Chapter 3
The army departed three days later.
Her Ladyship went without food or sleep as she sewed a protective sachet for her brother.
Inside it was a sheet of paper densely covered with the *Ksitigarbha Sutra*, copied in blood after she pricked her brow and chest with a silver needle.
According to the servant who delivered the sachet, gloom hung over the entire ducal residence. Though Xue Di was pale, he kept comforting his parents and wife. He also asked the servant to persuade Her Ladyship not to grieve too deeply, for an emperor’s heart was impossible to fathom.
Her Ladyship covered her face, and tears poured through her fingers like a spring.
From the day her brother left with the army, she ate no meat and prayed for him and for the soldiers of Jing.
His Majesty resumed his daily visits, more relaxed and cheerful than ever, as though their recent quarrel had never happened.
The Fourth Prince learned to crawl and often made His Majesty roar with laughter.
The days passed in an uneasy calm.
Until that day.
News of victory and news of death arrived together.
Our army had crushed the Sumo forces.
Xue Di, vanguard commander and heir to the Duke of Qing, had fallen in battle.
Her Ladyship fainted when she heard the terrible news.
Fortunately, the empress arrived in time and summoned an imperial physician. He said that excessive grief had damaged Her Ladyship’s heart and that she needed complete peace to recover.
To let her convalesce without worry, the empress took temporary charge of the Fourth Prince, and the Inner Court Office removed Her Ladyship’s plaque from the emperor’s nightly roster.
The once-lively Zhilan Palace fell silent.
Even so, the emperor and empress sent a wealth of precious medicines. His Majesty also bestowed rare delicacies brought as tribute from every corner of the realm—lychees, grapes, sweetened milk curds—to make his attitude toward Zhilan Palace clear and keep opportunistic wretches from slighting us.
More than once, when I was on night duty, His Majesty came late at night to see Her Ladyship sleeping after her medicine.
His tenderness then was far removed from the savage face he had worn when forcing Xue Di to march to war.
I was still too young to understand the subtleties and contradictions of human nature, perhaps the hardest mystery beneath heaven.
Her Ladyship’s illness lasted more than three months, and she missed two events that shook both court and harem.
First, the court lavished rewards on the victorious northern army.
The Marquis Who Guards the North was elevated to Duke of Loyalty and Valor, First Rank, while the others were rewarded according to merit.
Xue Di was given a funeral of the highest honor.
He was posthumously made Marquis Zhongsu. His widow was granted the rank of Lady of the Second Order and allowed to adopt a worthy boy from the clan to carry on his line.
Second, His Majesty took two daughters of the northern commander, Jian Boyue, into his harem.
His seventh legitimate daughter, Jian Ying, became Consort Hua. His fifth daughter by a concubine, Jian Su, who had left home as a child to cultivate the Dao without shaving her head, became Consort Zhen.
His Majesty showed little interest in Consort Hua, but lavished affection on Consort Zhen.
Now that Her Ladyship no longer shared his bed, His Majesty spent only the first and fifteenth nights of each month with the empress. Every other night, he slept at Consort Zhen’s Guangling Palace.