My daughter…my daughter… She was part of me, the hope of me, the future of me, and she had been smothered. I would never see her again. I would never have the pleasure of feeling her fingers gripping mine, her hand touching my chest, or her legs kicking in my arms again. She had been mine, but now she was gone. What should I do?
“Don’t cry, my dear, don’t cry,” a voice whispered to me. A familiar voice, coming through the flying flakes. “You must be calm.”
Gaoyang? I seized her hand. Is that you? Oh, thank heavens you are here. Help me, Gaoyang. Help me. Yes. I will be calm. Yes. I will not cry. But tell me, my friend, and help me, please, my princess. I do not know what to do.
She did not reply but, with a tender touch, dabbed at my eyes, where finally all my tears came free.
“Let’s go inside, Luminous Lady. Dawn is coming.”
• • •
Pale light shone in the distance. What was it? Dawn, already? No. It was a lantern, glimmering in the shower of snow, and with it followed a group of figures trailing behind like strips of black cloth. The murderer! I lurched forward.
The General stopped before me. Two piles of snow sat on his shoulders like two conspiring white cats, and the lantern swayed near his knee. Behind him stood a few guards. No Empress.
“Speak,” Pheasant ordered. “Where is she? Why didn’t you bring her?”
“Your Majesty,” the General said. “We searched everywhere: the stable, the groves, every corner of her house. We cannot find the Empress.”
How could he not find her? How could fifty men fail to find one woman?
The General was lying. He was protecting her! I pointed at him, but again I could not hear my voice.
“What do you mean?” Pheasant asked.
The General glanced at me. The wind swept his cape around, and he looked as though he were soaring like a vulture. “She has fled,” he answered. “Her maids said she has left the palace.”
I shrieked, pounding the snow-covered ground. Was there justice in the world? Why did Heaven let her get away?
The next day, Pheasant ordered the guards to search every hall, every pavilion, every corner of the palace. They could not find her. The search expanded to the Empress’s maternal house and that of her uncle’s. Two thousand Gold Bird Guards swept through the courtyards and scanned every beam, every bed, every well.
They could not find her.
AD 654
The Fifth Year of Emperor Gaozong’s Reign of Eternal Glory
WINTER
29
It was time.
Bells tinkled, brass clappers clinked, and the monks near the grave began to chant. I swept my hand across from the coffin’s lacquered wood. A glossy trail appeared behind my hand, but as soon as my hand left the wood, a thin layer of snow clouded the surface. I wiped it off again, more carefully, and then on a second thought, I took off the cape I was wearing and covered the box. It would not keep her warm, but at least she would not be bothered by the snow.
Someone put a hand on my elbow as I straightened, and unsteadily, I stood, watching the eunuchs carrying the box containing my child’s body to the mound where Hope was buried. Next to it, a new hole had been dug. My Oriole would rest there. She was too young, her soul having yet to be formed, they told me, so she could not share the Li family’s ancestral tomb. She would be alone in the place, separated from her ancestors. But she would not be lonely. Hope would keep her company. At least I could take comfort in that.
No earthen chamber was built to house her young body, and no name was chiseled on the tombstone either. Because, again, she was too young, without a name and without a soul. So, quietly, without a trace, like the wind, my child would leave this world.
The three Ladies in white silk gowns came to my side. Snowflakes were piling on their elaborate Cloudy Chignons like cobwebs, and their faces were masks of anguish. Behind them stood my maids, servants, and the Ladies’ maids.
“I am so sorry, Luminous Lady. So sorry,” the Noble Lady murmured, her head shaking in sadness. Lady Obedience was dabbing at her eyes, and Lady Virtue covered her mouth, her eyes red.
The snow was numbing my lips and my face, and my neck was stiff. I could not nod or speak. I understood their grief and their genuineness, but they could not understand me. For them, grief was like a sting by a mosquito. They felt the bite and the lingering itch inflicted on their skin, they scratched it and moaned, but when the redness of the bite subsided, when the sting eased, and when the bump disappeared, they would forget the ache, forget the pain. They would not remember anything.
For me, it was different. For me, grief was a sickness that was never expected to heal. It sat inside me like an unwanted beast, taking root, making a home, and each time when I saw my own Hong, other girls, other children, it would whisper in my ear, it would remind me of my Oriole, and as the sun rose and the moon appeared, it would awaken, it would bloom, it would swell, and I would grow sicker and sicker.
Should I envy the ladies? If you never gave birth to a child, you would never suffer the pain of losing one.
The eunuchs, trudging slowly through the snow, were near the hole now. The monks stepped aside to let them pass. I glimpsed Pheasant standing near the monks, and the General behind him. Only the General, no one else.
The coffin stopped before Pheasant. He dropped his head, and his hand shaded his eyes as though he could not stand watching the coffin. What was he thinking? Blaming himself? He should. It was his fault. If it had not been for his thoughtless actions, our daughter would have lived. She would not have been harmed. He was responsible, even though he was not the one to smother Oriole.
Pheasant had come to my chamber every night, telling me the progress—or rather, the ineffectiveness—of the search for the Empress. I could not bear seeing him. I could not bear listening to his voice. I could not even bear him breathing next to me. I turned my back on him, rolling to the other side of the bed, gritting my teeth. I did not say anything, but I wanted him to get out. Out!
