Chapter 5

I explained quietly.

"The word for 'thinking' has the character for 'now' inside it. Did you think His Highness really had time to tell me he missed me?"

Li Qing looked thoroughly disgusted.

There was no having a straightforward conversation with people like us, who spent all day picking words apart, she said.

After dealing with the guards outside, Bai Zhu reported that they all belonged to the Marquis of Chengen.

"The marquis's crest is on their sword hilts."

"Your Highness, there must be trouble in the palace too."

"His Highness said to keep you here if anything happened. If something happened to him, the minister could still protect you."

I waved a hand.

"Things can't be going well in the palace. That's why they want me as a hostage to threaten him."

Li Qing understood at once. She fastened every chain in the prison onto our cell door.

I told Bai Zhu to go to the palace and help.

"Go. Keep Pei Yuan safe."

"With this many locks, even if they want to seize us, it'll take them a while to get in."

Li Qing and I stood guard with swords all night.

Only at dawn did Steward Chen rush into the Imperial Prison.

"Your Highness! The prince has arrested the Marquis of Chengen for poisoning His Majesty!"

When I returned home, everything was back to normal. Even the cooks had returned.

I was sleeping like the dead when Pei Yuan hurried in, caught my wrist, and asked why I had lost so much weight.

"Didn't your father feed you properly?"

I continued to lie there like a slab of pork belly.

"Father thinks I have no ability."

Pei Yuan disagreed. I was capable from head to toe.

"Without you, His Majesty wouldn't have discovered the problem with the imperial tea."

"Nor would we have found out from those old case files that the Marquis of Chengen once helped the Minister of War cover up the sale of government posts—and tried to poison your father to silence him."

"Still less would we have followed the trail to their plans for rebellion."

I didn't understand.

"Why would the marquis bother? The empress is pregnant. If she has a son, he has a splendid future."

Pei Yuan said years of being held down had left the marquis resentful.

"He wanted to remove His Majesty and me in a single stroke."

"Then he could use the empress's unborn child to command the realm."

I sighed.

"Then the empress..."

"His Majesty has decreed that if she safely gives birth to a prince, the marquis's life will be spared."

I had just breathed a sigh of relief when Pei Yuan suddenly looked up at me.

"And you? Do you still want to leave?"

I glared.

"What are you talking about? Now the cooks are back, you want to drive me away?"

He lightly scratched my palm and smiled, saying I must try Auntie Qi's cooking.

Not only was she an excellent cook, she was exceptionally hardworking.

After making dinner, she even found time to wash Pei Yuan's bedding. Then she looked all innocence.

"I'm afraid His Highness will have to sleep in your courtyard tonight. You don't mind, do you?"

Rubbing my round belly, I asked if his cold had gone.

Composed as ever, he said he had recovered completely.

"I don't expect to catch another one."

I beckoned him over.

"Then would you carry me back while you're at it?"

"I've eaten too much. I really can't walk."

The following day, however, I was even less inclined to move.

Blushing, Li Qing said Auntie Qi had made chicken soup for me.

I stared blankly at her.

"Has His Highness's bedding dried?"

She shook her head vigorously.

"When Auntie Qi went to collect it this morning, she accidentally dropped it in the pond."

I was still flat on the bed when Pei Yuan returned from court.

To his credit, he brought me clay-pot pork hock from the Spring Pavilion.

If I could leave the bed, he said, he'd take me to the farm for chicken cooked in an iron wok.

I sprang up and called Li Qing to do my hair and makeup.

This time, her sense of taste had returned too. One cup of Jiuquan wine sent her whole face into a pucker.

"It's so strong!"

Laughter filled the courtyard. Embarrassed, she scratched her head.

"If only every day could be like this."

"It will be," Pei Yuan said.

He kept his word. Shedding most of his duties, he scurried about like a groundhog every day, looking for places to enjoy himself.

I paid even less attention to affairs of state.

Every gift from a court official went straight to the palace, untouched, with Steward Chen.

When Father asked me to bring food, I refused outright. He could manage on his own.

While Pei Yuan and I shut out the world and devoted ourselves entirely to eating, the empress gave birth to a son.

