They went around to the back of the building where the court ladies lived and reached an area where a variety of fabrics were hanging up to dry. They could also see some court ladies standing next to a well, washing textiles in washbowls.
Jiujiu called out to one of them. “Gugu!”
That was a respectful way of addressing an older court lady. A woman in her forties turned around. Her wrinkles stood out on her sunburned skin, but she still had a beautiful face. It was no wonder that she’d been chosen as a court lady.
“Did you need something?”
“This girl wants to ask you something—about the consort who hung herself.”
The woman gave Jiujiu a skeptical look. “Now? I don’t mind, but I am busy, so you’ll have to lend me a hand while we talk.”
She instructed Jusetsu to wash the wet clothes, and the Raven Consort followed along obediently. The older woman got Jiujiu embroiled in helping out too.
“What’s your name? Jusetsu? Hmm. Well, I’m Ashu,” she explained as she carried on with her duties, “All the new court ladies want to hear about things like this. They just can’t get enough of my spooky stories or juicy romantic gossip.”
She had looked unfriendly—or even a little angry—but that didn’t seem to be the case.
“After all, there’s not much else in the way of entertainment around here. Anyway, that woman who died by hanging was named Han. She was one of the warbler ladies. I’ve forgotten what her position was now, though.”
The warbler ladies were lower-ranking concubines, referred to with “Ojo” as their title. How many of them could there be?
“Han Ojo was a slightly fragile-looking beauty. She wasn’t the type that stood out. She used to live in the third consort’s palace.”
Only the highest-ranking concubines were given their own palaces. Lower-ranking ones just had a room in one of the palace buildings. The third consort was gifted the Jakuso Palace and was bestowed with the title of Magpie Consort. This appellation too included the same character for magpie that was present in the palace’s name. The title of empress, incidentally, was the highest rank of them all.
“I wonder what that consort’s name was… The Magpie Consort was young and beautiful, and to top it off, she was the daughter of the emperor’s chief vassal. Being so young, she was ignorant of how the world worked. People said that made her a very arrogant and impudent girl. However, one day, she was given some poisoned broth and passed away. She was pregnant at the time, so the palace investigators did some serious research into what went on. As it turned out, Han, the warbler lady, had some wolf’s bane in her bedroom cupboard.”
Wolf’s bane was a poisonous plant that contained a deadly poison in its roots.
“The day they found it, Han Ojo hung herself. She was found in her room, dangling from a beam by her own silk shawl.”
Then Ashu lowered her voice.
“Not long after, rumors started circulating that she’d come back as a ghost. You could apparently hear her weeping as she walked, trailing her skirt behind her with her long hair down.”
Jiujiu let out a fearful squeal. “Not this again, Gugu! You’re just trying to scare her now. Plus, I bet you made that last bit up.”
“You’d be surprised, Jiujiu. Some of us have seen her with our own eyes!”
“That warbler lady, Han… Did she wear earrings?” Jusetsu interrupted.
“Earrings?”
“Jade earrings, specifically.”
Ashu tilted her head to one side. “I don’t know about that. I only saw her once or twice myself. I never spoke to her directly.”
“…Should you really be making up rumors about someone you’ve never even spoken to, just for the fun of it?”
“Excuse me?”
I suppose death is just another form of entertainment in the inner palace, Jusetsu thought, shaking her head. “Never mind. What happened to Han’s lady-in-waiting? How about her maid? Are they still in the inner palace?”
Ashu seemed a little taken aback by Jusetsu’s barrage of questions but responded anyway. “Probably…but I have no idea where they work. This is a huge place, you know.”
Jusetsu felt disheartened. She was certain that Han’s lady-in-waiting or her maid would know whether she wore jade earrings, but for now, she had no conclusive evidence that the ghost was really Han Ojo.
“Do you know if there has been anyone else who hung themselves or was strangled to death?”
“I’m not entirely sure, but I have a feeling that there was. You know the emperor’s biological mother, Consort Sha, was poisoned as well, don’t you? There was a consort who was beheaded in prison too. Poisoning is the most common, though. There are food testers, but things still slip through the cracks.”
Jusetsu thought to herself for a moment. “…Did Han really poison the Magpie Consort? She might have had a poison plant in her cupboard, but what if somebody else had put it there?”
Ashu grimaced. “That’s a fair point. Anything is possible in a place like this. It’s questionable whether the consort who drowned herself actually jumped into the pond by her own accord, and who knows whether that other one was really having an affair? If they find any evidence that’s even remotely plausible, they don’t dig any further.”
Jusetsu looked down at her washbowl. The water was so cold that it seemed to chill her to the core.
“How were things in the inner palace when the emperor’s grandfather was around…?” Jusetsu pulled herself together and continued to ask questions.
“I haven’t heard much about the Flame Emperor’s era.”
The Flame Emperor was the posthumous title bestowed on the emperor-before-last.