Chapter 6: The Palace Tea

The Empress received her in the Hall of Morning Light, with twenty ladies seated along the walls.

Wanning knelt on a cushion in the middle of the floor and kept her eyes on the carpet.

At the gate, a stranger in a chair bearer's coat had slipped a thin book into her sleeve and walked away.

It was the Prince's pulse record, and it said the same thing on every page.

Stable. No change.

The Empress turned the pages without reading them.

She was forty-five and handsome, with a calm face and a heavy gold hairpin, and her voice was kind.

"Rise, child. You must be tired. Your wedding night was a sad one."

"The Prince is quiet, Your Majesty," Wanning said. "I don't mind it."

"You are brave to say so."

A white pill sat in a small dish at the Empress's elbow.

She took it with a sip of water, ordinary and unhurried.

The Empress nodded to a lady beside her, and the lady lifted a small porcelain teapot from a tray.

It was painted with two ducks, one on each side.

"Come, sit. We will drink to your new home."

A cushion was brought, and a cup was set in front of Wanning.

She watched the pot.

For three years in the Marquis's house she had carried trays, and she knew how a servant's hand moves when she pours from a pot that is not ordinary.

The lady tipped the spout, and her thumb pressed a small hole in the handle.

Wanning had seen that before, in the Marquis's study.

A pot with two chambers.

One held tea for the host, and one held whatever the host wanted the guest to drink.

The cup filled with pale green liquid, and the lady poured the Empress's cup from the same spout without pressing the hole.

Wanning looked at the two cups, and they looked exactly alike.

She picked up hers and rose to her feet.

"Your Majesty," she said. "In my father's house the first cup always goes to the eldest."

She crossed the carpet.