And now, seeing him standing so close to the grave where my child would lie, I could feel the anger I had bottled inside racing to my throat. Why was he there? Why was he not searching for the murderer? Did he even care for Oriole? Did he even love her?
I lurched forward to tell him to leave, but the sky dimmed and the snow darkened before me. Someone held me again, asking me if I was all right. I pushed her away and fixed my gaze on Pheasant. He put his head in his hands, crouching, his shoulders quivering. He was weeping.
I took a step back. I did not believe it. I did not believe his pain or his tears. He had not cared about Oriole the same way I did. I knew why she cried, when she would cry, or what she wanted from the way she cried, the tone of her cry, the pitch of her cry. I had felt her, as though the cord that linked her with me had never been severed, as though she were a kite and I the holder of the string that tied her. I felt every dip and every rise of her emotion, while Pheasant was only an onlooker. How could he feel the loss of the kite the same way I did?
Hong was crying, clear mucus flowing down his lips, his little nose pink in the snow. I took him from Apricot’s arms, wiped his face with my sleeve, and hooked him onto my hip, the comfortable position he liked. I had a hard time keeping my balance, but I had to calm him. For he needed me. Only me. Not Pheasant. Not Apricot. So I swung him. Left and right. Left and right.
The eunuchs standing near the grave straightened and stepped aside, and then before me was nothing but flurries of snow. My Oriole was gone. My heart wrenched. I cried out and fell. Many hands reached for me and Hong, but I held him tight and stood up again.
Music rose into the air, followed by a wave of chanting, and the monks started to circle around the hole. With all the strength I could muster, I went to them and followed them, Hong in my arms, one step at a time, one round at a time.
I remembered a similar
moment that had happened many years before, when another coffin slid into an earthen chamber before my eyes. I was twelve then, and now I was twenty-eight. I had buried my father, my beloved pet, my best friend, and now my daughter.
How had this happened? How had I come to lose them all? Had I sinned? Why must I endure all these losses?
But my daughter. She was innocent. She should have lived; she should not have perished for my sin. How could I tell my mother what had happened? I had notified her of Oriole’s birth, and Mother was planning on visiting me.
“My child, I am sorry for your loss,” a monk in a black stole said beside me.
I raised my head. I would never forget his voice, the deep voice with a warm echo, the sound of a bell calling the arrival of dawn. It still sounded the same, although it gave me a different feeling, and somehow it was damp like snow.
Tripitaka.
“You…” I stumbled, and Hong complained. Apricot hurried over and took him from my arms. “What are you doing here?”
Then I realized he had come to conduct the burial service for my child. I should have been honored, I supposed, for a monk of his stature to see my child off. But… Oh, that gaze. The same gaze that had haunted me when I was five years old. I could not stand it.
I lurched forward and stumbled again. Someone tried to hold me, but I pushed her away. Trying to stand straight, I swept the snow off my face and hair. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
He knew. He had known from the very beginning, and that was why he had spoken about the fire of grief when I had met him in the pagoda.
Tripitaka’s back was straight as an oak, and his eyes were bright and sober. “My child”—his voice melting into the freezing air—“it’s your destiny, can’t you see it?”
“You mean this? This is my destiny?”
And now he looked sad, and his eyes were swelling with the light of compassion. But I did not need compassion.
“This and more.”
I balled my fists, rage rising from my chest. “I do not care about my destiny, Tripitaka. You should know that by now. I do not want anything to do with your prophecy. You should never have said that to my father.”
Had he kept the prophecy to himself, I never would have come to the palace. I never would have lost my father. I never would have lost my child.
“Heaven chooses its own stars and moons. I am only the eye,” he said.
I turned away. “Go, Tripitaka, get out of here. I do not wish to see you again.”
“I shall be glad to obey, Luminous Lady.” He sighed. “But I will tell you this before I leave. The fire of grief shall set ablaze a thousand trees, but only virtue will bear the fruit of your trees.”
The same line again. I knew what he meant now, and I hated it even more. “What virtue? Who cares about virtue?”
The snow was drifting like fog, separating him from me, but his voice came, unbidden. “Forgiveness, my child.”
I laughed. I laughed so hard tears burst from my eyes. Forgive? Forgive the woman who smothered my child? What was he talking about? What kind of mother did he think I was? “You are crazy, Tripitaka. You have seen the edge of the world, but you have yet to explore the inside of a human, of a mother! You don’t understand. You will never understand. You are not a mother, Tripitaka.”
He could not understand what it was like when you made a life inside you. He could not understand that when you held a child, her face became the sun, the moon of your whole sky. He could not understand how the touch of my child, her hands, her feet, and her skin, became my joy, my need, and my obsession.
She was my light, and I was her incense. I existed so she could shine. I burned for her, but my enemy had blown out my light and turned my heart into ashes, and he wished me to forgive her?
“I shall never claim to understand a mother’s pain, Luminous Lady. Your grief is your mountain to climb, and I only offer you a path.”
