“I know, I know, Princess.” Apricot’s face turned red. “But I told the cooks in the kitchen. They know our lady’s diet, and they always have special people prepare the food…”
“Did you watch them cook? Who gave you the soup?” I asked.
She swallowed. “The Empress’s maid… She gave it to me, and the Empress was there too. I thought it was odd…and I didn’t want to take it from her at first. I was worried… What if… I went to the food provosts and had them test it three times, just in case…”
The Empress would not poison me, I was sure of it, but then why would she bother to go to the kitchen, a low place where most titled ladies would refuse to be seen? I stared at the reddish chunk of meat in the pot. A shiver ran down my spine, and I dropped the spoon.
“What is it? What is it, Mei?” Gaoyang’s voice echoed in the large chamber. “Are you all right?”
“It’s… It’s…” Sourness sprang from my stomach and surged to my throat. I retched. And retched again.
How could she do this? But I could not think clearly, see, or hear, for the chamber was filled with chaotic movements and high-pitched voices. Apricot was gasping, panting, out of breath, and Gaoyang cried out furiously. I blinked, trying to say something or see better, but I could not. There was heavy, rough rumbling drumming in my ears.
The chamber spun. The two figures swayed before me. I stretched out my hand, but they were shrinking, growing fuzzy, swelling, and darting out of reach.
The hard floor struck my side, and a pang, sharper than any I had experienced before, shot through my stomach. I groaned.
“What’s wrong, what’s wrong?” Gaoyang was holding me. I could feel her but could not see her, and the pain was everywhere, inside my stomach, my legs, my chest, and my bones. It hurt so much I could not breathe, but I tried to think, tried to hold still. This could not be happening. I must stay strong. I still had one more month to go. The baby was not ready. It must stay…
But it was too late.
I felt wetness between my legs. It flowed down my thighs and clung to me. I felt cold, my limbs turned soft, and my teeth chattered.
“She’s bleeding… My heavens…”
Tripitaka’s image appeared before me, his gaze helpless and steeped with premonition. I shook my head. No, no, no. It must not be. He was wrong. He was wrong! My heart wrenching, I held my stomach, trying to make the pain stop, trying to put my baby back where she should be. But my body would not listen. My abdomen grew heavier, larger, harder, like a frozen boulder, and it was rolling, rolling, threatening to drop, threatening to erupt.
“Apricot! Get the physicians!”
“But, Princess, the Empress won’t let them come.”
“Then watch your lady! I’ll go get them!”
A torrent of power, fierce and unstoppable, pounded against my insides, and a ball of fire, merciless and brutal, raged through me. The chamber darkened before me. Fear, agony, pain pierced me and shook me to the core. I screamed.
I was broken. I was going to die. And my baby—my baby was going to die too.
• • •
Someone gripped my shoulder, a face, round and pale like a pot of ashes, loomed before me, and many voices roared, urging me to listen, to push. I did not want to. I did not like being pinned there. I did not like seeing those strange faces. I only wanted Hope. Oh, Hope. He was such a good dog…
But those arms would not let me go. They touched me, their fingers sticky like the long legs of a spider. I wanted them to go away. I could not let them touch me or my baby. What if the Empress had sent them?
Then the arms disappeared. The voices dissolved. It was all dark again, so dark I could not see a flicker of the candlelight or a speckle of the moonlight. Where was I? Where did everyone go?
I felt tired, so tired. I wanted to sleep a little. But a voice, faint and painful, echoed in my ears. I tried to listen, but it vanished. Everything was quiet again, and then I realized it was my own groan I was hearing.
The pain seized me again, tearing me apart. I cried. I begged. I could not do this. Let me die.
“…agitated…the baby…can’t save both…”
Who was saying that? I could not see. Too dark. And blurry.
“Pheasant… You decide… This is going on for too long… She is in so much pain…” Gaoyang’s voice.
So he had returned. I was glad. I wanted to hold his hand. I wanted him to hold me.
