The Moon in the Palace (The Empress of Bright Moon Duology) (3 page)

“Ah.” Mother nodded. “So you’ll learn to be a good fighter.”

“Oh no, Mother.” I smiled. “I will be a clever fighter, who not only wins, but also wins with ease.”

With that, I hugged her.

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

AUTUMN

Two Palace Escorts in maroon capes came to fetch me on the fifteenth day of the ninth month. In my full court regalia, a skirt of pink peony paired with white trousers and a green top, I entered a carriage with a blue roof. Near it, Mother dabbed her face. She was alone now. Little Sister had passed away. The horses began to trot, and Mother called out softly, following me. The distance between us grew, and her figure, like a statue on the other side of an opaque silk screen, dwindled and slowly melted away, only her voice, faint but distinct, ringing in my ears.

I leaned back. I would see her again, and when I did, I would make sure she would be safe, happy, and have no fear or worries. I wiped away my tears. Inside, the carriage was dark. The Escort with a patch of purple birthmark covering half of his face, known as the Captain, had closed the window.

The ride seemed to go on forever. We coursed through Qing’s ward, where dogs barked and hens clucked. Then we entered the avenue and approached the clamorous outer walls of the Western Market, where people haggled and peddlers called, “Noodles, noodles! One copper a bowl. Fresh, handmade noodles!” Then we arrived at the quiet alleys, where some loud Taoist hymns drifted in the air. I did not know what they meant, nor was I interested. Taoism was the official religion in our kingdom, which the Emperor claimed was founded by his ancestor Lao Tzu. But I had not seen a single Taoist abbey in Wenshui; in the capital, they were everywhere.

The two Escorts’ voices came to me through the cracks of the carriage. I listened intently. I wished to know what they were talking about, but I could not hear them clearly above the rumbling of the wheels. I wanted to ask if they had picked up the other fourteen Selects the Emperor had summoned. Or should I say something memorable to them so they would have a good impression of me? I would like them to remember me. It would be useful to have friends in the palace.

My bottom slid on the red cushion as the carriage tilted backward. We were ascending a bridge. I grabbed the window frame to steady myself. The carriage slowed and then raced down. I balanced myself again. More horses trotted outside. It sounded as if we were approaching the boulevard near the Heavenly Street. Soon I would enter the palace’s gates. My hands grew sweaty.

Think of Father
, I reminded myself.
Think of his dream and how he raised you.
I would not disappoint him, and when I won the Emperor’s heart, I would make my father proud, I would restore all the fortune my family had lost, and I would be able to take good care of Mother.

I took a deep breath, and the carriage stopped. We must be at the front gate where the stone animals stood. The Captain announced my arrival. Many footfalls rose at once. A man answered, and the gates clanked open. I leaned forward, ready to disembark.

But the carriage continued to roll, and a wave of voices rose outside the window—men inquiring about one another’s health, men shouting at scribes to hurry up, men asking one another’s opinions on taxes. I leaned back. So this was the Outer Palace, where the ministers conducted their business. Finally, the carriage arrived at a quiet area, where cries of birds echoed from a distance.

We stopped again.

“Out!” a woman’s raspy voice shouted outside.

I balled my skirt in one hand, pushed open the carriage door with the other, and stepped out.

The bright afternoon sunlight blinded me. I blinked, standing in the middle of a pebble path. Facing me were rows of houses with blue roofs and red pillars. The pillars, round and tall, looked majestic, and the roofs were elegant, with tips turning upward at the corners, but when I looked carefully, I could see the surface of some pillars were cracked, exposing dark wood beneath.

It was quiet too. No merry chuckles or sound of zithers in the air. Behind the latticed doors, a shadow slid and peered outside, watching me.

“This way,” the raspy voice said again behind me, startling me. The woman was alone. “I shall take you to your room.”

The old servant limped past the houses and led me down a narrow trail through elm trees. Her shoulders dipping and rising, she looked like a boat near capsizing, reminding me of Mother’s stiff back. I offered the servant a hand, but she only scowled and waved me off.

It was cooler in the shade; a pool of light from the canal shone through the thinning leaves. In the distance, a gray pavilion stood forlornly like a faded parasol. I tried to remember the locations so I could explore in the future, but the path wound around as if to test my memory. Soon, it was hard to tell how far I was from the entrance. We walked by barren flower beds, a greenish pond with withering water lotus, and two zigzagging wooden bridges before reaching a poplar grove. Behind the grove, high walls spread like a gray curtain. I hesitated, suddenly feeling sad. Beyond the wall lay the forest, and beyond the forest was my home and the people I called family.

