The day unfolds as it did yesterday and the day before that with games, meals, music, and the empress telling stories. The hall is cold, and servants stay busy keeping the braziers going. We wear fur-lined coats or capes to stay warm. Meiling has built a strong connection to the empress, which is exactly how it should be. Meiling and I learned this custom on the day we met years ago in Lady Huang’s chambers. Grandmother insisted that a laboring woman will always do better when she’s comfortable with the midwife who will catch her baby. The difference between what happened in the Mansion of Golden Light and what happens in the Forbidden City, however, is great. Midwife Shi didn’t dress to match Lady Huang. Here, Meiling is expected to attire herself to be in harmony with the surroundings. All her clothes, shoes, and hair ornaments have been given to her. But what’s most impressive is that she moves comfortably among these women, including the empress, which shouldn’t be surprising given that the two of us have spent so much time together over the years.
In the late afternoon, after the empress retires to her quarters, I wait for Meiling to say her goodbyes so we can ride back to the Lodge of Ritual and Ceremony together. As soon as we’re seated in the carriage, Meiling takes my hands.
“I didn’t know you were with child when I spoke to the empress about you. I never would have suggested you if I’d known. Please, Yunxian, don’t be angry with me.” She stares into my eyes. “I’m sorry.”
As upset as I am, I can see she means what she says.
“I didn’t realize I was pregnant until I was on the boat coming north,” she goes on. “If I’d known, I wouldn’t have come either.”
“It is a sadness that your husband won’t know your good news until you return home.”
“Can we try to look at this another way? To see the positive in this situation? You and I appear to be at similar points in our pregnancies.”
“Our babies should come about two months after the empress gives birth, so perhaps we can journey home before we enter our months,” I optimistically suggest.
She lowers her voice and turns her gaze to the floor. “We can’t do that. We’ll need to stay here when the empress does the month.”
She’s right, of course. I try but fail to hide my disappointment. “I understand, and I understand what that means for us. By the time the empress finishes doing the month, we’ll both be entering the month. We won’t be able to travel home then. It would be too dangerous. We’ll deliver our babies here and do our months in the lodge before going home.”
Meiling sighs. “Again, I’m sorry.”
I pull one of my hands from hers and pat her face. “At least we will be together.”
* * *
After being in the capital for a month, I have a better sense of where I am. The Forbidden City is not yet one hundred years old, and every day I’m awed by its magnificence: the massive walls, the grand terraces, the imposing halls. Each courtyard has a colony of huts where eunuchs live and can easily be summoned. Boy eunuchs under ten years of age are considered “thoroughly pure,” and I now understand Lady Liu’s earlier reticence in talking about them. A woman of her delicacy would not want to discuss the intimate work they do for the women of the empress’s inner circle. The boy eunuchs change the cloths the women wear during their monthly moon water, wipe their mistresses’ behinds over chamber pots, and see to perfuming a woman’s feet when she knows her husband will be seeking her company. Although the empress has offered several boys to serve me, I’ve declined. When you are carrying a child and hoping for a son, you do not want to think about slicing off those very items that make him a boy. Otherwise, I’ve grown accustomed to the comings and goings at the Lodge of Ritual and Ceremony, where midwives, wet nurses, and I sleep. Eunuchs no longer distress my eyes with their appearance or insult my nose with their smell. They are a nuisance, though, filled with a sucking need for power… and an appetite for corruption. Most of my interactions are with Lin Ta, who has requested that I meet with women who come to the lodge to seek positions in the Great Within.
Although I’m confined to the Great Within and the Lodge of Ritual and Ceremony, Miss Zhao, as nothing more than my chaperone, has been able to move with appropriate caution and transportation through the alleys and byways of the Central Borough—an area protected by its own walls and gates bracketing the Forbidden City’s grounds. She has told me of boulevards lined with shops, food stands, teahouses, and wine emporiums—all decorated with red lanterns and signs in gilt. My father’s concubine, who’s seen far more of the outside world than I ever will, has said on more than one occasion, “Beijing is not as backward as I first believed. Yes, all that is unique or valuable comes from the south, but the people of this desolate outpost have made good use of our bounty.” Almost daily, she has another insight: “Although the Hongzhi emperor is traditional in his thoughts and deeds, women have more opportunities in Beijing than where we come from. Here you can find women who are moneylenders and merchants. And the empress’s doctor is a woman! You! And think of all the wet nurses and midwives who will benefit for years from the palace’s beneficence.”