“I lost her once…”
“But the baby—”
“Save her!”
Oh, he was angry. Pheasant. Do not be angry. It’s only pain. It’s nothing…
His face appeared before me, his eyes glittering like twin stars in the distance, bright and persistent. I wanted to touch him. There once had been a time, when I stared at those stars, I would see the reflections of the moon beside them. I would imagine the luminescent palace. I would dream. I would smile. I would forget the past and the future. I would long for hope and wish for more… Oh, these stars, these sparks, luring me, so close to the moon…
“Sweet face. Listen. Be strong. You will make it. You hear me? I’m here.”
He was here. He had come back for me. His sweet voice was calling me. But he was wrong, and I did not think I could make it. It was impossible. The pain was impossible. I could not even hold back my tears…
“Listen, Mei. Hope… He would always protect you… You will beat her. We will beat her.” Pheasant’s voice.
I did not believe it. The Empress would crush me. She would. Had she not killed my Hope?
“Hold my hand, sweet face.” His hand was large, dry, and warm. Covering me, like a fur cape. “For our son’s sake…”
Our son…
Pheasant was right. It had to be. I did not need a submissive girl with a lowered head. I could not live quietly in the corner of the palace anymore. I needed strength, the strength of a son who would help me stand before my enemy. I would raise my voice to the Empress. I would stop her. I would fight her.
The pain returned again, surging through me. I screamed louder, my head bursting, and every part of my body seemed to scream with me. Yet it was different this time. I could see the darkness fleeing and the brightness of the light, emitting from a round pearl, shining a few steps away.
Relief came unexpectedly, and I lay back, spent. Many voices gasped and murmured around me. They did not say if my child was a boy or a girl, but I knew.
“You did it.” Pheasant’s smiling face appeared beside me. Oh, how beautiful he was. “Look.”
He handed a bundle to me. The baby was a crinkled little thing with a head shaped like a gourd, his face a ghoulish shade of purple. His hands curled near his chest, and he had swollen eyelids and a flat nose, his mouth pinched tightly as though he were tortured and unhappy with this world. He felt almost boneless, too soft and too slippery.
But he was crying, his chest heaving, his lips flattening. And that cry was the most beautiful music I had ever heard.
I pressed my face to his and wrapped my arms around him. I listened to his urgent breathing, I felt his heart next to mine, and I wept in joy. “My son.”
• • •
I stayed in bed for days, my son in my arms. He was small, soft, and delicate. When he cried, his voice was faint, his breathing shallow. But for an infant who had come nearly six weeks early, he appeared to be healthy.
He spent a great deal of time sleeping. When he was awake, he gazed at the ceiling with the look of an old poet, contemplative and placid. A whole world seemed to be locked behind his eyes, and he was reluctant to share any inspirations with me. Sometimes he stared at me with a knowing look, as though he understood what I had gone through, but other times, it seemed he was not sure whether he liked me or his new home.
My son was a treasure to me, and I did not let him out of my sight. I slept when he
slept, and I nursed him when he awoke. I watched him as he hugged himself tight inside a blanket, frowning and squinting. He made slow gestures, turning his head, raising his fists, like a careful dancer practicing every move. I took his curled fingers and kissed each of them. I breathed in his milky scent, I smoothed his wisps of hair, and I cradled him close. I knew I would give my life for this little infant.
Two physicians, under Pheasant’s order, tended to me. They told me to bind my head with a thick cloth and warm my feet with fur slippers. They told me to drink hot water steeped with ginger and sugar. Bathing was forbidden. “Your body has not recovered from labor. Water will invade your organs and make you weak,” they said. Walking was not allowed either. “Movement steals strength. Without strength, your inner qi debilitates.” Going near the chamber’s door, where the fresh wind blew, was also discouraged. “The wind is most detrimental to your weak body. It invades your brain and causes headaches that will haunt you for the rest of your life.”
