Page 15 of The Poet Empress
“You don’t have to—” I began, but the maid interrupted me.
“May you live a thousand years.” She was young and bright-eyed, and wore her hair in two buns; her shawl bore the red, white, and black coloring found on cranes. Behind her spray of freckles was a gentle blush, behind her smile a shyness. “I am Lin Wren, the head attendant for the Cypress Pavilion.”
“And I am your scribe, Tel Pima.” The eunuch had startled-looking brows and a braid that reached his waist. He kept a quill pen tucked behind one ear.
Women might have been forbidden to read, but the more distinguished ones kept male scribes for correspondence. It should not have surprised me that I was assigned one myself.
“I’m glad to meet you both,” I said, and meant it from the heart. Nobody had spoken to me this kindly in a month. Then, remembering my purpose, I lowered my head. “I have a favor to ask. I come from a small village, and the famine has not been kind to it. Are there any provisions I can send back home?”
Instantly, Wren’s face darkened. “I am sorry, Lady Yin, but what you ask is beyond the abilities of this humble servant. Everything in the East Palace is accounted for. Everything that comes in and goes out must be approved by His Highness.”
“You ought to ask the prince himself,” Pima said. “He is, after all, betrothed to you.”
There was no mockery in his tone, but it was hard not to interpret it as so. They picked up their rakes and began sweeping again, signaling the end of that conversation.
For the rest of the afternoon, I tried to speak to the other East Palace workers. As I wandered through the cypress grove, I made my plea toseveral others. But no matter who I asked—from the youngest maid feeding the holly-cats to the oldest eunuch trimming the azalea bushes—their answers were the same. One of the older maids mending a scarf by the creek, with gray-streaked hair and a face sagging with age, did not even look up or acknowledge me once.
Did they hate me? I wondered, despairing. Did they spurn me for being a lowly villager?
Or did they resent me for being Empress-in-Waiting?
Daylight was fading by the time I made it to the end of the garden, where a plain pavilion sat tucked away between the cypresses. Warm firelight flickered from its windows.
As I approached, I heard laughter and excited conversation, punctuated by what sounded like a story being passed around.“Long ago, in a world burning with heat, the Archer shot down nine of the ten suns.”When I looked inside, I saw at least twenty maids and eunuchs gathered for dinner.The servants’ quarters,I thought.
I did not dare enter. Once, I might have thought myself one of them, but now I was not so sure. I was not an empress, certainly, but I was not quite a villager anymore either. I didn’t knowwhatI was. I stayed outside, close enough to hear their conversation, but not close enough to feel the warmth of their hearth.
It was there, pressed up against the cold wood and hugging my knees, that the prince’s eunuch found me. “Lady Yin,” Hesin said, “His Highness calls you to his bedside.”
9THE ONE WHO CANNOT DIE
By the time we arrived at the Tower of Mental Tranquility, the sun had halfway set, painting each tier of the pagoda with the color of blood.
Hesin led me up the stairs wrapping around its exterior, up a dizzying height, and from it I had my first look at the palace’s surroundings. Two sides ended at the base of lush peaks; beyond a third side, what must have been the capital, Xilang, lay sprawling over a shrouded ridge. On the fourth side, the mountain plunged into a jaw-droppingly deep valley. I tried to avoid looking that direction.
“Your Highness.” Hesin knocked on the wooden door. When there was no response, he simply opened it.
I stepped into the prince’s bedchamber. Like the Hall of Divine Harmony, where the selection had taken place, this room was also covered with swords from wall to ceiling, white wisteria floating between their hilts like clouds. In the center of the room was a table large enough for twenty but set for two. At one end of it, Terren sat with his legs crossed and his gray robe pooling on the carpet, reading from scrolls sprawled messily on the ground. His ward of glowing characters hung motionless around him.
I felt my breathing quicken, that awful knot of fear returning.
“I will leave the two of you to your duties now.” Hesin gave me a look that I could not interpret, then left us. He did not slam the door behind him, but it sounded loud anyway, like a cage door shutting.
The silence lingered. Terren did not look up or acknowledge me. Finally, I forced myself to say, “May you live a thousand years.”
“Formalities irritate me. It is only the two of us, so there is no need to waste perfectly good silence on vacuous words. Sit. Eat.”
I sat at the other end, as far away from him as possible. The enormous length of the table between us teemed with at least a hundred steaming dishes, soups and braised meats and stir-fries, but I could not bring myself to feel hungry.
Terren wasn’t eating either. He finished the paper he was reviewing and stamped a red seal at its bottom. The next one he crinkled up and tossed aside, and then he did the same for a third. “Maro’s allies. Some try to switch sides now that I am heir. What would you make of this?”
I was too afraid to think of a proper response, so I blurted out what Lady Chara had taught us to say. “I’m afraid I have no opinion, Your Highness. This humble servant knows nothing about the men’s side of the palace.” And anyway, it was the truth.
Terren made no further comment. He set down the paper and picked up another. The silence drew on, the sunlight through the window becoming redder.
“Your Highness,” I said, before I could stop myself.
He kept his eyes on his paper.
