Empress of Bright Moon Page 3

  But near the entrance, the ministers stumbled, groaning and cursing, and the General was nowhere to be seen.

  “He has left, Nephew,” the Duke said, his voice cold.

  “Left where? He was just here! I talked to him a moment ago!”

  “I have exiled him. He was required to leave the city the moment the Emperor died. It was your father’s order.”

  “What? Why?”

  “The General has an army. He is a dangerous man.”

  “But…but…” Pheasant staggered backward, crashing against a pillar.

  I closed my eyes and wept. Poor Pheasant was all alone. No one would listen to him. No one would obey him.

  “Now, you.” The Duke waved more guards into the courtyard. “The women must be sent to Buddhist monasteries. Take them away.”

  “No, no!” Hysterical cries burst around me.

  My head spun. The Duke would have his wish. He would banish us all.

  “Uncle!” Pheasant’s voice, desperate and familiar. “You must not do this. Do not do this!”

  “Nephew, I am following your father’s will. Do you dare to disobey him?”

  Two guards stepped to him and held his arms. Pheasant struggled, trying to free himself. “Then make one exception. Just let one stay, let me tell you. Just one!”

  “Who would that be?” The Duke was already looking at me, his gaze cold.

  “Yes, yes,” Pheasant said. “Let her stay. I beg you, Uncle!”

  “Nephew, how can you reign over a kingdom if you forget how to behave?”

  I could not hold up my head. I hated the Duke. But I prayed for him to let me stay. I had spent eleven years, all my best years, in the palace. I could not live anywhere else. I could not leave Pheasant. And I did not want to spend the rest of my life in a monastery, praying and yearning for Pheasant. I would rather have been buried alive in a mausoleum.

  “Uncle—”

  “She is your father’s concubine, and you wish to bed her, Nephew? Will you start your reign with a scandal and bring your kingdom eternal shame?”

  I did not wish to stain Pheasant’s reign in any way, but would I have to spend the rest of my life in a monastery? No, I could not. Let people laugh at me. Let them call me a harlot, as long as I could stay in the palace.

  “Guards, take the heir away.” Pheasant was fighting against them, his face wracked with grief, his arms thrashing, trying to get to me. I wanted to go to him too, to hold him so no one could pull us apart. But the Duke’s lean figure appeared in front of me. “Talent? Will you disobey the Emperor’s order?”

  Tears stung my eyes. I turned my head away. Why must I obey? The Emperor was dead! Why must I end my life for him? I was only twenty-three years old. I had dreamed of a different life, a splendid life in the palace, with Pheasant.

  But what else could I do? Scream? Shout? Fight? It was pointless. It would not change anything. Pheasant could not save me. No one could.

  I turned to look at the other women in the courtyard. Some wailed, pounding the ground; some flailed their arms, screaming; some stumbled near the gates, weeping. I felt dazed. All these years in the palace. All these months of serving and nursing the Emperor. In the end, I was only as good as one of his horses, and like his horse, I was ordered to be sacrificed upon his death.

  A large frame appeared a few paces from me. She had a broad face painted in stark white, her eyes closely set, and her nose large and stubby. Her chin raised, she looked down on me, and even though it was dim, I could see the relief and happiness on her face. It was Lady Wang, Pheasant’s wife. She must have heard the news of the Emperor’s death and rushed here from the Eastern Palace.

  My face chilled, I looked away and searched for Pheasant. But he was gone. Only his screams—“Take your hands off me, take your hands off me!”—burst from the other side of the corridor. I felt the thick raindrops lashing through the air and pelting my face, and although I could not feel my lips or hear my own voice, I said, “I shall obey.”

  • • •

  The next morning, before dawn arrived, before the priests came to keep vigil for Emperor Taizong, before my hair had dried from the rain, I was taken to the Xuanwu Gate in the back of the palace, where many of the palace ladies waited. Wearing white, plain gowns, their faces pale and streaked with tears, they looked like roaming ghosts ready to depart the world. One by one, they climbed into wagons that would take them from the palace.

