The Moon in the Palace (The Empress of Bright Moon Duology) (24 page)

There was a feast tonight, I was told, even though it was not a festival occasion. Following behind the other ladies, I went to the feast hall. The moment I walked in, I knew something was awry.

The ministers had come, and the musicians lined up at the door. On the tables sat many bouquets of flowers carved out of watermelons, oranges, and pears. Next to the Emperor sat Jewel, cloaked in a red damask gown printed with patterns of peach blossoms, vermilion birds, and parrots.

I took my seat among the Talents as the servants brought trays of food to the table. Bird’s nest soup in ceramic bowls painted with bamboo leaves. Broiled camel humps in rectangular plates. Stewed bear’s paws in small pots. Steamed, silver-striped mullets from the Po Sea with tangy ginger sauce. And many of the Emperor’s favorite foods and rare delicacies I had only heard of. Jewel covered her nose and waved the fish away. I frowned, and my eyes caught her other hand stroking her stomach. My heart sank.

How had I missed it?

Jewel was pregnant.

“Heaven be blessed! Finally! My blood. My progeny!” The Emperor’s voice shook the hall. “I have a great announcement to make!”

The servants behind me asked me something, but I was so shocked that I hardly heard them. They removed the food from my table and brought out small saucers containing bites of meats.

“Heaven promises me another child! Let it be a son, who shall be a witness to the halcyon kingdom I have created.” The Emperor’s whiskers shook as he shouted. He looked in high spirits. “Counselors! Listen up. I shall bestow the crown on this woman, who brings me honor and pride. Yes, this is my woman, and she will be the next empress of this kingdom!”

I could no longer see people’s faces or hear the waves of deafening praise. The only sound I heard came from inside me.

Jewel. Empress.

In the corner, someone strummed a lute, the sound a deep groan like a dying wolf. The voluptuous Lady Obedience rose and moved to the center of the tables. She clapped her hands, signaling the musicians to play music, and swung her arms like graceful wings. The sound of
guzheng
, jovial flutes, and the clear tinkling of bells filled the hall. It was the song of “Towering Mountains and Trickling Streams.”

The ministers lined up before the feast table to deliver their praises. The Ladies followed. The Noble Lady toasted first. Slowly, she walked, her face ghastly pale and her eyes teary, as though she were in a funeral procession. But what a remarkable lady she was. As soon as she approached the table, she smoothed her gown and bowed deeply.

I could not watch. Jewel did not deserve the Noble Lady’s bow. She did not deserve anything.

Lady Virtue, her eyes also red from crying, looked away from her bronze mirror and came to bow too, and then Lady Obedience. The Pure Lady was absent as usual.

Next came the Ladies-in-Waiting. Beauties. Graces.

My turn came. I gave Jewel a bow and held out the cup to toast her. “
Gong xi
.” Congratulations.

“I shall accept your good wishes from the bottom of my heart,” she said.

I bit my lip.

“After the coronation, I shall need some personal attendants.” She sipped her wine.

“There are many girls in the Inner Court for you to choose from,” I said.

She shook her head. “Not them. They’re too pretty and clever.” She gazed at me, her catlike eyes glinting. “Clever girls are troublesome. They’ll distract me and the Emperor. I will not allow that. I think they need to step aside, and I will summon some new maidens from the kingdom. I need to have new faces around me.”

She wanted to get rid of me. I felt my face chill. “Of course you can do anything you wish. You will be the empress.”

She sighed. “I am so sorry, Mei. I like you. Truly. I do. It is not my wish to harm you, but I made a promise to a friend.”

Rain. My hand shook, and the liquid spilled on my fingers.

I did not know how I returned to my table. Sitting there, I stared at the trays of food in front of me. There were plates of duck, quail, mutton, pigs’ feet, cows’ tongues. They were either stewed, roasted, or fried—animals dead, cooked, and sliced.

• • •

A woman I had never seen before stood in front of the wardrobe chamber. “Most Adored wished me to tell you,” she said, “that I would take care of the Emperor’s wardrobe from now on.”

“It’s my duty.” I tried to control my temper. “She cannot overturn the Emperor’s order.”

“If you wish to ask the Emperor, you may do so.”

“Where is he?”

“In Most Adored’s bedchamber.”

