The Moon in the Palace (The Empress of Bright Moon Duology) (15 page)

He looked morose, his face hard and his lips pursed tight. He did not appear to notice me kneeling in the corner or how long I had waited. Perhaps that was a good thing. I ran through the phrases again in my mind and glanced at the Noble Lady, standing under the apricot tree. I was ready.

Then two figures scurried to hide behind a pillar in the corridor, one holding a fan and the other stroking a white cat in her arms.

Jewel and the Pure Lady.

The words in my mind turned to dust.

The mallet touched my chin. The Emperor stood before me. He was breathing faster than usual, his whiskers leaping up and down.

“I remember you,” he finally said.

“The One Above All.” I lowered my gaze to the front of his robe where a golden dragon, soaring in the clouds, glared at me. I remembered folding that robe. “Forgive my insolence. I should not have come—”

“What’s the matter?”

“I can’t locate the crowns that belonged to the late Empress. I asked the Noble Lady, who has kindly offered to help me, but it seems the items inside the chest were all misplaced.”

“Were they taken or were they misplaced?”

I swallowed.

“Where were you?” The dragon seemed to come alive as his chest rose and fell.

“I…I was receiving the apples in the courtyard.”

“Receiving apples?” he asked. “Not flirting with some groom?”

Was he talking about Pheasant? Did he know us? My hands trembled. But it was not possible. He could not know. We had been very careful, and I had not seen anyone around us when we had met.

“No, the One Above All. I would not dare.”

He did not speak, and my heart pounded. Could it be possible that someone had reported to him that I was not in the wardrobe chamber all the time?

“The Noble Lady?” he said.

“Yes, the One Above All.” The Noble Lady folded her hands across her abdomen and bowed.

“You know about this?”

“She is telling the truth, the One Above All.”

“Have you searched?”

“Only in the wardrobe chamber, the One Above All.”

“Search again, and ask the other ladies too. Report to me when you find them. You have my order.”

“Yes, the One Above All.”

“And let all know that if any mischief happens in the future, all of you Ladies will be held accountable. Now go.”

The Noble Lady bowed deeply and left. I wanted to leave with her. I wanted to get out of there as fast as possible.

“I haven’t dismissed you yet.” His mallet pushed harder against my chin.

I stiffened. He wanted to punish me after all. “Yes, the One Above All.”

“Have you seen a polo game?”

“What? Polo? No.”

“Then get yourself ready. Join me at the competition.” The mallet withdrew. The dragon turned around. Facing me, on the back of his robe, was another dragon coiled in a medallion. “Now, get me my morning audience robe.”

Relief washing over me, I rose and hurried out of the courtyard. In the corridor, the Pure Lady stood alone and watched me, her eyes narrowing. Jewel was not there.

When I arrived at the wardrobe chamber, the Noble Lady beckoned to me. “Look, Mei.” She pointed at a chest near the wardrobe.

I ran to open it. Inside were the stolen crowns and hairpins. After counting everything to ensure all the items were in place, I sat on the chest and sighed. Tomorrow, I would ask for locks to be put on all the chests.

“Have you received all of the missing items, Mei?” the Noble Lady asked and tilted her head to listen as one of her maids whispered to her.

“Yes. She was fast.” I eyed the maid, wondering what message she had brought.

“She should be.”

“Do you think the Emperor knows it was Jewel?”

“He might. He is not a stranger to the household conflicts.” She waved away her maid and fingered the pearls around her neck. “But I don’t think we should worry about Most Adored right now. We shall talk about the honor he has bestowed upon you.”

“Honor?”

“You didn’t hear her?” She pointed at her maid, who had whispered to her. “He’s given you the honor to sit next to him at the polo game. This was his way of rewarding you, I imagine.”

“He ordered me to join him, but not sit next to him.”

She smiled. “Had he not meant that, he’d not ask you to come to the game, and I assume you would sit with him as he receives the vassals’ vow of allegiance after the game as well.”

That was an ultimate honor I never ever had dreamed of. “But you are supposed to…”

“I suppose he has changed his mind.”

