“Hey, you can’t go bringing a court lady from another palace here!”
As critical as the other court ladies were, Jiujiu stuck up for herself. “But she’s my friend. And she wanted to help us.” She took Jusetsu by the hand and led her into the corner to a rice mortar containing some roots that had been tossed inside.
“Why don’t you do some hulling for us?” Jiujiu suggested, passing Jusetsu the pestle.
“How do you do that?”
“You soak them in water once they’ve been ground up, let them dry, and then turn them into grains. Bracken grains.”
I see, Jusetsu thought to herself as she began striking at the bracken roots. There was another mortar beside her, so Jiujiu went over to it and began moving her pestle in the same way. The satisfying sound of their pestles crashing against the hard surfaces echoed monotonously around the room.
“Did you come to the palace after the current emperor came to power?” Jusetsu asked.
“Yeah. I’ve been here for a year.”
“In that case, I doubt you know anything about the previous emperor and the one before that, do you?”
“I haven’t had any direct experience with them, but I’ve heard plenty of stories from court ladies who’ve been here for years. They’re all about the previous emperor, though—anything beyond that is ancient history.”
Jusetsu almost stopped moving the pestle, disrupting the sound it was making. “What do you mean by plenty of stories?”
“Well, this is the inner palace we’re talking about, so as you’d expect, things happen. Stuff was particularly crazy when the previous emperor was around—with the empress and everything…” Jiujiu took a quick look around, then lowered her voice.
“The empress?”
“The current empress dowager. She’s in confinement now.”
“Confinement?!”
“Shh!” hushed Jiujiu, chiding Jusetsu for speaking so loudly. “We’ll get punished if we talk about it in the open. Don’t you know what happened to her, Jusetsu? The empress dowager.”
“I don’t,” Jusetsu replied, but she could tell by Jiujiu’s face that she didn’t believe her.
“But you must have heard that the current emperor once had his position as heir taken away from him, right?”
Jusetsu shook her head, and Jiujiu’s eyes grew even wider. Her expression reminded Jusetsu of the skylark that would perch on the window grate back at her palace. This girl really did resemble a bird.
“Our emperor has had a really hard time of things. This is just a rumor, but they say the empress dowager murdered the emperor’s real mother. That’s why the emperor lost his position as heir, even though he was a crown prince.”
Apparently, Koshun had been forced into a corner of the inner court, almost as if he were imprisoned himself.
“But the emperor didn’t give up—he gathered his strength and roused himself to action. He got the northern imperial defense army on his side since it’s their job to protect the emperor and his family, and they defeated the officials and eunuchs who had been pandering to the empress dowager…”
Jiujiu told the story as if she saw it unfold with her own eyes. According to Jiujiu, this was the talk of the town. Jusetsu had no idea. She had heard that there was some dispute over who would be the emperor’s successor, but nothing past that. The previous Raven Consort never went into any more detail about it either.
“The emperor’s real mother was called Sha, and she was a really beautiful woman. I hear that the emperor inherited her good genes, but I wouldn’t know—I’ve never seen him with my own eyes.”
Jiujiu blushed as her imagination went wild. Jusetsu wanted to tell her what an insipid young man the emperor was, but she held her tongue.
“She lived in the Hakkaku Palace. Being the fourth consort, she ranked pretty low among her peers, you see.”
There were differences in rank even among the emperor’s consorts. The Hakkaku Palace wasn’t a particularly big one either. The consort who was assigned to that palace was known as the Crane Consort—taken from the palace’s name as it was written using the character for “crane”—but she was also only the fourth most important consort overall. She may have been the crown prince’s biological mother, but her rank meant she was either low in status or lacked backing from anyone important.
“You said many things happened in the inner palace during the previous emperor’s reign. What did you mean by that?” Jusetsu asked, going back to the topic at hand.
“So like, you know, the empress dowager murdered his birth mother, made the consort who was carrying the emperor’s child have a miscarriage, cut off the tongues of the court ladies she didn’t like, and so on and so forth… One consort got executed for having an illicit affair, another was poisoned by a fellow consort… The consort who administered the poison ended up hanging herself, and…”
“Wait,” ordered Jusetsu, interrupting Jiujiu’s flow.
Jiujiu gave her a blank look. “What is it?”
“Did you say there was a consort who hung herself?”
“That’s what I heard. She was found hanging from a beam in her room with a silk shawl around her neck…” Jiujiu’s cute face scrunched up as she said that.
“What was her name? That consort. What was she called?”
“Huh? Hmm… I don’t remember.”
“Would the court lady who told you that story know?”
“Yeah, I guess so… Hey, wait!”
Jusetsu cast away her pestle, grabbed Jiujiu by the hand, and headed toward the door.
“Take me to her.”
“But what about work?!” Jiujiu protested.
“That can wait.”
Jusetsu bolted out of the kitchen with Jiujiu in tow, who followed in apparent resignation. Apparently, that court lady was one of the palace textile dyers, so she’d probably be in the washing area. Jusetsu just needed Jiujiu to take her there.