  The ladies who had borne the Emperor children had already been sent to a secluded compound inside the Yeting Court, I heard, where guards and high walls would thwart any fantasies of leaving or escaping, and those of us who had not given the Emperor children would be sent to various Buddhist monasteries scattered around the kingdom, the dark corners where only the outcast would set foot.

  Although the Duke said it had been Emperor Taizong’s order to exile the General at his death, the General had been banished before the Emperor died. The cunning Duke, fearing the General would resist him, had taken one hundred men and surrounded the General when he went to piss in the garden. Hearing he was to be banished, the General, whose loyalty was bound to the Emperor more tightly than his sword fit its sheath, lowered his head, packed his belongings, and left the city without a word. The Duke also exiled Pheasant’s older brother, Prince Wei; the Noble Lady’s two sons, Prince Ke and his brother; several other princes; and all of the princes’ aides and assistants, claiming it was the Emperor’s order as well. But it was clear to me that the Duke had seized this opportunity to eliminate any potential threats to his power.

  Rumors said that Secretary Fang had a long talk with the Duke right after he exiled us. The Duke allowed the Secretary to remain in his position, and the two parted amicably, but when the Secretary went home, his carriage overturned in a ditch. When his servants found him, he was already dead, his neck broken.

  A wagon, pulled by two donkeys, stopped before me. A guard waved at me. “You. Time to go.”

  I could not move. I tried to think of something to say, but my mind did not belong to me. It drifted like the pear blossoms from the trees beside me, their white petals laden with rain, their last scent washed away, trembling, falling helplessly to the ground.

  A bell chimed in the distance. The Emperor was dead, and now the whole kingdom knew. The sound lingered in the air, filled up the sky like dark clouds, and then faded.

  A tattoo of drumbeats followed, urgent and steady. The coronation ceremony had started in Taiji Hall. Pheasant would be proclaimed as the third Emperor of the Tang Dynasty, Emperor Gaozong, and begin the Reign of Yonghui, the years of Eternal Glory. He would ascend the throne, garbed in his golden regalia, the very robe I had embroidered and smoothed many times. Standing beside him would be Lady Wang, wearing the phoenix crown, who would be hailed as Empress Wang.

  But Pheasant would rule in name only, for the man who held the dragon seal would be the Duke, now formally titled the Regent, who stood beside him.

  The guard in the wagon shouted again, his voice so harsh it pierced my bones. I shivered. Someone lifted me into the wagon, where Daisy and the other Talents already sat, and the wagon lurched, throwing me back. Behind me, the palace shook too. Then it steadied, and slowly it wavered away from me, step by step, growing smaller and smaller, like a paper house sailing away in the wind.

  I stretched out my hand, but no matter how far I reached, it slipped through my fingers.

  3

  I brought nothing with me. No silk gowns, no fragrance sachets, no gold hairpins. I left just as I had come to serve Emperor Taizong eleven years ago: with empty hands. And an empty heart.

  I did not know where I was being carted either. Our escorts rarely spoke to us, and one drank his way out of the city. Sometimes, after he had drunk too much, he would bare himself to me. His member shook like an avaricious rat, and he shouted, “Want to suck my cock? Suck it. Suck it,
biaozi!” Then he laughed. “But you can’t. You can’t, biaozi. You’re the dead Emperor’s woman. You can’t touch men. Men can’t touch you! What a waste! A whore in a tavern has more fun than you.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut, crouching in the corner of the wagon with Daisy. The man began to hum. His broken tunes pricked my ears like thorns, and his voice hung on my skin like rough leather, wrapping tight around me, choking me. I pressed closer to Daisy, wanting to cover my ears. I wished he would stop and leave me alone so I could have blessed silence.

  But I did not know the true meaning of silence then. Silence would not feel like rough leather. It would not smell like a corner of a stinky wagon that reeked of horse dung. It was like nothing I had ever imagined. Silence, as I would find out later, bore no color, no edges, and no scent. But it had a name. It was called Grave.

