The Last Concubine Read online

  “Oh no, my sweet innocent. They are very well to serve brainless consorts, content to lie upon their backs and spread their legs—”

  “Second Concubine!” Mei Ju rose to her full height, which wasn’t very tall at all, but she was impressive in her indignation. “You shame only yourself with your vulgar ramblings. I order you to leave my house at once! You! Guards! Make yourself useful and escort this woman to her home. Ci’an, I hope a period of solitary reflection may restore your humor!”

  Ci’an gave Lan’xiu a wink and hauled herself up out of her chair. “Get your eunuch to procure you some porn, with illustrations, Princess of Stupid. You have much to learn if you wish to hold the attention of our husband. You would look lovely with your heels over your head, all red in the face while he pumps away at you, I’m sure.”

  Lan’xiu felt the color mount to her cheeks, humiliated that Ci’an would plant such images in the minds of the soldiers who stood there listening, but she made no reply, deeming it useless to involve herself in a verbal brawl. When she replied with a dagger, Ci’an beat her down with a battle-axe.

  Even Bai did not care to answer that parting jibe, and Ci’an was escorted out in a chilly silence. Her dismissal did not seem to discompose her; in fact she appeared rather amused to be shunned by the other wives, as if it gave her some advantage.

  Mei Ju seated herself and leaned forward to touch Lan’xiu’s sleeve. “My dear, don’t let that witch bother you. Your earrings are very pretty.”

  For some reason that comment made Lan’xiu want to laugh when she had been holding back her tears, but she couldn’t appear to make fun of First Wife. Mei Ju was a tender soul, and Lan could tell it cost her to stand up to Ci’an. “I am very fond of these earrings.”

  Bai put in, “It really doesn’t matter what you wear. You could wear the poorest cotton cheongsam and no jewelry at all, and you would still outshine the lot of us.”

  “I have no desire to—” Lan’xiu started to exclaim.

  “You cannot help your face. You are as the stars and gods made you,” Bai said, sounding serious for once. “Unearthly in your beauty, like a star shining in the night sky.”

  “I think you are quite pretty and your earrings too,” Alute said placidly. “Ci’an is just mean.”

  “Thank you,” Lan said, blinking rapidly at the tears that threatened to fall. For the first time she felt like one of them, even though she couldn’t have been further from them.

  Mei Ju lifted the teapot. “May I give you tea, my dears?”

  Chapter 12

  JIANG sat down at the general’s breakfast table and poured himself a cup of tea, intending to waylay him. The glutinous rice and fruit appeared particularly tasty this morning, but perhaps that was only because he was so relishing the opportunity to tease Hüi Wei about his new acquisition.

  His commander, Captain Wen, had reported on Hüi Wei’s visit to Princess Lan’xiu the previous night, perhaps not realizing it had been a clandestine assignation. Hüi had not had her lantern lit, so perhaps he had not gone to feast on her body. Perhaps she had confessed to him some plot.

  When Hüi failed to show up to break his fast, Jiang knew his friend was most definitely still avoiding him and decided he would have to confront him in a place where Hüi could not retreat from him.

  He knew just where to start looking and ordered his horse to be saddled. Once he was outside the border of the city, he was able to spy Hüi in the distance atop his favorite hill. Evidently, he was not hurt, but he was pacing in a way that spoke of deep confusion.

  Because a warrior like Hüi would be difficult to surprise, Jiang did not even try. He made the obvious frontal approach up the hill and greeted his friend. “Good morning, Hüi.”

  “Jiang. You should not have come here,” Hüi snapped.

  “If not I, then who?” Jiang dismounted and tied the reins of his horse to the nearest tree. “Come, Hüi. You look as if you had been tortured last night instead of enjoying the charms of the most beautiful creature you own.”

  “My horse is indeed comely,” Hüi said, patting the horse’s neck, perhaps as an excuse to turn his face away.

  “I did not mean your horse,” Jiang said sternly. “I would have expected you to be happy, content, triumphant, or excited after bedding the princess. Instead you steal to her side in secret, and now you are alone on top of this hill, moping. What went wrong?”