A flood of sublime euphoria overwhelmed me. “But what about you? I’m sorry, my Noble Lady.”

“Don’t be.” She strolled to the door. “This is the best outcome I could have imagined. The Pure Lady has her warning, and I keep my duty in the workshops. And the best of all—” She turned around to give me a meaningful stare. “You are part of the game now, my friend. Play well.”

“I thank you, my Noble Lady.” I gave her a deep bow, for she was the vital force that helped me spring forth and, because of her, a true ally, I slipped out of the door of treachery and leaped into a window of opportunity. I would never forget that. “I shall not disappoint you.”

Yes. I would play well. I had to.

the
Sixteenth Year
of
Emperor Taizong’s Reign
of
Peaceful Prospect

LATE SPRING

I sensed a change in the air that afternoon. Very subtle. Like the wind shifting its direction. People glanced at me curiously when I passed and whispered among themselves, and later that day, some eunuchs came to my bedchamber to deliver a bolt of fine silk, a pair of exquisite silver figurines playing
pipa
, a pair of jade combs carved with deer, and four boxes of fresh fragrances: cassia, camphor, musk, and rose mallow. Soon a gaggle of seamstresses arrived to take my measurements.

“What an honor you have received! They are treating you as if you are already Most Adored,” Plum said after the seamstresses left. She picked up the boxes of fragrances, eyes filled with envy. These were my bestowals from the Emperor, the token of his favor. No one could take them away from me, and I could do with them as I pleased.

“He has yet to summon me for the night, Plum.”

“I know, but this is the beginning of his favor, Mei. More will come after you watch the polo game with him. You will have so many gifts that your eyes will get blurry.”

I smiled. “Then I should do something to take care of my eyes, shouldn’t I?” I handed her the boxes of musk and rose mallow. I knew they were her favorite.

Her eyes widened. “You’re giving them to me?”

I nodded.

“You don’t like them?”

“I do. Very much.”

Plum looked at the boxes. “But how will you please the Emperor without divine fragrances?”

“I don’t know.” I smiled. I gave the jade combs to Daisy and the rest of the silk and fragrances to the other Talents. For a moment, the chamber was filled with joyful shouts and giggles. Watching their faces, pink with excitement, I knew I had done the right thing. The Emperor’s favor had given me great joy, but it was more satisfying to see the others, the forgotten ones, happy.

I saved only the silver figurines. Then I went to look for Eunuch Ming, the eunuch who had conspired with Jewel to steal my summons.

I found him near the gate outside the Yeting Court. From behind a stone statue, I beckoned to him.

He glanced at the female guards near the gate and coughed. Finally, he walked to me. “I know you.”

I did not want to frighten him away. “Let’s forget about what happened between us.” I gave him one of the silver figurines. “I’m not here to scold you.”

“What is this?” He stared at the precious metal in his hand.

“The Emperor’s gift,” I said. “Now it’s yours.”

He clenched the figurine. “What do you want?”

“I hear you have connections.” I watched him. Plum once said eunuchs were a different species, and she was right. Eunuch Ming was slippery like water, and his face changed faster than the light. He had been castrated when he was young and had served in the palace for a long time. I did not like him. He was ugly, with a face shaped like a goat’s. And his eyes, beady and narrow, like a rat’s, always seemed to look for gold. I would never trust a man like him, but I had no choice but to ask for his help.

“What connections?”

“Don’t worry. I wish only to ask a small favor.” I handed him a small pouch. It contained the other silver figurine from the Emperor’s bestowals and some coppers I had saved from my monthly allowances. “Would you deliver this to my mother?”

Ming’s eyes flicked from the figurine in his right hand to the pouch in his left. He looked hesitant, and I began to worry if my bribe was persuasive enough.

“I don’t know where she lives.”

He wanted more money. But I was not certain the Emperor would send me more bestowals, and my Talent’s allowances would not be due until the last day of the month.

“I see,” I said. “Perhaps you haven’t heard who has the honor to sit next to the Emperor during the polo game.”

He looked at me, a flicker of interest in his eyes. It was all over the Inner Court that I would replace the Noble Lady in the game, and I was confident he knew too.

