I tucked the scarf behind my ear, staring at her in shock. She had disarmed the guards with her long, indigo sleeves. She had saved me.
“Leave, Empress Wang,” the girl said. She was even shorter than me and looked like a child in front of the tall Empress, but she stood straight and confident, as though she had done this many times before.
“How dare you come here?” the Empress said, her face hard like a stone.
The girl swept her sleeves behind her and raised her chin. “You do not ask me questions, Empress Wang. Now, leave. I do not like to repeat myself.”
Slowly, the Empress moved aside. “I shall not forget this.”
“I am counting on it,” the girl said. Her voice was steady, and she stared at the Empress contemptuously, as if she was accustomed to having her words obeyed.
The Empress turned around and hurried out of the garden without a word. The Four Ladies glanced at me and turned to follow her, and the guards picked up their weapons and scurried away as well.
Apricot helped me stand. “Are you all right, my lady?” She brushed dirt off my shoulders.
She had been crying, and her hands were cold. Poor child. She was so young, not yet fifteen, and she must have been so frightened, seeing me beaten and yet unable to help. “I am fine,” I said. “I am sorry the Empress has frightened you.”
“No… My lady… I…” Apricot bit her lip. “I…I should have helped you. Please don’t…punish me, my lady.”
I shook my head. “Of course I won’t punish you, Apricot. I’m just happy you are not hurt. They would have beaten you too if you tried to help.” Apricot dabbed her eyes, looking relieved, and I turned to the girl in indigo. “You saved me. Now I owe you.”
She was young, perhaps seventeen or eighteen, thin like a leaf, her shoulders small and her chest flat. With her long sleeves draping to the ground, she looked like a dancing sprite from the famous mural Flying to Heaven. Her hair, long and unadorned, was braided simply and fell in front of her chest, unlike the ladies in the Inner Court, who piled their hair high on their heads. She exuded a type of simple and soothing appeal that could never be found on the palace women, who were accustomed to powder and rouge.
“No. You owe Pheasant.”
I stared at her. “You are Princess Gaoyang?”
Now I understood what Pheasant had said. She had learned skills from a monk…of course. There were many monks who practiced martial arts to strengthen their bodies.
“That’s me,” she said, grinning, showing two deep dimples, her eyes black like a pair of large onyx.
“I thought Pheasant said you were coming next week.”
She raised her chin. “Do you think Pheasant can tell me what to do?”
There was a certain impish willfulness about her, but I liked it. I had never met a girl like her. “Of course not. That would be most outrageous.”
She laughed, not bothering to cover her mouth, and her voice was clear and joyous, like a bell tinkling under a cloudless sky. “When Pheasant told me about you, I did not believe him, but now I can see he was right after all.”
“About what?”
She did not answer. Instead, she twirled around and flew toward the pavilion. When she reached it, she climbed onto the roof in the blink of an eye. “I’ll be watching over you. From here.”
“All right.” I nodded, holding on to a stone bench to steady myself. No wonder Pheasant had said people in the palace were annoyed by her. No one liked to have a princess perched on their roofs, listening to their secret talks at night. But she was here to protect me, and I was glad.
Hope whimpered, and I went to him. “Come on, boy, good boy. Let me look at you.” I picked up his paw. He lay there limply, and he was bleeding. Poor Hope.
“I will ask the physicians for some treatments, my lady,” Apricot said. She was biting her lip again, but her face looked calmer, and her eyes were filled with concern.
“Yes. Do it, Apricot. Do it now.”
I stroked Hope, soothing him while Apricot went to the physicians. When Hope quieted, I straightened. Something tugged the inside of my stomach, and a pain spread. I breathed hard, feeling dizzy. I hoped the beating had not harmed my baby. I hoped Pheasant would return soon.
The wind blew the end of the scarf across my face, covering my eyes. For a moment, everything in the garden—the trees with bare branches, the frost-covered pavilion, the black pond, even the stone lanterns—was shrouded in red.