Desperate, I went straight to the Quarters of the Pure Lotus. But when I reached the courtyard, I turned back. I would only make myself look pitiful if I confronted him. Besides, I could not find any reason that he would side with me.

I felt desperate. Jewel had started to push me aside, and she was not even the empress yet.

And Plum told me nothing that I did not already know. Everyone had thought Jewel was only an old Select, and no one could recall the name of Snow Blossom.

• • •

The imperial astrologers gathered in the Emperor’s library to discuss which day was most auspicious for the coronation. Among them was the barefoot astrologer. I stood behind the other maids and lowered my head. I did not like the astrologer, and I was glad he did not notice me.

With the incense lit, he chanted with the others, crouching over a ball instrument held by a tripod with toads for legs. A famous instrument built three hundred years ago, it was said to be able to detect Heaven’s intention. The men pointed their fingers here and there, frowning, nodding, and murmuring. There were some days good for weddings, fishing, traveling, riding outdoors, and some days we should wear wooden ornaments rather than jade, don garments of plain colors instead of red, avoid the topic of snakes, or refrain from lighting fire and cooking.

“For coronation”—they studied the instrument together—“let’s see…”

I hoped they would never find an auspicious day for that occasion in the next two hundred years. But after a while, they clapped their hands and shouted. “The twentieth day of the third month!”

Only one month away.

Suddenly, the court was crowded with seamstresses, musicians, jewelry makers, wine specialists, and eunuchs who reviewed lists of specialties around the kingdom for the banquet. Jewel pranced around. Her maids supported her arms as she walked, as if they were worried she would trip and kill herself, while the nutrition provosts trailed behind, instructing her on what food would fatten her and the fetus. My ears hurt from listening.

• • •

Too soon, the third month of the year came.

“Still didn’t find anything?” the Noble Lady asked when I came to her bedchamber.

I shook my head. Plum was talking to an old laundry woman, but that would surely lead nowhere.

“I’m sorry to hear that. I’ve spoken to the Chancellor about the Emperor’s intention. He said it was up to the Emperor to make the decision about the Empress.”

I rubbed my forehead, disappointed.

“I knew he would not support me. I was asking too much from him.” She sat on a stool near her bed, her hands on a metal warmer. “I also asked the Emperor’s uncle. The old man received me and asked me what I thought of the Duke. He gave me a tirade about his foe, telling me how unworthy he was and how the Emperor had wronged him. I’m afraid he is growing angry and senile.”

There was nothing to stop Jewel now.

• • •

On the eighteenth day of the month, two nights before Jewel’s crowning, I stood in the courtyard of my chamber, watching the night sky. There was no moon, only stars, scattered like frozen sunflower seeds. I thought of Father. I was sorry. I could not fulfill his dream after all.

Then I heard a piercing howl from the east side of the Inner Court, the Quarters of the Pure Lotus. It was Jewel’s scream. Without thinking, I dashed to the quarters.

All over the court, many servants scuttled around. Near Jewel’s chamber, her maids rushed out with bedding stained with blood.

She had lost her baby.

Heaven help me! Perhaps Jewel would not be the empress now.

From the Noble Lady’s chamber, I watched women who came to visit Jewel. It was protocol for the Ladies to offer condolences, even though we all knew it was sheer pretense. When the Noble Lady returned from Jewel’s chamber, I asked her, “Is the Emperor going to delay the coronation now?”

“I don’t think so.” She shook her head.

“But she has a cold womb.” A fetus could not thrive in a cold womb, I had heard.

“I thought so too. But Most Adored claims that is not the case.”

“What else could have happened then?”

“She said someone put aconite in her wine.”

I was shocked. Aconite was a poisonous herb that aborted an unwanted fetus. “Who would do that?”

She sighed. “No one would be so heartless to do that. But she is angry. That’s the reason. You should be careful. Don’t let her see you. You don’t want any attention right now.”

My heart sank. Would Jewel accuse me of poisoning her?

That night, when I lay on the mat, I could not sleep. Would I be sleeping on the cold floor in the Yeting Court tomorrow? Or worse?

• • •

The night before Jewel’s coronation, the Emperor summoned the Talents to serve him. The other eight Talents and I arrived in our silk gowns and waited on a large mat in a corner. The Emperor sat inside the ring of candles, drinking. The news of Jewel’s miscarriage had shaken him, I could tell, and he looked sad, his eyes bleary, his whiskers sagging. He did not ask us to take off our clothes or approach him. Soon, the other Talents grew tired of waiting and began to whisper about tomorrow’s coronation.

