8.

The heat was suffocating.

A storm was about to break and the sky was lighted up by the flash of a horrendous lightning.

It was as if the elements knew something would happen this very night.

The garrison had been put on alert; all commanders and soldiers had put their armor on and had their weapons at the ready.  Nobody gave the reason.  There were so many possibilities that no one dared offer any.  In silence, we waited.

Then it came.

A fast rider in uniform rushed into camp, shouting. “Rise! To arms!  Prince Li Longji and Princess Taiping had raised their banners and now attacking the palace. Down the traitors!  Down with the witches!”

It immediately created a commotion.  

“What does it mean?”  “Is there another coup?”  “Whose side should we fight for?”  “Are you nuts? We fight on the side of the just!  The mother and child poisoned the late emperor and put on the throne a puppet one, didn’t they?”  “Who can say?  What good would that do to them to have the emperor removed? And who will benefit most when the late emperor was removed?  Not the Empress for sure!  She would lose her greatest protector!”  “Enough of this messing by women!  First the Empress Shengshen, and now this?” “Don’t you dare tarnish the name of the late Empress Shengshen!  She had been a good ruler.  We all had peace then.  Look at the mess now!”

The argument went on and on.  Even the generals were unable to come to a common ground.  Everybody knew something must be done, but if the course chosen was on the wrong side, it would bring doom to all.  Treason was punishable by whole-scale execution! It was understandable to wait a while more to see which way the wind blew.

But I could wait no longer.

She had sent me a message, a secret.  If she did not feel herself in grave danger, she would not do such a thing suddenly.  It was almost certain that she sensed her predicament in this coming storm.  Did her mother really poison her father?  Was she an accomplice?  Was she a willing one?

I slipped out of the tent where heated debate was being carried out and found my way to the stable.  My old companion seemed expecting me and quietly let itself be saddled.  I quietly rode out of the camp; the sentries at the gate recognized me and did not give me trouble.  

Once out of the camp, I turned my mount to the right, in the direction of the imperial palace.  Even in the distance I could see the flames lighting up a darkened sky.  The sound of men, of fighting, of dying was being carried across the land.  The key would be the loyalty of the imperial guards.  If they held the gates long enough, the forces of Prince Li Longji and Princess Taiping would be scattered by reinforcement from the outside garrisons, seeing that the revolt had failed.  But if the guards collaborated……

I was about to put my horse to a gallop towards the direction of the flame when a rush of hooves dashed out from the dark.  A single rider, a woman.

She went straight for the gate of the camp.  At first I thought it was Quo’er but then a woman’s scream shot through the night air.  It was the Empress!

I reined in my horse and waited.  There was such a cheering in the camp.  Someone mounted the wooden watch-tower, with a pike.  On the tip of it was a severed head with long hair, that of the Empress.

“Foolish woman!” I cursed.  She had thought that by escaping into the camp would ensure her safety.  She had tried to win the loyalty by showering gold.  She never understood that by the very act of escaping, she was signaling defeat and no regiment would stand on the side which had failed.

“Quo’er!”  I woke to the unthinkable horror.  I must reach her before they did.  Did she try to escape too?  No, not she.  She was too clever for that.  But staying inside the palace would not guarantee her safety, or that of her new husband.

I kicked my horse to full speed.  When I reached the palace, the gates had been thrown open.  The guards had thrown in their lots with the rebels.  

I leapt down from my mount, drew my sword and rushed in.  There had been much fighting prior to the giving in by the defenders.  Bodies littered the ground behind the gates: soldiers, eunuchs, maids-in-waiting...  Thick smoke was enveloping the grand buildings now.  One could highly identify which way to go.  In a sense, this was a good thing.  The rebel soldiers would also find it difficult to find their way to her too.  It was easier for me, for I had entered this palace for so many times, each corridor brought back memories.  I passed doors that once led to chambers of bliss, I ran across lawns similar to the one in Loyang where once an old woman in imperial robes bearing dragon motifs asked me to go and bring her son, and granddaughter, to safety.  The old empress was long gone, so was the son.  Where is the grand-daughter now?

“You are my First Knight!” she had said, in her innocent childlike voice.  

Things were so much simpler then.  I fought, I killed, and I saved. And I delivered them to safety.  Or did I?  Is THIS the safety I had fought for her?  I turned another corner, ran into a group of men with bloodied blades, like drunkards wheeling about, laughing, and looting.  Close by were the bodies of several young ladies of the courts, disheveled, disrobed, dishonored.  I gave a shout and charged and before any of the men realized what was happening, cut all their throats.

More shouting!

And a commanding voice.  “She had taken refuge in the palace.  You must find her and kill her! She knows too much!”

I knew who he was: Prince Li Longji.  And he was trying to find Princess Anle and had her slain.  But why did he say she knew too much?  Too much of what?  

I wanted to rush up to him, to make him talk.  But he had too many armed men surrounding him.  I could not fight that many.  

I dashed through a side corridor.  

Another group, a woman in the lead.  I recognized her, Shangguan Wen’er.  She must be in her mid-forties now and yet she was still good looking.  From secretary to the late Empress Shangshen, she had become the concubine of Li Xian and allied herself with his wife.  But now it seemed she had changed sides and joined the camp of Princess Taiping now.
Have these two women forgotten how they had loved Quo’er when she first arrived?  I made a shout and charged.  Her protecting guards were taken back by surprise and fell like wheat under the scythe.  She was brave, even when she found she had nowhere to run, her back against a wall.

