There was an annoying tear in the curtains. The sunlight streamed through it enough that he could peer out. But did he really want to know what was out there? Yes, apparently his curiosity was in full force today. So with a heavy sigh, he maneuvered himself to the side to look out. Roof tiles. He saw roof tiles first. Broken ones that clearly indicated he sat in a not-so-prosperous area of Peking. But he saw trees, too, and a songbird cage beside a long front wall. Not-so-poor, either, then. Middling aristocracy. He shifted up to his knees to adjust his view.
The father appeared first. Pinched face, short nose, but with a scholarly demeanor. There was refinement in his motions and a kind of tired dreaminess that confirmed Bo Tao’s first thought: middling aristocracy. Probably a Manchu of the red banner tribe. Sure enough, he saw a brand-new silk banner on the archway, but that was the only new decoration. The rest of the house was falling into ruin. His gaze returned to the father, then moved lower still to a pair of silent prepubescent boys. The family would have great difficulty finding the money to educate those two.
Bo Tao yawned again and thought to lie back down. But as he shifted, he caught sight of the women. It was the mother who was making the primary racket, weeping and sobbing as only a woman could. It was all for show as she kissed her daughter goodbye. He counted ten paid wailers howling in the background, pulling at their hair and creating a solid wall of sound.
Was the palanquin for them? Were the porters supposed to pick up someone before returning to the Forbidden City? Not the mother, who was still wailing like a demon. Not the stoic father or too-young boys. Must be the girl. He narrowed his eyes, trying to get a look at the daughter. She appeared the right age for marriage, was of middling stature and certainly dressed in finery. He saw an embroidered gown and a curtain of ivory beads in front of her face. Ivory, not jade. Which meant she was not wealthy enough to become an imperial consort.
Ox piss! Now he remembered why he had drunk himself insensate yesterday. The Festival of Fertility commenced this morning. Yi Zhen, his double-damned best friend (now called Emperor Xian Feng, the pompous prick), had just finished mourning his father last night. Which meant he now began the royal process of picking wives and harems in order to beget the next Son of Heaven.
A full week would be given over to the search for beautiful and fertile women to grace Emperor Xian Feng’s bed. Beauty and bribes, sex and petty backstabbing would rule the Forbidden City for at least a week, and not a single moment would be left for the practical matters of running the country. What a total waste of time!
Worse, a delegation of Dutch were coming to the Forbidden City this week. Bo Tao believed that the whites had to be handled with great care, that the world had many dangerous powers that were unknown in China. But Yi Zhen was overwhelmed with internal matters, with the Taiping rebellion in the northwest and China’s increasingly corrupt infrastructure. He had no time to discuss Dutch delegates and no patience for his best friend, who warned of yet more struggles on a global stage.
Bo Tao should have left the Forbidden City as soon as his emperor showed signs of strain. He knew Yi Zhen’s moods, and yet he had not been able to resist pushing his emperor to see the larger picture. That had been his last, most stupid mistake. After all, Bo Tao had no official status. He was merely the hellion of the Forbidden City, the boy who’d run wild with the emperor, playing games throughout the city-within-a-city. If he were an official appointee, if he were a general or a scholar or something with a title, then he might have had the status to force his friend to listen. But he was simply a consultant, a friend to the emperor, a man who saw the greed in the whites’ eyes and feared it. And when he had pushed Yi Zhen to see it as well, his best friend had punished him.
His triple-damned emperor had named Bo Tao master of the festival! He said Bo Tao had become too serious and needed a week of frivolity to lighten his mood. Ox piss! Yi Zhen was merely flexing his royal muscles! Rather than deal with the coming Dutch delegation, Yi Zhen had ignored the issue, ordered Bo Tao to take care of the festival, and then laughed at his friend’s stunned expression. It was just like when they were children! Whenever Yi Zhen had felt threatened, he would reassert his status as a royal prince. He’d usually make up some crime and have the eunuchs punish Bo Tao. That was how Bo Tao had learned the fine art of scrubbing kitchen pots or worse, cleaning chamber pots.
This was no different. But instead of a game, Bo Tao was suddenly in charge of scores of competitive, backstabbing, gossiping virgins! Just when the Dutch delegation was due to arrive!
He glared out the torn curtain at the girl who might very well become one of his charges by the end of the day. Narrowing his eyes, he tried to assess her prospects and understand why she was marked as special. She had to have something unique to rank an imperial palanquin, even a shabby one.
Nothing. There was nothing distinctive about her to catch the emperor’s eye, and not enough money on this whole street to pay the bribes that would be required to pass through the minefield that was the imperial court. The girl was doomed. And yet here she was in her richly embroidered gown, kneeling before her parents while paid women wailed.
Just as well that his presence in her palanquin would keep her from entering the competition. Once he was discovered in her conveyance, she would not be able to enter the litter. His male yang energy poisoned the virginal bower. She would have to arrange for an alternate way to reach the Forbidden City.
But there wasn’t time even if her family had the money for another carriage. Not if she intended to make it to the gate by the appointed hour. Tardiness was not allowed in prospective royal consorts. Fortunately, he wasn’t dooming anyone who would have made it through the Forbidden City gates. At least this way, the girl was spared the long and humiliating walk home.
All in all, he decided as he collapsed back down onto a pillow, it was better that he was here ruining her chances. And as an added bonus, he could grab another hour’s sleep before he had to begin his double-damned duties in the coming Farce of Fertility.
CHEN JI YUE STRUGGLED to breathe. Excitement pounded in her blood, she was already dizzy with the noise, and yet she still could not draw a full breath. How blessed she was to be of the right age for a Festival of Fertility! Only a few hundred girls every few decades had such an opportunity! To catch the eye of the emperor was every girl’s dream. That she would save her family from poverty, as well, only added to her joy. But first, she had to escape all these wailing women!
“Mama,” she murmured from behind the clattering ivory beads. “Let me go. I cannot be late.”
“Not yet, little heart. Show respect to your father.”
She’d already bowed to her father—early this morning for real and outside again for show. “Mama, believe in me. I can do it.”
Mama didn’t hear her. She was busy wailing again. And worse, she would not let go of Ji Yue’s hands.
“Mama…” Ji Yue began, but then her mother pulled her close.
“You won’t win the emperor on beauty, Ji Yue. You must be smart. You must see what others don’t and capitalize on it.”
“I know. You’ve told me…” Ji Yue let her voice trail away. This close, she noticed there were real tears in her mother’s eyes, and her heart lurched with pain. What would it be like not to see her mother’s face every morning? Who would help her father with his poetry or tutor her brothers? Mama, most likely, but Mama already had plenty to do squeezing every penny so they had enough to eat.
“That playboy Sun Bo Tao was named master of the festival,” her mother continued. “This is very bad and very dangerous. He is a hanger-on because of his friendship with the emperor. No title, no education, nothing but trouble. Avoid him, Ji Yue. Avoid him at all costs!”
“I know, Mama. I will stay away from him. I promise!”
“You can’t! He is master of the festival! He is in charge of all the imperial virgins. Remember what I taught you—follow the Confucian virtues, think pure thoughts, but see what the men do not. I trained you to be a political