AD 652
The Third Year of Emperor Gaozong’s Reign of Eternal Glory
LATE WINTER
8
Four days later, a message came from Pheasant. Everything was going well. He had met the General, who appeared to be as strong as before, and now they were planning a surprise attack on the Tibetans. Very soon, he said, he should return to the palace victorious.
I tucked the message into my girdle. I hoped he would return as soon as possible, for I did not feel well these days, and the Empress had sent her word again, asking me to give Pheasant back to her. When I sighed and waved off her servant, she continued to harass me.
Every morning, I spotted furtive heads poking out above the garden wall and figures flitting across the entrance, since the gates still lay where they had fallen. They watched me as I meditated in the corridor, and near dusk, when I went out for a stroll in the garden, those heads would withdraw, and I would hear the footfalls of the Empress’s spies, running around to report my activities.
Hope continued to guard me, warning me of intruders by barking fiercely, as he was too injured to run after them. My new protector, Princess Gaoyang, gave me a better sense of security. She collected pebbles and threw them from the top of the pavilion when she spotted anyone lurking. Each time a pebble flew over the wall, a sharp cry would follow. Her aim was impeccable, but still, at this rate, our garden would soon need a replenishment of rocks.
“I owe you my life and my child’s,” I said to the princess that morning after I received Pheasant’s message. “How can I repay you, gongzhu?” Princess. I addressed her formally.
“Don’t call me that.” She lay on the pavilion’s rooftop, her legs crossed, her hands beneath her head, and her long sleeves draping down over the roof.
“Well, how else would you like me to address you?”
“Call me Gaoyang.”
Only the Emperor and the princess’s mother had the right to address her by her given name. I was surprised she honored me so. “I shall be happy to oblige, but only when we are alone.” I paused. “It’s a good name.”
The High Sun. It fitted her, as she did seem to possess the quality of the sun at noon, brilliant and fierce. And, like her name, she was unique. She never sat still like the palace ladies; instead, she leaped and flew among the trees. She also had a penchant for the outdoor life, refusing to enter my chamber, even though the weather had grown cold. She dined only on bland grains and drank water, claiming she was already breaching the code of a true swordsman, who drank only the wind and fed on the sun.
She fascinated me, and I learned more about her. Her mother had been one of Emperor Taizong’s third-degree Ladies-in-Waiting, whom I had remembered as a quiet lady of pale complexion. The lady was said to be a devout Buddhist who spent much time in a temple near the Altar House. Like the kind Noble Lady who had befriended me, Gaoyang’s mother had died on the terrible night Taizi and Prince Yo revolted seven years before.
The princess was a peculiar child, whose acrobatic skill became known when she was very young. No one paid attention to her, being a child of a third-degree Lady-in-Waiting, and one day when she flipped off a roof to appear before Emperor Taizong, the Emperor almost fainted in fright. Angry, he sent her to live with a monk named Biji as punishment for her insolence. The monk Biji first taught her the movements of taiji, which she learned without difficulty, and then he taught her qigong, to both ut
ilize the smooth movement of taiji and her excessive energy. She proved to be an excellent student who could leap to unusual heights and shatter a stack of bricks with the thin blade of her hand. When she turned fourteen, during the year Pheasant was named the heir of the kingdom, the Emperor married her to Secretary Fang’s son, who was named Fang Yi’ai. They had been married for four years, and she had no children.
I liked the princess. I liked her thin, sprite-like figure, her unconventional skills, her complete disregard of etiquette and protocols, and even her imperious attitude. Only a princess could get away with that. Above all, I was glad for her protection.
• • •
It had been almost four weeks since Pheasant left the palace. One morning, I received another message from him.
“Gaoyang!” I shouted, running to the pavilion. “The General has defeated the Tibetans! They are coming home!”
The air was chilly but fresh in the garden. It had rained the night before. Some clear water drops were frozen, tucked between the tree’s branches like translucent pearls, and there were icicles hanging under the eaves of the pavilion, standing still like strips of silver.
