Page 98 of The Poet Empress
“… Yes. When Qiu’er spoke to me, it was with a practiced sweetness she must have learned in the Inner Court.Aunt Ahma, how would you like for one of your girls to become mother to a seal-bearing son?”
“And you agreed.” I wanted to strangle her.
“I… I was enticed by the possibility. If one of the pleasure house girls gave birth to a prince’s son, it would have been a boon for everyone. The girl would find herself suddenly in the notice of the capital and its court, and the resulting fame would have paid dividends for the Tower.”
It was true. Prince Kiran, the fourth son, was born outside the palace; I had heard his mother, and the fishing village she was from, had received an abundance of gifts for her contributions to the nation. I even knew her name—Liu Sacha. I knew the names of few women who were not part of the palace, but I knew hers.
“What did Lady Autumn get out of this?” I asked, struggling to keep my voice even. “Was it revenge? Did she hate her son that much?”
For the first time, Aunt Ahma looked baffled. “Is it not obvious, Your Highness? Prince Terren might be heir now, but he had to fight a long and harrowing succession war for the position. Back then, Prince Maro had everything in his favor. Not only was he the eldest, with tradition on his side, he also had formidable allies among the Great Clans and a slew of accomplishments for the nation. And don’t forget his crowning achievement: right when Tensha needed it most, he had built the Salt Road, almost in its entirety.” She shook her head. “Even if Prince Terren managed to find success retaking Tieza-North—and that was far from guaranteed back then—it still would not have been enough. But if he managed to father a seal-bearing son as well? That would almost certainly push the emperor to name him heir over his brother, knowing the dynasty would be secured for yet another generation.”
My incredulity must have shown plain on my face, because she hurried to say, “Don’t worry, Your Highness. We treated your husband very well. He quite enjoyed it.”
“Did he?” I said dryly.Turn me into a fish,he had sobbed to Maro, the day Maro had tried to kill him.Or a flower. Or a peach tree.
If you’re really sorry, then turn me into something nice.
“Of course. They always enjoy this kind of thing.” I could have sworn Aunt Ahma started shaking then—and she shoved her hands immediately under the table to hide it. It was like she knew she had done something horrible, and was afraid of me finding out just how bad it was. “We built him a custom chamber just for him, one fit for a prince. We filled it with the most luxurious silk, gave him the best girls, and hired the best apothecaries to stoke his magic. Of course, we were never successful”—she forced out a laugh—“but it was certainly not for lack of trying.”
I wonder if the pleasure girls wept for him or for themselves, or if they viewed it only as duty and did not weep at all.
“I want to see it,” I said, standing.
“Y-Your Highness?”
“The chamber. The one you built for him. You claim you treated him well, so I wish to see just how well.”
It was the last place I wanted to visit, the place that had made Terren so broken. But those years that he had spent in Tieza, missing from Maro’s and Hesin’s accounts—I needed to know what they were like, so that I could finish his poem.
She was sweating now, and dabbed at her forehead again. “Your Highness, the prince has not been here since he was sixteen. His chamber has not been used since then. It is… it is bound to have collected dust over the years.”
I said nothing, just looked at her, wielding silence like a weapon.
I did not even have to wait two heartbeats before she drew in a shivery breath and said, “Of course. I shall take you right away.”
It was down a long corridor and nestled deep in the mountain, so it had no windows, but it was filled with red lanterns. Aunt Ahma lit them one by one, and by their blood light, I could see an enormous plush bed, several lacquered desks, murals of classical poetry, a dragon rug, and a fireplace that tunneled somewhere deep into the stone walls. A few child-sized night robes hung on one wall.
It smelled of stale, long-ago incense.
The chamber had once been decorated with plants—potted bamboo, figs, and ancient cherry trees lined the walls—but they were all shriveled and dead.
I had no idea why she was afraid to show it to me. It was as luxurious as she claimed and completely innocuous.
Or perhaps it was the innocuousness of it that made it so wrong. One could give a prince the best silks and the best incense, but making him perform the childmaking duties against his will wasstilla cruelty.
I thought of the fear on the other concubines’ faces, the New Year’s they had come to me for help. How terrified I had been myself that first night, curled up against the cold walls of the Cypress Pavilion, awaiting my planting. The act may not have been magic, but it was often just as terrible.
I walked around the room, examining the bed, the furniture, the art on the walls, memorizing the texture of the velvet curtains for my poem. The whole time, Aunt Ahma stood by the door, looking like she wanted to bolt the moment I allowed her. When I reached the fireplace, which was full of ash, I spotted something shiny within it that caught the flickering lantern light. I searched for something to fish it out and found a pair of golden tongs, sitting on the mantel. I picked them up—and paused.
The tongs were not ordinary ones. They were forked at one end, with three metallic prongs branching out from its center.
I had seen that pattern before.
That night I had begged Terren to plant me, I had managed to loosen three buttons on his gown before he’d stopped me. They had exposed a conflagration of three-pronged scars on his chest.As if a bird made of fire had trampled all over him,I recalled surmising.
I looked up at Aunt Ahma standing by the door. “Remember what I said about the truth?” There was no threat in my tone, but my words must have been threatening enough. She immediately burst into tears.
“It wasn’t me,” she sobbed, and fell onto her knees. “It was her, it was Qiu’er, never me. I never did anything. I never—”
