The Ant Woman Ch. 10

The Sunlight Temple was an appropriately bright place. The supporting beams and columns were blood red, but the many roofs had blue and yellow colors. The walls were white with thin carvings of trees, flowers, birds, and dogs. Gentle, sweet incense was burning as the Empress Dowager and Wen knelt before a statue of an elven god and silently prayed, holding prayer beads. Whenever they finished a prayer, they moved a bead down to keep track.

When all the prayers were finished, the women prostrated themselves before the statue. Then they put small vegetables in little ashtrays to be burned as a sacrifice. After that, the women went of to a dining area on a patio to have a pleasant lunch. Warm, thin noodles in a meaty soup. Boiled shrimp coated in sauce. And dumplings filled with cabbage and ground beef.

After lunch, the women both recited old religious texts. Then they watched some priestesses give solemn dance performances. More praying. Then dinner. In the morning, breakfast. Then more prayer.

These sort of things were done for around four days. Whenever there was time for conversation, jokes, and all around innocent fun, Wen found herself blooming under the Empress Dowager's smile. Winning this old woman over wasn't too difficult. She had a heart as everyone else did, and it needed warmth.

When it was time to return to the Tree Cage, Wen almost felt sad. But in the carriage ride, she hugged one of the Emperor's old boots and let romantic thoughts grow in her mind. The Empress Dowager chuckled behind her sleeve and asked if she planned on keeping the shoes for the rest of her life.

"If His Majesty allows it," Wen answered.

The Empress Dowager looked down at her hands, adjusting her fingernail guards. She was still smiling a little. "So, you aren't going to make a pair of shoes for him?"

Lightly scratching at one of the frayed laces, Wen said, "No doubt, many other consorts have done the same, and His Majesty has hired servants to make his clothing. He doesn't need anything from this weak concubine."

***

Back inside the Tree Cage, in the Sweet Carrot Palace, Wen was accepted with as much fanfare as a highly desired guest. Pollen Lady Kumi had arranged a small party of sorts. Plenty of music and dancing, the best food they had, even a specialized female performer from the capital was hired to entertain Wen. She mostly juggled and performed magic tricks, but she could sing too.

On the next morning, the Emperor sent a message to Wen about how she needed to go to the Younger Embroidery Department to judge the outfits from the little contest he'd arranged. Lien keeping close, Wen walked off to that workshop. The Emperor and several of his eunuchs were standing at the entrance door. Or to be more accurate, the eunuchs stood while the Emperor sat on a chair and sipped hot chocolate. It was a rare treat imported from a foreign country. The Empress Dowager had once told Wen the Emperor was oddly fond of that beverage.

Once Wen and Lien were kneeling before the Emperor's feet, he smiled and drew in the last mouthful of his drink. Then he wiped his mouth with a napkin and got up. His eyes were clearly expecting good things. "Rise, Little Bamboo, and come inside with me.

The sweet-natured, excited grin on his face made Wen want to squeal like a giddy child. She didn't, of course.

Inside the workshop, where several young women sat at rows of workstations to concentrate on their tasks, Manager Ri and some assisting eunuchs had several beautiful outfits hanging on racks with multiple rods, this way each blouse could be properly displayed with each skirt. With the Emperor as a sort of assistant judge, Wen walked around to admire each set of clothes as if she was shopping.

Eventually they found two outfits that looked so similar it was as if they were made by the same person. Both blouses were dark blue with brown and orange leaves fluttering from the collar to the long sleeves. They were perfect for this cool autumn season. The skirt was dark green with vertical white stripes. There were silvery border lines on the large open cuffs on the blouse, the neckline, the and on the skirt's hem.

Further inspection showed some minor differences. The outfit on their left had more definition in the leaves. They seemed much more lifelike. The silvery borders were also a little thicker, and two very similar variations of that silver color had been used to make a hidden pattern of pinwheels.

Wen and the Emperor both agreed that the outfit on the left was the winner and the one on the right was the runner up. The Emperor's fingers patted the back of one of Wen's hands as he suggested that she try her new clothing on. He wanted to see it.

The eunuchs carefully put the winning outfit in loose bundles on a stacked tray. Lien took that tray and followed Wen into a more private area so she could be dressed. It was quite exciting.

