chapter 2

Sometimes the Empress Dowager summoned me to copy scripture. At other times, she sent me home to rest. Almost every time the Emperor was due to visit, it was time for me to disappear.

I did not understand her purpose, but I dared not seduce His Majesty under her eyes. This was a woman who had slaughtered her way through the harem and climbed to the highest station in the realm. Whatever little fart of an idea I harbored, she had probably already seen through it.

So I obediently avoided the Emperor. If his dragon palanquin happened to pass, I bowed my head, knelt among the maids, and escaped his notice. An Attendant’s clothes differed little from a senior maid’s. Neither was meant to stand out.

The Empress Dowager gave me several bolts of gaudy cloth, saying she was too old for bright colors. I had new dresses made but did not dare wear them. She had been widowed for more than twenty years. If I paraded around dressed like a festive red envelope, would that not be rubbing salt in her eyes?

My rank did not permit extravagance.

The night I first served the Emperor, a light rain was falling.

After helping the Empress Dowager through breakfast, I should have withdrawn, but she kept me there. Rising with a hand on my arm, she told me to wait until the Emperor came to pay his respects.

He arrived quickly, as he did at the same hour every day. His eyes found me as soon as he entered, and a trace of pleasure touched their depths.

After greeting his mother, he turned the conversation toward me. “I have long heard that Attendant Yun serves Mother here, yet I have never once encountered her. She does seem steadier today.”

Every word praised the Empress Dowager’s instruction. She laughed and scolded him for having honey dripping from his tongue.

Matron Sun had already told her the story of my embezzling the Emperor’s pearl bracelet. Her Majesty called me hopeless for losing my senses over a string of pearls.

I smiled and admitted I had never seen anything so fine.

The Empress Dowager gazed into the distance, remembering something. “Indeed. Who is accustomed to fine things from the beginning?”

I did not dare answer.

That evening, the eunuchs of the Imperial Bedchamber announced that I was to serve His Majesty. Ripples spread beneath the harem’s placid surface.

While every courtyard no doubt buzzed with gossip, I was scrubbed clean and powdered from head to toe. I wondered whether the Emperor would kiss me and come away with a mouthful of flour.

Matrons Huang and Zhang stayed beside me. Matron Zhang rarely spoke and usually faded into the background, but tonight her importance became clear. She pressed an exquisitely illustrated booklet into my hands. Inside were naked men and women, rendered so finely that every hair showed. It was almost enough to make me sick.

“Matron, does His Majesty have to study this too?”

A crack appeared in Matron Zhang’s well-trained expression. At last, she seemed to understand why Matron Huang was always flying into rages. Not being fond of needless speech, she wrapped me in a clean quilt like a spring roll.

I was the filling.

The eunuchs from the Imperial Bedchamber grunted as they carried me to the Emperor’s rooms. I stared at him with both eyes wide open.

His Majesty was thirty-two, in the prime of his strength. Dressed in sleeping robes, he idly toyed with a jade ruyi and frowned, perhaps considering how to eat tonight’s spring roll. When I arrived, he finally looked at me properly.

Our eyes met. He broke first.

“Why are you staring so hard?” he asked with a smile that was not a smile, tapping my head with the jade ornament.

“This concubine wishes to see Your Majesty clearly.”

I thought it was a perfect answer. The Emperor had heard too many pretty words to be moved.

I closed my eyes. I opened them. The night was over.

He did not say whether he was pleased. When he heard I was sixteen, he ordered the eunuchs to bring a contraceptive draught.

I drank it cheerfully.

The Emperor dressed while an orderly crowd of servants attended him. Seeing how boldly I swallowed the medicine, he spoke to me again. “Why are you so happy to drink it?”

I wiped my mouth and looked up brightly. “It was bestowed by Your Majesty. Of course this concubine is happy.”

He disliked that answer. “The truth.”

The sharp command frightened me into bowing my head. “This concubine is afraid of childbirth.”

“Hm?”

“Serving Your Majesty already hurt that much. Wouldn’t childbirth hurt me to death?”

The hall erupted. Even the Emperor had no answer.

The night had not been pleasant. The Imperial Bedchamber staff faithfully timed everything. When the proper interval passed, they tapped on the window to remind His Majesty to exercise restraint. He cheerfully rewarded them with several commands to get lost.

It was torment for us both. Once the task was done, His Majesty seemed less irritable. Why should I invent a headache and sob over medicine?

The Emperor had a habit of throwing whatever he held. An ivory Buddha head flew toward me. I caught it before it could break and tucked it carefully into my robe.

This time, I pleased him.

“Look at you. Very well. Since you’re young, go rest today. No need to hurry to the Empress Dowager or the Empress.”

He departed amid a crowd. Palace rules forbade a concubine from remaining in the imperial bedchamber. Before dawn, I supported my aching waist and staggered out.

My first stop was the Empress’s palace.

