Chapter 14
The next day, we entered the palace to pay our respects to the emperor and empress. Seated solemnly above us, neither showed any sign of the previous night’s impropriety.
Once the formalities were complete, Mother drew me inside to talk. Xiao Huaijin went ahead to the empress dowager’s palace.
“Was the marriage consummated?”
Mother asked as soon as we were inside and she had dismissed the servants.
I lowered my head and shook it. Tears I could not control welled in my eyes.
“He did it deliberately.”
Mother’s expression was grim too. Her eyes were icy, nothing like her usual charming self.
“You mean His Majesty wasn’t drunk?”
She lifted one corner of her mouth coldly. “A man who drank strong liquor on the frontier, reduced to that state by a little rice wine? Do you believe it?”
I sighed, utterly exhausted.
“This is an emperor’s craft. How could he tolerate harmony between us and his brother? The boy may be young, raised like a son, always a wastrel with no support at court. But I have support. If we joined forces with Prince Chun, how secure would his throne be?
“Emperors have always been the same. They fear having no successor, yet fear their successor becoming powerful too soon and threatening them.”
“Then what can I do?”
Mother looked at me intently and sighed softly. “Only a falling-out between mother and daughter can heal the estrangement between husband and wife.”
With that, she suddenly slapped my left cheek hard. Fire spread across it. Crying out, I looked up in astonishment. “Mother?”
“Shameless girl! Don’t call me Mother!”
She deliberately shouted toward the door. Then she silently mouthed at me: Cry.
Holding my cheek, I stared at her for a moment, then turned and ran out, wiping my tears.
Mother’s maneuver may have worked on the emperor. I heard his old injury had flared again, leaving him in too much pain to sleep or rise from bed. Mother began ruling from behind the curtain, and her word was law at court.
On Prince Chun, Xiao Huaijin, it had no effect at all.
He was rarely to be seen. I had no idea where he went to squander his days. Still, the emperor and empress dowager had kept him confined in the palace for more than a decade. Now that he was out, perhaps he meant to enjoy every cockfight, horse race, gambling house, and brothel he could find.
Whenever he came home, he always bathed before seeing me. On the rare occasions we ate together, neither of us spoke.
Months passed like this. I felt stifled and wondered whether I would have to endure an entire lifetime this way. Then news came from the palace: Concubine Jing had borne a son.
The emperor was overjoyed and immediately promoted her to noble consort. No one could rival her prominence.
Her father, brothers, and nephews rose rapidly at court as well.
There was an imperial heir.
Mother had lost.
Perhaps marrying Prince Chun had been a mistake from the beginning.
If an heir was what we wanted, why reach so far afield? Wouldn’t it have been simpler to raise a few beautiful maidservants and have a child born to one of them placed under Mother’s name?
Decrees to depose the empress descended on Mother like snowflakes.
Since our last meeting, I had rarely seen her. Though we exchanged messages through secret channels, I still worried about her.
Now the emperor had a son, Mother’s position was precarious, and I was exhausted in the prince’s residence.
Were power and status truly so precious?
I remembered the happy days when Father was alive and the three of us were together.
We had neither the finest clothes and food nor power over the realm. Yet then I felt I possessed the whole world.
In the stillness of night, I lit a lamp and wrote a petition for an amicable divorce.
With the emperor now a father, Prince Chun’s residence had become a place that invited suspicion. What would I do if His Majesty suspected Prince Chun and us of plotting rebellion—or merely decided to clear the way for his infant son?
I had experienced an emperor’s craft once. I had no wish to experience it again.
Prince Chun and I had no affection for each other and were ill-matched besides. We were only two pieces on the board between the emperor and empress. Now that defeat was plain, I had no choice but to bow my head and seek another way out.
When I reached the palace, Mother was dressed simply, her hair loose, reclining beside the bed with a book.
She was still breathtakingly beautiful, but time had left traces on her face and at her temples.
“Mother.” I poured her tea and set it beside her. “If Father hadn’t died, and we’d never left the Zeng family, what sort of lives do you think we’d be living now?”
She looked up, surprised to see me, and stroked my head as she had when I was little. “Even if your father were alive, at your age we’d likely be discussing marriage. The daughter of an upright scholar, with such fine looks and character… You might still have been chosen as Prince Chun’s consort.”
I pouted. “You’re teasing. If I were merely Grand Secretary Zeng Jingyuan’s daughter, how could I have acquired such overwhelming wealth and honor? We’d probably have found a promising young scholar from a poor family among the examination graduates and married me to him.”
Mother smiled at me. “A promising scholar from a poor family? Then you might have to cook yourself, and take in needlework to help support the household.”
I lifted my chin and put my hands on my hips. “So what? At least my word would be law in my own home.”
Mother laughed at the sight. But as she laughed, her expression cooled, and she looked at me seriously. “Rourou, wake up. I wasn’t carried off to the palace because the emperor fancied me. After your father died, his male relatives tried to swallow up everything we owned, leaving us nowhere to turn. I deliberately attracted the emperor and did everything I could to enter the palace. You remember only the peace of your childhood. Have you ever considered how fragile that peace was? In this great den of wolves and tigers that is the capital, anyone without sharp teeth and claws cannot even preserve their own life. You want to give up power and retreat… Do you know that retreat would bring not freedom, but utter ruin? How many people have I offended, how many enemies have I made in power? If we lose our position, who could withstand the avalanche of revenge?”
I was speechless. My lips opened and closed, but no words came.
“One newborn prince has frightened you this badly? Robbed you of all your fighting spirit and made you want to retreat?”
Mother looked around. For all the beauty of her face and figure, her gaze was as watchful as an eagle’s, as wary as a wolf’s.
“The contest isn’t decided yet. An infant faces many dangers before reaching adulthood. Go home and find a way to make this a real marriage. You’re my daughter. What would people think if you couldn’t manage even one man?”
The divorce petition was crumpled in my fist, but in the end it stayed inside my robe.
I unclenched my hand, bowed respectfully to Mother, and returned to the prince’s residence without staying for a meal.
For once, Xiao Huaijin was home too. We met in the corridor.
Though I had been given the task of consummating our marriage, I still had nothing to say to him. I curtsied and meant to return to my room. But as I bent, the neatly folded divorce petition slipped from my robe.
I hurried to retrieve it. My fingers had just touched the paper when a boot stamped down hard upon it.