Right when she put her arm through one of the blouse's sleeves, she felt a sharp, scratching pain. Lien frowned and wordlessly rolled the sleeve away. Wen's wrist and arm had been scraped. She even bled a bit. There was a pin in the fabric. It seemed that the embroidery maid who'd made this blouse had been very careless.

Wen returned to the Emperor and company wearing the pretty clothing, and she tried to smile about it, but Lien had wrapped some cloth around her arm and the Emperor caught a glimpse of it under the sleeve. His clean teeth were soon displayed in a brutish snarl. He marched over to her and plucked up her wrist.

Hiding her arm with his body as he drew the sleeve up and examined Lien's work, he asked, "What's happened? Why are you injured?"

Those questions were enough to have everyone in the room stop what they were doing to nervously look at the couple.

With what she hoped was a comforting smile, Wen told him, "It happened before breakfast."

Alas, Lien knelt down and said, "Please forgive this servant, but Mistress is only trying to soothe Your Majesty's temper with a lie." Wen turned and gave her a tight, furious look, but that didn't stop Lien. "It's a crime to deceive the Emperor, but Mistress only did so with his health in mind. This is a minor issue, and it wouldn't be wise to have Your Majesty jeopardize his health." Some people truly believed getting too angry could lead to health problems.

Tightening his grip on Wen's wrist, but not hurting her, he looked right at her blue eyes and asked, "Then when did this happen?"

Giving a futile little tug, knowing he wasn't about to release her, Wen puffed out a sigh. "While I was putting the blouse on, I was scratched by a pin that seemed to have been left behind."

The Emperor let her go then.

But his face was reddening.

With both hands, he grabbed one of the clothing racks and threw it out the nearest open window. Everyone, even the maids that were supposed to be sewing, got to their knees and begged the Emperor to calm down.

After some more pointless begging, the Emperor demanded to have the responsible maid brought here. Then he told everyone to get up because people are "so useless when they're always kneeling."

A somewhat portly (or portly by elven standards), short elf woman, perhaps a little shorter than the Empress Consort, was brought out by Manager Ri.

She tried to say, "That's not my work!"

Manager Ri said, "You personally handed into me. You were the first one to hand your work in."

Trembling, the maid said, "It looked so similar to what Yuwei's that I mistakenly took hers!"

Manager Ri folded her arms. "I complimented you on the finer details of the silver embroidery. You said you thought of hiding a pinwheel pattern to remind the wearer of pleasant breezes. You also said you had the drive to make the autumn leaves as detailed as possible because of a dream you had. How can you claim this isn't your work?!"

The Emperor was trembling ... trembling ...! He gripped a small rack of spools on a maid's workstation. The spools soon imitated his shaking. Wen quietly approached at one point to touch his arm and whisper, "Please don't be too angry. It was only a mistake. Everyone makes mistakes."

"Are you trying to say that you switched your work with hers?" Manager Ri said after a time, her eyebrows rising as if the idea only just then came to her. "Are you going to confess such a crime?! Goodness, I thought that during this contest Yuwei was copying your work but it was actually the opposite, wasn't it?" That frightened embroidery maid's face turned a little bit green at that statement. "You planned this so Yuwei wouldn't immediately notice when you switched your work with hers, likely early in the morning or late at night. Otherwise Yuwei would've realized sooner and tried to stop you."

The Emperor picked up a spool of silver thread and threw it at a potted plant. Thankfully, other than frightening some people, nothing much came from that.

Manager Ri wasn't finished chewing out the maid that knelt before her. "Assuming this was your work, you should've completely inspected it before handing it to me. Assuming it was Yuwei's work, it makes sense that there would be a pin in the blouse. She hadn't been able to properly inspect it because you stole it and hurried to give it to me. And not only that, you'd be called a liar and a thief for rewards. It doesn't even matter which one you are, because you'll have a beating no matter what!"

Manager Ri was right.

The Emperor soon decided he'd heard enough. He demanded that the accused embroidery maid be beaten one hundred times and expelled from the Tree Cage. That maid wept for mercy, even as she was being physically taken away by some eunuchs, but no mercy was given.

It was decided that this Yuwei was the winner of the contest. Her surname was Guo. Wen picked out an outfit to be the new runner up. And that was that. Manager Ri was told to send Guo Yuwei to Wen's apartment by the next morning.

