Her tears seemed to agitate you, as if a cord still connected your thoughts and feelings as one. She rocked you, could not stop brushing her lips against your brow and cheeks.
I asked for rice wine.
The handmaid returned within moments, bearing a cup and decanter on a lacquered tray. I gestured to the small round table, and she placed the tray on it. “It’s to help the baby sleep,” I explained. “It’s a boy,” she told me, and hugged you closer to her.
The old midwife approached me with a tiny gold spoon. I poured the wine and dipped the spoon into the cup.
Jin Lian coaxed you into drinking the wine. You scrunched up your face at the taste of it but took a couple spoonfuls at last. “I think he was tired already,” your mother whispered, gazing down at you.
I could only pray so. A wail at the wrong time, and we would all be dead. The midwife swaddled you in a thick silk blanket of imperial yellow. The irony was not lost on any of us.
I promised your mother I would do my best to smuggle you out of the Palace.
She turned to thank me, the pain and sorrow so bright in her eyes. Your mother was a stunning woman, Chen Yong, but her eyes were her most unforgettable feature.
“Do you have a plan?” I asked.
She did. The baby had come early. A stillbirth and deformed. Cremated and buried before defiling the presence of the Emperor, as according to custom.
I reached for you. There was no time. The only thing I could do was to take you and disappear as quickly as possible. The main gates were all guarded, and leaving the Palace at this early hour would surely garner suspicion. The guards would not allow me to leave with a baby in my arms, that much was certain.
For all the hidden passageways within the Palace, there was no secret way out of the Palace walls that I was aware of. I would have to leave from one of the gates—preferably guarded by someone I knew. There were advantages to having the Emperor’s ear. I wouldn’t be questioned if I acted with authority.
“May the Goddess of Mercy be with you,” I said to your mother.
She reached out an elegant hand to stay me when I turned toward the hidden panel. “His name is Chen Yong,” she said, and she removed a jade beaded bracelet from her wrist. She asked me to give it to you.
She swayed away from me then, and the midwife rushed toward her, her gnarled hands outstretched, as I stepped through the secret panel. You were asleep now in my arms, making small suckling noises. I’d never cradled a newborn before, and I clutched you close to me. Hong Yu led the way again with her bright lantern. The girl was smart. I hoped that she was truly loyal too.
Back within my bedchamber, I quickly changed and packed a bag. I wrote a brief note saying I had to hurry home to my mother’s sickbed, would return within two weeks. I stamped the letter with my seal and enclosed it in a leather tube.
I asked the handmaid to deliver it to my page to give to the Emperor the next morning. She took the sealed tube from me and disappeared into the secret passageway.
I gently placed you in a saddle pack I kept for traveling purposes. It served as a makeshift sling. I threw the travel bag over my back and slung the pack across my shoulder with care.
I managed to avoid the guards who patrolled the Palace through the night, being familiar with their routine. You were born under a full autumn moon, and its light shone as bright as midday. I was as easy to glimpse as a snow goose mired in mud. As I walked across the immense main quad of the Palace, I saw another dark figure. No one wandered the grounds alone at night.
I placed a hand on your back. I continued walking toward the royal stables, even as the figure darted, straight at me.
I paused beneath the shadow of the Palace wall. I could deal with anyone, even Zhong Ye. I had to. I murmured a prayer and kept a hand close to the hilt of my dagger.
The figure approached, but the face was hidden; I heard his voice before I saw his face. I could not have been more astonished.
It was Wai Sen. The Emperor had given your father his Xian name.
Your mother had sent Hei Po to tell him the news. He drew close, and there was no mistaking the pale yellow hair beneath the black cowl drawn over his head. He was a sharp man and had guessed I would be headed for the stables.
I told him your name.
“Chen Yong,” he repeated, his voice rough like an ink stick ground against stone.
He said he could leave the Palace the same night, take you with him to Jiang Dao. His whispers were urgent, earnest. He folded his tall frame over your sleeping form, and I saw the glint of tears in his eyes.
A newborn could never survive the long journey by ship, I told him.
He peered into the saddle pack one last time at your face. He clasped my shoulder and thanked me. He promised that he’d send word, that he’d return for you.
He turned abruptly and walked away in silence, his head bowed low.
“I later learned that your father left the Palace the next day. Both your mother and father were heartbroken to lose you, but there was no other way.” Ai Ling’s father looked at Chen Yong, sympathy softening his sharp features. He sat back in his chair. The soft trickling of water into the pond outside filled a long moment of silence.
Chen Yong reached inside his robe and pulled out a woman’s jade bracelet, made for a slender wrist. “I keep this near me, always. It was the only item I was delivered with, my father said.”
“Your father, Master Li.” Father nodded. “I was able to bring you to his estate with little trouble. The Goddess of Mercy heard my prayers, and you made not a sound as I rode out on my horse.”
Ai Ling imagined her father, unmarried, with a newborn jostling at his side, riding for his life and safety. She shook her head imperceptibly, unable to believe this tale, unable to believe how their lives wound so inextricably together. Is this why she felt she had always known Chen Yong? Why she had trusted him so easily from the start?
“What happened after you returned to the Palace, Master Wen?” Chen Yong asked.
Her father stared into his wine cup. “The Emperor took Jin Lian’s story of the deformed stillbirth at face value. He saw it as an ill omen. His attentions were diverted with the birth of a son by another concubine. Zhong Ye, however, was suspicious. He was enraged that his careful manipulations were for nothing.”
Her father’s kind face hardened as he spoke. “He had his spies root for information and pieced together the story as best he could. He was no fool, and probably surmised the truth. Zhong Ye convinced the Emperor to have me tried for treason—supposedly I had been plotting to poison him until he was so incapacitated, I could rule in his stead.
“There was no evidence, and the Emperor did not believe it truly. But Zhong Ye had his ear. He manipulated and cajoled, whereas I always gave my honest opinion and advice. It was he who was the puppeteer, but the Emperor could not acknowledge it. Zhong Ye had been the adviser even to the Emperor’s own father; how could he disregard him?”
Ai Ling remembered his gray eyes, and almost smelled his spiced cologne. Her heart raced, and she reached for her jade pendant.
“I was cast from court in disgrace, barely escaping execution. My own family refused me.” His expression was pained now, and Ai Ling’s throat tightened with fierce love for him.
“After this, I sent a letter to your father, Master Li. Only he knew the truth behind your birth. We decided it wouldn’t be safe to tell you your history, Chen Yong. Not as long as Zhong Ye lived. We were too fearful of how far he would go for vengeance.” Her father took another sip of wine. “I never corresponded with Master Li again, though I wondered about you all these years.”
Chen Yong glanced down at his hands. “I asked my father once, when I was thirteen years. He said he knew nothing, not even the person who delivered me to his doorstep. He died last year.”