“When?” She was doing her regular exercise, which was a rather daunting routine to me. First she scurried up the large trunk of an old pine tree, then, her feet kicking against a thick branch, she somersaulted through the air before landing on the ground.
“He did not say. Perhaps he is already on the way back to the palace,” I said, smiling. Because they had been victorious, the Regent could not object when Pheasant ordered the end of the General’s exile, and once the General returned to the palace, he would be valuable support for Pheasant.
A shower of crystals spread in the air as the princess kicked a branch. “Good. Then I can leave. I need to visit my teacher.”
“The monk?”
She vaulted over the top of the trees. “Yes.”
I turned, my gaze following her slight figure. I was disappointed. I had hoped she would stay in the garden with me. “Will you come for visits when the baby is born?”
She landed lightly on the ground. She was not even panting, and I envied her agility. Now into my eighth month of pregnancy, I felt as limber as a yellow ox.
“Now you’re asking too much,” she said, but her dimples deepened in delight.
I smiled too. “Why are you helping me, Gaoyang?”
“Why not?” she answered in her imperious manner.
“Well, I can see you are not fond of the ladies in the court.”
“Ah, but you’re different from them. Less annoying.”
I laughed. “Is that a compliment?”
“It is. But you need not worry.” She somersaulted and landed on a stone lamp on one foot, her arms stretching out like the wings of a bird. “If you really do need me, I can stay here for a few more days.” Then she folded her hands together above her head and closed her eyes.
She was meditating, while standing on a stone lamp. I was awed. “I meditate too. I learned it when I was in the monastery.”
“Do you miss your nun’s life?”
I shook my head. “I simply enjoy the silence of meditation.”
An abrupt movement wrenched through my stomach. I groaned and sat on a stone bench to ease the pain. Ever since the Empress’s men had beaten me, the infant had been quite active, and sometimes when she kicked, she gave me a sharp pain and dizzy spells that would stay with me for hours.
“You look pale. You should go inside.” Gaoyang leaped off the lamp. She did not look like she was going to meditate after all.
“I’m fine.” I wished the physicians could visit me, but the Empress had forbidden them to tend to me.
“You don’t look fine.”
“It’s nothing.” I inhaled and exhaled deeply until the spell subsided. “I’ve wanted to ask you, what happened between you and the Empress? She didn’t seem to like you.”
“Nothing, really. She simply dislikes me because Pheasant allows me to visit him freely. She says Pheasant spoils me.” Gaoyang shrugged. “She is also insane.”
“Do you mean she has an unpredictable temper?” I had asked Apricot about the Empress, and Apricot had gathered information from around the palace for me. The Empress was indeed hard to fathom, people said. Sometimes the Empress would scream, throwing things and beating her maids, frightening all those who served her—but at other times she would refuse to eat or get dressed, and with her hands around her knees, she would sit on the floor and rock back and forth, begging for people’s forgiveness and weeping in her chamber all day. “They said she changes so swiftly, it is as though she is two different women. I wonder why.”
“Isn’t that obvious?” Gaoyang pulled her foot to her head from behind her back, her body arching gracefully. She was so limber. “She’s barren. She’s desperate. People mock her behind her back, saying she is a hen that can’t lay an egg.”
“I see.” I nodded, remembering the Empress had asked me to help her conceive. She had surprised me too with her tearful look, and I wondered how she believed I could help her. “But don’t you think it’s odd that she’ll behave so dramatically?”
“That’s because there is a sick dog living inside her,” Gaoyang said, releasing her foot.
That reminded me of Hope. I had not seen him this morning. “Where is Hope?”
I looked around the garden, searching for him. He had recovered splendidly under Apricot’s care. Now he patrolled the garden for any possible intruders, and when he saw the Empress’s spies, he growled and pounced, frightening them. I was very proud when he came to me, dragging one of the Empress’s spies one day. “Gaoyang, have you seen Hope today?”