  “Nothing at all.” Hüi began to pace nervously.

  “Did the princess deny you?”

  “She could not,” Hüi said. “She is a concubine. It is her lot to obey.”

  “Was the princess not pure when you first took her?”

  “Untouched,” Hüi answered tersely.

  “Then what happened? Is Lan’xiu stupid or deformed or disgusting or venal—”

  “He is none of those!” Hüi roared and then stopped, his face shocked and dismayed that he had betrayed himself so easily. “I mean ‘she’.”

  “You meant ‘he’,” Jiang said calmly.

  “Do not let me believe that you knew—you knew—this princess is a… a….”

  “Male. Yes, I suspected, from the first.”

  Hüi sat down hard upon the ground. In a wounded voice he asked, “Why did you not tell me? You are my friend, why did you not warn me?”

  Jiang sat beside him. “I could not. What if I were wrong? You might have killed that unfortunate girl, if she had been a girl, and all for a mere guess? I could not do it.”

  Hüi shook his head. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand anything. Why should I, after all the women I have tumbled, why should I feel attraction to one of my own sex now?”

  “Why not?” Jiang shrugged.

  “Just that easy?”

  “Just that easy. He is very beautiful. I’ve never seen anyone to compare. He would tempt anyone.”

  Again, Hüi was angry. “Did you come to taunt me that I have had a male foisted upon me to play the part of a concubine?”

  “I came because I know you are troubled and I want to help you.” Jiang paused, regarding the angry lines etched in the mask of Hüi’s face. “Because you are my friend.”

  “And what, precisely, do you think troubles me?” Hüi demanded with a sneer.

  “How to guard his secret. You want to keep Lan’xiu, but you do not want any gossip about you and your affairs.”

  Hüi seemed to slump as the anger drained from him once again. Jiang knew the signs.

  “The worst was trying to think how to keep this from you. We have always shared everything.” He noticed a look of embarrassed regret upon Jiang’s face. “We have, have we not?”

  Jiang averted his face. “It is my shame to admit to you now that there is one thing I have kept from you. Why do you not ask how I knew that the Princess Lan’xiu isn’t what she seems?”

  “How did you know? She is perfection: in form, in face, in manner, in carriage! She has Mei Ju believing she is a woman, and that is not easy—” Hüi paused when a realization suddenly struck him. “You are—that way—too?”

  “I have never cared for women,” Jiang said softly. “I follow the passions of the cut sleeve.”

  “Is that why you never married?”

  “I have never married a woman. I have a comrade—a partner. We have loved each other for ten years now.”

  “Do I know this man?”

  Jiang laughed. “You should. He is one of your highest-ranked commanders, Zheng Guofang.”

  “It is like you to praise him, but he ranks after you, my friend.” Hüi clapped Jiang on the shoulder. “A good man! You have chosen well, my friend. I’d wondered—but never mind that!”

  Soberly, Jiang looked at Hüi. “The one regret of my life is that I have had to keep this secret from you, my closest friend.”

  Hüi made a pained sound. “You didn’t trust me?”

  “You didn’t trust me!” Jiang pointed out. Then he sighed. “It was not simply a question of trust. When I discovered the truth ab
out myself, I dared not tell you. I fell in love—with someone completely unsuitable—”

  “It was with me,” Hüi said in a flash of insight. He covered his eyes with his hand. “Oh Jiang. I am so sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It was only puppy love. I got over it,” Jiang said. “It would never have worked.”

  “Not that. What a tragedy that you have had to hide this secret from me all these years,” Hüi said sorrowfully. “This is my failure. I was not a good enough friend for you to trust me with your true self.”

  “We were both too reticent. Perhaps we both had much to learn before we could speak freely,” Jiang suggested. “We have shared our secrets now.” He grasped Hüi’s hand and their fingers tightened in a strong clasp. “Now to the matter at hand. Do you love him?”

  Hüi shook his head in bewilderment. “I don’t know. I think so. Perhaps it is too soon, just a novelty that will wear off.”

  “You need time to get to know him better,” Jiang said.

