The Moon in the Palace (The Empress of Bright Moon Duology) (4 page)

“Where did you learn that?” the Xu Girl asked me without lifting her head.

“From the Sui Book.”

“What book?”

I could tell the Xu Girl, like Big Sister, was not interested in reading, or perhaps she could not read at all. After all, reading was usually reserved for the noble boys. Many women, even the noble ones, did not have the privilege. But Father had given me all types of books: history books, Confucius’s
Analects
, poems and rhapsodies, and Sun Tzu’s
The Art of War
. I had enjoyed reading them. “The history book about the Sui Dynasty. It says the palace women were ranked in nine degrees, like the ministers in the Outer Palace. Emperor Gaozu adopted the same system when he founded his dynasty.”

She waved her hand, frowning. “Fine. Nine degrees of ladies. We know that now. Only a dozen women.”

“No, no. Not a dozen. Each rank consists of a different number of women. There are top-ranking ladies: the four Ladies, and six Ladies-in-Waiting. Then the middle-ranking, the fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-degree ladies. Each of those ranks has nine women. And then there are lower-ranking, the seventh-, eighth-, and ninth-degree ladies, and each of those has twenty-seven.”

The Selects stared at me, their mouths open in shock, and the Xu Girl pulled the thread abruptly, looking frustrated. “Twenty-seven lower-ranking women? What is the total of the titled ladies then?”

I added the numbers quickly. “One hundred and eighteen.”

She was quiet. Someone else dropped her needle.

“Are you sure?” the Xu Girl finally asked. “One hundred and eighteen titled women?”

“Yes,” I said. An army of the Emperor’s women. My stomach clenched as the true meaning of that number sank in.

If the Emperor shared one night with each titled woman, it would take him more than three months. About seven months if he ordered a second round, and if he was happy with his bedmates, it would probably take at least a year before he summoned one of us.

“Nobody told me that. You certainly know more than any of us,” the girl with a pimple said with a sigh.

“Well, I did not want to tell you this.” The Xu Girl flipped her handkerchief over and touched the stitches. I could tell she was unhappy because I had gotten attention from the other Selects. “The head eunuch also told me that…” She gathered the others around her and whispered.

I could see the wall she built to isolate me. I frowned, pulling a thread through the fabric. I did not care if she liked me, but I desperately wanted to know what she was saying.

“Really? Three hundred women?” The girl with a pimple gasped.

“What three hundred women?” I asked. Then I understood. The Selects who had come before us.

“They have waited for years. Some have been here for ten years. But they have never received a summons.” The Xu Girl glanced at me. She looked triumphant that she had known that.

“They never met the Emperor?” someone asked.

“No, the head eunuch said that their hairs have grown white and their faces are wrinkled. They have never even glimpsed the Emperor’s face.”

That night, I lay on my pallet, eyes wide-open in the dark. Would I wait in the bedchamber until my hair grew white, like those old Selects? I would not accept that. I could not let my father’s wish turn into a dusty cobweb, and besides, I needed to get our house back and give Mother a comfortable life.

If the Emperor would not summon me, I would go find him myself.

I was already inside the palace. I needed only to walk around, locate the Emperor’s chamber, and introduce myself. No one could stop me.

I waited until the girls’ rhythmic breathing rose. Then I slipped off my pallet, unlatched the oak bar between the two brackets, and pulled. The door squeaked open. A cold draft rushed in, and my eyes watered. A girl shifted on her pallet, and I froze. When I was certain she was still sleeping, I slipped out the door, closed it, and stepped into the corridor.

Before me, the smooth ground of the courtyard, coated with a thin layer of frost, glimmered in the moonlight like a damask tapestry woven with silver threads. In front of the bedchamber, two pillars stood silently like watchful giants, while the tips of the flying eaves soared into a starless sky.

Footsteps paced outside the courtyard. The building was guarded, and it was impossible to escape.

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

SPRING

Months passed. No summons came from the Emperor.

