chapter 3
After I recovered, I never returned to the Imperial Study. Even when my sister came home and repeatedly invited me, I pleaded poor health and declined every time.
It was not wholly a lie. The rain had damaged my health and left me with a chronic cough. Whenever spring gave way to summer or autumn to winter, my throat felt lined with fine down and itched incessantly.
Whether my sister believed my weakness or sensed something else, she gradually stopped visiting. Life returned to its former quiet. Only Sister Su and I remained, inseparable from dawn to dusk.
There was nothing wrong with such a life. I could see its end from where I stood. Once grown, if Father remembered me, I might marry into a middling court family. Otherwise I might age behind palace walls, a princess forever ignored.
Only occasionally did I remember the Imperial Study—the ink-scented books and paintings, the lovely, lingering music. They entered my dreams and left me lonelier when I woke.
But I knew I could never return. I was roadside grass; my sister was a precious flower. Our lives had always been different.
Sister Su knew my heart best. From her tiny salary she saved enough to find me ink and brushes. Only then did I discover that this palace maid knew poetry and letters. Amid her endless chores, she found time to teach me a verse here, a character there.
At first I dared not learn, fearing further disaster. Sister Su said the empress only objected to my outshining her daughter. As long as I never left this remote courtyard, she cared nothing about what I did.
Thus Sister Su and her poetry brightened my dull days.
She was not always free. I was growing fast, and whenever she had a moment, she sewed me dresses. Girls my age should wear bright, pretty things, she said. Other princesses had them, and she would not let me suffer.
No matter how I protested, I could not stop her, so I shortened my writing lessons merely to let her sleep and rest a little longer.
On my ninth birthday, we rose early and ate the longevity noodles she had cooked.
“How quickly another year has passed. May Your Highness enjoy health every year and see every wish fulfilled.”
Stroking her callused hand, I said softly, “If Sister Su stays with me every year, then every wish will be fulfilled.”
She felt unwell that day and retired soon after lunch. Bored and overfull from the celebratory meal, I wandered alone around the palace grounds.
Then I heard skirts rustling, small footsteps, and several sharp rebukes. Following the sound, I saw more than a dozen young girls arranged in two rows behind two pretty women. Their dress was unlike that of ordinary maids, yet strangely familiar.
They were officers of the Imperial Music and Dance Bureau. I had visited it with Mother several times as a child, and its matrons had dressed the same way.
Remembering Mother dancing, I grew curious and secretly followed.
Our new palace was remote but close to the bureau, and we soon arrived. Listening to the matron check names at the entrance, I learned this was the day new recruits entered. Slender and tall, the girls had likely been selected from common families. Their nervous yet curious faces made me wonder whether Mother had once entered the palace in just this way, beginning her short and sorrowful life.
After that, I often came in my free hours to listen to strings and pipes and secretly watch the young maids practice. Some were so gifted that within months they could move naturally with the music. Others squandered pretty faces on clumsy steps and were soon sent to hard labor.
Watching the matrons, I sometimes turned and swept my arms with the dancers. Perhaps I had inherited Mother’s gift. I understood many movements at once, and even difficult ones came easily with a little practice.
The small clearing beside the bureau became my private world. Whenever Sister Su was busy, I danced there to distant music, and my heart found peace.
One day I was dancing the newly taught “Song of Rainbow Robes” to strains drifting from afar. As my skirts flew, I forgot everything and sank into a world of my own. I did not even notice when the music stopped.
“When you dance, you look very much like your mother.”
The sudden female voice startled me. A beautiful woman dressed as a palace instructor watched me, yet seemed to be looking through me at someone else.
Caught stealing lessons, I lowered my head in embarrassment. The woman sighed.
“You… Your Highness needn’t be afraid. This servant will tell no one.”
I relaxed. Though we had never met, I felt an inexplicable familiarity and trust.
Dancers were despised in Great Qi. If anyone learned that a princess practiced such a lowly art, disaster might follow.
“Forgive me for intruding these past days, Matron. I won’t come again.”
I bowed slightly. The thought that I had learned only half of the dance filled me with regret.
“Wait.” The woman stopped me, as though making a grave decision. “If Your Highness truly wishes to learn, come here every day at the hour before dawn. I will teach you.”
Thus began my bond with Matron Zhang.
Though I called her Matron, she was not yet thirty, about Mother’s age. Her extraordinary skill had already made her the finest instructor in the bureau.
Yet she had never danced before the emperor.
I saw her refuse the bureau director and yield the honor to another talented dancer. She coolly claimed that age had made her rusty and she dared not offend noble eyes. But when she turned away, I distinctly saw the mocking curl of her lips.
“Only a willing heart can make a dance. Without feeling, movement is stiff and laughable.”
She often said this while teaching me. Dance held emotion. Without it, a dancer became a ridiculous marionette without a soul. The hardest art was placing true feeling within each motion. Some were born able to do it; others labored all their lives in vain.