Chapter 4
Edward Quan ·
“He dared send you to another man’s bed. Naturally, he should taste being sent away himself.”
His expression remained calm, his hand protective over my belly.
For the first time, I leaned into him of my own accord.
“Thank you. Because of you, when I lose my temper, I don’t have to worry about the Songs’ reactions first.”
He kissed my forehead.
“Go as wild as you please. I’ll clear up afterward.”
7.
Life grew much easier after I entered his household.
He had seasonal fruit and soft silks brought in, without turning my courtyard into a warehouse. He kept only what I could actually eat and was comfortable wearing.
My morning sickness was severe. The smell of chicken soup made me want to flee.
At first, he carried a bowl over and urged another two mouthfuls.
I buried my face in the pillow.
“Take it away. Another whiff and I’ll bring up last night’s dinner too.”
He carried it outside.
I thought he was angry.
Before long, however, he returned with another bowl.
“A new dish from the imperial kitchen. Try it?”
The sour plum soup settled my nausea perfectly. Only after drinking more than half did I notice medicine stains on his sleeve.
Every day after court, he came to sit awhile.
Sometimes he brought fruit. Sometimes nothing. He simply removed his outer court robe, laid it beside the screen, and leaned against me to listen to the child.
The first kick beneath his palm made his whole body stiffen.
After a long while, he asked, “Does it hurt?”
Deliberately, I said, “Terribly.”
He immediately summoned the physician. I had my pulse taken three times.
Learning I had teased him, he punished me by forbidding milk ice that evening.
At midnight, he brought half a bowl himself and said I could have only three mouthfuls.
The physician told me he had spent an entire morning asking questions, even memorizing which sour fruits might upset my stomach.
Pei Zhao refused to admit it and had the talkative man shown out.
When I was seven months pregnant, the court suddenly grew tense.
Ever since his humiliation in the imperial study, the Emperor had wanted military power back.
Pei Zhao intercepted a secret letter to the northern frontier. It summoned the Prince of An and his army to the capital, ostensibly to aid the throne, actually to surround the Grand Secretary.
Pei Zhao decided to let the scheme run. He would leave the capital, lure the prince inside, and settle everything at once.
Before departing, he knelt before me and placed a black-iron token in my palm.
A military tally was no trinket to indulge someone.
Codes identifying the camps were engraved on its reverse. To the household commanders, seeing it was seeing Pei Zhao himself.
It commanded every personal guard he left in the capital.
Entrust it to the wrong person, and he might not even enter his own gates on returning.
Song Jing’an had traded my body for his future.
Pei Zhao entrusted his own retreat to my protection.
Set those side by side, and there was no need to ask who regarded me as a person.
He explained that three thousand guards and every defensive mechanism in the residence answered to it.
“You’re giving me your protection. What about you?”
“An needs twenty thousand men before he dares act. I’m taking enough to kill him.”
“With the Grand Secretary leaving, the court…”
Feigning concern in the Golden Throne Hall, the Emperor trailed off halfway.
Pei Zhao merely replied that the capital still had its defenses. There would be no disorder.
After he returned from the palace, I couldn’t help asking whether he was certain.
“If you’re afraid, you can stay at the estate outside the city.”
“I’m not going.”
I put the tally in a hidden pocket close to my body.
“You’ve entrusted our home to me. I’ll guard it for you.”
He watched me a long time, then lightly touched my raised belly.
“Don’t push yourself. You and the child matter more than this residence.”
On the day he left, he wore silver armor and rode a black horse. At the city gate, he looked back once.
I pressed the place where I had hidden the tally.
I did not say, “I’ll wait for you.”
That night, the city gates closed.
Qingdai rushed in, saying soldiers filled the streets.
I opened the window.
Torches stretched from the alley’s entrance all the way to our gates.
The Prince of An surrounded the residence with twenty thousand men.
The first pounding sounded at the door.
8.
Qingdai’s voice shook with fear.
I was afraid too.
Then the child kicked hard.
Bracing a hand on the table, I steadied myself.
“Bring the flexible armor.”
She fetched what Pei Zhao had left and fitted it around my belly, tightening the straps.