I tasted bitterness. “Tell this to someone else. Someone who believes in you, Tripitaka.”
For I would believe what I wanted to believe, not what I was told to believe. Not now. Not ever. And I would seek my own path, my own destiny, no matter how many trees would burn along the way.
Tripitaka did not speak for a moment. “And yet, Luminous Lady, soon you shall understand. The light of kindness, of compassion, is dim, like the light coming from a candle’s small wick, but when it is kindled, it will illuminate the whole hall. And virtue, like the prick of light, needs only a spark of flame. Once it is lit, the flame shall light up the path that benefits many—the weak, the sick, and the poor—and that, my child, is the path for peace, the path for all.”
His words sounded smooth, like a stream flowing over rocks. They flew across from me, approaching me, surrounding me, attempting to touch me and feel me. I could bend down, lean over, and scoop up the drops of wisdom, then let them lap against my face and wash my skin, but I could not do it. I refused to do it.
“No.” I shook my head. “There is only one path.”
I would not forgive. I would avenge. I would thrust the spear of grief into the Empress’s heart, just as she had done to me.
Tripitaka folded his hands together and lowered his head. When he looked up again, the light in his eyes had vanished, and his taut, tan skin slackened. He looked as though he had aged in a swift moment.
I walked away.
30
When I returned to my bedchamber, I ordered a bath to be drawn. Leaning against the wooden tub, I let Apricot and Chunlu bathe me. They massaged me gently, their hands soft and silky. I did not like it. “Scrub harder,” I told them. I needed some pressure, some roughness to feed my mind.
They obeyed and rubbed me with all their might. I bent over and lowered myself into the steamy water. Hot. My face felt scorched, my breath was steamy, and the scent of peach petals plunged down my throat and burned my chest. But I did not care. I smelled only the acrid odor of revenge.
Where was the child killer? They still had not found her. After all these weeks! How long would the search take? What if they could never find her?
I had to do something. I had to take the matter into my own hands. I could arrest Zhong, her adopted son, the ignorant boy with a stooped back and a red nose, and use him as a weapon. Once I had him in my hands, I could lure that child killer and force her to come out of her hiding. If she refused to come, I would torture him. I would crack his skin with a whip and burn his hands in fire so he would suffer. If she still remained hidden, I would send her his hand, then his leg, and then I would smother him, just as she had done to my Oriole.
“What’s the heir doing now?” I asked Apricot while she rubbed my back. He had not come to my child’s funeral. He would not dare.
“The heir”—she slowed down some—“is the same…”
“What is he doing these days? Is he still going to his tutors?”
“He did not go to his calligraphy class.”
He was hiding, then. But I should have him. “Does he have any guards with him?”
“I do not know.”
Apricot was not helpful, but anyway, I knew what I should do. “And the Regent, did he come to the Audience Hall?”
He had not sent flowers or a message to express words of consolation. To think my daughter, an imperial descendant of the Emperor, his own niece, had been murdered, and yet the Regent did nothing. That was not a simple lapse of courtesy. That was the sound of a battle horn.
Perhaps he had played a role in my daughter’s death.
“I don’t know, Luminous Lady,” Apricot said, her face flushed.
“You are not hiding something from me, are you?”
“Oh, no, Luminous Lady. I would not dare.”
And Chunlu lowered her head, looking frightened.
What else could they do other than look frightened? They were my people, and they
should have been stronger. They were disappointing me. I waved my hand impatiently. “Hurry up. I have much to do.”
When they finished washing me, I sat down to apply white cream to my face, which I had not done for weeks. Then I put on a white mourning gown, a white skirt, and tucked a white silk flower near my right ear. I let my hair down. It was still short, only reaching my shoulder blades. But I did not care. I did not need a wig.
Then I sat at the table and ate some porridge with sliced eggs and ginger. That was the only solid food I could swallow these days. I had no appetite, but I had to eat something so I would be strong.
Afterward, I told my maids to come with me to Pheasant’s private library, where he had spent much time lately. He would be surprised to see me there, and perhaps pleased. But I had not come to please him.
The forecourt of his library looked just as I remembered. Many eunuchs, scribes, and ministers on duty scuttled around, their faces taut and their backs bent. Red lanterns swayed under the eaves, but the lights inside the bamboo frame were not lit, since it was still twilight. I had come here many times, accompanying Emperor Taizong before he fell ill, but this was the first time I had set foot there since Pheasant became the Emperor.
There were many ministers waiting in the forecourt. Gathered in groups, they discussed something eagerly, and some even threw back their heads, laughing. That was a rare sight. When the Regent was in the court, I never saw them this spirited.
They turned toward me as I crossed the yard and quieted, their faces suddenly sobering. When I passed them, they bowed to me. Some even murmured to express their sympathy. I did not speak or bow, walking as calmly as I could. I knew every man in the palace would have learned of my child’s murder by now.
I walked to the building set on a high platform. Through the open door, I could see the Regent’s two brothers-in-law, Han Yuan and Lai Ji, and a few other ministers, kneeling in the hall. Han Yuan was speaking rather vehemently, his fingers stabbing the air, his spittle flying. The Regent was not there.
Empress of Bright Moon Page 27