Page 42 of The Poet Empress
I was stunned into silence. I had always known how ruthlessly utilitarian Muzha was, but I had never thought himheartless.
After I left him, my hands in fists, I went to the West Palace.
“Do something,” I begged Maro. “Your brother has killed my colleague of twenty years. Your father might not care, but I know that you are the kind of prince who would protect the innocent.”
Maro stood tall and graceful, his white-gold robe pooling in the moonlight pouring in from the window. “He is not my brother any longer. Do not call him that.” Gone was the excitable boy he had been in his youth; in his place was a young man who looked every bit the future emperor, as noble as he was judicious.
“Whatever he is or is not, he must be stopped!”
“How? You know what his power is. I cannot win against him in a fight anymore.” His voice was calm, but a slight tremble of his lip betrayed his own helplessness. “If there was something I could have done, do you not think I would have done it already?”
I pointed at Taifong’s blood, still smeared all over my gown. “So you plan to just stand aside and do nothing? While he keeps onkilling?”
“Not standing aside. Waiting.” Maro turned to face the moonlit lake outside. “Remember: I will be emperor one day. When I gain access to the Crown and the imperial armies, I will be strong enough to make a move against him. I am biding my time until then.”
“And you would bet everything on that?” I snapped. “Are you so sure the emperor will keep you as heir?”
His expression turned solemn. “For years, I’ve done everything he asked of me. I carved all those canals. I diverted the Aricine River. I built the Salt Road. He knows how much I’ve suffered for the nation.”
Maro might have been content to wait, but I could not. The emperor was sick, it was true, but even so, it could take years or decades for him to finally die and pass down the Crown. Who knew how many more loyal servants would be dead by then, at the second prince’s blade? How many more cities brutalized?
I went to the last person I could.
Deep within the cascading gardens of the Maple Pavilion, Lady Autumn was sharing tea with Sun Ai and Mingyue. Her cloak fluttered with red leaves as she rose to greet me. “Hesin. I have not seen you in the Inner Court for a long time.”
I fell onto my knees, weeping as I told her everything. “You are the last person he still loves.” He still invited her on his missions, still visited her in her pavilion. “He listens to you. Help guide him back onto the right path.”
Lady Autumn set down her tea and looked at me intently. “I’m curious, Hesin—what do you suppose the right path is?”
The question caught me off guard.
“Never mind,” she said, as I was still formulating my answer. “I will speak with him.”
She did. He killed her for it. Cut her across the throat and left her to bleed out on the blossoms.
When the Yongkai Emperor heard about what happened, he gave only a grunt of annoyance. “Now that the mother is dead, we need someone I trust to look after the son. Hesin, I appoint you to serve as his guardian and advisor.”
“So you see now, Lady Yin, power is such a wicked thing. Razing everything in its path, consuming all, leaving none untouched. Not even the kindest of souls among us are spared, once they have had so much as a taste.”
26A WOMAN WITHOUT A TONGUE
It did not take long for the thrill from punishing Jia to fade away, leaving behind only a cold emptiness.
As I sat in my garden, watching the fireflies dance in the autumn evening, I kept thinking about that tongue. I thought of its wetness in my hands, its slipperiness, the warmth of its blood. I kept hearing Jia’s gurgling,“Urrh, urrh,”as she was dragged out of the palace, the only sound she would make for the rest of her life.
A woman without a tongue is no more than an animal.
Holding that thought, I stepped onto my tiptoes and carefully unhooked one of the paper lanterns from my roof—the character on its side was?/Fu, for Blessing—and carried it through the cypresses, towards the servants’ quarters.
Many of them were still awake. “Good evening,” said Bing Mu as she looked up from washing the dishes with Elia. The bookkeeper Duan was still awake too, and playing a game of Go with Aron. “I can’t believe he beat meagain,” he complained to me as I passed. “Losing to someone frightened of cats—can you imagine it?”
I smiled as I greeted them, though really I was here for someone else.
The old maid Hu was outside on her usual stool, mending a scarf that belonged to Wren. She did not look up in my presence, much in the same way she did not look up the first day I saw her or any of the other days. I set down the lantern and knelt across from her, in a position indicating respect for an elder. “Hu, would you like to learn to read? Li Ciyi usually gives me lessons at dawn, in my bedchambers. And evenings, too, when the prince does not summon me. Only Wren knows about these lessons,so it will be safe for you to come.” I reached for her arm and held it gently. “Please, Hu. Join me.”
She did not answer me, not even when I asked her three times.
But two days later, when the morning was still young and golden-gray, she opened the door to my bedchamber, very carefully, her head hanging and her shoulders hunched.