They also told me to feed on stews made of river fish and eat bean curd fried with the fat of a wild boar to increase my milk production. This was not the diet I was accustomed to, but I did not argue. This was not my war. My battle lay somewhere else.
I wrote to Mother and told her she was now a grandmother, and I was well. She replied with a letter overflowing with joy and delight. She was eager to meet her new grandson, and I hoped she would have her wish soon.
Perhaps very soon, for the General, who had defeated the Tibetans and saved the border towns, was finally allowed to return to the court. On the day of his arrival, he received a warm welcome, where ministers greeted him on the streets and the commoners of the city shouted in gratitude. Pheasant proposed restoring the General to his old position, minister of war, and allowing him to resume his duty of commanding all ninety-nine legions of the Gold Bird Guards. The Regent initially resisted but had to give in due to strong approval from the other ministers.
So to my delight, the General assumed his position in the court and devoted himself to Pheasant. Everywhere Pheasant went, the General went with him, and upon Pheasant’s suggestion, the General sent ten of his men to guard my garden.
I was no longer alone in the Inner Court, no longer a pitiful exiled concubine who feared being banished again. Because of my son’s birth, everyone knew that I, the mother of an imperial son, was to stay in the palace. And I was also officially named Most Adored, and Pheasant showered warm fur coats, precious jewelry, and his love on me.
Gaoyang found poor Hope’s coat behind the kitchen, and we buried it in an empty lot near a bamboo grove in my garden. In tears, I stood beside my pet’s grave, remembering how he had comforted me during my exile. I would never forgive what the Empress had done to him, and every day without hearing his bark, every glimpse of the empty corner where he used to sleep, would remind me of the danger that lurked around me.
Near Hope’s grave ran a brook. I instructed my guards to build a bridge over it. I named it Hope’s Bridge, for it was my hope that the bridge would cross over the realm of fire and thunder and take me to the land of safety and joy, where I would have no fear.
I would never forget Hope, for his companionship, for his protection, and for what his death had helped me understand.
I would overcome.
I would multiply.
I would thrive.
AD 653
The Fourth Year of Emperor Gaozong’s Reign of Eternal Glory
SPRING
9
The Empress claimed her innocence when Pheasant asked her if she had killed Hope. “People eat dogs. There is no need to fuss about it,” she said. “I wished only to cook the soup to strengthen her body.” But when Pheasant reminded her of my vegetarian diet, she twisted her head away in resentment.
And she cursed my child, unleashing harsh words that would make any new mother cringe in fear. “He will not live more than a month!” “He will die in his sleep.” “He will fall sick with a fever.”
I clenched my hands in anger. I swore I would do anything I could to protect my son if she dared lay a finger on him.
• • •
“Come, I have a gift for you.” Pheasant beckoned at me as I entered the feasting hall.
Several days before, my son had passed the thirty-day mark, an important milestone in his young life. Pheasant had ordered a feast to celebrate. All the high-ranking Ladies were invited, including the animal-killing Empress, but they had not arrived yet.
“What gift?” I asked. The hall was crowded with servants, maids, and concubines. In the corner, the musicians began to play their flutes, zithers, and pipas.
They were playing a familiar song—“The High Mountains and the Trickling Streams.” I remembered listening to the same song when Emperor Taizong held a feast many years ago. In fact, everything here seemed familiar. It was the same hall, with the same gold-gilded tables, the red-lacquered stools, the ruby-encrusted aloes-wood screen with black-and-white landscape paintings. For a moment, I thought I would see my friends waiting for me. But they were all gone, like last year’s cherry blossoms, once bright and alluring, the shining attractions of the spring, now withered and lost in dust.
“It’s a surprise.” Pheasant raised his goblet to me.
“Better be a good one,” I said, sitting on a stool next to him. I did not have the heart to tell him I did not care for gifts. The only thing I thought of these days was my son and how I could keep him safe. I turned to make sure Apricot, who was holding him, was behind me. Only a month old, my boy did not have a formal name yet—he would receive that on his first-year birthday.