It’s true. As Grandmother used to say, a midwife can be rewarded with clothes, jewelry, position, and power that will visibly tell the world of her success. She might even end up with an aristocratic title. I will receive some of the same gifts, but this is a unique opportunity for Meiling. No wonder she’s so happy. As for me, I miss my daughters and my husband. I even miss Lady Kuo and her keeck, keeck, Miss Chen and her selfish ways, and the other women of the inner chambers in my married home. Mostly, I wish I could have my baby within the safe walls of the Garden of Fragrant Delights.
Meiling saves me from my gloomiest thoughts. Each evening when we return to the lodge, we have dinner together—sometimes just the two of us, sometimes with Miss Zhao. We’re both careful to eat all the correct foods and avoid those that could cause a girl to be born. After the meal, Meiling and I usually retire to her room. Over the years, she’s had many opportunities to see how I live. She knows the carvings on my marriage bed. She understands the placement of the herbs I keep. Now it’s my turn to see into her life. Her room is identical in size and furnishings to mine, but the differences in our Snake personalities are everywhere. A lacquer-framed mirror stands on her dressing table. Rouge-stained puffs of cotton lay across the tabletop in casual disregard. The fine clothes she’s been given to wear in the empress’s presence are treated no better than if they were made of muslin, but the way she drapes them over the back of a chair or across the bed looks luxurious, creative, carefree. She lights candles instead of oil lamps, setting the room in golden flickering hues.
As I do every night, I perform the Four Examinations on her. By my estimation, we are both about to enter our sixth month of pregnancy. Meiling’s energy is high, and she seems to be thriving. She looks healthy—with color in her cheeks, her hair shiny, and the flesh along her arms moist and plump. Her pulse sounds strong at every level, signaling that both mother and fetus are doing well. She smells of perfume, but it’s not there to hide sourness. I discern no rough waters in her emotions. I watch to make sure she drinks every drop of the Blood-warming decoction I’ve made for her. Once I’m satisfied, she loosens the sash that keeps her gown closed. I do the same. We move to the bed, where we rest against pillows, with a tea tray between us. We take down our hair and let it flow free past our waists. Our jade and gold hairpins lie scattered about us as though we were a married couple after bedchamber affairs.
“I wish we were home,” I say.
“No mother wishes to give birth outside her own room,” she admits. “But you can do this easily because you are brave. And you have me.”
“Not brave. Not brave at all.”
“If I’m not worried, then you shouldn’t be either.” Her voice is dreamy when she adds, “Fate spoke when it allowed us to become full with child at the same time. If it’s our destiny to give birth far from home, then we must accept that. There are many midwives here in the lodge, and I won’t be afraid if you’re nearby.”
She’s right. More midwives reside in the lodge than Miss Zhao and I originally suspected, but not the number that would be required if the emperor had multiple wives and hundreds, if not thousands, of concubines.
The corners of Meiling’s lips lift. “You’ve taken as good care of me as you have the empress.”
“My concern for you will always be greater than for anyone else.”
Meiling lifts the tea tray and sets it on a side table. Then she slides against me and rests her head on my shoulder. The heat of her body seeps into me. I wouldn’t move for anything.
“This experience won’t change your life,” she murmurs, “but it’s already changing mine. For once, you and I are equals.”
“It is a great happiness—”
“Oh! The baby! Feel!” She takes my hand and puts it on her stomach. My baby has his favorite spot to torture me, but every night Meiling’s baby entertains us with its pushing, kicking, headbutting, and who knows what else.
“If it’s not a son who’s already practicing running with a kite on a string,” I say, “then it’s a daughter who’ll be as light on her toes as the Tiny-Footed Maiden.”