I composed myself and hurried to follow the servant, who was already a great distance ahead of me. We stopped at a large compound with walls and entered it. Crossing the courtyard, the servant led me to a chamber on the right and pushed open the door. Inside, a group of girls sat on the floor. They looked to be my age, thirteen or fourteen. The colors of their gowns were bright, like the rouge on their faces.

From the way they sat, I could tell they were like Big Sister, who had always behaved like a dainty lady at home. Oftentimes, she had reminded me to cover my mouth when I laughed and instructed me to walk as though bearing a tray of fruit on my head. She had been annoying enough, but I had to deal with fourteen girls like her.

One girl, with eyes shaped like almonds, rose and studied me. Her gaze lingered on my face, my robe, and then paused on my shoes. I curled my toes in embarrassment. Her shoes were made of thick red brocade and embroidered with intricate patterns of yellow flowers, and mine were of plain cloth. But before Father’s death, I had worn shoes decorated with gold leaves and jade rings, each costing more than anything the girl wore.

I remembered courtesy. “
Wu an
.” Good afternoon. I bowed.

She only dipped her head, as if she thought she was superior to me.

“If you don’t mind me asking, are you a new Select?” I asked, trying to speak pleasantly.

“We are all the new Selects, chosen by the Emperor this year,” she said, lifting her chin. “But I arrived here three days ago, before all of you did.”

I wanted to ask if she had already met the Emperor, but she walked to another girl near her, cupped her hand near the girl’s ear, and whispered, glancing at my shoes. Even though I could not hear her—and I did not need to—I knew what she was saying. My back grew rigid, and my cheeks burned with humiliation.

I turned to study the surroundings. The bedchamber was pitifully small and unadorned. The only furniture was the low table where the other Selects sat. The walls were bare, without a single painting or mural. The famous palace seemed more austere than a servant’s quarters in my home.

Two servants brought trays and bowls that contained supper: several bamboo shoots, some soybeans, a chunk of winter gourd, two buns made of corn. No meat. I was disappointed and surprised too. In Wenshui, I had eaten meat and eggs for every meal.

When night fell, the room became so dark that the other girls turned into blots of shadows. They spread out on the floor, sleeping on small bamboo pallets. I looked around. There was one pallet left in the corner, so I took it, spread it out, and lay down.

“Have you ever wondered,” said the girl with almond-shaped eyes, who I later learned was the daughter of the Xu family in the capital, “what the Emperor looks like?”

So she had not met the Emperor either. But she seemed to be the one in charge, speaking in such an authoritative tone, and all the other girls fawned over her, calling her Older Sister Xu, although she was neither old nor sisterly.

“They say his skin shines like gold,” the Select with a flat nose next to me answered. “He also has the mind of a sage, the strength of a steed, and—”

“The heart of a lion,” another added.

Waves of giggles followed.

I did not understand what the joke was, but the tone of their voices confirmed something I had already suspected. I was not the only one who had come with an ambition to win the Emperor’s heart.

I slept shallowly and rose before dawn. Watching the others rolling up their pallets, I did the same and put mine away in the corner. The girls sat in front of their bronze mirrors, dabbing red tinctures on their faces, plucking their eyebrows, binding their hair in Cloudy Chignon, a ridiculous style with their hair piled loosely on top of their heads like black clouds. I dressed, wiped my face, and was ready.

“Will we meet the Emperor today?” I asked a girl beside me, trying to start some small talk, but she was too busy to talk to me. With nothing else to do, I simply sat and watched them.

Someone shrieked, pointing at a pimple on her face. The others rushed to her, gasping and groaning as if a tumor had grown on her nose.

The sun rose and poured a pond of golden light through the chamber’s open doors. I was getting impatient waiting when an order told us to go to the courtyard, where a woman with hair shaped like a conch and a group of eunuchs stood. The woman would teach us the morning lesson of the Code of Courtly Conduct, she said.

“Conduct, courtesy, and compliance,” she said, the tip of the conch hair shaking precariously as she paced in front of us, “share similar sounds but bear one name, the name of virtue. Wear them like your finest gown, carry them like a gold ingot, paint them on your face in the brightest hue, because it is by your courtesy that your goodness is so judged, and, by your compliance, your honor is weighed. Now, repeat after me.”