Anyone capable of becoming Empress needed an iron heart. Every day she watched her husband sleep with other women; at dawn, those same women came sashaying in to pay respects. How could she not feel disgusted?

But an Empress had standards to maintain. Smiling, she praised my respectfulness, humility, and all the rest.

I had no desire to be there. What little I had done with His Majesty left my spirit more exhausted than my body was sore. I had slept badly, and he had even ordered me not to sleep with my bottom in the air again, lest I offend the palace gods.

I did not know whether gods lived in the palace. I knew sleeping with the Emperor was exhausting work.

Dazed, I kowtowed to the Empress and saluted the higher-ranking consorts. At last, I had truly acquired a name in the harem.

I hurried to Shoukang Palace. The Empress Dowager barely reacted, only half opening her eyes to tell me to rest. Matron Sun, massaging her shoulders, nodded to me, and only then did I withdraw.

I had eaten nothing since waking. I was so hungry my eyes must have turned green. At Cloudfold Pavilion, gifts covered the doorway, the standard rewards given to every woman after she served the Emperor.

I cared less about those than the meal. At last, no lard-fried leaves. There were delicate pastries, a bowl of soft bird’s-nest congee, fresh vegetables, beautiful fruits, and, above all, a plate of coiled meat buns stacked into a hill.

This was the only glory of imperial favor I had felt so far.

Others entered the palace to bring honor to their families. After all my time here, my ambition was merely to eat one full meal.

At noon, the Emperor wandered in without having eaten. The moment he entered, his brows climbed high.

“Why is your courtyard so shabby?”

I nearly rolled my eyes to heaven. I was an Attendant. How grand could my residence be? Would he allow me quarters equal to the Empress’s?

I kept that thought to myself.

Perhaps he expected me to complain so he could move me somewhere better. When I said nothing, interest appeared on his face. He drew me close, made me sit on his lap, and acted unbearably affectionate.

I was repulsed. This old man might be the Son of Heaven, but he had passed through a hundred flowers without letting a single leaf cling to him. How many women had endured this same performance?

Yet I had to play at love with him.

“Is there anything Yun’er desires?” he asked in a lecherous tone, one hand kneading my waist.

Your Majesty, if you behaved this way in the street, someone would beat you to death.

Fortunately for him, this was the palace. The play had to continue. At least he was handsome enough that I could manage the role.

Clamping my legs together like a quail, I forced my face red and finally named my wish: a private kitchen.

The Emperor was surprised I wanted that instead of jewels. With a sweep of his hand, he ordered one built at once.

Delighted, I seized his face and kissed him. I caught even the Emperor off guard.

He left wanting more. He had hoped to reserve me again that night, but I refused on the grounds that a certain part of me was injured. Matron Huang pinched me from behind in frantic protest. It did not matter. Tonight, I would sleep.

Once the kitchen was built, I wanted nothing else. I ate, slept, and considered my task complete. What further climbing did anyone expect of me?

I thought so. The other concubines did not.

After I served the Emperor, they began drifting toward Shoukang Palace. The once peaceful residence became a cheerful pleasure quarter filled with laughter, driving the Empress Dowager mad.

At the entrance, I watched a flock of brilliantly dressed consorts attend her with bubbling enthusiasm. A sour ache rose in my chest, as though someone had stolen what belonged to me.

The gate eunuch’s mouth moved faster than his brain. “Attendant Yun arrives!”

The hall fell silent.

With heavy steps, I presented the handwritten Avatamsaka Sutra to the Empress Dowager. A consort with a garden of jewels in her hair hid her mouth and giggled.

“Attendant Yun is diligent indeed. After serving His Majesty, she still remembers to copy sutras for the Empress Dowager.”

Perhaps she had bad breath. Why else cover her mouth?

So this was what they called applying eye drops—poisoning someone’s opinion of me.

Eyes lowered, I replied, “Serving His Majesty is a concubine’s duty. Copying scriptures is the devotion this concubine owes the Empress Dowager. Her Majesty is exalted. Even if she asked not for a Heart Sutra but the entire Avatamsaka Sutra, this concubine would gladly copy it.”

The woman had not expected me to answer without either softness or aggression. She choked on her anger.

Before she could retort, the Empress Dowager spoke. “I am tired. All of you, withdraw. There are too many people. The noise gives me a headache.”

She waved us away. None of the concubines dared make a sound as they bowed and left.

I was about to follow when Her Majesty said coolly, “Attendant Yun will remain.”

I froze, then stood with lowered eyes. Something felt wrong.

“Kneel.”

The Empress Dowager opened her eyes and gave the sudden order. I dropped to my knees without hesitation.

“You may rise when you understand why you are kneeling.”

An Empress Dowager did not explain a punishment.

What was I meant to understand? I had only delivered a sutra.

At the thought of scripture, my heart lurched. Bitterness climbed into my throat.