Three thousand guards assembled in the main hall. Seeing my pregnancy, some urged me into the underground passage.
I raised the tally.
“If you defend the front while I hide below, I won’t live much longer anyway.
“Follow the Grand Secretary’s map. Where to hold the walls, when to fire the crossbows—everything. No one activates a mechanism early for personal glory.”
When the first rebel wave broke through the outer gates, I pressed the mechanism.
Crossbows opened within the walls. A rain of bolts shot through gaps in the brick and drove the attackers back.
Ammunition was limited. I forbade indiscriminate shooting and waited until An pushed his shield troops close before ordering the second volley.
Cursing outside, he ordered archers to set fires.
Flaming arrows crossed the walls. The front courtyard quickly burned, and thick smoke made everyone cough.
Qingdai pulled me toward the rear while guards hauled water from jars and doused the roofs.
When the mechanical crossbows ran empty, rebels raised ladders.
The moment one touched the wall, our men pushed it away with long poles. Those climbing and several ranks behind fell together.
Finding the main gate difficult, An split off men to attack the side entrance.
Following the residence map, I ordered the rear guards back to the second wall, deliberately admitting the attackers into a narrow corridor.
There was no room to deploy. Rocks and hot water poured down, trapping them between advance and retreat.
I had never studied warfare. I could only follow Pei Zhao’s marked sequence exactly.
A single mistake could kill the men holding a gate.
I ordered the prepared logs rolled down and two wooden corridors dismantled so fire could not travel along the eaves into the inner courtyard.
This battle was nothing like as easy as I had imagined.
Men fell from the walls. Arrows pierced arms. Screams reached us constantly through the smoke.
I wanted to vomit. Biting a cloth, I forced the nausea down.
Just as the gate was about to fail, tremors ran through the paving beneath my feet.
A horn sounded from the city gate.
Pei Zhao’s black-armored cavalry struck the rebels from behind, cut off their retreat, and drove straight at An’s central banner.
Standing on the second gate’s steps, I could only see figures crossing beyond the fire.
Only when someone shouted that the prince was dead did weapons begin falling outside.
Later, a deputy reported that Pei Zhao had ignored the scattering ordinary soldiers, shot down the banner, and beheaded An before everyone.
With their leader dead, the soldiers knew breaking into the residence would earn no reward. They surrendered faster than expected.
His arrangements saved our home and spared the capital’s long streets from becoming a graveyard.
He crossed the still-smoking courtyard, his silver armor covered in blood.
Seeing me standing in armor, he cast his spear aside and rushed to embrace me.
“I’m sorry. I’m late.”
Against his chest, I heard a heartbeat faster than hoofbeats.
“You came just in time.”
He checked me from head to foot. Only when he confirmed a spark burn on my hand was my sole injury did he turn to deal with the prisoners.
He had circled back to the capital early, waiting until all An’s troops entered the trap.
The fire spread faster than expected, forcing him to act sooner.
I pushed the tally into his hand.
“Our home is safe. So is the child.”
He did not take it. Instead, he closed his hand over mine and the token together.
“Keep it.
“From now on, half of this belongs to you.”
An’s body still lay outside when Pei Zhao found the Emperor’s handwritten letter inside his robe.
Troop movements, the siege, rewards after success—it was all explicit. The Emperor could deny nothing.
Pei Zhao ordered his deputy to escort me inside, then mounted.
“Tonight, we enter the palace and purge the court.”
I caught his reins and asked what he meant to do afterward.
He answered plainly. If the Emperor abdicated, he could live. If he still meant to use me and the child as pawns, there would be no second chance.
His candor reassured me.
I returned the letter and told him not to lose the real evidence that would silence the officials.
I did not go with him. Everything afterward came from his own account, with both letter and abdication decree placed before me.
The palace guards saw the Grand Secretary approaching with troops. Their bowstrings were drawn, but no one dared loose first.
Across the gate, their commander spoke shakily.
“G-Grand Secretary, His Majesty orders… no one may enter tonight.”
Pei Zhao said only, “Open up.”
The commander tried to delay.
“I’m merely following orders…”
Pei Zhao ordered his black-armored guards to draw.
Counting, he went straight from one to three.
The gates opened immediately.