  “Ning said we must call him ‘her’—”

  “Who is Ning?”

  “Lan’xiu’s eunuch, her servant. Ning refers to Lan’xiu always in the feminine. He says that it is safer.”

  “Very well, no doubt he has long experience in guarding her secret. We will call her ‘she’.”

  “Thank you,” Hüi sighed.

  “First of all, what are you going to do about her brother?”

  “Last night—”

  “Can’t resist giving me a blow by blow, eh, dear friend?” Jiang jabbed Hüi in the ribs with his elbow, relieved when his friend’s expression lightened.

  “I was not going to share what passed between me and Lan’xiu,” Hüi announced with great dignity. A beatific smile spread over his face as he looked down upon his palace fortress to the inner household square, picking out the seventh house once again.

  “I’ll bet much passed between you.” Jiang snorted with ribald laughter.

  “Have your joke, you deserve it.” Hüi chuckled too.

  “I have never seen you react to a night of pleasure with any of your other wives this way,” Jiang observed.

  “That is partly what troubles me,” Hüi confessed. “When I first discovered she was a boy, I threatened her with death. It was then Lan’xiu informed me that if I put it about that I had killed her in a righteous rage after finding her with a man, it would provide her brother with an excuse to attack. If I send her back, Wu Min will kill her in the slowest, most tortuous way possible. He enjoys that sort of thing. If I simply throw her out, her brother will make it his business to inform the emperor that I was fooled by a man dressed as a woman. None of these options redound to my credit, and I would avoid them if I could.”

  “It is rare that a pawn is aware of the possibilities of which it may be put to use,” Jiang said. “Of course, no doubt, she also wishes to keep on living, so it is in her best interest to point that out to you. Are you sure she is not here as his spy?”

  “One day you must speak with her,” Hüi said with a faraway expression. “She waited for me, thinking that I would kill her when I discovered her secret. I admired her courage when she faced me and admitted the truth.”

  Curiously, Jiang asked, “How did she convince you to spare her?”

  “We fought,” Hüi said, chuckling at Jiang’s doubtful expression. “With swords. She has been well taught.”

  “I assume you won, as you are not dead.”

  “Naturally. Even though she fights well, I am stronger and have more experience.”

  “It is not merely her beauty that attracts you?”

  “Age steals beauty from youth, and one day that may be gone. There is another beauty and innocence within her that makes my soul long for her. When you meet her, you must look into her eyes and tell me what you think.”

  Satisfied, Jiang nodded. “As to her future, have either of you considered that if you keep her as your seventh concubine, you have stolen the ammunition from Wu Min’s cannons. He will be nonplussed with your lack of reaction if she continues to abide within the household without any comment.”

  “That is very clever of you, Jiang.”

  “And that is why you keep me as court jester.”

  “You won’t let the water flow over that dam either, I see,” Hüi said, then exclaimed, “If I do that, he will know that I—I bedded a man!”

  “Or that you accepted her into your household but are ignoring her, a studied insult to him if you resist that beauty,” Jiang pointed out. “You may allow her or any other concubine to live within the harem without using her.”

  “You know as well as I do that spies are everywhere. Even in innocent conversation, the maid tells the laundress, who tells the butcher, who tells the peddler, and the news comes to Wu Min’s court whenever I have the lantern lit at Lan’xiu’s house.”

  “Perhaps you could mention to me in public how you enjoy playing games of chance with her,” Jiang suggested. “Give the impression she does not attract you, although that might be beyond your powers of dissimulation, as besotted as you are. You don’t want the entire court laughing behind their sleeves at your lies. How often do you plan to light her lantern?”

  A slow, lustful smile spread over Hüi Wei’s face. “How high can you count?”

  Jiang laughed. “Not as high as you, my friend. Now, tell me about all this jewelry you ordered. Is it all for Lan’xiu?”

  Chapter 13

  “LAN’XIU!”

  “What is it, Ning?” Lan asked, looking up from his book.

  “The general has sent his servant. Your lantern has been lit.”