I learned I was living in the Yeting Court, which was located on the west side of the Inner Court. Heavily guarded by female guards twice my size, it was the home for old and new Selects, exiled ladies, slaves, and many unhappy women. At the northern end, when I walked far enough, I could see the towering trees from the Forbidden Park on the other side of the high wall. At the southern end of the court, near the hill, stood the Ice Palace and the gray brick buildings where the eunuchs lived. That area had no gardens or pavilions. It was often quiet, a place even birds seemed afraid to enter.

The titled ladies lived in a compound on the other side of the wall, the real Inner Court. The Emperor, of course, dwelled there with them. The walls were so high between us, even if I stood on tiptoe, even if I climbed the tree next to the wall, I could not see the face of the man who could change my family’s future.

I sank into the tedious routine of the court like a rock dropping in the river. I rose before dawn, ate my breakfast, and worked on my embroidery. There were endless pieces of fabric waiting for me: gowns, tunics, shawls, skirts, shoes, sleeves, padded jackets, and trousers. They were all for the titled ladies who lived in the Inner Court, I was told. When I finished one, another was pushed into my hands. Taking a break was not allowed, and if I slowed, I would hear harsh scolding from the eunuchs who supervised us. Over time, my embroidery skill improved greatly, and when the eunuchs compared my work with the other girls’, they could not tell the difference.

I seldom joined the girls’ conversations, which were mostly about facial creams or how to draw beauty marks, and the Xu Girl began to take an interest in my accent. When I commented on something, she would sniff and imitate me. The others tittered. Born in the capital, they spoke with a typical Chang’an accent, which was rigid and carried a light nasal sound, but I still spoke with a heavier nasal sound, the voice of Wenshui. I was determined to change. Whenever I had a chance, I silently practiced Mandarin. Soon I could speak as well as them, and they had to stop teasing me. But still when I sat in a corner, I felt like a stag among a herd of horses, where my own difference stuck out like antlers.

I missed my family. I worried about Mother every day. What if Qing refused to give her food? What if Qing beat her? Who would protect her? And Father. How tall the grass in front of his grave must have grown. Was he disappointed in me? When I thought of them, when I thought of how much Mother needed me, I could hardly sleep. I grew desperate.

I needed to get summoned.

• • •

One morning, I went to fetch water to wash my face. A woman in the pavilion called to me. “You’re new here.”

I had noticed her before. Like me, she was always alone, sitting at a low writing table in the pavilion. Although she did not look old, she had white hair that reached her waist. When she bent to the table, she looked as if she had been showered by snow.

“Do they give you any trouble?” She glanced at the Xu Girl, who passed by me with the other Selects.

“What makes you say that?” I walked to the pavilion. Perhaps the woman had noticed my unhappiness or heard the others make some comments about me.

She smiled, tucking a handkerchief in her pocket. “It would be hard to live here for anyone, especially if you have difficult chamber mates.”

I put my basin down and sat on the windowsill. “I agree.”

“You do know they dislike you because you are more intelligent than they are, don’t you?” She was drawing something on the table while a basket of fabric, unembroidered, lay near her feet.

I was rather flattered. “How did you know that?”

“It’s my secret. But I see you’re more beautiful than they say too.”

And she certainly knew the right things to say. “You’re very kind,” I said. When I was at home, I had not cared about my looks, but after spending all these months with the Selects, I understood a woman’s beauty was important. Still, it bored me to spend hours dabbing white cream on my face.

The woman herself was stunningly beautiful. She had willowy eyebrows and a small cherry-red mouth. Loops of white fringed her forehead, while two heaps of hair stood at both sides of her head like the pointy ears of a feline.

“How old are you? Fifteen?” She smoothed a scroll on the table and anchored the corners with the ink stone, ink sticks, and a calligraphy holder painted with white clouds and red peonies.

“Thirteen.” Most of the Selects were fourteen—another reason I did not fit in. I had bled for the first time the month before I came to the palace. My body was changing too, and my breasts were sore. But I still had the slender figure of a girl.

“So young,” she said. “They call me Jewel.”

“I’m Mei.”

“Of the Wu family.”

“You know my family?” I could not have been more proud.

“I heard the eunuchs talk about you when they were discussing the summons.”

“Summons? Have you met the Emperor?”