Pei Yuan said His Majesty had ordered that the child be raised by Noble Consort Dong, and had sent the Marquis of Chengen to Lingnan.

I sighed.

"Doesn't that mean Noble Consort Dong won't be able to have children of her own?"

An edict rewarding Pei Yuan arrived too.

For protecting the emperor, the Prince Regent was granted the title of Sacred Father Prince. He need not announce his name when paying respects, nor hurry his steps at court. His fief was increased by a thousand households, with an annual stipend of five thousand shi of grain. Gold, silver, carriages, horses, robes, and ceremonial insignia were bestowed according to his rank.

Fuel on the fire.

Pei Yuan said there truly was nothing left to give him now.

"Any more rewards, and he'll reward me to death."

He began growing thinner by the day again.

Three successive requests to resign on grounds of ill health were rejected.

His Majesty told him to remain in the capital and recover in peace.

But the longer he recovered, the thinner he grew. So I simply laid him out with a bowl of death-feigning medicine.

This time, I didn't follow him into death.

His Majesty couldn't afford a reputation for mistreating a loyal servant. Someone had to remain in the prince's residence forever.

And I was better suited to that role than Pei Yuan.

Father was a veteran minister, upright and impartial. I was the Prince Regent's widow. More importantly, I couldn't attend court, and I had no heir.

I patted Pei Yuan's coffin.

"Go on. Once you're out of the capital, you can run again."

Bai Zhu's eyes reddened. He bowed deeply.

"Thank you, Your Highness. Please take care..."

I told him not to worry. As long as I lived, His Majesty would remain a wise ruler who remembered past loyalties.

I managed to keep the residence.

Li Qing just about held on too.

Cooks streamed into the household. Three meals a day, never a dish repeated.

Even at the empress dowager's birthday banquet, I was granted two more dishes than anyone else.

She honored me further by calling me over for a conversation.

We had exchanged only a few words when something cold flashed at the edge of my vision.

An assassin rushed straight at her.

Gritting my teeth, I stepped in front of her and shouted, "Protect Her Majesty!"

But the assassin's blade suddenly changed direction and came straight for my heart.

I was wearing golden-silk armor underneath, after all.

When His Majesty arrived, I was lying on the floor playing dead.

Grief-stricken, he proclaimed the entire Prince Regent's household loyal and heroic. He ordered a shrine and memorial stele built, and husband and wife buried together.

I slept a very long time.

In my dreams, someone kept reciting the names of dishes.

When I opened my eyes again, I heard a voice warm with amusement.

"Ci, you were ruthless enough to poison your husband, but you do take care to preserve your own life."

Pei Yuan tapped my forehead.

"The assassin struck twice. Even the empress dowager heard the blade hitting your golden-silk armor."

I pulled a thick wad of banknotes out from under me and told him to rephrase that.

He changed his tune at once.

"My wife really does plan ahead."

He pulled me out of the coffin.

"Li Qing will join us in a few days."

"First we'll go to Jiangnan for crab-stuffed oranges. Then we'll head northwest for whole roast lamb."

He hadn't expected to find two restaurants I owned in the river country of Jiangnan.

Rather smugly, I told him half belonged to him.

"I opened them with your silver when we first faked our deaths."

My smugness didn't last.

As soon as we entered the city, we found our portraits on the noticeboard.

An imperial proclamation offered a hundred taels of silver to anyone who spotted us and captured us alive.

"His Majesty wants to drag us back to work again? He won't let us enjoy a moment's peace!"

I ground my teeth.

"Don't worry. Even if I have to wash dishes, I'll support us both."

Pei Yuan smoothed my hair and said I was prettier than my portrait.

"No one will recognize us."

"So there's no hurry to leave before we've had the crab."

I kicked a stone by my foot and grumbled.

"Even the wretched weather's against us."

Half an incense stick later, Pei Yuan surveyed the tableful of dishes I'd ordered and sighed helplessly.

"Bad weather. Excellent appetite."

I spooned some crab from an orange into his mouth.

The weather might be bad, but the food was good. And the man sharing it with me was better still.

While we stayed together, we had a home. In the warmth of an ordinary life, may every meal find us safe and well.