After Three Years of Slavery, the Entire Mansion Begged Me for Forgiveness novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Bowl

Wanning swaps the poisoned decoction, corners the maid with the guard captain watching, and draws black blood with her first needles, as the court inspector's carriage arrives.

"Forbidden by the Empress," Wanning repeated. "And who is the mistress of this chamber tonight?"

The maid turned at last.

She was in her forties, with a flat face and hands that did not shake.

"The Princess, naturally," she said. "But the Prince's medicine is a matter of the palace."

"I was married to him at noon."

Wanning crossed the room and took the bowl off the tray.

"A wife feeds her husband. Which law says otherwise?"

The maid's mouth tightened. "The Empress will hear of this."

"Please tell her." Wanning held the bowl at arm's length. "Tell her the Princess asked what the brown powder in her sleeve was."

The maid went still.

At the door, Shi An shifted his weight, and his sword scraped lightly against the frame.

Wanning had not known he was there.

"Captain," she said, without looking round. "Has anyone else ever fed the Prince?"

"No, Princess," he said. "Only her. By order of the palace."

"Then tonight the order changes."

She set the bowl on the table, well away from the bed.

"You may go," she told the maid. "Tell the Empress the Prince took his medicine and was calm. Tell her the Princess will feed him from now on, as a wife should."

The maid looked at the bowl, then at Shi An, who had not moved from the door.

She bowed, very low, and walked out without a word.

Shi An watched her until her footsteps faded.

Then he closed the door and turned to look at Wanning for the first time.

"You knew what was in it," he said.

"Monkshood. Ground fine and mixed in so it hides in the bitterness of the herbs." She pressed her palm to her forehead. "Three years of it. I'm surprised he has a pulse."

"The palace physicians said the Prince's poison came from the border. From the arrow."

"The arrow gave him a wound. This gave him a coma."

Shi An said nothing for a moment.

"What do you need, Princess?" he asked.

It was such a plain question that she almost laughed.

She had not been asked what she needed in three years.

"Licorice root, green beans, and a clean pot," she said. "And if the Prince's old physician left a set of needles anywhere in this house, I want them."

He was gone for a quarter hour.

When he came back he had a lacquer box under his arm and a bundle of dried herbs in the other hand.

The box held thirty-six silver needles in a row, each in its own slot.

They were fine, longer than her father's, and they had never been used.

"The physician ran away the night the Prince was brought home," Shi An said. "He left those."

Wanning ran her thumb along the row.

She poured the Empress's bowl into a clean jar and sealed the lid with wax.

Then she boiled the licorice and the beans on the little brazier by the window.

The room filled with a sweet green smell.

When the broth had cooled enough to touch, she lifted the Prince's head with one arm under his neck, and tipped the cup against his lips.

He swallowed once, by reflex.

She fed him the whole cup, a little at a time, and wiped his chin with her sleeve.

"Shi An, close the shutters and don't let anyone in. Not a maid, not a cook."

"Princess."

"And turn your back, please. I need to open his robe."

The captain turned, and she heard him cough.

She undid the red wedding robe at the Prince's collar and drew it down off one shoulder, then the other.

He had a warrior's chest, scarred in three places.

She found the points her father had shown her on her own wrist, years ago, using a toy needle on a doll.

The first needle went into the hollow below the collarbone, the second into the inside of his forearm, the third in the soft web between thumb and finger.

She set each one and turned it slowly.

For a long time nothing happened.

Then the Prince's hand twitched on the quilt.

His breath caught and let go.

A dark bead rose around the third needle, and then a line of it, thick and almost black, ran down his palm into the basin Shi An had left by the bed.

Wanning watched it fall.

"That's what three years of the Empress's medicine looks like," she said quietly.

She pressed a cloth to the wound and counted slowly.

When she looked up Shi An had turned halfway around, his face grey.

"I'll need to do this every night," she said. "For a long time. And nobody can know it's working."

"Why not?"

"Because whoever poisoned him will notice when the poison stops."

Shi An looked at the black blood, and at the sleeping face above it.

"Then I will keep the door," he said.

The gong at the front gate sounded.

It was still dark, and the sound came again, two long strokes and one short.

Shi An went to the window and pulled the shutter an inch.

Torches were coming through the gate, a whole line of them, and behind the torches a carriage with a banner.

"The Imperial Medical Office," he said. "The court inspector, and he's come before dawn."

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