chapter 3
The water clock whispered grain by grain.
Shoukang Palace still smelled tranquil and soothing. Maids and eunuchs performed their duties in perfect order, filing in and out with vases to polish and fruit to carry. Every head was lowered. No one made an unusual sound.
The fragrance of fruit filled the air. My knees were numb with pain, and my waist felt ready to break. The smallest shift hurt like two rough boards grinding together.
The Empress Dowager disliked extravagance. Apart from burning calming incense when she could not sleep, she usually had eunuchs gather apples from the countryside, select ones of matching size and color, and stack them in layers inside two enormous blue-and-white porcelain vats.
They were display apples, famous for their fragrance and dreadful taste. Once, when the eunuchs removed fruit whose scent had faded, I asked for one and took a bite. It was like chewing apple-flavored sand. Since then, I had kept my distance. The fruit looked round, red, and useful, but its only merit was its fading perfume.
Once I had enjoyed that fragrance. Kneeling in it turned it into torture.
Time crawled. Though the palace was not hot, sweat soaked my clothes and clung unpleasantly to my skin. The Empress Dowager was napping. I knew her habits; she would wake after the time it took an incense stick to burn.
Sure enough, after a soft cough, Matron Sun helped her sit and served warm tea to moisten her throat. A screen painted with an immortal bridge blocked my view. The young maids crossed the floor without a sound, as silent as if they had never been there.
Everyone continued working. Only I knelt with invisible thorns in my back.
“Where is Attendant Yun?” the Empress Dowager asked, her voice languid with sleep.
“Attendant Yun is still kneeling outside, Your Majesty,” Matron Sun replied in her usual light, gentle tone, as if my punishment were splendid news.
That was the rule here. Even if your parents died, you could not look mournful before the Empress Dowager. Every answer must remain calm and unhurried.
“Bring her in.”
Two maids supported me into the bedchamber, where I knelt again to await judgment.
“Do you know your mistake?”
Her voice drifted down from above. I did not dare look up, only imagined her expression.
“This concubine understands.”
“Good. I will give you a chance. Tell me.”
The Empress Dowager was no warmhearted old lady. They said that when the Emperor was still a prince, she had climbed over other people’s corpses. Without my chance encounter with Matron Sun, I could never have formed a connection with her.
Sometimes I wondered why such a woman took an interest in a girl of ordinary birth and family. I dared neither ask nor examine it too closely.
Before her, every thought in my heart had to divide itself several ways. One wrong word might send me into an abyss without return.
After long consideration, I said, “This concubine should not have spoken disrespectfully to Concubine Fang.”
She was the woman who had tried to poison the Empress Dowager against me. I bowed my head, revealing nothing. For the first time since entering the palace, I faced the possibility of my own death.
The Empress Dowager could lift me up or grind me beneath her heel. If an insignificant Attendant died, the Emperor would never offend his mother to seek justice for her.
Understanding that made me more cautious.
The Empress Dowager shared the Emperor’s habit of throwing whatever came to hand. This time, it was a flawless strand of lustrous green jade.
I dared pocket the Emperor’s things because I knew he would not miss them. I would never hide the Empress Dowager’s bracelet inside my robe. It had been part of her dowry.
“Mistress Yun is confused,” Matron Sun said.
The Empress Dowager would not lower herself to instruct me directly, so she borrowed Matron Sun’s mouth.
“Concubine Fang’s father and brothers are generals who risk their lives for His Majesty. If all four senior consort positions were not occupied, she would already hold one. You are only a newly favored Attendant. If word spreads that you made an enemy of a powerful lady without cause, will people say the Empress Dowager taught you to do it? Or that His Majesty is dissatisfied with Concubine Fang?”
Seeing my fists clench, Matron Sun sighed and continued.
“You only just served His Majesty. You should be securing his favor. Instead, you rushed here in a panic to deliver some sutra. Were you afraid of losing the Empress Dowager’s affection? Mistress Yun, this harem belongs to the Emperor. Your whole heart should be devoted to him, not fixed on Shoukang Palace from dawn to dusk.”
The Empress Dowager gave the slightest shake of her head.
“Enough. If she is a wooden block, more words will not penetrate. From today, apart from paying respects to the Empress, you will remain at Cloudfold Pavilion and reflect. Did you not boast that you could copy the Avatamsaka Sutra? I will give you the opportunity. If your work is poor, do not blame me for sending you to pound grain at the Office of Punishments.”
The maids helped me back to Cloudfold Pavilion. My legs had lost all feeling. I could move only by leaning my full weight on them. My underclothes were soaked, and sweat plastered loose hair to my pale face.
Matrons Huang and Zhang assumed the Empress Dowager had punished me and anxiously questioned the palace maids. The women revealed nothing. They laid me respectfully on the couch and slipped away.
“Matrons, leave me. I want to be alone.”
My face was bloodless and my voice weak. With no chief maid, those two matrons managed my household. Seeing my state, they did not press me and promised to wait outside.
Silence settled. I looked at the shabby furnishings and the jade flute and sachet hung after the Emperor’s rewards. Grief rose, and a tear slipped down my cheek.
I had not cried while kneeling. Alone, I understood what it meant to escape death.
The Empress Dowager was the sharpest of all sharp-eyed people. How could she not know my intentions?
