Page 80 of The Poet Empress
“Rice Wife.You see, you are the only peasant girl who has ever married the son of an Imperial House. You are the only one who has ever carried no emblem on Mid-Autumn’s Parade, and given out only the most basic of foodstuffs. And there is an anonymous scribe in the capital writing about you, spreading your name. Lady Yin, you are becoming a legend.”
An anonymous scribe,I thought.Tel Pima.The startled-looking eunuch with the braid. I could not think of who else it might be.
I wondered if the passage of time had helped erase the shadows of the past, or if his neighbors still saw him as a source of shame.
That evening, I began doctoring edicts.
After Terren summoned me, after he had finished his usual nightly ritual of threatening to hurt me, actually hurting me, and mending me, I lay beside him until his ward told me he was asleep. Then I rose and crept to his desk.
By the moon’s light, I leafed carefully through his memorials. They were all long essays, written by ministers or officials to propose one course of action or another, that had been sent to him for his review and approval. If he stamped them with his imperial seal, they would be sent off to Hesin to be processed.
Rice Wife.Was that what they saw in me? It was not a title I would have chosen for myself. I could still remember that crippling sickness, that nauseating fire of pain, the first night Terren had summoned me.Ricewas a way that he had, indelibly, hurt me.
Butricewas also who I was, before the Azalea House. It was what I had sown in the terraces, with my family and the aunts and uncles of Lu’an, long before I knew the palace.Ricewas warm meals and New Year’s,and gatherings, and livelihood. It was how I had kept the seasons and counted the years.
I looked through the memorials already stamped, searching for changes I could make. Most of them were inane bureaucracy—requests from the Great Clans to enact regional policies, recommendations for scholars to court posts, judicial cases that concerned the lives of noblemen. But there were a few of them, only a few, that concerned the common people—ones that proposed famine aid, new infrastructure, or tax relief.
I kept my changes simple. Small enough to be beneath the notice of the House, but large enough to make a difference to its recipients. With just a few strokes of a brush, I could turn one year of tax breaks into three, one barrel of donated rice into ten. Having lived in Lu’an, I knew that even one barrel of rice could mean the difference between a child buried and a child laughing as she caught catfish in the paddies. Having lived in the palace, I knew that the same barrel would not even register in its treasury.
It was tempting to do more. I wanted to add the village names, from the letters, to the lists of places receiving aid; I wanted to write a whole memorial just for Lu’an itself, detailing all the things I wanted to give Bao and all the others. But although I might be reckless, I was notthatreckless. I was not so arrogant as to think I could forge a minister’s calligraphy. Hesin would catch me immediately.
But an extra brushstroke or two? That was both easy and not noticeable.
The safest thing to do, of course, was nothing at all. To lie next to Terren and stare at the ceiling, like I had done all the nights in the past, praying that he would not wake up and hurt me.
But the letters had reminded me that I was not that girl anymore. That I was in a position of power, even if I had a hard time believing it. They told me that there were those in Tensha looking to me, the same way that I had once looked to the Azalea House.
I had to stop thinking like a villager. I had to start thinking like an empress.
45BUTTERFLIES IN JARS
For New Year’s there were more than a thousand plates on the table. Spiced braised rabbit, salted duck egg, steamed crab with red claws poking out of their tureens: the cooks had brought them all to the empress’s Hall of Even Temperaments. Giant bowls of soup, kept warm with lit candles beneath, filled the air with the scent of green onion and garlic. Wines of rice, sorghum, plum, honey, and lychee sat plentiful in silver vessels.
The entire South Palace was filled with lit lanterns and festive banners, with musicians and dragon-dancers. Everyone in the Inner Court was celebrating—lighting firecrackers, playing courtyard games, exchanging red envelopes.
Sometime midmorning, Wang Suwen surprised me by coming up to me. “May… may I speak with you alone?” When we stepped away from the group, her tone turned even more rushed. “My brother is the only boy in my extended family. The honor of my relatives rests entirely on him. But he has not passed the imperial exam and cannot find respectable employment.”
I raised a brow. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you can do something about it.” We were still in public, so she did not kneel, although she looked like she desperately wanted to. “Prince Terren has the power to grant him another attempt with just one edict, and you could whisper something in his ear while you bed him. I have always meant to do it myself, if I ever had a night with him, but… I do not think I will ever have the chance.”
“I see.” I swallowed a lump in my throat. How could I explain to herthat I could not help her, without revealing the true nature of my relationship with the prince?
“Please,” she said in nearly a whisper. “My ba has been writing letters, urging me to hurry. He had bribed many people for my place in the selection, for the sole purpose of helping his son. Our household is deeply in debt. I am running out of time.”
“I… I shall do my best, Lady Wang.”
She gave a wan smile, dipped her head, and went back to the festivities. I set the bowl I had been holding down, no longer in the mood for dumplings. Now I understood why so many of the concubines resented me. No doubt they had all come to the Inner Court for a purpose just as urgent, and I had—through no fault of my own—been their obstacle.
Maybe they even knew about Terren’s cruelty. I had assumed, long ago, that the city girls thought themselves invincible. But maybe that was not true at all. Maybe they did know the risk, same as me, and had judged that the gain was worth it. Maybe none of us had very much to give to the world except for our bodies, and if being planted meant food on the table, or honor for the family, perhaps that was our way of leaving our mark on the dynasty.
Suwen was not the only one who came to me. Spurred on by my wedding, and possibly by the festive atmosphere of New Year’s, Liru Syra also pulled me aside.
“If you have a chance,” she said, eyes darting about, “please ask him to let the Liru Clan launch a strike against the Highlands. We control many military men, but they are stationed as mere city guards in Anyang. They hunger for glory and a chance to fight for the nation.” Her words sounded rehearsed, as if somebody had given them to her.
I wondered, idly, if Syra remembered our days in the Hall of Earthly Sanctity. Her and Lily and Minma, sharing tea under a pear tree, mocking me for wearing my sash on the wrong side. Those days seemed a lifetime ago. “What will happen to you if this request is not granted?”
She lowered her head. “I do not know, Lady Yin. After I told my clan I had only made third-rank concubine, none of my family has written me back. I was hoping that with enough success in the palace, I would hear from them again.”
