Page 44 of The Poet Empress
But time was not unlimited. The emperor lay dying on his bed. The Crown was about to pass on to a tyrant, and Terren was still hurting people. The heart-spirit poem was all I had. If I did not take risks for it, how else could I change my circumstances?
The palace’s main entrance had five gates, each as tall as three stories, and it was there we waited to begin the festivities. The main entrance, in the middle, was for the emperor only; the two on either side were for princes and distinguished guests. The gate at one far end was for the palace staff and lesser guests, and the gate at the other, the women.
It was at that last gate that the women of the House and our servants clustered, in preparation for the parade in the capital. The air was lively with laughter and excited chatter; even girls from the city must look forward to leaving the palace, after having been confined to it long enough.
“Lady Yin!” Wren announced. “Everything is ready!” She and Fern, Mo, and Duan from the Cypress Pavilion wheeled in a carriage, which was draped with autumn flowers.
Everyone else’s carriage was adorned in their own clan’s fashion. Silian’s was overflowing with Song lotuses; Veris’s carriage was curtained by the Jin golden plum. The Qi sisters, Nere and Rai, draped their carriage of nettle and sage with the seaside clan’s double fish emblem.
I did not have a clan of my own, so did not carry any emblem. Earlier, Ciyi had suggested that I use the Guan red azalea—You are betrothed toone of their sons, so it is not inappropriate, he’d said—but I had declined. To do so would have made me one of them.
I was not one of them.
“My distinguished dears,” the empress silenced the chatter by announcing, “it is time for one of the palace’s oldest traditions: the Mid-Autumn Parade. While the men fight battles and handle affairs of state, we have our own duties to perform.” She made a grand gesture with her sleeve, encompassing the valley beyond the gate. “My husband, the Yongkai Emperor, has permitted us to leave the palace. Tonight, let us all enter the capital and give our gifts to the people of Tensha.”
He must have prepared that edict a long time ago. Since as long as I’d been at the palace, the emperor had been too sick to leave his bed.
The empress gave us the order of our procession. The few who remained from His Majesty’s Inner Court—herself, Lady Chara, and Lady Tang—would make up the front. Silian of the West Palace would be at the rear, and Terren’s twenty-eight remaining concubines would make up the middle.
“Except for Lady Yin,” she said suddenly, sweetly. Her eyes fell on me for the first time since I’d cut off her niece’s tongue. “Since she is Empress-in-Waiting, I invite her to ride next to me.”
Azalea guards led our horses, which had manes of oak branches and tails of golden larch, down the road to the capital, their hoofbeats muffled by autumn’s shed leaves. I was silent as I rode next to the empress, our servants and carriages trailing us. No doubt she had something she wished to say, to have wanted me next to her, but I was not about to begin that conversation.
Xilang, nested on the cloud-laced ridge yawning before us, was the biggest city in the nation. The August Emperor, who had built the palace, had founded the city at the same time. For years he had incentivized people to move there with subsidies, governmental positions, and carefully cultivated myths, in hopes it would grow as populous as the old capital.
It did, quickly. The rivers carried into its walls the magic of the House, and the lush winds from the nearby peaks brought in fertile rains. Whispers of opportunity in the new capital spread throughout the nation. Before long,Xilang blossomed with music and poetry. It grew so much over the centuries that even the mountain could not contain its sprawl. Like rainwater, its sea of gray roofs spilled downwards, towards the valley.
Now, it was home to more than two million people. So many that, as our procession made its way to the heart of the city, imperial guards had to hold back the crowd.
“Over here, Azalea ladies!” a girl laughed from atop her father’s shoulders, waving a sprig of crocuses in the air.
“No, no, over here!” a group of boys yelled from the opposite side. They raised their zodiac-shaped lanterns—monkeys, roosters, dragons—to compete for our attention.
Lanterns. There were more here than I could count. They hung colorful and tasseled from roof eaves and bridge railings, from the arms of red maples and elms. The smell of street food mingled with the crowd of thousands, sizzling chive pancakes and spicy lotus root and tripe, and mountain dumplings drenched in Nanbo broth.
I understood now why poets sang about this city.Xilang, my heart,wrote Lao Shan; Ciliet called itthe crossroads at the top of the empire.Tsao of the Liang Dynasty named it with fervent passionthe childhood dream and final resting place of scholars.
The parade continued. While the ladies of the palace proceeded on our horses, our servants helped distribute our gifts. Plum wine from the Jin Clan, colorful mooncakes from the Qi, fig candies that changed flavor the longer they stayed in our mouths from the Cao. The Jiang were giving out lucky buns, decorated with the faces of zodiac animals; the Sun, prosperity candles. Enchanted by clan literomancers to never burn out, each pair bore an auspicious couplet on their red stems.Long live the Emperor Yongkai,one candle said; the other,May the sweet azalea never die.
“Do you like them, dear?” the empress said, speaking to me for the first time. We rode close enough that nobody else could hear our conversation. “Perhaps we should save a pair for you, to light up the dreary Cypress Pavilion.”
“They are very generous gifts, Your Majesty.”
Singing yellow orioles, little echoes of the large one on the Sun emblem, delivered them into eager hands. I wondered if, when the recipientsburned those candles, they were meant to remember the red azaleas or those yellow birds.
“Not as generous as yours.” She glanced back at my own carriage, where Wren and Duan were handing out heavy burlap bags. “Rice and soybeans, is it? I hear there is even a pinch of dried fruit scattered in there, like pigeon feed.”
I had never heard a voice so sweet drip with so much disdain.
They were hardly impressive gifts, I knew, but it was not like I had any choice. I had no clan to endorse me, no family to lend me help, and Prince Terren would have sooner gouged out my eyes than have provided me with anything to give away.
My servants and I had improvised. For the months leading up to the festival, we had all eaten less than our usual share. Whatever we could scrounge from our storerooms, we saved for the parade. Duan, who was in charge of our recordkeeping, had risked himself to inflate some numbers; Wren had used her connections with other attendants—and her old supervisor Bairon—to collect leftovers from their pavilions.
“This humble servant does not deserve such praise,” I replied, struggling to keep my voice pleasant.
“I am curious, though.” The empress leaned in. “I would have supposed that since the prince loves you so dearly, he might have offered you something pretty. Perhaps even some spells. His skill with literomancy is known throughout the capital, after all. I should think the people would beheartbrokenwhen they receive, in place of Blessings, something so disappointing as rice.”
Rice.I thought of Ba and the other uncles in Lu’an, stooped under a harsh sun, sweat shiny under their cone hats as they labored over a harvest. My blood was so hot it was hard to think straight. “He did offer, Your Majesty. But I talked him out of it. Since we are in a famine, I had thought the common people would not appreciate Dao magic so much as they would something to eat.”
