explain—”
“I do not need your explanation. Seven years of marriage, he would not look at me. It’s all because of you. You!” Her grip was so strong, I thought my wrist bone would shatter, and my back hurt from being forced to twist my shoulders. “You should not be here. You do not belong here.”
My fur coat slipped to the ground. “Let me go—”
“Let you go? Do you know who you are? You are his father’s concubine. You seduced my husband when his father was still alive, and now you are back to seduce him again. I will not allow it!”
She tightened her grip on me, and a pain shot from my wrist. “You don’t understand—”
“You seduced him! What is there to understand? You seduce my husband, and now you are hiding in my house.” Her voice rose higher, piercing my ears. I could not bear it.
A growl came from beside me, and Hope lunged toward the Empress. She shrieked, stepping back, and the pressure on my wrist disappeared. I panted in relief. Hope bared his teeth, ready to attack again.
“Stay still.” I bent over, pulling him back clumsily. I was still hurting from her grip, and it took me a while to make Hope sit. When I faced the Empress again, she was staring at my stomach.
Instinctively, I put my hands on my belly, worried she would strike again.
But she did not move, her mouth open, her eyes frozen. Then she turned around and staggered through the moon-shaped entrance, her maids following.
Apricot laid the coat over my shoulders and tied the strings under my chin, but I was still cold. And I was deeply concerned. I had surprised the Empress with my presence and wounded her, no doubt, with my swelling stomach, but I had not intended for it to be this way. I did not wish to threaten her, mock her, or take Pheasant away from her. But she certainly would not believe me, and she would not let me rest in peace.
Suddenly, I felt sad.
I no longer desired the crown. That kind of power was a distant dream to me. I wished only for a corner of peace, a pocket of happiness, with Pheasant and my child, in this palace. Nothing more.
But I did not think it was possible now.
6
“I will stay here tomorrow.” Pheasant stood beside his horse, holding a polo mallet. Usually, he was eager to mount his horse and play polo. Not today. The guards had told him of the Empress’s visit, and he had rushed to her quarters and ordered her to leave me alone. He was still angry, frowning, swinging his mallet.
“I don’t know.” I picked up a polo ball from a bench beside me. Pheasant was worried about me, but there was nothing he could do. “You can’t stay here with me every day.”
“She will not leave you alone,” Pheasant said. “She will come back and give you a difficult time.”
Hope sniffed at the ball in my hand, excited. I tossed it away, and he chased it, yelping. “I have Hope, and he will protect me,” I said. “But I think the Empress has changed a great deal.” Her appearance, of course, but also her demeanor, changing so swiftly. Had she been like that three years ago? I could not be sure.
“Has she?” Pheasant shrugged.
“Have you summoned her on full-moon nights these past years?” Pheasant was supposed to follow the same bedding schedule as Emperor Taizong had. Since my return to the palace, however, Pheasant had stopped summoning many ladies. He still had to see the Empress, so she would not grow suspicious that he was hiding me.
“I think so. I do not remember.” Pheasant shrugged. “I drank a lot those nights. But now that she knows you’re here, I do not need to summon her anymore.”
“She will not like that.” Hope returned with the ball in his mouth and placed it near Pheasant’s feet. Raising his head toward me, he wagged his tail. I smiled, scratching his head. I was proud of him.
“Well, she’s barren. Everyone says so. There is nothing I can do.”
“But—”
Pheasant positioned himself in front of the ball. “Sweet face, you know Empress Wang and I have nothing in common. When I married her seven years ago, it was only to obey Father. My mother would not have liked her, to tell you the truth. But Lady Wang was already very difficult to talk to. I avoided her whenever I could… She is not the type of girl I like… She is different… She is a cold, cold woman.” He struck the ball. “And cruel.”
I watched the ball flying through the air. Hope, yelping in excitement, chased it again. “Cruel? Did anything happen between you and the Empress while I was exiled? What did she do?”
“She did many awful things.”
“Such as?”
“Two years ago, when Rain was in labor, she refused to summon a midwife for her. That’s why she died.”
Pheasant was talking about the other child Rain had conceived, I realized, but I had not known the Empress had played a role in Rain’s death. Of course Pheasant would not forgive her for that. “What else did the Empress do?”
“Was that not enough? Only a cruel woman would sit outside a chamber, listening to a woman in labor groaning for two nights. Yes, that was precisely what she did. She sat and did nothing. She did not allow a midwife or a servant to help Rain, and she let her suffer. When a eunuch tried to inform me, she threatened to beat him.” Pheasant knocked his mallet on the ground. “Rain could have had another child, but instead, she bled to death, and the child died with her.”
A chill ran through me, and I put my hand on my stomach. I could not bear it if anything happened to my child.
“I do not wish to have a wife like her.”
“I know, but—”
“She is also unkind to the other ladies. Each time I summoned a lady, she would torment her.” He straightened. “I will not allow her to torment you, Mei. I will add more guards.”
I looked at the entrance to the garden. The guards were nowhere to be seen, but I knew even if Pheasant put an army there, it would not help. To them, I was only an exiled concubine who had seduced the Emperor. None of them would offer their loyalty to me, and none of them would protect me against the Empress. I thought of Sun Tzu and The Art of War, the book I had studied so dutifully as a child. I wished the master had good advice for me. But I had forgotten most lines, and I did not have a copy of the book.
“Or I could move you to a different location, if you like.”
I sighed. That would not help either. The whole court must have heard of me hiding in the garden by now—the Empress would certainly make su
re of that—and no matter where Pheasant kept me, they would find me. “I will not hide from her, if that is what you are suggesting.”
He looked around. “You are right. You are not hiding anymore. Next week, on the first day of the first moon, we will have a feast in your name, and you will meet all the women in the palace. Officially.”
I was alarmed. “Officially?”
He nodded. “I have made up my mind. I will have you sit by my side. I shall declare you are mine and let all the gossip cease once and for all.”
His words brought me memories of the time when I had competed for the honor of sitting beside his father against the conniving Jewel, who had risen to prominence only to die in disgrace. It would bring me so much joy if I sat next to Pheasant, for it to be known I was his and his alone, but the thought also troubled me.
I turned around to look for Hope, who was still searching for the ball in the woods behind the pond. “I don’t know. I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
I was not strong enough—I had no ally or protection, save for Pheasant, and once the Regent heard of my return, Pheasant would face pressure from all sides. The Regent was too powerful, with those high-ranking ministers serving him.
“I thought you said you did not wish to hide from her.”
“I do not.” I turned my head away so he would not see how worried I was. What would the Regent do to me when he discovered I had returned? “I just don’t think this is the time.”
“But—”
“No feast in my name,” I said firmly. “And don’t look at me like that.”
Pheasant took a deep breath, put down his mallet, and came closer to stroke my stomach. “He’s my son.”
He always said that, although I hoped for a girl. “You don’t know that.”
“But you know you must be part of the palace, don’t you?”
A movement fluttered inside my stomach, as though the infant was responding to Pheasant’s question. I covered his hand with mine. It was true. I was happy living in this garden, but my child, be it a boy or a girl, could not stay hidden forever. What would I do to protect him when the Empress tried to hurt him?
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