Chapter 3
Among women of the same clan, the elder was called Da, the younger Shao.
Shaosi was ten years younger than I.
On the day I entered the palace, she was among the clansfolk escorting the bride.
Her small hands clung to my hanging sleeve. Looking up, she asked:
“Sister Dasi, your ceremonial robes are so beautiful. May I wear them someday, too?”
I took her hand and smiled. “When you marry, of course you may.”
But Shaosi wanted more than my robes and headdress.
Little by little she withdrew her hand and tilted her head with innocent delight.
“When I marry, may I marry the king, too?”
I could not have foreseen then that ten years later she would have her wish and become the king’s consort.
Ziyou adored her.
Shaosi was frail and often ill. He ordered the diviners to ask over and over which former king’s spirit she had offended.
Tirelessly, he waged war after war for the sole purpose of capturing thousands of Qiang people to boil alive in cauldrons, hoping to cure her chronic illness.
Perhaps the mountains of skulls moved the gods and spirits. At last, she conceived.
Of late, sacrifices had grown more frequent. At least three times in seven days, they prayed for Shaosi and her child.
Tonight, the chanting still echoed through the ancestral temple.
Heavy hooves sounded outside the window. Slaves were leading sacrificial animals past.
Red cords were tied around the cattle and sheep. They moved slowly, the bronze bells hanging at their necks chiming softly with each step.
They did not yet know where they were going. They only lowered their heads to sniff the scent of grass and trees in the night wind.
I took up the millet the attendant had brought and scattered it through the window.
Then I returned to my bed and lay down again.
Before long, the door opened.
The attendant slipped inside and picked up the empty food box. He seemed relieved. “At last…”
He stopped, then called tentatively, “Your Majesty?”
Facing the wall, I made no answer.
He waited where he stood before slowly coming nearer.
A faint rustle stopped behind me.
After a moment, a finger ventured hesitantly beneath my nose.
I breathed warm air over it, then drove the dagger backward, deep into his throat.
That very night, the ill omen of the sacrificial animals’ sudden deaths traveled back to the palace on the bleak autumn wind.
The priestess threw the attendant’s body into the sacrificial ground. Like hiding one flower among a bed of flowers, it left no trace.
As for the bloodstained dagger, she secretly delivered it to Zisui for me.
A few days later, horses and carriages came shaking the earth with offerings and news that Shaosi had miscarried.
She had risen in the night. Somehow, a string of beads had been scattered on the floor.
Stepping on them barefoot, she slipped beside the bed.
The poor male child in her womb had already taken form.
This was proof that the will of the gods could not be defied.
The diviners all said she had angered Heaven by reaching beyond her station.
That was why the cattle and sheep intended to pray for her blessing had spat black blood and dropped dead before the rite.
Zisui came in person to take me back to the palace.
Banners led the way. Court officers stood in ranks. The long fans shielding my carriage bore savage beasts.
This was a procession worthy of a queen.
Before I left, the young priestess cried.
I let her rest across my knees, unbound her hair, and gently combed it.
Yansang had been brought to the ancestral temple at ten.
The High Diviner was an austere man and showed his granddaughter little affection.
Over the years, she had all but grown up beside me.
On so many nights she had lit the tallow candles and kept me company in prayer for the former kings.
As her chanting grew quieter, she would fall asleep unawares on my lap.
Now we were suddenly to part. That was why she wept as though her heart would break.
“Enough. Dry your tears,” I said helplessly.
Yansang raised her hand to wipe them. Her sleeve slipped back, revealing the white cloth wound around her arm.
I was about to reach for it when she flinched.
“He only wanted an old possession…” I sighed. “If you keep fighting people on my behalf, when will that wound ever heal?”
Yansang said nothing, sulking.
I pinned up her hair again and smoothed her collar and sleeves.
“Good child, it is not as though we will never see each other again.” I soothed her gently. “Before long, you will come to the palace with your grandfather to congratulate the king on his birthday.”
After my return, the king did not summon me. Shaosi sent someone first, inviting me to her palace.
She lay on her bed. In only a few days, her cheeks had wasted to a thin layer of flesh.
“Ziyou has sworn to me.”
Calling the king by name, Shaosi weakly proclaimed the love and power no one could take from her.
“Even if he welcomes you back, he will never again set foot in your chambers.”
“Your queenship is an empty title. Do not imagine you will get anything from him.”
“What I want was never his to give,” I said calmly.
She paused, then sneered.
“…So long as you know that. A man has only one heart, and he has given his to me.”
“Besides, how can a woman as venomous as you be mother to a kingdom?”
Though she was rebuking me, Shaosi’s lips trembled slightly.
“Had I not caught you in the act, Zisui would have died in his swaddling clothes…”
“His own birth mother, trying to strangle her son…”
Listening, I could not help chuckling.
“What are you laughing at?”
“At what a fool you are.”
Her expression changed at once. Gripping her collar, she struggled for some time before drawing a breath.
“I know. I know you are pleased with yourself now… But do not think you have beaten me!”
“That sudden downpour which put out the sacrificial fire was no good omen.”
“Your first child brought disaster. Why should your second become sovereign of the world?”
“I will prove to the king that the oracle was wrong, that the diviners misread the gods’ will…”
I lifted my eyes.
Where Shaosi could not see from her bed, Zisui stood motionless, his black eyes fixed on me.
I smiled at him tenderly.