“So?” I lifted my chin.

He scratched the corner of his mouth. “It’ll probably take a few months.”

“I can wait.” I smiled.

• • •

The polo field was more crowded than last time. Five groups of men poured buckets of sunflower oil on the ground, and behind them, another five groups of men pushed tables, legs up, to flatten the surface. Around the edge of the field, the Gold Bird Guards planted banners, while the eunuchs arranged platforms and benches in the audience section.

Behind the mulberry branches, I searched among the grooms who gathered with the horses. I could hear them talk about the fifteen dragon horses, the newest gifts from the snowy valleys of Kashmir. Pheasant was among them. He knelt over a piebald, his hand tracing something on its neck.

I tried to contain my excitement. What would Pheasant say when I told him about my great honor? Would he be happy for me?

A man with shaggy hair came to him. Pheasant pointed at the characters branded on the horse’s neck. “Inspector, this brand is wrong. This horse should be ‘flying,’ not ‘wind.’”

The characters were the horses’ identifications, as all the imperial horses must be branded according to their type, agility, speed, the origin of their birth, and the grade within their species, to discourage stealing. Sometimes, the number of the identifications were so many the horses would be covered with characters from their tails to their mouths. Pheasant had once complained to me about the cruel method of branding, but there was nothing he could do to change the practice.

But I was surprised. He could read. How had a low-born groom like him learned to read?

The inspector peered at the characters. “Good observation.” He nodded. “Someone has made a mistake.”

A shirtless rider with bulging muscles like rocks trotted close. Taizi. He pulled his horse to stop before Pheasant and slapped Pheasant’s shoulder. Pheasant straightened. He did not bow or shout. He only smiled.

It was a smile I was familiar with. I could see his teeth shining in the sunlight. But something struck me then. I took out the jade silkworm and stared. The green color was rich, and the eyes of black onyx gleamed, blinding me.

Why had I never thought of that? A weaver would not possess something precious like this silkworm. Only a woman of high position would. And then suddenly many things, many things that had been whispered in my ear but I had not paused to think about, made sense.

He’d looked familiar when I had first met him. He knew every corner in the Inner Court. He was always beside Taizi. And his plain white robe. He wore that not because of his base birth, but to mourn his mother.

Pheasant was not Taizi’s groom. He was his brother, the youngest of the late Empress’s three sons, the Emperor’s eighth living son, formally known as Li Zhi.

• • •

“You didn’t tell me who you are,” I said to Pheasant when I came to the abandoned garden that night. I wished I had known his identity before. But when we were together, we were always alone. There was no way to know who he was from the way other people treated him, and because I kept him a secret, I had no way of learning who he was from anyone else.

“My brothers call me Pheasant.” He stood beside me.

“But you know what I mean. You should have told me whose son you truly are.” The night was chill. The wind bent the branches. They sprang back and forth, like my mind, swaying.

“I’m sorry, Mei. You caught me with Rain,” he said. “It was not a good time to tell you. I forgot it later, when we were together.”

Pheasant was not trying to deceive me, I understood. But that did not make the situation all right.

“Would it make a difference?” His face was sober, too sober. He almost looked grave. He was worried.

I did not know. Perhaps I would still go out and see him. We would still laugh and share tangerines together. But yes. In a way, it made a vast difference. He was the love of my heart, but also the son of the man whose bed I wished to share.

“He won’t know. I promise you.”

“But—”

He held my shoulders. “Don’t worry, sweet face. He won’t care. He never cares.”

He drew me closer to a tree trunk and pushed me against it. His hand slipped under my robe. A cool touch, but sparked with passion. I shivered. It was the first time a man had touched me. The eunuch had scrubbed me, like laundry, and the Emperor had seen me unclothed but had not bothered to look at me.

“You’re beautiful.”

His voice sounded like a dream. I did not know what I was anymore. I was sixteen. I had grown taller. My body had begun to show a woman’s shape: my waist was thinner, and my breasts had grown supple, like Jewel’s. When I walked, I could feel the rhythm of my body, singing like grass greeting the spring wind, and deep within me, a murmur grew, enticing me, like a star glinting in the distant sky.