“You will not be disappointed, sweet face. I will give it to you once all the ladies arrive,” he said, and touched my face with his hand. “You look like the goddess of the Luo River.”
I smiled. He certainly knew what to say to make me happy. I had put on a new gown he had given me, a scarlet robe decorated with pictures of pagodas and waves. It complemented my supple bosom and had a broad girdle tied around my waist. I had paired it with a long fur shawl and a blue skirt. I had even put on white face cream and rouge.
But I could not do anything about my hair. It was still short, and I had no choice but to keep it wrapped with a long scarf.
“And you, Your Majesty, have never looked this splendid,” I said. Indeed, Pheasant was happier since he had won the General’s support. He had attended the audiences, listened to some petitions, and made some decisions that came into effect. I hoped Pheasant would build his influence, rise above the Regent, and become the true emperor he deserved.
“I feel good. Everything will be good!” he said, his handsome face alight with happiness. “But you are still recovering. If you’re tired, we can end this feast quickly.”
I was touched by his thoughtfulness, for I was still bleeding and felt fatigued easily. But I jested, “Why, so you can go behind my back and play the famous Firefly Game?”
He had played the game with the concubines during my exile, but it was nothing like what the rumor said. It did not involve any naked girls, only the fireflies, which he had collected in a round gauze container. But most people did not know the truth and believed the game was a dirty pleasure sport.
Pheasant laughed. “Should I take this as encouragement to do so?”
I pretended to strike him. He always did have a knack for making me smile.
“You started it,” he said, serious now. “Here, have some wine.”
I took a sip. The wine tasted sweet, with a thick flavor of plum and honey. “When will the ladies arrive?”
“They should be here soon.”
The servants near the gate bowed as four ladies walked in—all the ladies I had seen in the garden when the Empress came to beat me. “The Noble Lady, Lady Virtue, Lady Obedience, and the Pure Lady,” the announcer shouted.
They were Pheasant’s Four Ladies of the se
cond degree, different from those who had served Emperor Taizong but bearing the same titles.
When they came closer to me, I could not believe how young they were. They must have been eighteen or nineteen, with bright eyes, luminous skin, and slim waists.
I felt old. I was twenty-seven.
I rose to greet them. Even though I was now Most Adored, I was still a concubine without a rank, and I needed to be courteous so I would have them as my friends.
The Pure Lady, dressed in a white gown embroidered with purple plum flowers, came ahead of the three ladies, so I bowed to her first. “I am so honored to meet you, Pure Lady.”
“The honor is mine, Most Adored.” Her eyes flashing intelligently, she folded her arms across her abdomen and bowed as well. She looked calm, and her manners were reserved.
I wished to know her better, for I remembered what Apricot had told me. The Pure Lady was popular in the palace because she was the only high-ranking Lady with a son, whose name was Sujie, who would surely become the heir in the future since the Empress was barren. Apricot also said the Pure Lady had a rare talent in mathematics. She was skillful with the abacus, and she could calculate numbers faster than a court recorder serving in the imperial treasury. Because of her extraordinary ability—most ladies in the palace could barely read—the Pure Lady was given the task of examining the records produced by the Imperial Silkworm Workshops, which were overseen by the Empress. But the Empress was jealous of the Pure Lady and did not get along with her.
The Pure Lady sat down, and I turned to the other three ladies. At first I could not tell them apart. They were about the same height, wearing the same peach-colored gowns, the same conch hairstyle, and painted near their mouths was the same beauty mark: a red rose. Lady Virtue was the lady on the right, with puffy eyes; the Noble Lady, in the middle, was very attractive, with an oval face and a small nose; and Lady Obedience, on the left, had a habit of covering her mouth, perhaps too cautious with etiquette or self-conscious about her teeth. I gave the Noble Lady an extra stare, remembering my friend the late Noble Lady. The two women shared the same title, but they were so different.
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