6.
We met again, and again. Xia yun provided us the needed cover so that Guo’er and I could enjoy our moments of bliss, in the woods and later, in one of those hundreds of secret chambers inside the imperial palace. Later on, I learned we were not alone in this amorous game. The Empress had her favorite lovers, besides Shangguan. She liked men, even at this age and had taken two brothers, Zhang by family name, into the palace as her bed-pets. Princess Taiping and Shangguan Wan’er were not stainless either. Among their loves, men from the Wu clan frequently warmed their beds. It would be a gross underestimation to think the Empress did not know about these. But somehow she turned a blind eye to it, as long as it was not threatening her base of power. Perhaps, she thought that intimate relations between the members of the Wu and Li men and women would cement the gap between these rival families.
She was right.
What she did not expect was their common animosity against the Zhang brothers, who were trying to grab power through their common senile lover, the Empress. But that would come later.
Then, messengers brought news that the Empress had died. A year before that, a palace coup was staged against the Zhang brothers whose heads were cut off by angry soldiers. The Empress was forced to abdicate but no one dared lay a finger on her. She died alone, in a cold palace and was buried into the mausoleum with her passed away husband, the later Emperor.
Li Guo’er’s father, Li Xian, had become emperor, again.
It was a beginning of nothing good. The new Empress, Li Xian’s wife, the woman in whose eyes I sensed fore-coming trouble, wished to become like her mother-in-law. But she was not Empress Wu. She matched the latter’s ambition but not her wisdom. She was also bad influence to her daughter.
When I came back several years later, I saw her a few times and we revived our amorous relationship. But things had changed and there was a gradual coolness from her. Perhaps our affair was proving too risky, especially for me.
Then, one day, she broke off completely with me. I was devastated but had thought about such possibility earlier. After all, this could not go on forever. She was a princess and one day, she would be given out to wed an appropriate suitor.
She chose one of the Wu men.
This, I did not understand. The Wu men were so incompetent and power hungry, that none of them stood a good match for the most coveted peony of the court.
The wedding was a demonstration of the wealth and strength of the Empire. Though her father was lived under her grandmother’s shadow, Li family had united in matrimony with one of the Wu.
Six months later, she gave birth to a child.
Rumor had it that she either had mated with her husband prior to the marriage, or that the child was never from his seed.
“Who was the father?” That question inside my head was never answered.
I was sent on a military expedition again to the north-west of the Empire. There was little fighting as the nomadic tribes were more willing to give tribute than to create trouble, having learned their lessons the hard way. Border garrison life was monotonous and lonely. I spent my time practicing with my martial skills. I could no longer find anyone a close match with my sword now. That brought little comfort as there seemed no opportunity to use my skill in real battle. I rode, and came to know each mile of the ground, savored the majesty views of snow-capped mountains and icy glaciers, hot deserts and strong wine made from mare’s milk. I thought of Guo’er now and then, was aware that perhaps I would never saw her again this life.
I did hear stories about her, gossips about court life.
Without the late Empress’s supervision and guidance, Li Guo’er leapt from bed to bed, even after her marriage and when her husband was killed in a rebellion by her step-brother, she married her deceased husband’s brother, another Wu, who was still influential at court. Her style of living brought the empire to near financial collapse. A special kind of dress was conceived from her idea. It was made from feathers of a hundred birds and would show different colors when looked upon from different directions. Her father, the Emperor, was unable to rein her in. She had been his only treasure during those years in exile and her very name, Guo’er, was named after the wrapping cloth when she was born, a name tender and reminiscent of those early days.
It was heart-breaking to hear such things about a woman whom I had once loved, still loved.
I could remember her face, her body, her passion, her abandon in my dreams. I could still remember the scene when she was riding in front of me, when I rescued her from certain death and her calling me “her first knight”. It did not matter anymore now. Or so it seemed.
Li Xian was never material for a competent emperor. Almost everyone was expecting a storm to break over the empire any moment.
When I received order to return to Chang An, I went with a sad heart.
I arrived at the capital among unsettling rumors that the Empress was so bent on following her mother-in-law’s track that something horrible was being boiled. When I joined my unit which one of the elite regiments the Empress had placed great faith in, the mood was eerie. She thought that by showering gifts and gold on the officers, she would be able to buy their loyalty. She could not be more wrong. I saw men spiting on the gold pieces once the back of the Empress’s envoy were turned. Chang An had become a boiling booth for impeding trouble.
Hardly anyone remembered that I was once the horsemanship teacher of the imperial princess now. I was into my middle years and though everyone respected my experience and skill with weapons, I was viewed as only one of the many commanders and not someone so different.
But someone remembered.
On a hot night, I had a visitor. It was Xia Yun.
“She asked me to bring this to her First Knight” She said and placed a silk envelop into my hands.
I open it. The name of a girl was written on a piece of yellowish paper: Yuen Zhi.
“What is the meaning of this?” I was puzzled.
Xia Yun led me to one side.
“When Her Highness gave birth, it was a pair of twins, a boy and a girl. She bribed to have the secret kept and only presented the boy to her husband and asked me to bring the baby girl to a nunnery nearby to raise, hoping one day, she will be able to inform you.”
“What?” I grab at her wrist. “Are you telling me that I have a daughter?”
She nodded.
“I want to see her.”
“No! You cannot! She asked me to come to tell you this, so that you can take your daughter away, to somewhere safe…”
“What do you mean by somewhere safe? Is she in danger?”
Her face went so pale. “I cannot say. The sky is so red these nights. And so many comets. Something terrible may happen.”
“Stop this foolish talk. Can you show me where the nunnery is?”
“Yes, I can lead you there. But not tonight. I have to be back. I will come back when it is possible.”
She slipped out of the tent and disappeared into the darkness.
7.
Fate was always a capricious whore.
We did not have a fortnight.
One summer night, there was loud beating of the drums.
“The Emperor is dead!”
It was said he was poisoned, and many said the suspect was his own wife and her daughter was a collaborator.
“Impossible!” I had shouted. “She might be a spoiled child, she might be promiscuous, she might crave for power, riches, but she would not commit patricide. She was not capable to do that.”
The men looked at me, perplexed.
“Are you trying to speak for the witch?” a fellow commander demanded.
“I speak only the truth. And if you call me a liar, we can settle it with our blades.” I glared back at him.
His face went red, but then he backed off. He knew what it would cost him if he dared draw his weapon.
Things rushed.
A new emperor was proclaimed. He was a son of the late emperor. People said the Empress Dowager was bidding for time to gather her forces. The air was tensed with rumors of coups and conspiracies. A smell of death wafted over the sky of the capital.