“I do not want to kill you.” I said. “I just want to know one thing: who poisoned the Emperor?”

“The Empress Wei…”

“Do not lie to me!  What would she gain with the death of the emperor?  She was not ready!”

Her face paled.  

“Do you want to live, or do you want to die here right here?” I hissed.

She lowered her head.  “It was him.  He planned it and put it over their heads.”

I knew who “he” was and I knew who “their heads” were referred to!

“You bunch of murderers!” I raised my sword.

She looked at me, closed her eyes and bared her neck for the cut.  

“Go! For the sake of the old days, I am not going to kill you.  Go!”

She fled.

I pressed on; the blade of my sword drank more blood.  Where is she!

Then I saw the body of a man, a noble.  I kicked it over.  I knew this face: it was her second husband.  He was fleeing from a nearby chamber.  I took a deep breath, walked towards it and pushed open the gate.

She was standing there, facing me, wearing a red silk gown with the motif of a phoenix.

We stood like pillars of stone, looking into each other’s eyes.

A tear rolled down her beautiful face.  

“You have come, my First Knight.  You have finally come.” She said.

I grab her wrist. “No time for this. Come.  I will take you out of here!”

She pulled back, her head shaking.  She refused to go.

“Are you mad?  They will kill you!”

“Let them!  I do not care anymore.  They killed my father, and now my mother is gone, left me to my fate.  Why should I live?”

I did not have the heart to tell her that her mother’s head was already at the end of a pike.

“You do not deserve to die!”

“Don’t I? “She laughed, hysterically.  “I was their whore.  I had willingly become their whore!  They said things behind my back, called me right, said I brought the empire to ruin.  Nobody ever asked me if I wanted this!  Why was I born into this nest of vipers?  Father and son, brothers against one another, husbands and wives, cousins.  The only rule in this place was never who was in the right and who was in the wrong.  The only thing mattered was who had the power, which had more soldiers!  We are doomed!  They, he, would never rest until he had my head, to show the end of a witch!  He will not stop until he achieves what he wants to do: Emperor!”

“Come with me!” I tried to drag her.

“No! You cannot save me!  You know that!  There are so many out there that once you walk out of here, they will cut you and I into pieces! Go! Save yourself!”

“Then, let us die together.”

She shook her head again.  “I do not want you to die here with me, First Knight.  What good would it do, to you, to me, to our daughter?”

I felt my stomach turned inside me.  I knew she was right.  Even the best swordsman in the empire could not fight his way out with a princess who had lost her will to live.

“What can I do for you?” I said in a low voice.

“Take our daughter away from this land.  It is cursed!” She told me the name of the nunnery where Yuan Zhi was kept.

I nodded.

“And tell me I am beautiful, First Knight”

“You are.  You always will be, inside my heart.”

She managed a sad smile, then turned and walked to her dressing table where a shiny bronze mirror stood.

I walked behind her and saw that reflection in the mirror, a face so dazzling, and the most beautiful in the empire.

She brushed her hair with a comb decorated with turquoise and precious stones.

“Do not let them capture me alive, First Knight.”

My heart ached at her words.

“I will not.” I promised her.

She smiled.  This time, there was less sadness, more serenity.

She looked into the mirror once again.  I knew.  Such beauty was captivating, even to the owner.

I let her eyes stay on that reflection for a blink of an eye and then the face was no more, her head parted with her round shoulders and the torso toppled onto the ground facing the ceiling.

I took up the head and wiped away the blood stain.  It was a beautiful trophy for the beasts outside.  I did not mind. It was just a head, a part of her former self. Her spirit was no longer inside.

I pulled open the door.  There were more than forty rebel soldiers crowding the yard.  I raised the head and they cheered.  They thought I had come in order to see justice done.  I threw the head towards them and as expected, it created an immediate confusion.  

“For our daughter.” I muttered and walked away.


9.

I found the nunnery.

Xia Yun was already there; with a little girl whom I knew instantly was Yuan Zhi.

We did not speak.  The sorrowful looks told all the tales and she wept for her late mistress.

The whole of Chang An was wild in celebration as we three wrestled through the celebrating crowds.

We passed a monastery which the killed Empress had made so many donations in the past years.  The heads of mother and daughter was impaled onto bamboo rods and erected high as display.  I put my hands over the eyes of Yuen Zhi and Xia Yun and walked towards the outer gates.


Epilog.

We traveled in the direction of north west border.  Once leaving the territory of Tang, I could find friends among the nomadic tribes.  These people I had fought and conquered once, and made friends.  They were good people, pure at heart, forgiving of past dues and had good memory of pledged friendship.  We would never return to the Middle Kingdom again.   I sometimes wondered if Yuen Zhi would grow up as beautiful as her mother.  But that should not be a problem.  She was no longer a princess, no longer a fought over prize.  She was just my daughter.  

Xia Yun stayed with me and as lonely man and woman, we became a couple.  Both of us knew I would not love her as I loved her former mistress.  But that should not be a problem too.  She was content with what she had and she loved Yuen Zhi.

Not long after we left Chang An, there was another attempted coup.  This time, Princess Taiping tried to seize power.  She failed and lost her head.  Li Longji finally became emperor.  He brought prosperity and power to the Empire, for many years.  Then he fell in love with a woman, the wife of her son, and made her a sub-queen and she finally led to internal war which devastated the land.

The Empire never recovered.

(End of story)