“I suppose you assumed that even if you had set up the Crown Prince instead of Yue, I would be there while he was young.”
“I did. Because you are honest and faithful.”
Ah-Duo felt a flash of anger; she squeezed the beard in her hand as if she might rip it straight out. “Setting up the crown prince would be an excellent way to control your other subjects. And were you of a mind to switch him with Yue when he grew up bold and strong? Or were you planning to break your promise to me? If you were, you should have just said so. How many years—how many decades—did you plan to keep me like a pet?”
It was vacillation, pure and simple. It shouldn’t have happened, but for Yoh, it would be allowed.
“If it were a political matter, you would have been able to make up your damn mind. I was useless baggage, and you should have just cut me loose!”
“You’re not baggage.”
“I am! Do you know how many years I spent being mocked as a consort with no part to play? No, you don’t. You look down from on high, content in the belief that the wars of women are not as brutal as those waged by men. It’s true; I suppose we don’t beat each other so often as you men do. Just the occasional stabbing, or poisoning, or setting on fire.”
Ah-Duo gave Yoh’s beard another good tug, forcing him to meet her eyes. The tears that had been gathering in his eyes spilled over with such force that they landed on Ah-Duo’s cheeks.
“I’m no longer able to bear children. When the child died, why didn’t you release me from my promise on the spot?”
“Ah-Duo. You won’t abandon the promise on your own. If you ever know for a fact that you can no longer keep it, in whatsoever form, I’m sure you’ll just go off somewhere without asking me.”
And yet, Ah-Duo was still there with Yoh.
“Was that it? Is that what tipped you off that the babies had been switched?” Ah-Duo found she couldn’t resist a smile. She’d always wondered how Yoh had found out, when she was certain that her conspirators Anshi and Suiren would never have betrayed her. “I must admit, you do know how I think.”
“Yes.”
“And since you know me so well, I’m sure you haven’t forgotten what I wanted to do.”
“No.”
Back when Yoh had been crown prince, he’d often snuck away when he was sick of studying, and the two of them would hide and eat snacks together, chatting idly as they ate.
“I’ll never be an official. So maybe I should be a merchant or something.”
Ah-Duo had been so bright and eager as she spoke those words—how many decades ago had that been now? But once she had spent the night with the Emperor as his “instructor,” she lost any opportunity even to leave the rear palace, let alone to be a merchant.
There was no way Yoh could fail to understand that.
“Ordering me to spend the night together may have been a whim for you, but it has dogged me for my entire life,” she said.
After a moment, Yoh said, “If you’d become a merchant, you might never have come back to the palace.” His hair, which was starting to show streaks of white, seemed to droop. His cheeks, covered with whitening powder, were sunken. “You would have left me here and never come back.”
“What does it matter if I’d stayed or if I’d gone? Without an order from you, I would never even see you, would I, Yoh?”
Ah-Duo certainly had no right to summon him. It was he who had the authority. Their positions in life had been fixed at birth. If Ah-Duo’s mother Suiren hadn’t happened to be Yoh’s nursemaid, they would never have laid eyes on each other.
She understood what Yoh was trying to say: He could give her anything, but he could not go anywhere. He must have feared that Ah-Duo would go somewhere far away. At the tender age of twelve or thirteen, he couldn’t have been able to give it much deep consideration.
“I didn’t want to let you go anywhere,” he said. “So I tried to keep my promise.”
“A promise that benefits no one? Even though you knew I didn’t really want to be mother of the nation?”
“That’s right.”
As Heaven, Yoh possessed, owned, the human called Ah-Duo.
What about Yoh’s son, Yue? Would he walk the same path as his father? That was why Ah-Duo had summoned Maomao: to find out whether Yue intended to possess her or not.
Her fears had been groundless. Yue was not Heaven, but human.
“Ah-Duo... If you had become a merchant, could you have been my friend?”
“If you had allowed me to supply the Imperial court, I would have been very friendly indeed.”
“Ha ha ha.” Yoh’s eyes narrowed, his face crinkling as he laughed.
“Listen. I have a favor to ask.” Ah-Duo let go of Yoh’s beard and wrapped her arms around his neck instead. She leaned in close to him, her palms picking up some of the whitening powder on his skin. “I’ll vacate our promise myself.”
“You mean you’ll leave me?”
Yoh was trying to raise his head; Ah-Duo did everything she could not to let him. “No, I’ll be with you until the end. The baggage in my pavilion is too heavy for anyone else to carry.”
There was Sui and the Shi clan children, and the shrine maiden of Shaoh.
“In exchange,” she whispered softly in his ear, “just let Yue do as he wishes. I’ll listen to you complain all you like. Until my very bones creak.”
Ah-Duo knew what hubris her request represented. Yue was her only son, and Yoh had other children—yet she was asking him to treat Yue special.
This was the greatest favor she could demand.
“The boy is part of the Imperial family, but he’s too nearly human. He’s too kind,” she said.
“Yes, I see.”
“He has the potential to become a wise ruler, but at the same time, I don’t think he would live for long.”
“Perhaps not.”
What an emperor needed was not kindness, but compassion, something that flowed from high to low. A ruler who saw himself as equal to his subjects would grow ill—and Yue had shown that he refused to involve the person who might cure that illness.
Ah-Duo knew she was doing wrong by Gyokuyou and Lihua and the other consorts. She was asking Yoh for something immensely selfish.
She was pushing a burden onto other children in order to protect her own.
“You failed. It was a mistake to let him take over the rear palace on a childish bet. Why did you make such a wager?”
“He’s more clever than we give him credit for, Ah-Duo.”
“Ha ha ha. Yes, he gave the consorts the runaround in the rear palace!”
“Yet never laid a finger on any of them.”
“It might have saved you the trouble of producing offspring, Yoh, but Yue well understood how much trouble it would be.”
Yoh’s head shifted in Ah-Duo’s arms. At least he had the mental space to laugh now.
“You should hurry and go to sleep,” she said. “You have a very uncomfortable surgery tomorrow.”
“Oh, don’t do that. Yes, I know. I’ll rest. We don’t want any unexpected side effects on account of me feeling weak from lack of sleep.”
“Not going to write your will after all?”
“I don’t plan to die.”
“Write it anyway. At least put down that it’s no crime if the physicians fail.”
Ah-Duo let Yoh go.
“Why, you’re assuming they’ll kill me!” He gave her a sulky look like someone much younger than he was.
“Maomao and her adoptive father are helping with the surgery. If it doesn’t work out, you’ll find yourself with the La clan for enemies.”
“Stop, stop! Lakan gave me enough trouble for banishing his uncle.”
“He won’t give you any trouble when those doctors mess up, because you won’t be in this world anymore.”
“I told you, stop assuming I’m going to die,” Yoh said, but he got out a writing set.
“I see your handwriting is still awful.”
“Pipe down.”
So Ah-Duo and Yoh began writing his will, bantering like children of ten.
Yoh was Heaven, and Ah-Duo was human. Yet they could, at least, act as if they were friends.