The Moon in the Palace (The Empress of Bright Moon Duology)(8)

“Really? Three hundred women?” The girl with a pimple gasped.

“What three hundred women?” I asked. Then I understood. The Selects who had come before us.

“They have waited for years. Some have been here for ten years. But they have never received a summons.” The Xu Girl glanced at me. She looked triumphant that she had known that.

“They never met the Emperor?” someone asked.

“No, the head eunuch said that their hairs have grown white and their faces are wrinkled. They have never even glimpsed the Emperor’s face.”

That night, I lay on my pallet, eyes wide-open in the dark. Would I wait in the bedchamber until my hair grew white, like those old Selects? I would not accept that. I could not let my father’s wish turn into a dusty cobweb, and besides, I needed to get our house back and give Mother a comfortable life.

If the Emperor would not summon me, I would go find him myself.

I was already inside the palace. I needed only to walk around, locate the Emperor’s chamber, and introduce myself. No one could stop me.

I waited until the girls’ rhythmic breathing rose. Then I slipped off my pallet, unlatched the oak bar between the two brackets, and pulled. The door squeaked open. A cold draft rushed in, and my eyes watered. A girl shifted on her pallet, and I froze. When I was certain she was still sleeping, I slipped out the door, closed it, and stepped into the corridor.

Before me, the smooth ground of the courtyard, coated with a thin layer of frost, glimmered in the moonlight like a damask tapestry woven with silver threads. In front of the bedchamber, two pillars stood silently like watchful giants, while the tips of the flying eaves soared into a starless sky.

Footsteps paced outside the courtyard. The building was guarded, and it was impossible to escape.





AD 640


   the Fourteenth Year of Emperor Taizong’s Reign of Peaceful Prospect

   SPRING





4


Months passed. No summons came from the Emperor.

I learned I was living in the Yeting Court, which was located on the west side of the Inner Court. Heavily guarded by female guards twice my size, it was the home for old and new Selects, exiled ladies, slaves, and many unhappy women. At the northern end, when I walked far enough, I could see the towering trees from the Forbidden Park on the other side of the high wall. At the southern end of the court, near the hill, stood the Ice Palace and the gray brick buildings where the eunuchs lived. That area had no gardens or pavilions. It was often quiet, a place even birds seemed afraid to enter.

The titled ladies lived in a compound on the other side of the wall, the real Inner Court. The Emperor, of course, dwelled there with them. The walls were so high between us, even if I stood on tiptoe, even if I climbed the tree next to the wall, I could not see the face of the man who could change my family’s future.

I sank into the tedious routine of the court like a rock dropping in the river. I rose before dawn, ate my breakfast, and worked on my embroidery. There were endless pieces of fabric waiting for me: gowns, tunics, shawls, skirts, shoes, sleeves, padded jackets, and trousers. They were all for the titled ladies who lived in the Inner Court, I was told. When I finished one, another was pushed into my hands. Taking a break was not allowed, and if I slowed, I would hear harsh scolding from the eunuchs who supervised us. Over time, my embroidery skill improved greatly, and when the eunuchs compared my work with the other girls’, they could not tell the difference.

I seldom joined the girls’ conversations, which were mostly about facial creams or how to draw beauty marks, and the Xu Girl began to take an interest in my accent. When I commented on something, she would sniff and imitate me. The others tittered. Born in the capital, they spoke with a typical Chang’an accent, which was rigid and carried a light nasal sound, but I still spoke with a heavier nasal sound, the voice of Wenshui. I was determined to change. Whenever I had a chance, I silently practiced Mandarin. Soon I could speak as well as them, and they had to stop teasing me. But still when I sat in a corner, I felt like a stag among a herd of horses, where my own difference stuck out like antlers.

I missed my family. I worried about Mother every day. What if Qing refused to give her food? What if Qing beat her? Who would protect her? And Father. How tall the grass in front of his grave must have grown. Was he disappointed in me? When I thought of them, when I thought of how much Mother needed me, I could hardly sleep. I grew desperate.

I needed to get summoned.

? ? ?

One morning, I went to fetch water to wash my face. A woman in the pavilion called to me. “You’re new here.”

I had noticed her before. Like me, she was always alone, sitting at a low writing table in the pavilion. Although she did not look old, she had white hair that reached her waist. When she bent to the table, she looked as if she had been showered by snow.

“Do they give you any trouble?” She glanced at the Xu Girl, who passed by me with the other Selects.

“What makes you say that?” I walked to the pavilion. Perhaps the woman had noticed my unhappiness or heard the others make some comments about me.

She smiled, tucking a handkerchief in her pocket. “It would be hard to live here for anyone, especially if you have difficult chamber mates.”

I put my basin down and sat on the windowsill. “I agree.”

“You do know they dislike you because you are more intelligent than they are, don’t you?” She was drawing something on the table while a basket of fabric, unembroidered, lay near her feet.