“But what if he finds out? What if someone finds out?” Pheasant’s hands were hot, leaving a trail of fire on my naked skin.

“We’ll be careful.”

He beheld me like a flame eating the edge of a paper. Slowly but eagerly, he consumed me. My hair. My limbs. My breasts. My stomach. Until there was nothing left but my insides—like the center of the paper surrounded by flame—and slowly, they diminished and finally were charred with desire.

“Pheasant, Pheasant,” I whispered. “You’re ruining me.”

“I will not do that.” He pulled away, his hands at his sides. “I swear it.”

I sighed, leaning toward him.

“Would you like to sit?” He pulled me down, and I slid to the ground, almost falling on him. He laughed and put his arm behind me as a cushion.

Leaning against the tree, I pulled his hand under my chin. He was the Emperor’s eighth son. His chance of inheriting the throne was almost nonexistent. Perhaps that was a good thing? “I’m going to sit next to the Emperor during the polo game.”

The thought had originally given me much joy, but now I did not know what to think.

“It’s a great honor.” He did not sound troubled.

I relaxed. “Are you going to the game?”

“Me? Of course. I won’t miss it.”

“You probably shouldn’t go. I do not wish the Emperor to discover us.” Pheasant, one of the younger princes, did not need to be present. Only the heir was required to be there.

He protested. “It’s the grandest polo match. Everyone wants to go.”

“Please.”

“I swear I will not talk to you, and he won’t suspect a thing.”

“Pheasant.”

He groaned. “Fine. I won’t go. If this is what you wish.”

My heart sweetened. As long as we stayed secret, no one would know. I tilted my head. The dark sky was a vast blanket stitched with silvery stars. “Where did the moon go?”

“Here.” He touched my chest.

He tickled me. “I’m talking about the moon.”

“You’re my moon. The most brilliant and sweetest of all.”

I smiled. “So you have heard the story?”

“Chang E?”

“That’s it.” I nodded, happy he was familiar with the folklore. Of course he would know. He must have learned as many classics as I did. The clouds drifted, and the silver bowl shone above the cobweb of shadowy tree branches. “That’s why some people believe the moon brings tears.”

“Well, tell me about her. I’d like to hear it from you.”

“Once upon a time there was a young couple who lived near the foothills of a mountain. The husband, Hou Yi, was a respected archer, and the wife, Chang E, was the most beautiful girl of the village. Every day, Hou Yi went into the woods and hunted for food. He was a good man, and each time, he shared his game with his fellow villagers. The gods in Heaven heard of his good deeds and decided to reward him with a pill of immortality. Hou Yi came home and showed his wife the pill. Chang E was excited, for she had not told her husband that she was unhappy. She did not like living in the village. She wanted to see the palace where the gods live, to touch treasure and live in grandeur. She wanted to become immortal herself. So when Hou Yi was not looking, Chang E took the pill. And you know the ending.”

“She flew to the moon.”

“Where she found an empty, heavenly palace with a cinnamon tree and a black rabbit.”

“She was foolish. No wonder she weeps by the cinnamon tree every night.”

“Foolish?”

“What good is immortality if you live in loneliness?”

I stared at the moon. I could make out the shadow of a slender figure of a woman, a black rabbit in her lap, waiting under the tree. She must have been peering at her husband, or us.

If I were Chang E, would I choose the pleasure of a celestial palace or the humble home of Pheasant’s arms?

“I can assure you she misses her parents,” I said, thinking of Father and Mother.

“No more talking, sweet face.” He lowered his head to kiss me.

I smiled and nestled my head in his arms, and there we sat in silence.

The wind swept the treetops, singing a soothing melody. Before us, a pair of rocks, almost as tall as the trees, stood peacefully in the night’s shade. They faced each other, like a couple of lovers whispering.

It was still spring, and we had the whole summer to ourselves. But the windy days would arrive, followed by the frosty winter—it would come eventually—and we would not be able to meet in the deserted garden.

But until then…