  • • •

  The abbess had a slight figure and a face like crinkled oil paper. She was ancient, like the mountain, like the monastery standing behind her. When the wagon stopped and I tumbled out after the other Talents, she pressed her hands together to greet us. She did not say anything, did not look kind or threatening. She simply stared at me, as though I were no different from a pole near a well where people hooked their buckets.

  Behind me, the guards, shouting raucously, drove the wagon down the hill. Daisy and the others began to sob and walked toward the monastery. I did not wish to join them, but I did not know what else to do. I did not greet the abbess either. I pretended I did not see her. If I did not allow myself to see her, perhaps she would disappear. Perhaps I would disappear. Perhaps the monastery would disappear.

  But it stood in front of me, a pitiful thing. Its dirt walls had collapsed on one side, and on the top of its roof stood a statuette of a rooster with a broken leg. Engraved at the entrance of the building were the words Ganye Miao. Monastery of senses. How ironic. What senses could I possibly have in a monastery? And how far was this place to Chang’an? A hundred li? A thousand? But I did not need to ask, for even if I could have measured the span from Earth to Heaven, the distance from Pheasant to me still would have been immeasurable.

  Holding on to the wall, I stumbled inside the monastery. Before me, clouds of pale smoke drifted, and many figures, wearing ash-colored skullcaps, circled around the hall, their gray stoles swaying slowly like tired moths.

  “Sit,” the abbess, holding a pair of scissors, said beside me. “It will not take long.”

  I could feel the sharp edges of the scissors on my scalp, and I trembled. My hair. My long hair. She intended to cut it.

  “No.” I shrank back, holding my head. Since entering the palace, I had never cut my hair. Black and sleek, it fell near my knees and swayed behind me. It was a part of me, my charm and my identity. If she tonsured me, what would I become? Would I still be a woman? Would I still be able to love and be loved?

  My hair was not simply an adornment either. It contained the threads of my memories, the stories of my past, and the essence of the moments I had spent with the people I held dear. If I let my hair go, would I still have memories? For I remembered those moments well. I remembered the hair falling in front of my eyes while I played tug-of-war with Big Sister behind me and my father laughing on the other side. I remembered Mother brushing it, greasing it with lance-shaped thoroughwort leaves, smoothing sunflower seed oil onto my head, and twisting braids near my ears. I remembered my friend Plum laboring behind me, piling loose strands on top of my head and powdering my Cloudy Chignon with fragrances. I remembered leaning against Pheasant’s chest, my head close to his heart, my hair brushing his skin…

  I pushed the abbess away and staggered toward the door. Voices called me back, and some other Talents screeched as the scissors cut their hair, but I did not care. I did not belong there. I needed to find Pheasant, find the palace. He would fight for me. He would make the Duke change his mind. He would take me back to the palace.

  I passed the nuns, dashed across the dirt courtyard, and ran out of the monastery. Before me, walls of white birches glared like bleached bones, sharp rocks jutted out threateningly, and deep valleys cut through the slopes and stretched into the distance like a serpent’s broken spine. The cold air sent a chill down my back.

  In the distance, I saw a wall of fences, a small shack, and the two guards standing near the path, their swords in their hands. Beyond them, mountain after mountain piled into the air and reached toward the sky. I shuddered.

  I could not escape. If I were caught, I would be hanged. Mother and all my blood-related family would be killed as well. And even if I could escape, where would I go?

  Oh, Pheasant.

  If only he had fought harder. Did he really love me as he claimed? Perhaps I had been wrong all these years. Perhaps I had meant nothing to him. Perhaps I was no different from the other girls he had dallied with. He was a lie coated in honey, a rotten trickery wrapped in silk. He had given me up. Now he sat on his throne, and I was here.

  I returned to the monastery. The abbess came to stand before me, the scissors in her hand.

  I turned around, showing her my back. “Do it.”

  She mumbled something and tugged at my hair. The scissors screeched as clumps of dark threads dropped to the ground beside me. It made no sound, but it battered my heart nonetheless. I clenched my hands, standing still.

  More hair fell, rapidly, urgently, like a torrent of black blood. Then a cold edge pressed to my scalp, chafing at my forehead, around my ears, and the nape of my neck. I shivered.

