Chapter 4
Before Zisui, the king and I had a daughter.
She was not yet three when he returned defeated from the battlefield.
He had campaigned east against the Yi lands, losing battle after battle. In the last, his losses were terrible.
People said that by going to war without first seeking an oracle, he had angered the Mother of the East, whose sun chariot was drawn by dark birds.
To appease her, the king sacrificed countless slaves.
He even took a blade to his own arm and sprinkled royal blood upon the altar.
Yet the High Diviner’s prostrate body writhed in wild spasms, as though enduring great pain.
Not enough. Not enough.
The goddess said this was nowhere near enough to quiet her anger.
All I understood then was that a sacrifice had to be made.
Otherwise, the furious gods and spirits would sever all communication with mortals.
Ziyou told me he wanted our daughter to dress as the Mother of the East’s attendant and preside over this rite.
It was the highest of honors.
At dusk, I bathed her and combed her hair with my own hands, then dressed her in ceremonial robes.
Orchids were tied at her waist; scented oil was rubbed over her skin and hair.
Then I placed her in a wicker chair decorated with flowers.
Torches wound away like a long dragon. I followed at a distance.
I could see the flowering twigs and owl feathers trembling gently on her head.
The little girl of three was not yet used to being separated from her mother.
She kept twisting her small body, turning again and again toward me as the chair swayed, her face a white flower flickering in the night.
The hilltop was a place mortals could not enter.
The High Diviner lifted her from the chair and carried her farther into the dark trees. Hidden on the summit, the altar was as inviolate as a throne.
After that, fire lit the whole wooded hill red.
What were they burning?
The priests danced in masks.
What were they celebrating?
The king imprisoned me in his arms. His broad palm clamped over my eyes.
He held me so tightly that every bone in my body creaked. My eyes hurt too much to weep.
In the end, his strength made me understand everything.
Who had angered the exalted goddess? Who had brought the king’s soldiers to ruin on foreign soil?
Together, the diviners and the king had decided it was my little daughter.
Her babbling lips. Her stumbling legs. Her organs pulsing with blood.
The mark she had carried from birth had made the sun refuse its favor to her father.
The fire slowly died. The sun slowly rose.
Morning shone upon the king’s smiling face.
“The diviners say the Mother of the East has received the offering. Her anger is appeased.”
“From this day forth, my chariots will crush every tribe that refuses submission!”
“My queen, are you not pleased?”
Years earlier, in a green mulberry grove outside the royal capital, the young Ziyou had parted the hanging branches and looked at me with curiosity.
Then, too, he had spoken of the High Diviner’s oracle like this:
“The diviners say you are to be my wife. You will make the king’s lands plentiful, and from the fire I will bring you the glory of the war god.”
After that night, many more human victims were cast into the flames to honor my daughter.
I vomited all day long.
Only when a healer came to examine me did I learn that Zisui was in my womb.
The king was indifferent.
He had met Shaosi at my daughter’s sacrificial rite.
The young female diviner carrying ritual vessels had stolen glances at his face with her beautiful eyes.
The king had a new question to put to Heaven:
Could Shaosi, the diviner, become his woman?
Heaven refused him.
The king who had always placed unquestioning faith in oracles now ordered the diviners to crack piles upon piles of tortoise shells over the fire.
Until Heaven tired of his endless questioning and finally consented, placing Shaosi’s fate in his hands.
He no longer came to see me.
He no longer had cauldrons cast for our daughter.
She had departed with the Mother of the East’s chariot, driving the sun down into the west.
My palace sank into a night that never ended.