“Mei,” Plum whispered in my ear as he leaned over me on the mat. “I found out why Jewel was banished.”

“You did?” I almost bolted upright. The Emperor, holding a jug with his left hand, was trying to grab his sword with his right. He seemed to have trouble doing it. “Why did he banish her?”

“Not the Emperor. It was the late Empress. She was jealous, because Jewel was beautiful and the Emperor liked her. The Empress made an excuse, killed all of Jewel’s family, and banished her to the Yeting Court.”

“Really?” I glanced at the other Talents, who were growing quiet and turned around to sleep.

“That’s not all. Here’s the best part,” Plum said. “Jewel was the Emperor’s older brother’s concubine before she became the Emperor’s.”

I sat up. “The Emperor’s older brother?”

“Yes.”

“Are you certain?”

“No doubt about it. I came across an old woman with a bad hip at a eunuch’s burial. She told me. She was in the Emperor’s brother’s household many years ago. She did not recognize Jewel at first. But when I mentioned Snow Blossom, she remembered.”

“Did the Noble Lady see her when she was in the court nine years ago?”

Plum peered at the Emperor. He had grabbed the sword, but his hand shook, and he dropped it. He cursed. “Oh, no, I do not think any of the ladies did. The Emperor put her in a special hall, hiding her from the Empress. That was why it angered her.”

No wonder no one had heard of her. What would the Noble Lady think when she heard of that scandal? She would be surprised, for sure, but Jewel’s coronation was tomorrow. It was too late. We could not stop her even if we worked up the gossip overnight.

“I wish I had known this sooner. She’ll be crowned tomorrow.”

“There’s something else.” Plum cupped her hand around my ear. “Jewel keeps a special handkerchief.”

“Special?” It was common to keep a handkerchief, of course. Everybody had one.

“It belonged to a man.”

“The Emperor?”

She made a face. “If it belonged to him, it wouldn’t be special.”

“Then to whom did it belong?”

“Wine!” The Emperor’s loud voice echoed in the chamber, startling me.

Plum rose. “Wait for me. When I return, I’ll tell you.”

The hem of her skirt brushed my knee as she passed me.

I gnawed my knuckles. Finally! I knew Jewel’s secret. What an interesting past she had, and she had kept a man’s handkerchief?

“Tell me, Plum,” I urged when she padded back. “Whose handkerchief is it?”

“All I can say is it has a man’s name stitched on it.”

My heart pounded. “What kind of name?”

“It says
Jiancheng
, or something like it. I can’t be certain. Jewel keeps it close to her.”

I knew that name. Emperor Gaozu’s firstborn, the Emperor’s older brother. So Jewel had indeed been his concubine. “How did you find out about it?”

“A laundry woman mentioned it a few days ago. But I couldn’t prove it. It was chaotic today, with her losing the baby this morning. Many people came and left her chamber. I slipped in and took a peek. Swiftly. It has a pair of love ducks and that man’s name.”

The Noble Lady would be pleased to hear that. I glanced at the Emperor, who had gotten a good hold on his sword and stood up, as though trying to perform a sword dance. I turned to Plum and said in a low voice, “Do you swear by it, Plum?”

She shrugged. “I can’t. I may be wrong.”

“A handkerchief,” I repeated in a low voice. “Wait here, Plum. I’ll be right back.”

Yet I could not leave immediately. The Emperor turned toward me, thrust his sword, and shouted. Anxious, I bit my nail and waited. Finally, he spun around.

I slipped out of the chamber and ran to the Quarters of the Pure Lotus.

• • •

The Noble Lady’s hand flew to her chest as I finished my words. “Are you certain about that? She was his brother’s concubine?”

“And she still keeps his handkerchief. With his name embroidered on it,” I added. “It has to be from him. It can’t be from anyone else. But why does she still keep it, after all these years?”

“Only she can answer that.” The Noble Lady looked pensive. “Now, if we had the handkerchief in our hands, we could show it to the Emperor.”

“You think we should steal it?”

“No, no.” She sat on a stool near her bed. Her cheeks flushed. “We should never commit a crime like that. I refuse to sacrifice my pride for her.”