“Pheasant said to watch over you, not your dog.” Gaoyang flipped in the air and landed on the ground.
“Where is Apricot? Perhaps she has seen him.”
“She is getting us our meal.” The Empress had forbidden the eunuchs to deliver food to my garden, so Apricot had to go to the kitchen to fetch us meals. “Hope might have gone with her. Where are you going, Mei? Wait! Watch out for the ice.”
I stopped, took her hand, and crossed the ice-covered path. The surface was quite slippery, and I had to be careful where I stepped. “I’m going to find Hope. Perhaps he is on the other side of the pond.”
We searched the flower beds, around the pond, and even in the woods behind it, but we could not find him.
When Apricot returned, she did not know Hope’s whereabouts either. “I thought he was here.”
For the whole afternoon, we searched the garden. There were no traces of Hope. We searched farther down the pond, the bushes, and the corners near the bamboo grove. Princess Gaoyang even leaped onto the roof and scanned the whole garden. My dog was nowhere in sight.
I thought of how cruelly the Empress’s guards had beaten Hope, and I felt sick. She had stolen him, I was sure of it. When Apricot urged me to sit at the table, I stared at the trays that contained my favorite foods: chilled mushrooms, chunks of fried bean curd, and sweet red beans. I had no appetite, and I could not lift my hand.
“Hope is probably just lost in the woods, my lady,” Apricot said, standing beside me. “He’ll come back, right? Princess?”
Gaoyang, who had followed us inside, nodded.
I shook my head. “I do not think he is lost.”
Apricot pushed the trays closer to me. “But it’s almost supper, my lady. You haven’t eaten anything today. The baby needs food. Please try something. Would you like to have some soup?”
“Leave it here, Apricot. I will eat later.” Pain rose from my abdomen again. I closed my eyes and waited for it to pass.
“Here. Eat this.” Gaoyang placed a large soup pot with a lid in front of me. “It’s your favorite soup, isn’t it? Eat some, and then you can get some rest.”
I raised my head. “She is angry with me, Ga
oyang. She wanted to punish me, so she took Hope. She is going to chain him up, beat him, and hurt him. Oh, my poor dog—”
“We’ll get him back, you and I,” Princess Gaoyang said. Before I could say another word, she continued, “We will go to her chamber and ask for your dog.”
“She will not just hand Hope over to us.” I remembered, a long time ago, I had gone to Jewel’s chamber asking her to return some crowns she had stolen in order to blackmail me, and I had learned that you could not reason with women hungry for power.
“I shall ask kindly.”
“She will not listen.”
Gaoyang spread her long sleeves to the floor, reminding me of how she had disarmed the guards so easily. “Then I shall see what I can do.”
Her face grew sober, and my heart was filled with hope. Gaoyang would help me. If she could subdue a group of guards, certainly she could make Empress Wang return my dog.
“Let’s go now, Gaoyang.”
“First, you should eat. Apricot is right,” she said, and put a spoon in my hand. “You must take care of your baby. Once you have energy and are ready to fight, then we will go.”
I sighed. It sounded like a reasonable plan. When I felt stronger, I would go to the Empress. There would be another battle with her. But I was not alone. With Gaoyang’s help, the Empress would lose. She would have no choice but to give back my Hope.
I lifted the soup pot’s lid, and a delicious aroma filled my nose. The broth was clear, and I could see the bamboo shoots, mushrooms, wood ears, and the yellow yolks of two hardboiled eggs. I was suddenly ravenous. I dipped the spoon into the pot and scooped a spoonful of broth. It tasted delicious. I took another spoonful. Near the eggs, a chunk of meat appeared.
I paused. “Apricot.” I frowned. “I thought you knew I do not eat meat. Why did you put meat in my soup?”
“Meat? What meat?”
Gaoyang leaned over and peered at the soup. “It looks like meat to me. You don’t know your lady is a vegetarian, Apricot?”
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