  The abbess wobbled away, trampling on the pile of hair that used to be a part of me, and a nun with a grim face hurried over with a broom and pushed the pile into a corner. There, my hair hunched like a frightened ghost, hopeless, helpless.

  The nuns marked my head with incense and smeared ash on the burned spots to prevent infection. Later, the abbess offered me clothes to change into. I took off my silk gown, folded it, placed it near the pillow on my pallet, and put on the thin, gray stole that reeked of smoke and incense.

  I lay down on my pallet and stared at the crack of the dirt wall. I tried not to think, to listen, or to feel, and when my eyes began to sting, I closed them and fell asleep.

  • • •

  In the dark, I felt Daisy’s warm arm against my back and heard her gentle breathing behind me. I was back in the palace! My heart leaping in joy, I bolted upright. But then my hand touched something bristly—Daisy’s shorn head. I shrank back. All at once the pain of leaving the palace and arriving at the monastery stormed through me. I lay down and covered my face, but I did not cry. I could not cry.

  Some time passed. The abbess entered the small room and beat a round, wooden block with a stick, startling me. Dawn had not yet arrived, but the nuns rose, dressed themselves, and lined up against the wall, their legs crossed. For a long time they meditated.

  I continued to lie there, and the other Talents did not rise either. Perhaps they were still asleep, or perhaps they simply could not face the day. The monastery was enveloped in still silence. There were no eunuchs’ voices answering orders, no clopping noises from high-heeled wooden shoes striking the floors, no tinkling of jewels from ladies’ girdles, no gentle knocking of lanterns against the eaves. There was no laughter, no singing, no music of flutes or zithers. It was so quiet, it seemed the monastery had dropped into an abyss and would never see the light again.

  An animal shrieked in the woods. The sound was so shrill, it ripped through the stillness and yanked at my heart.

  A sliver of pale light crept to the gap between the threshold and the door. Dawn had arrived. The nuns stood and filed into the chanting hall. I did not move. They would need to drag me if they wished me to participate. I hated the sight of them. I hated their chanting, and I hated the hall with the big Buddha statue that reminded me of Tripitaka. And I hated him too.

  I had believed in him, and Father too—had believed in his
prediction of my destiny, that I would have the power to rule over all of China. But Tripitaka had been wrong. Look at me now, whipped by the storm of misfortune and trapped by its treacherous wind.

  I dozed off and slept for what seemed like centuries, but when I awoke, the nuns were still chanting. The other Talents awoke too. Touching their shorn heads, they screamed and wailed in dismay. I turned away, my eyes moist.

  The abbess came in and told us that the morning meal had been served. When none of us replied to her, she sighed and left us alone.

  I could not stay in that room any longer. I would go insane if I spent one more minute watching the Talents weep. I rose from the pallet and staggered out to the courtyard.

  Before me, people rushed about in a flurry of activity. Some swept the floor while some shined the hemp-oil lamps; others cleaned ash out of the incense pots. A slim nun balanced two buckets of water from a pole on her shoulders.

  The nuns glanced at me without saying a word, and I hid my hands in my stole and looked away. I went to the backyard and stared at the melons, eggplants, cabbage, and green beans growing in the garden. I thought of the fragrant wine and roasted meat I had enjoyed at the palace. Perhaps I would never feel juicy bites of meat in my mouth again.

  Near noon, the nuns arranged another meal. They served only two meals a day, they said, and afterward another session of chanting followed. Kneeling on black cushions, they rocked back and forth, their voices punctuated by the sound of a stick beating the wooden block. A thick scent mixed with smoke, oil, and incense wafted through the hall. I felt sick smelling it.

  When the last light of dusk disappeared on the horizon, the abbess struck the wooden block again, and the lights in the monastery were extinguished. We sank into the darkness.

  I stared at the dark ceiling and thought of Mother. I was like her now, a nun. A mother and a daughter. Two lives. One destiny. When I had seen her a few years ago, I had thought I was ready to walk down my own path. I was wrong.