The Emperor's face slowly returned to his normal, almost peachy skintone as Wen gave him soft little words and affectionate little touches on one of his hands. Then he finally had a smile again as he went back into his sedan chair.

The next day, that Guo Yuwei was sent to Wen's apartment, and both Wen and Lien were bewildered as they took in her appearance.

She was thinner than Lien had been when she first came to Wen, and the Hard Labor Department had the smallest diets, the hardest work, and overall roughest life of anyone else in the Tree Cage. An embroidery maid was supposed to be more cared for than that.

Guo Yuwei was only an inch or so shorter than Wen. Her pitiful, big eyes were an amazing cyan color and the thick, pale eyelashes were like fans of morning sunlight. They reminded Wen of an expensive doll that had a face painted by a loving artist. Her pale blonde hair hid most of her ears, only letting some of the points show. Her lips were full and pouty, but also dry and flaking. Her button-shaped nose had a mild crook in it, as if she'd been recently punched.

She walked almost like a delicate old woman, carefully and slowly, and wincing. Wen eventually had enough and asked her if she was ill. That was when Yuwei said in a tender, whispering tone, that previously she'd lived under the mercy of that maid that had stolen her work for the contest the day before. Often, Yuwei would be taken to a private area and beaten senseless. This intimidation technique made it easy for the maid to take most, if not all, of Yuwei's food.

Wen decided to send Manager Ri a note about this, giving a suggestion to keep a better eye on the embroidery maids' health and behavior.

Lien took a special kind of delight in showing Yuwei what her new food allowance was as a concubine's maid, and a Bamboo Lady at that! The higher a concubine's rank, the better food her servants got. As Lien gave one of her rare smiles and Wen sipped a cup of flavored milk, that poor little Yuwei was so taken over with gratitude that she prorated herself and wept a bit. Lien's dark eyes rolled around, but she pulled Yuwei to her feet and poured her a cup of tea.

As Wen laid in bed that night, she wondered something. Guo Yuwei seemed to be a fragile little creature with a sweet personality. She spoke humbly to everyone, even Lien. And she didn't have much confidence in herself. She apologized for almost everything, and that was a significant statement. In the Tree Cage, almost everyone apologized several times a day out of politeness.

Yuwei even blamed herself for things that were clearly not her fault. Even when she swept dust and dirt into a dust pan, she weakly said it was her fault for not sweeping faster ... even though nobody said she was slow and Wen thought she was doing fine.

Something in those pretty cyan eyes ...

They didn't always match the sad frown on Yuwei's face.

Wen wondered ...

Did Yuwei stick that pin in her work on purpose?

***

The snow that gathered on top of the great Godly Tree was like expensive icing that had been carefully placed on the bare branches. Lien didn't like winter in this place. She'd often end up kneeling, which meant that her knees would be cold. Thankfully, Mistress Wen was kind and had knee pads made of leather and furs made just for Lien and Yuwei. Hiding them under their clothes wasn't very difficult.

Lien was starting to wonder if something was wrong with Mistress. Her appetite was very peculiar. She often craved odd food combinations but she tended to vomit soon after eating. Poor dear. Lien remembered a time when her older sister had similar symptoms. Her brother-in-law had thought she might be pregnant, but she'd actually had a horrible stomach disease and suffered for a whole month. Only when she was cured did she try getting pregnant again.

Lien decided to personally boil water on a small brazier so she could make some ginger tea for Mistress. She watched Yuwei through the open doorway to Mistress' bedchamber. That new girl was rearranging Mistress Wen's wardrobe of clothes to make sure all the warmer silks and furs were easily available. As for the Mistress, she was writing a brand new book for the Emperor. Book after book. Would that be how she lived her life? It sounded difficult, but Lien didn't really know how to write anyway.

Well, at least it was a good strategy for keeping the Emperor's attention.

When Lien had a cup of fresh ginger tea for Mistress, she put it on a tray and delivered it to her. Taking the cup, the concubine said, "Summon a physician. I honestly don't feel very strong today."

Half an hour or so later, it was official.

Bamboo Lady Wen was pregnant.

The Emperor was seen in his sedan chair nearby not long after that. And Lien once again had to kneel on the cold floor once she saw him in the apartment. Knee pads were like gifts from Heaven, really.

