Chapter 9: The First Cup

By the third watch, Su Ming had read every gate ledger in the Inner Palace twice.

The ledgers lay in stacks across the Emperor's long table, with a lamp at each end.

Qiu Ye had not passed any of the six gates.

No guard had seen her leave.

No guard had seen her taken.

And the Seal of the Inner Palace, which should have opened every door in the women's quarters, had opened none that mattered.

"The Empress Dowager's palace is not part of the inner gates," said the captain of the guard that afternoon, kneeling.

"It is her own household. I cannot enter without His Majesty's edict."

Su Ming had gone to her gate himself and asked, politely, with the jade seal in his hand.

The Dowager had sent out a maid with a tray of pears.

"The Empress Dowager is resting," the maid had said.

"She hopes the Noble Consort is recovering. She will be glad to receive him when he is well."

He had stood there holding the pears until the maid went back inside.

Now the lamp wavered, and a door opened, and the Emperor came in from the courtyard in his shirtsleeves.

He had been walking.

He did that at night, Gao Shun said, up and down the colonnade for hours, because lying down was worse.

"You should sleep," said Xiao Jue.

"She is nineteen," said Su Ming, without lifting his head. "I took her out of my father's kitchen because she cried when I left."

"She has a brother in Yunzhou. She is probably in a cellar behind a red wall, and I cannot go in."

"I cannot send soldiers into my stepmother's palace on the word of a maid's absence."

"No," said Su Ming.

"I need a reason I can say aloud in court," he said.

"Otherwise the Prime Minister will call it a tyrant's whim, and the ministers will let him."

"You are the tyrant, Your Majesty."

"I am the Emperor," said Xiao Jue, "and I have one reason, and it is a poor one."

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