Free Imperial Woman by Pearl S. Buck Page A

at gambling games.
    But Yehonala did not enter the caves. She was now always busy at her books, always smiling, silent more often than speaking as she studied her books. Seemingly her rebellion was forgotten. When the Emperor summoned her, she allowed herself to be bathed and dressed afresh and she went to him. His favor did not falter, and this compelled her prudence, for waiting concubines grew restless for their turn, and Li Lien-ying contended among the eunuchs to keep himself her chief servant. Yet if Yehonala knew of strife, she did not let it be known that she knew, unless it could be guessed from her faultless courtesy to all, and from her careful obedience to the Dowager Mother. Each day when she awoke she went first to the Dowager Mother to inquire of her health and happiness. The old lady was often ill and Yehonala brewed herbs in the tea to soothe her, and if she were restless she rubbed the withered feet and hands and soothed the Dowager by brushing her white scanty hair in long and even strokes. No task was too small or too low for Yehonala to perform for the Dowager Mother, and soon all perceived that the handsome girl was not only the favorite of the Son of Heaven, but of his mother, too.
    Thus Yehonala knew how eagerly the Dowager Mother waited for the birth of Sakota’s child, and it was part of Yehonala’s duty daily to accompany the Dowager Mother to the Buddhist temple and wait while she made prayers and burned incense before the gods, beseeching Heaven that the Consort might have a son. Only when this was done did Yehonala return to her own chosen tasks, which were as ever in the library, reading and studying under aged eunuchs who were scholars, or learning music, and she spent herself in learning how to write with the camel’s-hair brush after the style of the great calligraphers of the past.
    Meanwhile she hid a secret, or thought she did, until one day her woman spoke out. It was a usual day, the air cooler at night and morning than it had been, but still hot at noon. Yehonala slept late, for she had been summoned by the Emperor the night before, as many nights she had been summoned and always she obeyed.
    “Mistress,” the woman said when she entered the bedroom on this day and closed the door carefully behind her, “have you not marked that the full moon has come and gone and you have no show of crimson?”
    “Is it so?” Yehonala asked as if she did not care. Yet how greatly did she care, and how closely she had observed her own person!
    “It is so,” the woman said proudly. “The seed of the Dragon is in you, lady. Shall I not carry the good news to the Mother of the Son of Heaven?”
    “Wait,” Yehonala commanded. “Wait until the Consort has borne her child. If he is a son, does it matter what I bear?”
    “But if she bears a daughter?” the woman inquired cunningly.
    Yehonala threw her a long teasing look. “Then I will tell the Dowager Mother myself,” she said. “And if you tell even my eunuch,” she said, and made her eyes big and fierce, “then I will have you sliced and the strips of your flesh hung up on poles to dry for dogs’ food.”
    The woman tried to laugh. “I swear by my mother that I will tell no one.” But who, her pale face asked, could know when this concubine, too beautiful, too proud, might turn teasing into truth?
    While the Court waited, then, upon the Consort, each concubine woke in the morning to ask if there were news and the princes and the Grand Councilor Shun before they entered the Audience Hall at dawn demanded from the eunuchs whether the birth was begun. And still Sakota’s child was not born. In his own anxiety the Emperor commanded the Board of Astrologers to study the stars again and to determine from the entrails of freshly killed fowls whether his child would not be a son. Alas, they saw confusion. The signs were not clear. The child might or might not be a son. It was even possible that the Consort would give birth to twins, boy and