Page 7 of The Poet Empress
But he was not there. It was a quiet night, with only a sprinkling of guards at the arched gate. It had to be a side entrance, for how unassuming it was, tucked away behind branches heavy with blossoms and whistling nightbirds.
Of course he wouldn’t be here, I realized. The heir was too important to see two of presumably many candidates on arrival. I was ashamed of how much it relieved me.
Ciyi whispered something to one of the guards, who went inside. Amoment later the door opened, and two young girls came outside in flowing robes.
“These are attendants from the House,” Ciyi said pleasantly. “They’ll wash you up and make sure you look presentable.” At the wordpresentable,his eyes flickered unsubtly to me.
I tried not to stare too long at everything as I was led inside. Everything in the palace was so intricately made, from its ancient walls, brilliantly red, to the fountains and sculpted osmanthus trees. As we went down a hall, along a courtyard, I noticed that even the smallest pillars had carved gold etchings on them, depicting ancient seal-bearing men fighting demons and moguei and more horrifying things. Even the red lanterns lighting the walkway held stories, lines of verse inked on their papery sides.
At last, we arrived in a far, tucked-away wing of the Azalea House.
“This is the Hall of Earthly Sanctity,” said Minma’s attendant. “Where the candidates will stay.” Hundreds of occupied chambers all faced a huge, peony-filled courtyard, candlelight flickering from every window. “Selection Day is one month from now. If His Highness chooses to retain you as one of his thirty concubines, you will move to his East Palace, the Palace of Blades. If not, you will be sent home.”
“This way,” my attendant said, and pointed in the opposite direction that Minma’s attendant was about to lead her.
Before we became separated, Minma grasped my wrist without warning and leaned into my ear. “You may be a village prude, and ugly, but you are also from Guishan. I do not wish for you to die. So let me warn you: do not trust any women in the court. We may not fight with swords and poems like the men, but we have other ways of fighting. You may think the women here are your friends, but we are all competing.”
“For the prince,” I agreed, because I thought what she said was obvious.
“For power,” Minma corrected. “Those who are starved are most desperate. And even the Ancestors know that women have long been starved for power.” We went our separate ways.
5THE FATE OF CONCUBINES
O Tensha, Motherland!
The birthplace of culture. The resting place of great men.
All the world fears the poem written in Tenshan pen.
—TANG GEWEN, AZALEA DYNASTY, YEAR 589
I wish I could say I listened to Minma’s warning. That I kept on being afraid of the Azalea House women, or the prince and his knives, or even of Prince Maro and his plans to regain the Crown.
But when my attendant led me to where I would be staying—a warm, lantern-lit room, nestled deep within the rustling peony bushes—all I could manage was a childlike awe. Vivid rugs, curtains, and tapestries blooming with live flowers covered every surface. Paper lanterns sitting on every table guarded against the chill of night. I saw things I had only ever heard about in stories: bronze mirrors, and porcelain cups, and lacquered furniture made of what I guessed was sandalwood.
By one of the latticed windows, a cat with holly leaves for fur sat watching me, tail flicking as it soaked in the moonlight. It was yet another sign of the magic inherent in the Azalea House. I felt like a little girl again under its gaze, knowing nothing about the world.
Connected to my chambers was a basin-room. When I went inside, looking for a place to wash myself, I found a bath already drawn, still warm and scented with hibiscus petals. For a long time, I worked on scraping the thick layer of mud off my body—from my brittle black hair to my calloused soles, to beneath my bit fingernails. I wondered if it was enough for me to be clean, or if there was some ineffable part of me that was and would always bevillage.
When dinner came, there was enough food to feed a whole family.
The cook named each dish as he set it down. “Braised chicken withmung bean. Shrimp and abalone dumplings. Egg flower soup. Thousand-year fig cakes, to promote beauty and longevity.…” By the time he left, there were more than a hundred plates on the table.
At first I just stood there numbly, as if I had forgotten what food even was. Even the rice here was different—white and pristine. I had rarely ever had a bowl of pure rice like this before, without mixing in bran or tree bark or plants we foraged from the hills. Even on New Year’s, we could have only watery porridge.
New Year’s had not been that long ago. I still had the image of Ba giving the one extra bowl to Bao burning in my mind. I still remembered how he had eaten his own portion slowly, one grain at a time, so that he would finish at the same time as his son.
Now I had all this for only myself.
I should have resented the Azalea House for it. Instead, I ate so quickly that the soup burned my tongue. For the first time, the constant ache in my belly vanished, like a shadow scared away by the sun, and that was when I understood—really understood—why village girls wanted to marry city boys and city girls wanted to marry princes.
I wanted to stay here forever.
I would want it even if I had to fight the women in the palace and dodge Terren’s knives. Even if I had to be planted, over and over again, until I grew them a son. So long as I was never hungry again, I thought, they could do to me anything they pleased.
But wishing was not enough to make something so. If that were the case, Larkspur would still be alive.
I was reminded again of how little chance I had to be chosen when I glimpsed the other girls the next morning. They were milling under the courtyard’s pear trees, in the haze of dawn, walking gracefully and speaking gently. When they laughed, they covered their mouths so that only their eyes showed.
