Forest of a Thousand Lanterns

by Julie C. Dao

  “Surprised? With so much beauty, sir?” Kang asked.

  “Beauty is all very well. But it is merely the gleam of the sword,” the chief eunuch said. “It is the mind that provides the sharp blade, and without that, well. We have a pretty piece of metal and not a weapon at all.”

  Xifeng recognized the metaphor—he had stolen it straight from a poem, one she’d had to memorize—but she kept her face blank.

  “Step backward,” Master Yu ordered, and she did so at once. He circled her like a hawk, the smell of lemongrass and something sour, rank, beneath its sweetness, emanating from his robes. “No,” he said, continuing to speak to Kang, “I am surprised the Crown Prince would recommend a girl of such lowly origin to Her Imperial Majesty’s circle. Perhaps she may make a good maidservant of some sort? To empty the chamber pots and dust the furniture, and so forth?”

  “His Highness did not specify, sir. But you’ll find it would be a waste to put Xifeng to such tasks. She is educated.”

  Master Yu’s perfectly plucked eyebrows rose. “Educated? She’s dressed like a beggar’s daughter. Where did you get your education, Xifeng?”

  She struggled to keep her face blank. This coddled little man thought himself quite fine, stealing lines of poetry to insert into conversation. As though that would intimidate her. She spoke in a polite, neutral tone. “My Guma taught me everything I know, sir. I can read and write, and I know history, a bit of geography, most poetry from the last century, and calligraphy. I sew, embroider, and play the barbarian’s fiddle proficiently.”

  The chief eunuch crossed his arms over his ample chest. “Well, that’s something at least. Most of the ladies and concubines come from high-ranking families, and I’m pleased you will not disgrace yourself with total ignorance. What poetry do you know? Recite something for me.”

  Clearly he was used to people bowing and scraping. But as much as he prided himself on his intelligence, he was stupid enough to underestimate her. Xifeng kept her eyes on his fat feet, which had been squeezed into silk slippers. She knew exactly which poem to recite.

  The shining blade has two faces

  Of a honed beauty to please the eye

  But it is the edges of the sword felt most keenly

  For what is the gleam of the sun on bright metal

  Without the strength of its sting?

  There was a long silence in which she feared she had overplayed her hand. Would he recognize her insult in choosing the poem he had stolen from? He had an ego large enough to throw her out of the city of women entirely. She chewed on her lip as the silence stretched on.

  Master Yu uncrossed his arms. “Well, I must say, the Crown Prince’s choices are astonishing but usually right, in women and warfare,” he said at last. “You are indeed clever to recognize the poem to which I alluded earlier. Your person is pleasing. Your manners are acceptable. What is your opinion, Kang?”

  “I rely upon your judgment, sir.”

  Master Yu turned his attention back to her. “You’re fortunate I’m a man of reason. Someone more prejudiced would have turned you away. But when I see potential in a young woman, I must consult with a few trusted others before she can be accepted officially.”

  The ones who actually make the decisions, Xifeng thought.

  “Follow me,” he ordered.

  She had made it through the first gate of the city of women.

  Xifeng clasped her damp palms together as she followed Master Yu and Kang into a reception room. Painted lanterns dangled from the ceiling, lit despite the hour, and cast a warm rose-gold light throughout the chamber. Jasmine blossoms floated in bowls of water, and petals sprinkled on the floor emitted a heady fragrance with each step she took.

  In the center of the room stood a wooden dais scattered with brocade pillows, on which sat four women sewing. Their eyes immediately shifted to Xifeng.

  She wondered which was the Empress, the one she was destined to replace, and her stomach clenched. Here in this splendor and elegance, her fate seemed painfully like a delusion in the face of reality. She was, after all, nothing more than a seamstress in the presence of a descendant of the Dragon King, and no amount of preparation from Guma could have kept her hands from shaking.

  “Your Imperial Majesty.” Master Yu bowed until his nose nearly touched the floor. “I am honored to bring you the maiden of whom your son spoke.”

  “Thank you,” said a gentle, musical voice. “Come closer, child, and tell us your name.”

  Xifeng prayed her own voice wouldn’t falter. “Your Majesty, my name is Xifeng.”