  Setting the book down, Lan rushed to his window to peer down toward the door, but the tiled roof blocked his view. “Really?”

  Ning stood in his path but grinned at him. “Do not betray your eagerness by rushing downstairs to check. I would not tease you about such a thing. And Jia already makes me suffer enough with her ribald jests about Hüi’s first visit; if you run down like a child about to get her first horse ride, I will need to gag her.”

  “What should I wear? My hair! It’s so untidy! And Hüi Wei said—” Lan stopped himself, realizing the infelicitous nature of the admission he had almost made.

  “Ahem, considering the recent wear and tear upon your clothing, I would suggest the pale blue damask hanfu with cranes embroidered in turquoise and green on the full skirts. At least it is in one piece,” Ning said, crossing to the wardrobe and opening the door. “It is to be hoped that the general remembers to send you some new dresses.”

  “Be quiet, Ning,” Lan said, pressing his hands to his hot cheeks. No doubt the eunuch was right and he would not want to give the housekeeper any more to remark upon. “I still have many pretty dresses.”

  He went to the drawer and selected the pale pink corselet and panties embroidered with apple blossoms and a deeper blue inner robe to match the lining of the cerulean robe.

  Ning wound the sash about Lan’s slender waist and tied it, giggling madly.

  “What’s so funny, you imp?” Lan asked although he feared he might be making a mistake.

  “I’m wondering how tightly to tie this. You may not be wearing it long enough to make the effort worthwhile.”

  “Jia is not alone in her taste for making fun at my expense,” Lan said crossly. “You two are well matched. The silver and turquoise earrings, and the silver hair sticks with the phoenixes.”

  “I wish you had more jewelry,” Ning said, opening the sparsely furnished case. “Our lord has already seen all you have, although I venture to guess he doesn’t come to inventory your jewels.”

  “These were all I could save from my mother’s trunk when she died,” Lan said sadly. “They mean more to me than the most precious of jewels.”

  “But you have nothing new to show off when you meet with the other wives, and soon enough they will recognize the same earrings over and over,” Ning complained. “How will they know you are the new favorite?”

  Lan did not remar
k that Second Wife Ci’an had already done so as he put the earrings on and tilted his head to watch them sway. He felt happy and thought he looked rather pretty in this dress. “Compared to death, not having much jewelry isn’t so much of a hardship. Come, Ning. Stop your sighing and do my hair.”

  Ning stood behind Lan, his quick hands straightening the unruly locks and using the sticks to pile her hair high. “You should adopt the phoenix for your good luck charm. You have arisen from the flames to a new life here. May it be a long one.”

  “Thank you, Ning. I wish the same for you.”

  Their eyes met in the mirror, and Lan said, “Please tidy up those things and then leave me, if you would be so kind.”

  “Yes, your Highness,” Ning said, using the term of address that had been left unsaid between them since Lan’s brother, Wu Min, had forbidden it. He hung up the cheongsam Lan had discarded and closed the drawers. Then he closed the door to the wardrobe and drew the curtains across the windows to ensure there were no cracks where anyone could spy in. He lit the lamps and the fire, bowed to Lan’xiu, and withdrew, tactfully keeping silent for once.

  Lan’xiu seated himself on the bench at the end of his bed to await his lord and master. His feet were planted square on the floor, his legs and knees together. His back was straight and he placed his hands on his knees. After Hüi Wei’s secret visit, Lan understood that for some reason, Hüi did not want to admit to his attraction. Otherwise, why conceal a visit to a concubine he owned and had every right to take his pleasure with?

  That was the lot Lan had chosen when he made his choice to live as he did, and he did not expect Hüi to share the burdens of that choice. He would have been content to receive his lord’s occasional discreet visit and keep it secret, bearing the taunts from some of the other wives when it became obvious he had not captured the general’s interest.

  But now his lantern had been lit. Hüi Wei had chosen him, knowing everything about him, and he was announcing his acceptance publicly to Lan’xiu’s narrow little world. However painful it would be to see the lantern lit elsewhere on the morrow, tonight Hüi wanted him, Lan’xiu, to spend his time with.