Chapter 2
The Old Madam died the year my mistress came of age.
The marriage that had already been arranged for her fell into the Fifth Young Lady’s hands after the Third Madam intervened.
The Old Madam had chosen that match with the greatest care.
The young man was honorable, and his family was distinguished.
I had seen him once at a banquet: a handsome, graceful gentleman who blushed the instant he noticed my mistress.
Robbed of such a fine marriage, my mistress neither wept nor made a scene. She simply locked herself away.
Half a month later, the Sixth Young Lady—who was meant to enter the imperial selection—suddenly broke out in red blotches all over her face.
The Marquis’s clan consisted of three branches. The Eldest Master, born of the principal line, had inherited the title.
The Sixth Young Lady was the Marquis’s legitimate daughter and the most suitable candidate for the palace.
But after this unexpected turn, the masters of the family conferred and decided to send my mistress in her place.
The Third Branch had many children. For years, my mistress had fought her stepmother and competed with her sisters for favor, and she had never once come off worse.
More than anything, she hated being beneath another person.
Even within a square courtyard, there were more sordid schemes than one could count.
The deep palace offered no freedom. But if the Third Madam had not planned to marry my mistress off as a second wife to a general over seventy, perhaps my mistress would never have chosen this path.
The Marquis’s household made extensive preparations to help her pass the selection.
They hired three etiquette matrons alone.
One of them accepted my bribe and told me that His Majesty favored crimson. If my mistress wore it on the day of the final selection, she would surely be chosen.
I took note of her advice, then quietly ordered the seamstress to make two more dresses, one pale yellow and one smoky blue.
On the day of the selection, my mistress chose the pale-yellow cloud-silk gown.
Young and radiant, she looked like a winter jasmine blooming in the wind.
As expected, she was chosen.
The matrons came to claim their rewards. The one who had told me the emperor’s preference hid at the back, unable to meet my eyes.
My mistress smiled and ordered her beaten thirty strokes for theft, then handed over to the authorities.
Once we were alone, my mistress explained what had happened.
At the imperial selection, one candidate had worn a crimson gauze dress. His Majesty ordered the clothes stripped from her body and had her beaten to death on the spot.
Cold sweat drenched me.
Thank heaven I had not trusted that matron.
My mistress’s voice was frighteningly cold. “People in the palace say His Majesty’s birth mother was dressed in crimson when she died.”
I nodded.
From that day on, I resolved never to touch a garment of that color again.
The palace held countless secrets. One wrong step could send a person into a bottomless abyss.
My mistress and I both understood.
The matron had almost certainly been planted by the Third Madam.
She feared that if my mistress entered the palace and won great favor, she would one day have to bow at an imperial banquet to the illegitimate daughter she despised most.
My mistress called the Third Madam a fool.
If my mistress had enraged the emperor and been beaten to death, the entire Marquis’s household would have been implicated.
She was right. The father of the executed candidate was stripped of office that very day, and every member of his clan was barred from holding office or sitting the civil examinations.
When the Third Madam heard, her face went white with terror. After that, she behaved herself and dared not try another scheme.