  There was a long silence in which she felt the ladies’ intense scrutiny. Her cheeks warmed, but she lifted her chin in determination. Why should she be ashamed? According to Kang, some of them came from humble origins, too. It was certainly true of the newest concubine, and she may not even have had Xifeng’s education.

  There was an intake of breath from one of the women, and without thinking, Xifeng met their eyes.

  Two of them were too young to be the Empress: one was about thirty, with pomegranate silk robes and hair like charred wood, and the other was closer to twenty, with a peach-shaped face. Xifeng felt instinctively that the thin, sour one to their right was not Her Majesty. So it was the fourth on whom she focused, and she was rewarded with a smile.

  “I am Empress Lihua.” The great lady spoke with an elegant inflection, the words crisp and clear.

  She looked like everything a queen should be and more. Silver streaks glinted in her hair, and the dangling ornaments she wore caught the light as she moved. She wore robes of a fine brushed silk the color of a sunrise and held herself and her white, white hands with a regal air. Xifeng ached with envy at the sight of her. What was it like to be born to such grace, such innate privilege? Here was yet another woman with a destiny greater than hers.

  For that is the way of the world, Guma’s voice echoed. Some are given a rope to the moon, and others claw up the sky.

  Xifeng looked at her soiled fingernails, imagining the dirt was shreds of night sky, ripped down by her fingers as she climbed.

  “Tell me, Xifeng, how did you come to meet my son? He seemed taken with you.” Beside the Empress, the youngest lady with the peach face stirred restlessly.

  “Lift your head when addressing Her Majesty, girl,” Master Yu barked.

  “The Crown Prince was taken with my friend, not with me, Your Majesty.” Xifeng’s eyes flickered up to the Empress’s face, which wore a look of friendly but intense scrutiny. The woman’s odd, engrossed expression seemed to take in her every feature and movement, but it relaxed at Xifeng’s words.

  “Your humility is admirable. But though my son was taken with your friend, it was you he could not stop talking about.”

  The peach-faced girl shifted again, her eyes on Xifeng sharp and mistrustful.

  “The prince is always correct in his judgments,” the Empress added proudly. “He has an eye for potential. That’s why they call him by his childhood nickname, the Little Fisherman.”

  “His Highness is ever discerning and wise,” Master Yu interjected smoothly. “This girl lacks refinement and polish, Your Majesty, but time at court should change that. She has an education and knows a bit of poetry.”

  Xifeng felt, again, the intensity of the Empress’s gaze upon her. With one word, this lady of the cultured, honeyed tone could decide the course of her life. Oh, to have such power. The world would not deny a thing to such a woman; even the tengaru clearing and its mystical tree might be hers for the taking, if she wanted them. The thought prompted a slow stirring deep within Xifeng, and two words floated up like leaves in a still pond: the Fool . . .

  “How does a girl from a poor family learn poetry?” the sour-faced older woman asked.

  “Never mind that, Madam Hong,” the Empress responded. “I’d like to hear a poem, Xifeng. Would you please recite one for us
?”

  Xifeng clasped her hands together, mind racing through the lines Guma had forced her to learn over the years. She thought of the light in the Empress’s eyes when speaking of her son, and a homely little piece appeared that had always caught at her motherless heart:

  Threads of silk in careworn hands

  Become clothes for a wild boy

  And tear against the rocks and branches

  Only to be mended once more.

  “But what care I,” the mother sighs, “of toil when spring ends all too soon?”

  Master Yu was staring at her with overt displeasure, but the Empress’s eyes shone.

  “A sweet poem. It’s true of all mothers whose children grow up too fast. It seemed my boys were no sooner out of swaddling clothes than they began commanding armies.”

  “It’s a poem all mothers should hear,” cooed the woman in pomegranate robes, with a sidelong glance at the peach-faced girl. “What is your opinion, Lady Meng?”

  “I am not a mother, as you well know,” the girl said in a curt, oddly familiar accent. Xifeng noticed how she tugged at the snagged threads in her sewing with restless vigor.

