chapter 1
I was the court historian charged with recording the Empress’s every word and deed.
There was only one problem: I could not read.
I had followed my father and brothers onto battlefields since childhood. Unlike ladies raised in secluded chambers, I had never been taught the classics. Then my whole family died in the campaign on the northern steppes. With my last breath, I cut down the enemy commander and led our army home in triumph.
My father and brothers were posthumously made Loyal and Valiant Marquises. The soldiers received gold.
When my turn came, the Chancellor smiled and said, “For a woman so loyal and chaste, His Majesty will surely arrange a fine marriage.”
I could not command an army. I could not serve at court. My name could not even appear in the official histories.
All because I was a woman, and a marriage bestowed by the emperor was supposed to be the greatest honor I could ever earn.
Why?
So I claimed illness, stayed home, and refused the imperial decree.
Spring passed into autumn. The late emperor did not survive the winter. He had no sons, and somehow the throne fell to his daughter.
The court historians panicked. Every one of them was a man. How could they attend a female sovereign at all hours and record her every word?
That was when the Chancellor remembered me.
The first time I saw the Empress, she wore plain mourning robes and knelt in the Hall of Mental Cultivation, serving tea to her mother-in-law while enduring a lecture.
The Empress was actually on her knees.
In the middle of their conversation, she fainted for no apparent reason. When she woke again, the chill flowing through her eyes frightened everyone in the room.
She rose slowly and asked me how that page should be recorded.
I considered it, then put brush to paper.
[The Empress kneels before her mother-in-law. Her mother-in-law must want to become Empress Dowager, while the Chancellor wants to become Retired Emperor.]
The instant I finished, everyone in the room dropped to their knees, trembling.
Her mother-in-law went white. “This historian is an ignorant brute spouting nonsense! Neither I nor my husband has ever harbored treasonous thoughts!”
The Empress merely smiled.
Her mother-in-law panicked and began slapping herself. At the tenth blow, the Empress gave a quiet laugh.
“Who said this historian was no good? She is marvelous. Keep her at my side.”
I was an illiterate court historian, and the Empress valued me greatly.
Our Empress had once been the late emperor’s most beloved little princess: innocent, sheltered, and childhood sweethearts with the Chancellor’s legitimate son. She should have lived a peaceful life.
Instead, her elder brothers died one after another. By the time the emperor passed away, none of the imperial clansmen could shoulder the realm. Only the princess remained of the direct bloodline.
The Chancellor, the most respected man at court, then resolved to place her on the throne.
The Empress I had heard about knew nothing beyond pleasing a husband and raising children. She was weak, ignorant of statecraft, and left every military and civil decision to the Chancellor.
He stood below one person and above ten thousand.
Yet the woman before me was nothing like the rumors.
…
After I attended the Empress at lunch, she had no state affairs scheduled. Palace maids brought novels and candied fruit, while a female physician knelt beside the couch to take her pulse.
The Empress shook her head and refused.
The physician bit her lip, wearing an aloof and wounded expression. “If Your Majesty dislikes me, why allow this common woman to serve you only to humiliate me?”
“I would never covet Brother He, nor fight for status. I ask only to retire to the mountains and raise the child in my womb in peace.”
Brother He had to mean He Feng, the Chancellor’s son and the man due to marry the Empress next month.
This physician and the future imperial consort…?
The Empress arched a brow. Instead of answering, she looked at me.
I understood. I wrote as I read aloud:
[He Feng, son of the Chancellor, violated a female physician. She risked her life to beg the Empress for justice.]
The physician swayed. “It was not Brother He’s fault…”
I tore out the page and tried again.
[A female physician seduced the Chancellor’s son so that her child might inherit the throne one day.]
She went deathly pale and fell to her knees, shaking. “I have done no wrong! I have been falsely accused! I never intended any such thing!”
The Empress finally spoke, her voice lazy. “You are not at fault. He is not at fault. Then do you believe I am at fault?”
The physician froze, cold sweat bursting across her brow.
I tore out that page too and wrote:
[A female physician blames the Empress. She and all nine branches of her clan have already made peace with death.]
Her eyes rolled back, and she fainted outright.
I set down my brush. The Empress tossed me an apple, amusement playing over her smile.
“A masterful pen. Five stars.”
I was an illiterate historian, yet the Empress called my pen masterful.
Heh.
…
At dusk, He Feng entered the Hall of Mental Cultivation to dine with the Empress. His face was cool. He first observed etiquette by serving her food, then began to lecture her.
“I heard you threw a tantrum today and deliberately made trouble for Tingxue, a mere physician.”
“She is frail and cannot bear harsh words. Why must you treat her so?”
“You alone will be my principal wife. Tingxue will not compete with you. Behaving this way will only earn you a reputation for jealousy.”
What had the Empress even done?
I had never seen a man accuse someone so shamelessly.
Rumor said the Empress and He Feng had grown up together and that she loved him alone, with all her heart. But from what I could see, He Feng did not love only her.
People said it was natural for a man to have several wives and concubines. Yet if I gave him my whole heart while he divided his among several women, how was that fair?
That was why I refused to marry.
I was about to record the exchange when I realized the Empress had given me no signal.
“He Feng.” She toyed with an exquisite red-jade cup, a faint smile on her lips. “When Father was alive, do you know how consorts who committed adultery were put to death?”
His face changed. “Lingyi, what are you saying? I have always treated Tingxue like a younger sister!”
She was carrying your child, and you still called her your sister?
He deserved a beating.
Fuming, I raised my brush but could not decide which sentence to curse first.
The Empress seized He Feng by the chin. “When you possess the power I do, you will understand exactly what I mean.”
“Go home and think about it.”
He stared at her as though she were a stranger. At last, he rose and stormed away.
The Empress wiped her hand with a handkerchief and asked what I had written.
I thought for a moment, then set down:
[He Feng, son of the Chancellor, failed to preserve his masculine virtue and lost his chastity. The Empress finds him filthy.]