Page 38 of The Poet Empress
“Please, Lady Yin, mercy,” Jia sobbed. She knocked her forehead to the wood before my feet over and over.
I remembered how I felt, kneeling on that hill where we buried Larkspur, wishing for a day that all little children could learn to read, even poor ones, even girls.
Your mercy will cost you your life.
I remembered Bao’s wide eyes as he clung to me on New Year’s. I remembered the Rui sisters, believing in me, giving me the leash to their goat. I remembered Ba’s strong hand on my shoulder at the wet market, shielding me from the butcher’s yelling, guiding me home.
You are still thinking like a villager, not an empress.
I raised the knife. The guards held her mouth open for me, muffling her screams, and the blood was dark and warm.
24EVERLASTING SPRING
Like his father and grandfather, Terren was not born wicked. He was born tiny, frail, and not breathing.
The birth had nearly killed both mother and child, but as Lady Autumn lay bleeding out on the bed, the doctors paid no attention to her. Instead, they all crowded around the seal-bearing infant, desperately trying to get him to gasp out his first breath, to save the magic trapped within his fragile body.
After she recovered, Lady Autumn would not look at her son. She left him in the arms of his wet nurse and spent all her time with her friend Sun Ai instead, strolling in her gardens, catching up with all the gossip she had missed.
“Hesin,” she asked me once, “why are women always expected to love those who would hurt us? To take care of those who would use us, however they please, without the slightest regard for whether we lived or died?”
He was a strange child, quiet and easily frightened. Even a snap of a twig or the clinking of glass could startle him into tears. When he did speak, it was only a few stunted words at a time.Hungry. Scared. I’m sorry.
He had three toys that he took with him everywhere—Tiger, Niu Niu, and Little Sparrow—and if we tried to take any of them from him, he would run to the nearest corner, cover his face with his hands, and hide there until we gave it back.
While everyone adored his older brother Maro, whose personality was bright and fierce, few took a liking to the second prince.
The concubines of Muzha’s court mocked him in public. The servants of the House did the same in private.Heaven’s pure magic,they whispered when they thought nobody could hear,wasted on a child like that.I am ashamed to admit that for a long time, I held the same opinion.
The only one who seemed to like him—genuinely like him—was his brother.
“My brother is the cleverest,” Maro declared proudly, to anyone who would listen. “He’s going to be the best literomancer Tensha has ever seen. Just you wait!”
They did not see each other very often—ever since the days of the Wenning Emperor, princes have always been raised separately—but the whole court did gather during festivals like New Year’s or Sweeping of the Dead. On those occasions, Maro and Terren were inseparable. Like a lost duckling, Terren toddled after his big brother all over the halls and gardens.
“I think we should let them play together,” I told the emperor, the year Terren turned four. “As often as possible.”
It was not a suggestion I made lightly. Throughout Tenshan history, imperial brothers killed each other for the Crown as often as nations waged wars.You cannot keep two angry bulls in the same pen,the poet Jiang Le writes. Farther from the capital, they say,You cannot keep two roosters in the same cage.
“Hesin, you always try me,” Muzha said, amused. “Your ideas grow more and more unusual every year.” He sat hunched over his dining table, drinking his bird’s nest soup. Every time he spilled a drop, the young maid standing behind him would hurriedly dab it away with a cloth.
“Maro is the only one who I have ever seen make Terren laugh, Your Majesty.”
“Does it matter? Laughter does not grow a prince into a ruler. Jinzha laughed more than anyone we knew.”
“Your Majesty, if your sons grow up happy, their magic will be stronger as well. Are we not counting on them to help us with theirpowers? How will we regain all the territory we’ve lost without them?”
It was that argument that made him relent. With a sigh, he said, “The Palace of Everlasting Spring is empty at the moment. There is a peach garden there where the boys can run around, and several pavilions where your eunuchs and scribes can work. Move your office there. You can help watch after the children while you review my memorials.”
I did. The Palace of Everlasting Spring was even more beautiful than I remembered. Thousands of enormous peach trees blossomed in its garden year-round, the air forever sweet with the scent of beginnings.
The boys loved the garden as much as I did. With all the space to run, Maro and Terren played together tirelessly. They flew kites, caught geckos, chased swallows, invented games, and generally found creative ways to get themselves into trouble. My colleagues and I watched them from our pavilion’s window while we organized memorials or copied scrolls, smiling whenever their laughter broke up the monotony of our work.
Soon, the peach garden began to fill with visitors.
Drawn by the young princes’ energy, the servants, scribes, cooks, gardeners, and doctors all began to gather in the Palace of Everlasting Spring during their breaks. Even the emperor’s concubines came by to watch them play.
On bright, sunlit afternoons, Empress Qin would regale an enraptured audience of several concubines about an opera skit she’d seen. Companion Tang would work on her embroidery with Mingyue, Lady Chara, and Lady Sky, as Lady Autumn napped next to Noble Consort Sun plucking absently at her zither. After Isan was born, he was raised in the garden too, accompanied by his wet nurse and tutors.