  “Allow me to introduce the two favored consorts of the Emperor.” The Empress gestured to the woman in pomegranate. “This is Lady Sun, whose twin daughters you may meet at some point. And this is Lady Meng, who came to us a month ago.”

  “We are fortunate to have her.” Lady Sun’s lips curved with sly, feline pleasure. Every word she spoke seemed sugar laced with poison. “Remind me which little village you hail from again? His Majesty spoke so feelingly of traveling through it . . . and seeing you.”

  “You wouldn’t know it if I told you,” the girl replied, but Lady Sun’s smile only widened, unaffected by her rudeness.

  Xifeng lifted her eyes, startled. So this was the newest concubine, the girl who had ridden through her town in a palanquin. She still spoke in the cadence of the common villagers, which explained why her accent sounded familiar. She was very pretty, Xifeng had to admit, with her round, pink cheeks and lips like petals. It was easy to believe she’d caught Emperor Jun’s eye out the window of his royal litter. But her eyes were dull and her movements listless; she sewed like someone who would rather be doing anything else, anywhere else in the world.

  “This is Madam Hong, my chief lady-in-waiting.” Empress Lihua indicated the sour-looking woman. “You will get to know her better, as all of my ladies are under her care and supervision.”

  Xifeng’s heart leapt at the implication that she might stay, but she kept her expression neutral and bowed low to each of the women. When she straightened again, she noticed for the first time a magnificent tapestry on the wall behind the Empress. The piece was woven in shades of fern, emerald, olive, and moss, and she let out a quiet gasp when she saw the scene it depicted: a clearing in the woods, with a pond from which sprouted a flowering tree.

  “Do you like it?” Empress Lihua asked, glancing from Xifeng to the tapestry and back. “It was commissioned by my grandfather in honor of our kingdom’s five hundredth anniversary.”

  “It’s b-beautiful.” Xifeng hated herself for stammering, especially when she saw Lady Sun’s smug expression. She made an effort to speak slowly, in measured tones. “It reminds me of a clearing we passed on our journey here. I saw a tree similar to that one.”

  Lady Sun laughed contemptuously. “There have been no such trees on Feng Lu for a thousand years. Her Majesty hasn’t time for your fanciful stories.”

  But the Empress brushed away her words like fleas. “You needn’t trouble yourself to speak for me, Lady Sun, especially on matters of which you have no knowledge.”

  The concubine stiffened at the Empress’s rebuke, though the eyes that returned to Xifeng still wore a predatory gleam.

  Empress Lihua leaned forward in her seat. “I’d like to hear your story, Xifeng. Alone,” she added. “Kang, stay behind a moment.” The others rose at once and departed in a reluctant, colorful parade of silk, Lady Sun leading the way with an air of distaste.

  Xifeng felt a drop of sweat slide down her neck as the Empress continued studying her. There was only Kang, and then she would be alone with the Emperor’s wife. Her mouth was dry as sand, and she felt hopelessly ill-mannered before the woman’s polished elegance. Breathe, she told herself. The whole of your fate hangs upon this meeting.

  “Would you send for tea?” the Empress asked Kang, and the eunuch gave Xifeng an encouraging nod before he scurried off. “He is most efficient, is he not?”

  “He has been very kind today.” The words sounded insipid even to Xifeng as she spoke. She twisted her hands, searching for something clever to say, but her thoughts slipped like clumsy threads. It had been easy to speak to the Crown Prince. Why did it seem so frightening with the Empress?

  “Unfortunately, Master Yu seems to underestimate him.”

  “Being underestimated can be a blessing in disguise,” Xifeng said. “That is to say, it gives us a chance to astonish those who doubt our true worth.”

  “Well said.” The Empress indicated the cushion beside her, which Lady Meng had vacated. Xifeng felt acutely aware of this as she sat, remembering how she had envied that girl in the palanquin only to be sitting in her seat weeks later.

  Two servants entered, setting down a plate of sugar-dusted persimmon cakes and two cups containing bulbs of bundled hibiscus leaves. The bundles gently unfurled into blooming orange flowers when the servants poured boiling water over them.

  Xifeng took only a small bite of her cake, though she could have happily swallowed it whole. She studied the Empress as the woman dismissed the servants and helped herself.

