They held my arms and pushed me. All Jewel’s pleadings were wasted.
“Halt!” An elderly man scurried along the trail toward us. I recognized him—the old minister who had asked me about my riddle. “My lady,” he said courteously to me when he approached. “I have been searching for you. The servants told me to find you here. I’m to deliver you a message.” He unfurled the scroll, which was colored in imperial yellow. An edict.
“Is this from the Emperor?” Jewel sounded surprised. She tucked her fan into her girdle.
“Yes,” he replied.
So the Emperor had heard of the fight. I was doomed. Despair and regret expanded inside my chest.
The minister cleared his throat and began to read. It sounded like something I had heard before, but his words pelted me like heavy raindrops that wet my head but could not penetrate it. When he stopped, gasps rose around me, and Jewel clutched my hand, her eyes as large as lanterns.
“Mei, I cannot believe it!” she cried out.
I stared at the minister. “What…what? Did you…did you say the Emperor summoned me?”
The minister gave me a firm nod. “Yes, Select. After our interview with you, the court ministers had a heated discussion about the riddle. The Emperor happened to pass by and overheard it. He was intrigued. He would like to honor you by meeting you.”
It was true. The Emperor had summoned me, but I continued to stare at the minister, not knowing what to say.
“Can you believe it?” Jewel tapped my arm. She looked delighted too, her cherry-red lips widening to a lovely curve. “For seven years, not one of the ladies in the Yeting Court has had the honor to see the One Above All’s face. You sent him a riddle, and now he wants to see you.”
“I know, I know. I am fortunate.” My heart sang. Finally, I would meet the Emperor! I would tell him what happened to my family, and Mother would have a comfortable life again…
“Yes, indeed you are.” Jewel smiled. “Now, I think you should get busy. We shall not waste time.”
“Why?”
“You did not hear it?” She showed me the edict.
I followed her forefinger, which traced the lines on the golden paper. “Oh.” It was not a simple meeting after all. He had summoned me for tonight. I stopped smiling. Every maiden understood what a night summons meant. “What should I do now, Jewel?”
She spread the fan in her hand, a smile on her face. “First, you’re going to the bathhouse.”
6
On the way to the bathhouse, my steps were light, and my heart was filled with joy. I thought of what Father had told me. The second son of Emperor Gaozu, Emperor Taizong, whose given name was too sacred for human mouths to speak, was a great conqueror and also a master of war.
The night Emperor Gaozu defeated the Sui army, Emperor Taizong was only twenty years old and a duke commanding a small cavalry. While his father celebrated in the palace, he sought out the Sui ruler’s young son and nephew and took the children as prisoners, sending them to the Sui general, who escorted the fleeing ruler to the south by Grand Canal. Taizong proposed that the general should rule the kingdom in the south with the imperial descendants if he killed the defeated ruler. The general agreed and assassinated the Sui ruler while he was drinking on his five-story dragon boat. But when the general delivered the body to the shore, he was greeted by Taizong’s army, who held sabers at his neck.
Still a duke, Taizong would later persuade his father to give the throne to him instead of his older brother, the heir, or his younger brother, Emperor Gaozu’s favorite son, and claimed himself as the One Above All.
“We are here,” Jewel said as we turned right on the pathway before a pear grove. At the end of the path stood a one-story house I had never seen before. “Remember the court protocol? It is the first and foremost requirement that no dirt or grime shall cling to your body before you step into his bedchamber.”
I nodded. “What else should I know?” When the etiquette teacher cited the rules to me after the announcement of the summons, I had been too excited to pay attention.
“That should be all,” she said, and paused to let me walk ahead of her. “The bookkeeper and other helpers will wait for you when you arrive. You need only to follow their directions.”
I turned to her. “Why did you help me, Jewel? When the head eunuch was taking me away?”
“I don’t like the Selects. Besides, what could the eunuch do to me? Come.” She pushed open the bathhouse door.
I stepped inside. A wave of hot steam rushed to my face, blurring my vision. Batting the steam away, I saw a wooden tub at the center of the room. It was so large it could have held my whole family. I walked toward it, passing shelves holding bowls of red soap beans, brushes with long handles, stacks of towels, and balls of dried vegetable fiber used for scrubbing. Then I stopped.