“Go now. Go before your father unmans himself and cries.” Mama pushed her away. Ji Yue didn’t need the prompting to leave. She was anxious to begin her new life even though her fingers clung to Mama’s arm. But it was hard to see through her curtain of beads, harder still to walk on the high platform shoes. Thankfully, this, too, had been rehearsed.
The elder of her brothers ran to her side to escort her with all dignity to the imperial palanquin. It had been an exorbitant expense to get the conveyance, but it was the only pull her father had in the Forbidden City. He had spent a year tutoring a eunuch’s nephew and in return had been promised a single favor. Papa had used it to obtain this beautiful ride to the Forbidden City. A future empress should arrive like an empress, he’d said, but that was all he could do. After this, she would have to catch the emperor’s favor on her own.
The wailers grew louder as she and her brother neared the curtained palanquin. Her brother was to release her hand now and throw open the bower curtains so she could enter. He began to move away, but she suddenly gripped his arm, holding him still.
It was a silly thought, she knew, but she didn’t want her brother’s last sight of her to be one of extraordinary lavishness. They had so little, and even less now that so much had been spent to outfit her. She did not want her brother to see the interior luxury of the palanquin. After she became the new empress, she would send him exquisite silks as a royal gift. He need not see them now.
“Take care of Papa,” she murmured as a last goodbye to her brother. “Make sure he drinks his special tea.” Her brother hovered uncertainly beside her, unsure what to do now that she had changed the plan. “Go back to Papa,” she said to him. “Study hard so that you can join me in the Forbidden City.” There were jobs as advisors to the Dragon Throne, but only for scholars who passed the exam. She nudged him back even as she tottered forward to the bower. With one last smile that they couldn’t even see, she ducked inside the palanquin.
It was dark inside, and with the beads in front of her face, she couldn’t see a thing. She went by touch, crawling inside with little dignity and much speed. The cushions moved awkwardly beneath her hands until she touched a very hard one that remained stable. She pushed down, levering her weight on it.
The curtains slipped closed behind her, and one of the porters grunted as the palanquin lifted off the street. She slid off the heavy cushion onto something else. Goodness, silk was slippery. And the cushions were bizarre. The palanquin began to sway as it moved away from her family home. She wanted to peer out the curtain, but she didn’t dare do something so vulgar even though the tears burned in her eyes.
She would never see her family again. Once inside the Forbidden City, no consort ever came out again. Her father might be able to arrange to visit, but such things were rare even among those more politically astute than her father. Her mother had less power, and her brothers wouldn’t be allowed unless they gave up their manhood first and became eunuchs, or passed the exam and became advisors.
Ji Yue widened her eyes in the darkness, trying to dry the tears. She didn’t dare cry because it would ruin the white matte that covered her face. Instead, she kicked hard at the cushions that refused to move.
“Ugh,” someone grunted. Then she felt a hand grip her ankle hard.
Only years of training kept her from screaming. Ladies didn’t scream. By the time she was ten, she’d faced down rats, spiders and snakes without a peep. She would not scream now when riding in an imperial palanquin. She simply kicked as hard as she could to dislodge—
“Ow! Hold still, damn it. I’m not here to rape you.”
A man. Oh, heaven, a man! “Get out!” she ordered as she tried to scramble backward. She couldn’t go far without falling out the back end. “Get out or I will kick you again!” It was a silly threat. He had an iron grip on her ankle.
“Quit fighting,” he said in a low undertone.
“You cannot be here!” she said, and shoved as hard as she could. He lifted her leg up so that all she did was kick the air above his head. “I will scream!”
“Would you really scream? And let everyone know that a man is riding with you to the Forbidden City?”
She bit her lip, then promptly stopped since that would eat off the red paint. Her mother had told her to be smart. It was time she started using her brain instead of her extremely ineffective brawn. “What do you want?” she spat. “I have no money for you. Be thankful if you are not whipped for daring to touch an imperial consort.”
He was still holding her ankle prisoner. Worse, he was putting his weight on it now as he maneuvered into a sitting position. “You’re not going to be a royal bride. I’m sorry but it’s true.” Then he yawned while horror chilled her bones.
“You insolent pig!” She kicked again for all she was worth. He was still yawning, his head thrown back with his inhalation. Her leg slipped from his grip and caught him square in the ribs. This cut off his breath, and he doubled over with a gasp. She didn’t give him time to recover but shifted and planted both feet on his hips and began to shove him right out the side of her bower.
He fought her, of course, but she was prepared. He didn’t grab hold of her. Instead, his fists were filled with crumpled silk. “If I fall out now, everyone will see it,” he warned. “You do not have enough ivory to silence so exciting a story—a man in a potential bride’s palanquin.”
She paused. One last push and he would go tumbling through the curtains out into the dirt where he belonged. “They already know from the weight,” she said miserably.
“No, they don’t. They carried me here, remember? They think it’s just a heavy litter.”
She swallowed, torn between two miserable options. Did she kick him out and pray that people believed in her purity? Never. Or did she let him stay and hope no one was the wiser. “How did you get in here in the first place?”
“I slipped in when they rested. I can slip out again at the gates. I do it all the time and no one notices.”
Now that her eyes had adjusted to the dim light, she could see more of him. He was not a broad man like those carrying the palanquin, but tall like her father. His clothing was excellent, though the long queue down his back was misshapen from sleep.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“A lackey for the Son of Heaven,” he said with obvious bitterness.
“Eunuch?” she asked hopefully. It was well known that some of the “cut” men were overly friendly.
He released a sharp bark of laughter at that, and she abruptly shushed him. “No,” he said in a lower tone. “I am not so important as to be cut.”
She frowned. “I thought all minions to the emperor were eunuchs. Who else would do the things the royals despise?”
“Me,” he groused. “And a few others.”
She shook her head. “I do not believe you.” It was well known that except for a few intimates of the emperor, all men in the Forbidden City were eunuchs. This man couldn’t be an imperial friend. Otherwise he would have his own conveyance and therefore no need to borrow hers. The eunuchs, on the other hand, would often escape into Peking for pleasure. They would also, therefore, need a secret way back into the city.
She narrowed her eyes, inspecting this man more closely. “You dress too finely to be common. You speak too well to be ignorant. And your hands…” She jutted her chin at his long, elegant fingers. “They are used to a brush and ink, not labor. You must be a secretary then, someone who works as an assistant to the emperor.” She sighed in relief. “Which means you are a eunuch pretending to be whole. There is nothing exciting about an overly friendly eunuch, even if he lands in the dirt.” And with that, she shoved him out of her bower.