After Three Years of Slavery, the Entire Mansion Begged Me for Forgiveness novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: The Bow
At the wedding the Crown Prince bows to the empty bed and tells her to send word when his uncle stops breathing; that night she starts talking to the sleeping Prince, and sees the Empress's maid stir the bowl.
The wedding was held at noon in the great hall of Prince Wei's estate, and the groom was carried in on a couch.
Four guards set the couch down at the head of the hall.
The Prince lay on it in red robes, his eyes shut, his hands folded on his chest by someone else.
Wanning stood beside him in a borrowed bridal dress that was two fingers too short.
Nobody had come to dress her, so she had pinned her own hair.
The guard captain stood behind the couch with his hand on his sword.
His name was Shi An, and he had not smiled once since she arrived.
The hall was full of court officials, all in their finest, all whispering.
None of them looked at the bride.
They looked at the man on the couch, watching for the rise and fall of his chest.
"The Crown Prince arrives," a herald called.
Gu Zhirui came in wearing yellow silk, with a gold crown on his head and a gentle smile.
He was twenty-four, and every official in the room bowed lower than he needed to.
He stopped in front of the couch and looked down at his uncle for a long moment.
"Uncle," he said quietly. "Three years, and you still look well."
Then he turned his smile on Wanning.
She knew that smile.
She had last seen it from the floor of a courtroom, when a clerk read out her father's sentence.
He had not looked at her then.
He looked at her now, and a small line appeared between his eyebrows.
"Pei Wanning," he said slowly. "The Marquis's adopted daughter. Have we met?"
"I don't think so, Your Highness," Wanning said.
Her voice came out steady, and she was surprised.
"Hm." The Crown Prince's smile did not move. "You have good manners for an adopted girl."
He stayed for all three bows.
Wanning bowed to heaven and earth, to the Emperor's empty chair, and to the man on the couch, who could not bow back.
When the herald called the last rite, the Crown Prince stepped close enough that only she could hear him.
"My uncle is a very sick man, Aunt."
He said the last word slowly, so she would hear it as a joke.
"When he stops breathing, send a runner to the palace first. Before the doctors. Before anyone."
"Yes, Your Highness."
"Good girl."
He patted her shoulder twice and walked out.
Wanning stayed where she was until her hands stopped shaking.
Three years ago he had signed her father's death order with a brush that cost more than a year of her father's pay.
Today he had called her Aunt, and it was an insult.
One day she would make him say it and mean it.
That night the estate went quiet early.
The servants had been told to leave the bridal chamber alone, and the red candles burned down by the bed.
Wanning sat on the floor with her back against the bedpost, still in the short red dress.
She had eaten nothing since morning.
The Prince lay where the guards had left him, with his hair spread over the pillow.
She looked at his face for a while.
He had a straight nose and a hard mouth, and a faint line between his brows that sleep had not smoothed.
"Your Highness," she said.
It felt silly to speak to a man who could not hear her, but the room was so still.
"I think I should tell you why I'm here."
The candle flickered.
"I didn't marry you for love. I'm sorry if that's rude. You're the only man in the city that the Marquis couldn't touch, and I needed a door he couldn't open."
She pulled her knees up under the red skirt.
"And your nephew. He's the one I want. He killed my father with a stroke of his brush. I'm going to take that brush away from him if it's the last thing I do."
The Prince did not move.
His chest rose and fell, slow and even.
She laughed under her breath. "Good. You're a better listener than anyone in the Marquis's house."
A knock sounded at the door.
A woman in the grey robes of the Empress's household came in carrying a tray, with a lacquer bowl steaming on it.
She bowed a very small bow.
"Her Majesty sends the Prince's evening medicine, Princess. I will feed him as I do every night."
Wanning stood up.
She watched the woman set the tray on the table and turn her back to the bed.
Her right hand went into her sleeve.
It came out with a pinch of brown powder, and she sprinkled it over the bowl and stirred with the spoon.
The smell reached Wanning from across the room.
It was the same bitter smell that had hung over the warm bowl the night before.
The woman lifted the spoon.
"I'll feed him myself," Wanning said.
The maid did not turn.
"The Empress has forbidden anyone but me, Princess."
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