Jewel’s.
“Oh, I’m fine. Don’t worry. I was only getting a rest.” And there, one hand holding the bedpost and the other touching the back of her head, she rose, smiling, as if nothing had happened.
She had feigned it. She had made me believe she was dead. Never had I felt so angry. “Jewel!” I lunged for her. But somehow I ended up on the floor, and my head knocked against the hard wood. A stabbing pain hammered my head, and I could not hear or see. I was also soaked, my feet were cold, my hair was tangled, and water was everywhere.
“Get out.” The Emperor stood before me. “Get out now.”
My head spinning, I looked from him to Jewel.
“You should go.” Jewel stood next to the Emperor. Gently, she stroked his shoulder, her head leaning toward him, her slender, tapered fingers clinging to him like vines.
I scrambled to my feet.
“Wait. Perhaps you’ll mop up the water before you leave?” she said.
All I could do was take the rag from her hand and kneel. I wiped the area near the bed, behind the screens, under the drapery, and around the stool where the Emperor sat. When the rag was soaked with water, I straightened and wrung it above the basin. The bedchamber darkened momentarily before me. My kneecaps were tender, my back ached, my fingers were cold, and my head throbbed.
Jewel whispered to the Emperor while I cleaned. He smiled and nodded. He seemed to enjoy her company, and finally, he leaned against the wall and closed his eyes.
When I straightened again, Jewel came to me. “Now, you may leave,” she said, her catlike eyes as deep as a treacherous abyss. “And thank you for your riddle.”
I stumbled out of the chamber, and the door shut behind me.
For a long time, I stood in the corridor outside the bedchamber while a stout girl holding a broom watched me. I pulled the cover tighter and went down the stone stairs.
Beyond the courtyard, the lights had been extinguished. There was nothing but darkness ahead of me.
AD 640
the Fourteenth Year of Emperor Taizong’s Reign of Peaceful Prospect
WINTER
8
Winter refused to leave. Every day after the midday meal, I walked to the arboretum in the back of my bedchamber, where high walls divided the court from the forest in the Forbidden Park.
The air was chilly, and it pressed against my face like an icy veil. Above the tall poplars, clusters of gray smoke gathered and stood still like a pond of shadows. The wind came and the smoke drifted, stretching like a stream, and then it bent again, settling in the sky like a misty bridge I could not cross.
I had heard that Jewel had told the Emperor it was her riddle, and she had given my name because she was worried he would not receive her. But when she took my place and met him, he obviously remembered her. He also seemed interested in her again, and she had stayed with him that night.
Jewel had moved to the Inner Court. Rumors said the Emperor enjoyed her company so much that he took her to all the feasts and festivals. Some even said she had been summoned every week. She would soon be Most Adored. It sickened me to hear.
I tucked my hands into my sleeves and walked, my shadow dragging at my feet. I wanted to think everything through and sort out what I had done wrong. I had been too trusting, too eager to make friends. That was my undoing. As long as we all strove to win the Emperor’s heart, there would be no friends in the court.
Frost moistened the cloth soles of my shoes and sent a chill through my body. I wrapped my coat tightly around me. It had been over a year since I had left Mother. I remembered my last days with her. She had appeared fragile then, her steps slow, her hair gray, her eyes rimmed with worries.
Did her back still hurt? Mother would reach the age of Knowing Heaven’s Mission this year. What if something happened to her and she fell sick? What if she could not wait for me?
I shivered. I must do better. I must see the Emperor again.
I kept walking. I imagined Father watching me, his eyes sparkling with expectation. What would he say to me if he learned of my situation?
“The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy,” Sun Tzu had said. Waiting for an opportunity… There was always next year’s birthday, was there not? I had no idea what I could do to attract the Emperor’s attention, but I had to think of something.
Meanwhile, I had to learn to read people’s faces as well as their words. I had to learn to perceive the dagger hidden behind a woman’s smile and know how to fend it off. And more importantly, I had to learn to deliver a dagger myself.
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