  Her Majesty’s face and neck were lily-white, the skin of a wealthy lady who never had to expose herself to the sun. She had wide, trusting eyes, but the lines of weariness around them belied her age. She was the mother of three sons, but she seemed lost and lonely. Akira had said that the Empress was nearing fifty but still longed for a girl child. This was a woman who wore her longing like a cloak against the cold—who understood heartache. Xifeng noticed that the Empress’s frame beneath her elegant silks appeared fragile and delicate; with such a frail, narrow body, she did not look nearly strong enough to carry and bear another baby.

  Perhaps she’ll die in childbirth. Yearning so for a daughter that she would risk her life, Xifeng thought. That could be one way fate would clear the path for a new queen and a younger, healthier woman . . . for Xifeng. Her cheeks burned as hot as the tea when she noticed Empress Lihua staring back at her.

  The queen had a laugh like wind moving through the trees. “There’s no punishment for looking at me.” She brushed a crumb off Xifeng’s sleeve absently and Xifeng thrilled at her touch, though she felt embarrassed by her own rough clothing. The Empress had taken a cake, too, but seemed to have no appetite; she neither touched it nor sipped her tea.

  “I’m afraid Master Yu spoke the truth, Your Majesty. I lack polish and refinement, for all the education my aunt gave me.”

  “Your aunt educated you? Where is your mother?”

  “I have no mother. She died long ago, and I never knew her.” Xifeng could not keep the longing from her voice, and to her surprise, she saw an answering hunger in the woman’s eyes. She wished there were still crumbs on her sleeve so the Empress would touch her again. Something in her muted sympathy drew the story from Xifeng, and her family’s disgraceful legacy poured out. The Empress listened intently to the story of the journey, her fingers tightening on her teacup at the mention of the assassins.

  “But you were saved, you say, by the tengaru.” Her Majesty’s voice held a note of relief, as if something had been confirmed for her. “The demon guardians hold special significance for me. Not many have the privilege of seeing them, let alone staying in their clearing under their protection. I love their queen as one who protects my family’s realm, and anyone she cho
oses to favor is a friend to me.”

  Xifeng studied the flower in her tea, remembering the garlands Wei had woven for the queen. “She is gone from the earth now.”

  The Empress made the sign of the Dragon Lords, pressing her fingers to her forehead, lips, and heart as she blinked away tears. “It is a holy place you saw, and one inextricably linked to my family and my future. To have had the honor of seeing that tree will mark you for the rest of your life.” She hesitated. “I have a strange feeling you belong here and we were meant to meet.”

  A chill slithered down Xifeng’s arms at the prophetic music of those words, and at the lingering darkness beneath the beauty of the sentiment. “In friendship, I hope, Your Majesty.”

  “Yes, I hope that, too.” The Empress’s gaze seemed to bore right into her head.

  Xifeng lowered her face, her mind muddled. She had not yet been deemed worthy to approach the apple tree; the tengaru queen had said the honor might belong to another—to the Fool. Could the Empress be that woman? If so, Xifeng had to be cautious. She pictured a wall of thorns growing over her heart, keeping her foolish craving at bay.

  “Your aunt must love you a great deal.” Empress Lihua’s expression held only guarded courtesy now. “Not many see the use in educating a girl. Why didn’t she come with you?”

  “My aunt loves me,” Xifeng repeated, trying out the words. They tasted foreign on her tongue. “She wasn’t well enough to travel with us.”

  The Empress’s fingers twitched toward Xifeng’s hand. “I’m sorry, my dear. I can hear how much you miss her.”

  This is how I win her, Xifeng realized. By playing to her need for a daughter . . . and mine for a mother. She allowed tears to enter her eyes. “There are so many things I’ve said to her that I regret,” she said, and there was truth in the words.

  This time, the Empress did not resist. She reached shyly for Xifeng’s hand. “You mustn’t be hard on yourself. I’ve never had a daughter, so I feel like a mother to the maidens here and even to Lady Meng, though she is my husband’s concubine.” She opened and closed her lips a few times, clearly struggling between warring instincts. “I’d like to give you a home here, Xifeng, and be someone you may speak to when you are missing your aunt.”