His Majesty's lips stretched and formed the most joyful wrinkles as he went to Mistress Wen. Even though her belly was flat, he put his palm there as if he wanted to feel the child's kick. He was able to put a few doting words in the air before Pollen Lady Kumi entered the apartment and knelt before him. As the Madam of Sweet Carrot Palace, where Mistress Wen lived, she was responsible for making damn sure nothing happened to Mistress Wen and the child. Her thin eyes were vibrant and cheerful as she congratulated both Mistress and His Majesty.

And of course the Emperor promised gifts.

The next morning, quite a few nice things were sent to Mistress Wen's apartment. Lien worried there wouldn't be enough room to store them all. For the child alone, there was a grand assortment. A box of linens and other fabrics for Wen to make some baby clothes with (although to be fair, most of the clothes would be made by the Younger Embroidery Department). A little wooden rattle. A stick of red coral with a bone handle (the coral would be for teething). A pretty cot that could be rocked. A large chest of toys. And several comfortable blankets and pillows.

For Bamboo Lady Wen, there were even more gifts. Some scrolls and books of literature. A few new inkstones with some ink sticks and brushes. A container of fine pearl powder, which was literally made from crushed pearls that were too small for jewelry, that could be eaten or literally applied to one's skin. Some rather fine fox furs, not that Mistress Wen needed any more fur. A few pieces of lovely jewelry, the sort that Lien never thought she'd ever get a chance to even look at. Some beautiful rugs and paintings. A package of rare medicinal herbs. And, much to everyone's surprise, a box of dry hot chocolate! There was enough for Wen to have three cups every day for a month!

The Emperor was a busy man indeed. During most mornings, and even most days, he would have some government related business to take care of. But when he had time, he still had to pay attention to some other concubines, and his Empress Consort. Mistress Wen often encouraged him to do so. "It's not seemly for a man to direct all his care to only one consort," Lien once heard Mistress say.

But all that aside, the Emperor would always find time to come to Mistress Wen. He didn't usually make her go wherever he wanted her to be. He typically went to the Sweet Carrot Palace to see her. Yet, there were times when Mistress asked him if he'd like a stroll in the snow, or if he wouldn't mind showing her some of the old art pieces in his palace, which meant she'd have to be escorted off.

In Lien's opinion, this was all good. The better off a Mistress was, the better off her maids were. It also meant that when it was time for the maids to leave and get married, the Mistress could even show generosity and give them lovely dowries.

One day, after Lien had made a small pot of the sinfully expensive hot chocolate beverage, Mistress Wen told her to find two extra cups. Lien was confused but obedient. Then Mistress asked Yuwei to come to the table. Both maids watched with wide eyes as Mistress poured three cups of hot chocolate. Then she actually told the maids to sit down and each take a cup.

Her blonde topknot swinging as she shook her head, Yuwei said, "It's not right to share such a luxurious thing with servants.

Lien lowered her head and tried to ignore the thick, comforting aroma of the steaming liquid. "If His Majesty learns of it, he might punish you."

"Then don't speak of it," Mistress said as she gestured towards the other chairs at the table. "I won't let you drink all my chocolate. That wouldn't be fair. I'm only letting you have these two cups. It's a small reward for working so hard in this aching winter."

Lien took a step back and knelt down. "Please don't waste the hot chocolate on us."

Yuwei imitated Lien very well. She too knelt down. "Please don't do this, Mistress."

Blue eyes narrowing, lips pursing a little, Mistress stared at them both for a few seconds. That was enough to make Lien lightly groan and get up. Yuwei sighed into the back of her hand and did the same. They sat down and each took their hot cup.

Minimal sugar had been added. The liquid was still bitter, but it warmed them from the inside. Lien was almost happy that Mistress Wen had told them to have a cup. Each sip was slow and careful. It would be a shame to be unappreciative of the rare delight.

Some hours later, Lien still felt the chocolate's heat in her belly, even when she went downstairs to the kitchen to get some of Bamboo Lady Wen's allotted food. She happened to see that eunuch she'd once seen with so much money, the one that had left with Pollen Lady Kumi's permission. Lien assumed he hadn't been doing anything criminal since he was still around and so happy.

"Sir," Lien said to him, "were you able to spend time with your family?"

Nodding his head and weaving his fingers together, the eunuch answered, "I certainly was. Our Pollen is very kind."