She shook her head, her gaze fixed on me. Her eyes were like a cat’s, inscrutable, observing me quietly but refusing to be observed. I wondered what she was thinking.

“How long have you been here?” I asked.

“Long enough.” She picked up a calligraphy brush on the table.

“From what others have said, it sounds like we could be waiting forever. I do not like it, waiting here and wasting time.”

“There are some ways that can help you obtain the summons.”

“Really? What ways?”

She dipped her brush in the ink stone, her left hand holding back her right sleeve. “If you have a powerful relative in the court.” She dabbed it against the stone to remove excess ink and began to draw a few lines on the scroll. Her hand was steady, the strokes smooth and thin. Soon the lines formed a large blossom. I could not criticize her skill. She was a good painter. “A truly powerful one, a first-degree minister, or second-degree, who will have opportunities to exalt your beauty to the Emperor. When he hears it, he’ll surely be eager to see you.”

“Ah, connections.” That was how the world functioned, of course. People with good connections received good opportunities; people with no connections received no opportunities. “What are the other ways?”

She glanced at me. “Bribe the eunuch who’s in charge of deciding the Emperor’s night companions. He’ll whisper in the Emperor’s ear about your beauty when he has a chance. When the Emperor gets curious, he’ll summon you.”

I wanted to groan. I did not possess anything valuable that could be used as a bribe, not a jade pendant or even a silver bangle.

“I did not mean to upset you, my friend.” She put down the brush. “Let me tell you something else. Every year on his birthday, the Emperor accepts gifts from his concubines, including us in the Yeting Court. If you give him an unforgettable gift, he may honor you by seeing you.”

“Oh, really?” I was excited. “What kind of gift?”

“Something unique.”

“It has to be, doesn’t it?” There must be thousands of gifts from all the ministers, titled ladies, and all the other ladies. How could one gift stand out and attract his eye? “What have the ladies given him in the past?”

“Gold or expensive toys, jewelry, silk robes, lapis lazuli even. I once offered him a horse.”

A horse! One of the most treasured animals in the kingdom. The rebellion against the Sui Dynasty had cost many precious steeds. With peace at hand, horses were cherished and desired by every man. A conqueror like the Emperor certainly understood their value. “And he didn’t summon you?”

Jewel shook her head.

“If he is not interested in seeing us”—I frowned—“why does he summon maidens to the palace each year?”

She sighed. “All I can tell you is our Emperor is a collector.”

“Collector?”

“A general is no general if he has no soldiers, and what kind of emperor would he be if he cannot have any woman he wishes in the kingdom?”

I would rather not think of myself as something to be collected, like the piece of bone relic Mother cherished. “So he would summon us, any of us, if he is interested in the gift?”

“That’s right.” She nodded, gazing at a group of women coming down the winding path to fetch water from the canal. “But let me tell you—for seven years, no one from the Yeting Court has impressed him.”

The women came closer. I did not recognize them. They were probably the other Selects who had come years before. Their white gowns fluttering in the wind, they glanced at me and frowned.

“Do they know about giving gifts?” I asked.

“They live for the Emperor’s birthday and the chance to impress him. We all do. Once the Emperor summons us and honors us with a title, we will move to the real Inner Court and receive monthly allowances, beautiful gowns, and good food. We will not need to do any embroidery or laundry. Perhaps we will even have maids to serve us. Who does not wish for that?”

I had to agree with her. Embroidery was a slave’s duty. “What are you going to give him this year?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know yet.”

I had a feeling she was unwilling to share her idea. I did not blame her. She must have desperately wished to impress the Emperor and move to the real Inner Court.

I watched her finish painting the flower. A black peony. It was strangely appealing. When it was time to leave, I took my basin and thanked her for telling me about the Emperor’s birthday.

I came to the pavilion often after that day. Jewel was not like the Selects in my chamber. She was not talkative. She always looked quiet, and many times she fell into a serene repose that reminded me of a figure in a painting. It was only her catlike eyes, deep and unfathomable as a summer’s pond, that made me wonder whether, like me, she had experienced a great pain in her life. I did not inquire, as I thought of Confucius’s advice: “The friendship between gentlemen is plain as water.” I believed it should apply to women as well.