The next day, Jusetsu slipped out of the Yamei Palace’s doors. The drum had only just sounded to announce the hour of the dragon, so it must have been about eight in the morning. It wasn’t often that Jusetsu left her palace this early in the day—well, she rarely left it at all, for that matter. But as early as it was, the palace officials would have already been at work.
The clothing that Jusetsu wore as she walked down the passageway was very different from her usual garb. She was dressed in a plain, light coral ruqun with no embroidery or printing, and her hair was tied up in a high knot without a single hairpin to adorn it. This was how the female palace cleaners dressed. This was what Jusetsu had asked Koshun to fetch for her the previous evening.
She figured it would be quicker for her to procure the list of names herself, rather than wait however long it would take for Koshun to find them. Jusetsu wasn’t a very patient person.
She’d changed clothes entirely by herself. There was only one elderly maid who worked in the Yamei Palace, and Jusetsu had no lady-in-waiting. She’d refused one, insisting that she had no need for such help. After all, Jusetsu was raised as a commoner, and she was more than capable of taking care of her personal affairs herself. Plus, there were some things that she didn’t want others to see.
As Jusetsu turned down the hallway, the blue, glazed roof tiles of a palace came into view. For a few moments, she wasn’t sure what she was looking at, but once she spotted the decorative swallow tiles on the roof, she recognized it. It was the Hien Palace, also known as the palace of the flying swallows. The imperial concubines, those who ranked just below the empress and the emperor’s other consorts, lived there.
As she got closer, Jusetsu noticed a wave of yellow surrounding the palace. It was a number of Lady Banks’ roses. They’d constructed trellises outside, and the flowering plants trailed beautifully over it.
So, it’s that season already, thought Jusetsu as she spent a few moments entranced by the yellow flowers.
She then noticed that she could hear voices chattering nearby. She was at the back of the Hien Palace, where the rear entrance—used by the assistant court ladies and maid servants—to one of the older buildings was located. This building was one of many.
“Please do this for me! I need it by tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?! That’s impossible.”
“It’s only a small sewing job. It will only take a minute, won’t it?”
“Altering a dress is not an easy task. I have my own work to do too, you know.”
Jusetsu snuck a peek through the roses, hiding in a spot where the women wouldn’t be able to see her. In the shadow of a poorly drained and damp building, two court ladies stood opposite one another. One of them was petite and dressed in a light yellow ruqun, while the other wore a blue one. Light yellow ruqun were worn by the palace kitchen staff, whereas the palace catalogers uniformly wore blue. The court lady in blue was trying to thrust a robe at the other woman, who was trying to refuse it. It seemed as if the woman in blue was asking her to fix the robe.
“You can just do it when you’re finished with work, can’t you?”
“Don’t be so preposterous…”
The girl in the light yellow looked helpless, her face contorted as if she were about to cry.
Why doesn’t she just shove her off and walk away if it’s that much bother? Jusetsu thought to herself as she watched the drama unfold.
“This isn’t like my usual requests! Stop being so stubborn. If you say no, I’m going to tell your father and destroy your family’s store!”
“You wouldn’t dare…!”
Letting out a grumble, Jusetsu crouched down at the roots of the flowers. It’d be a nuisance to get involved, so she decided to pretend not to see them and pass by.
Jusetsu then stood up, came out of the shade of the trees, and spoke. “You’re not a baby. I’m sure you can manage a bit of sewing by yourself.”
The two court ladies turned around, surprised.
“Who on earth are you?” the girl in the blue ruqun asked in a tizzy.
“I’m a simple court lady, as you can see by my dress,” Jusetsu replied, puffing her chest out with pride. “That girl does not want to help you. Are you incapable of doing your own chores?”
The girl in blue looked Jusetsu up and down suspiciously.
“Why would I do something that I could get someone else to do for me? I don’t need you to order me around,” said the girl, before unexpectedly backing down with the curt comment, “Never mind. I’ll let this one go.”
Jusetsu was disappointed with how the conflict fizzled out, but the girl in blue simply ignored the girl in light yellow and walked away, seeming to have already lost interest.
The girl in light yellow let out a sigh of relief.
“Umm… Thank you,” she said to Jusetsu. Her voice was as quiet as a little bird.
She had quite a pretty face. Daughters of high-ranking officials and girls from respected families were often selected to become concubines and court ladies, but others were chosen for their appearance. This girl likely fell into the latter category.
“She’s always giving me unreasonable requests like that, so I was in quite a pickle… But my family runs a rice cake shop and her father is an assistant in the trade committee, so I couldn’t afford to refuse.”
The trade committee was the authority in charge of the market, but it seemed wholly unlikely that one of their assistants would be able to destroy a rice cake shop just by picking faults with it.