Page 79 of The Poet Empress
“Arrows are sharp enough that they are like blades. Perhaps he can manipulate those, too.”
“I have never heard of him doing it. Maybe it’s worth taking the chance.”
“Then we must make sure there’s no trace of the attack. The emperor cannot catch wind of this.”
They were all thinking in the wrong direction. Maro stood, heart racing. “No, it’s too risky.” When everyone turned to him, he continued speaking. “We can’t just attack based on blind speculation. We only have one chance to strike.” If they didn’t succeed, the emperor would punish the West Palace for their treason. The East Palace would redouble their defenses. There would not be another opportunity. “We need to becertain.”
Silence. Then Master Ganji asked, “What do you propose, Maro?”
Maro met the eyes of everyone in turn. Allies who had supported him for years, who had given him trust and unquestioned loyalty. Allies who he would not let down. “I’ll go. Alone. And I think I know how to get him alone, too.”
The letter Terren finally answered contained just one line.
Want to play “dueling couplets”? I have the start of a poem.
44LETTERS FROM AFAR
When I returned from my wedding retreat, there were letters waiting for me.
“Thousands of them!” Ciyi declared, pleased that his position of scribe had finally become important.
They sat stacked in my study, in the eastern section of the Cypress Pavilion. Ciyi had gone through them all in my absence. Most were formalities, ministers and other important men writing to express support and congratulations for the wedding.May Tensha prosper under your reign.
The letters came accompanied with gifts: jade necklaces, aged wine, a camellia bush in rare gold to plant in my garden.
“Now that you are officially wedded to the heir,” Ciyi said, eyes narrowing into crescent moons, “everyone wants to be in your good graces. In their eyes, the fight within the Inner Court is now over. You are now guaranteed to be the next empress.”
I picked up one of the letters, skimmed it, and set it aside. Again, I had the feeling that this was not really happening, that I had only dreamed it all. In my memories, the ministers were all of one sort, flush-faced and mean. Riding into Lu’an to collect taxes every year, beating anyone who could not make their payments with a cane. It seemed impossible that the same sort could have flowery words to say to me.
But not all letters were like those. I spotted, out of the corner of my eye, a letter that did not bear a seal, that was not addressed from a place I recognized. “Hand me that one,” I said to Ciyi. “I would like to have a look.”
He did, with some reluctance. I unfolded it and read:
Dear Lady Yin,
We write to you from Han Village. We have all pooled money to pay a scribe so that we may write this missive for you.
The famine has not been kind to us. The crops are failing, and we have lost several of the elders in our village and many young children. We have prayed to the Ancestors for help, and they have answered through you. When we learned our future empress would be a woman who is a farmer and a villager, that she would be one of us, we all hugged each other and shed many tears.
We write to you with hope in our hearts, that you would help speak with Prince Terren and the other Azalea sons to help us. The others in the palace may not care about people like us, but we know that you will.
There was a short list of requests at the bottom. They wanted two years of tax forgiveness from the emperor, so that the village might have reprieve from the famine. They asked for three knives from Prince Terren, to shear their sheep and cut vegetables. They wanted six pears from Prince Isan, so that each child in the village might try a piece.
They wanted me to persuade the Azalea House to send representatives to the nearest city, Wenning, next Near Year’s to give out Blessings.The children keep going every year,the letter said.They are always so sad when nobody comes.
“Lady Yin.” Ciyi peered at me closely. “Are you crying?”
If I was, they were tears of anger. All those blades hanging in the House like teeth, but not one could be spared for a village that needed it. All those pear trees growing all over the palace, so many that their fruit lay rotting on the ground for the sparrows, but not one could be sent to children who had never tasted pears in their life.
I set the letter aside. “Are there others like this one?”
There were. Many of them, all of the same nature, from Nangou and Liushu and Halfhill at Snake Bend. Places I had never even seen on a map, let alone read about in a book. They wanted a road from Prince Maro to shorten their half day’s walk to the well; they wanted a small rainstorm from Prince Kiran to refill their dried-up rice paddies. They wanted famine relief. A few barrels of grain and rice from the storerooms near thecapital. They wanted debt forgiveness or an apple tree from Prince Isan. They wanted some weapons, even rusted ones, from Prince Terren, so that they could defend against bandits.
It took me until morning, but I read every single one.
As I set down the last of them, Ciyi said to me, a little nervous, a little awed: “Do you know what they are beginning to call you? In the capital, especially, but places even farther away?”
“What do they call me?”