I had never heard of the words before, but I followed her order and repeated them. Then the woman instructed us on the details of the daily court ritual, protocols, etiquette, and taboos. After she was finished, the head of the eunuchs, a man with a bald head, stepped up and said, “If you fail to obey the Code and disrupt the court’s peace, you will receive a reprimand, twenty lashes by thick rods, or worse—be sent to the Ice Palace for punishment.”

Father had told me about the Ice Palace. It was a euphemism for court prison, the last place a palace lady wanted to go, where the eunuchs stored rods and torture tools. It also, I remembered, had a chamber of reptiles that feasted on the most wicked sinners.

The sun was burning the top of my head by the time the head eunuch finished his speech, and another group of eunuchs came in with baskets that contained threads and needles and piles of handkerchiefs. They all needed to be embroidered in five days, the woman with conch hair said and dismissed us. No one mentioned a word about meeting the Emperor.

“This is it? We’ll embroider for five days?” I followed the girls as we returned to our bedchamber, our arms full of handkerchiefs.

For all I knew, embroidery was a craft where women could have an excuse to practice stabbing—not just the fabric, but people as well. I had heard of some embroidery techniques from Big Sister, but I was not interested in it, and Mother had not forced it upon me.

The Xu Girl, the girl with almond-shaped eyes, glanced at me. “Come, Selects, let’s take a look at the embroidery technique on the sample handkerchief. Here, I have the sample.” She gathered us around her, and I sat across from her in the outer circle. “We will start with the partridge. Let’s look at the satin stitches used in the feathers. Isn’t this fabulous?”

Nodding, the girls stroked the partridge’s tail.

“Look how even these stitches are.”

“And the threads are so shiny!”

“Well, we shall start embroidering,” the Xu Girl ordered and stuffed the piles of handkerchiefs into our hands.

I stared at the vague bird-shaped pattern on the cloth. In my right hand, I held a needle, but it felt like a slippery eel. Crouching carefully, I wrestled it between my thumb and forefinger, suspending my right arm in midair, and traced the edge of the vague pattern.

Soon my eyes were sore, my neck stiff, and my hands cramped, while my mind was knotted like a skein of yarn. When would I see the Emperor?

And I was hungry. I wanted my midday meal.

“So I heard this from the head eunuch when I arrived a few days ago. He said if you wish to see the Emperor, you need his summons,” the Xu Girl said.

I raised my head, surprised. I had assumed that since I was in the palace, I would see him immediately. Perhaps we would all gather in a courtyard, and he would pace before us and ask questions, similar to Father interviewing a group of scribes. But the Xu Girl could be right. The One Above All, the lord of the wind and the sand, the ruler of those flying and those walking, must elude others’ eyes.

“Whom will he summon first?” the girl with a pimple asked, glancing at all of us. “There are fifteen of us.”

“I suppose he will summon us in the order of age, pedigree, or the rank of our family,” the Xu Girl said.

A wave of voices exploded. “Then he would summon you first,” one said, pointing at the other.

“No, I think it’s you,” another added.

They sounded courteous, but a shade of uneasiness lurked in their eyes, telling me that they were not truly friends but rivals.

“If he summons us in the order of rank, shouldn’t he see the titled ladies first?” I said, fingering the needle between my thumb and forefinger. Everyone in the kingdom knew the Emperor had many titled ladies serve him.

“You mean the Four Ladies and the Ladies-in-Waiting?” The Xu Girl dismissed me with a wave. “Perhaps he will summon them first, and then he should see us.”

“But there are so many.” I could tell she disliked my interruption, but she did not seem to know how many titled ladies there were. “If you include all the ladies of nine degrees.”

She glanced at me and then looked down at the handkerchief in her hand. “Nine degrees?”

“Yes.”

The highest ranking of all titled ladies was the Empress, the chief wife, but she had died the previous year, so the Emperor had his consorts, the second-degree ladies, whom we called the Four Ladies; the third-degree ladies, known as the Ladies-in-Waiting; the fourth-degree ladies, the Beauties; the fifth-degree ladies, the Graces; the sixth-degree ladies, the Talents; the seventh-degree ladies, the Baolins; the eighth-degree ladies, the Yunus; and the ninth-degree ladies, the Cainus.