I had never planned to please the Emperor. He had a crowd of women and no shortage of people eager to love him. I was different. My rank was low, my speech was not sweet, and apart from stumbling into Matron Sun and winning a sliver of the Empress Dowager’s notice, I had nothing. Anyone in the harem could slight or oppress me.
That was why I had clutched so desperately at the Empress Dowager.
She saw through me at once. That was why she made me kneel inside. Had she truly been angry, she would have put me outside for every passing servant to see. That would have been real humiliation.
I smiled bitterly. There was no escape. Once inside the palace, sooner or later I had to step onto that road of no return.
I had thought it did not matter, failing to see that I was already in the whirlpool. The Emperor’s favor or the Empress Dowager’s—either could kill me countless times.
Nothing was more dangerous in the harem than being favored.
No matter who bestowed the favor.
My knees improved overnight. Matron Huang rubbed them with medicinal wine, and by the next day I could move. Yet the experience aged me ten years in spirit.
No one knew the road my thoughts had traveled.
My kitchen was finished, but keeping a cook required money. My monthly allowance would barely buy a cabbage, much less a chef. I had finally begun to eat well, only to push that life away with my own hands.
My hopes now rested on the Emperor remembering I existed. I must keep copying scripture and find a way to reach him too.
Palace dinners were served early because everyone retired early. They were more like an extra afternoon meal, and the rule of eating only until seven-tenths full made the portions pitiful. Favored or wealthy concubines therefore requested private kitchens.
Only I was both poor and barely favored, yet had one.
If I could not afford servants, I could work myself. At home, I had loved experimenting with food, especially dough. Mother used to laugh that I could become a cook and never starve.
In the end, I truly had to rely on my own hands.
It was late autumn. The hibiscus on the western hill had withered. I kneaded dough and shaped one lotus bud after another. Even the experienced matrons exclaimed over my skill.
Matron Zhang, usually silent, spoke at last. “Since Mistress has such delicate skill, why not send some to His Majesty? Let him see the devotion in your heart.”
Could my devotion to the Emperor really be expressed through steamed buns?
I had learned to speak less, however. If silence would not spoil anything, I remained silent. Matron Zhang smiled, chose the finest pieces, and sent a eunuch away with the food box.
“But Matron, the Empress Dowager ordered me to reflect. Is it proper to send His Majesty gifts so openly?”
Matron Zhang was steadier than Matron Huang. She spoke little but always struck the heart of a matter.
“What the Empress Dowager truly dislikes is your continued resistance to His Majesty.”
I nodded with only half an understanding.
The Emperor had no sons, only two princesses. Though the palace held a grand selection every three years, no woman had given him a prince. Why else would the Empress Dowager be anxious?
His Majesty was not a good husband. No man with a vast harem could be. But he was an extremely selective man. A woman he disliked might enter the palace for any number of reasons, yet he would never touch her. Crying would not bring him.
Only belatedly did I realize he preferred lively women. By chance, I suited his eye, and that was why he had selected me.
The other women were stagnant pools, bundles of schemes, or so cautious before the unpredictable ruler that they scarcely seemed alive. That was why the Emperor had overlooked my poor manners several times.
The thought let me breathe easier.
Survival in the harem required care at every step. Every relationship tangled with every other. Pull one thread and the whole web moved. Only after the Empress Dowager’s punishment did I understand the danger.
Otherwise, I might have remained that muddleheaded little Attendant who drifted through each day.
Soon, I would taste the bitterness of my lesson.
Concubine Fang announced she was pregnant. The Emperor rejoiced and rewarded her three times, sending treasures into her palace like flowing water.
Then Little De arrived.
Eunuch De had served His Majesty from childhood and was one of his closest attendants. A visit from him meant either excellent news or terrible news.
This time, it was the latter.
Kneeling, I listened as he proclaimed the Emperor’s oral decree.
“Attendant Yun has grown arrogant through favor and contradicted a pregnant concubine. She is sentenced to kneel for three days, her allowance is halved, and she will receive three slaps. The punishment begins now.”
Afterward, he comforted me gently. “Mistress Yun must suffer, but an imperial command is difficult to disobey. Please do not make matters hard for us.”
Two seasoned matrons pinned my shoulders. At Little De’s signal, a young eunuch stepped forward and delivered three solid slaps.
I made no sound. My face burned, shame clawed me, and my knees had not fully healed, but I knew this was no time to cry.
When it ended, I kowtowed and called, “This concubine thanks His Majesty for his boundless grace.”
Little De hastily stepped aside to avoid the salute, then personally helped me up.
“Do not blame this servant for speaking out of turn, Mistress Yun. Your good days are still ahead.”
He departed with his procession. I spat out several mouthfuls of bloody saliva and laughed coldly. Good days? He merely did not want me to hate him.
The arrival of one unborn child threw the palace off course. Some rejoiced, some grieved, and others seethed with envy.
That night, while my face still burned, a commotion rose outside. Dujuan went to investigate and returned with the news that Concubine Fang’s child was gone.
Two months along, and just like that, it was lost.
My heart lurched as though something had cut across my mind. The Empress Dowager’s words surfaced from memory:
“Water can bear up a boat, and water can overturn it. But who knows whether the boat will ever consent to rest upon your water?”