My Mother's Virtuous Name Rests on Making an Example of Me

My mother was the most virtuous stepmother in all of the imperial capital.

When my sister ran wild and split open the head of the Prime Minister's little granddaughter, my father wanted to punish her.

My mother stopped him.

An elder sister stands in a mother's place. If Alma Henson did wrong, it is because her sister failed to set the example.

She had the servants strip off my outer robe and forced me, back bared, to go and beg forgiveness.

I knelt outside the Prime Minister's gate for three full days before they agreed to let the matter with my sister drop.

My mother remembered every wrong my brother and sister ever committed. But she only ever punished me.

"The twenty-third year of Daqing, the tenth day of the second month. Ulysses talked back to his tutor at the schoolhouse. The elder sister, Loretta Fox, failed in her duty to discipline him. Fifty strikes to the mouth."

"The first day of the fifth month. Alma fought a vice minister's daughter over a jeweled hair ornament and disgraced the noble house. Loretta to kneel in the family shrine for one night."

"The thirteenth day of the eighth month. Alma and Ulysses slipped off to the pleasure barge, behaving without shame. Loretta failed her duty as elder sister. Sixty lashes to the calves."

Every time I was punished, my brother and sister always stood by and watched.

Disciplining her stepchildren without ever taking a single blow herself, my mother's virtuous name spread far and wide.

Until, by accident, my sister crossed the notoriously cruel Prince Blake Sparks.

My mother handed down her verdict, cold and unbothered.

"Alma has behaved shamelessly and drawn the eye of an outside man. Loretta, since you are her elder sister and failed to teach her better, you will marry in her place."

To make sure I went to the wedding without a fuss, my mother slipped me an aphrodisiac drug.

My body already weak, I breathed my last inside the bridal sedan.

What my mother did not know was that I had long since struck a bargain with the most exalted man in the realm.

The imperial decree naming me Noble Consort was already on its way.

...

The betrothal gifts Prince Sparks had sent sat sprawled across the front courtyard.

Not one person could bring themselves to smile.

My sister most of all, her face bloodless, swaying as if she might fall.

The reason was simple. Everyone knew of the Prince's cruelty. He had taken three wives, and every one of them had died within a month.

The concubines who had died were beyond counting.

A fallen noble house had no way to refuse a prince of the blood.

My father, furious and heartsick both, lost his temper with my sister for once.

"Do you not know what kind of man Prince Sparks is? Once you marry into his household, it won't be long before they're holding your funeral!"

At his words, my sister could hold herself up no longer and crumpled to the floor, tears streaming down without end.

"I... I only gave him my handkerchief because he was handsome. I truly didn't know he was Prince Sparks!"

Her voice was thick with regret.

My father's face went iron-hard, and he turned his fury on my mother.

"Look at this fine daughter you raised! I knew it. She isn't yours by blood, so you never cared. Passing tokens to a man in secret. What girl from a good family would do something so shameless!"

My father tore into my mother's pride without mercy. The noble house may have fallen on hard times, but it still stood far above her own family.

My mother could barely keep her dignified composure, but she soon thought of a way out.

She looked at me.

"Kneel!"

I dropped to my knees on reflex.

My knees struck the cold ground, the hard floor grinding into them until it ached, but I was used to it.

After all, whenever my sister or brother did wrong, my mother would make me kneel and take the punishment.

My mother stood and took the disciplinary ruler a servant handed her.

First she stood before my sister, looking down on her, and scolded her.

"Do you understand where you went wrong?"

My sister only wept, unable to get a word out.

My mother swung the ruler backhanded across my back.

The force of it was so great you could hear the ruler cut the air.

Where it landed, the skin burned with a fierce, stinging pain.

"Ah!"

The cry tore out of me, but under my mother's warning glare I swallowed whatever came after.

My sister was too frightened to speak.

"First. Matters of marriage are decided by your parents. Who gave you leave to meet an outside man on your own?"

As she spoke, she brought the ruler down on my back again.

I bit down hard on my hand and tasted blood.

I could not make a sound while my mother was teaching my sister, or the punishment would only grow worse.

"Prince Sparks is not a man to reason with. Since he has sent the betrothal gifts, if we do not hand our daughter over obediently, the noble house is in mortal danger."

"And that is your second wrong."

The ruler cracked down twice more.

Cold sweat poured off me, and the pain sent the world swimming black before my eyes, over and over.

My mother's face gave nothing away. Each stroke fell heavier than the last.

My father turned his head away and said nothing.

At last, my sister admitted her fault.

"I was wrong!"

My sister stared, trembling, at the ruler in my mother's hand.

She set the ruler down and gently gathered my sister into her arms.

"My child. To know your fault and mend it is the greatest good of all."

"Your mother settled on a way to handle this long ago."

My sister looked up at her, delighted.

But a bad feeling had already taken hold of me.

I heard my mother say, one word at a time:

"An elder sister stands in a mother's place. Since Loretta could not keep her sister in line, then let Loretta be the one to marry."

My head snapped up toward my mother.

"Mother, this isn't my fault."

I clutched at the hem of her skirt in a panic.

Even my father was staring at her in surprise.

"Alma is your own flesh and blood. And you can still bear to do this?"

"You joke, husband. Your children are all my children, and I have always treated them the same."

She pulled the hem free of my fingers and met my eyes without a shred of feeling.

"If you want to blame someone, blame yourself for not watching Alma properly."

I looked helplessly to my sister, then to my father.

But my father only nodded, satisfied.

"Anya, you truly are a virtuous wife. I did not choose wrongly."

My sister looked away from me. Her tears had dried up too.

My mother ordered them to drag me off to the family shrine.

"Your sister has already admitted her fault, and you still won't own yours. Go kneel through the night and come to your senses."

My maid Peaches hurried to hold me up and steady me toward the shrine.

The slightest movement sent a tearing pain across my back. I could barely stand, leaning my whole weight against her.

With barely a thread of breath left, I whispered against her ear:

"Go find him. Have him come save me."

Peaches did not let a single strange look cross her face. She only gave the faintest nod.

Once again I knelt in the shrine.

The pain stabbed up through my knees, wave after wave.

From the shrine doors came a small sound, almost too faint to catch.

I did not turn. I kept my back straight.

The matron my mother had sent found no fault to report and slipped away.

But still I did not dare relax.

If the matron caught me slacking, kneeling improperly, and carried word to my mother, a beating with the rod would surely follow.

Cold sweat soaked through my clothes, dried half over in my own body's heat, then soaked through again, over and over.

My vision blurred.

Memories of my childhood came back to me.

I had known good days too, once.

Back then my real father was still alive, and my mother did not treat me the way she does now.

He used to carry me on his shoulders and call me the pearl of his hand, while my mother sat nearby at her embroidery, watching us with a gentle look.

Later my father died.

My grandfather wanted my mother to remarry, to become the second wife of the noble house.

The truth was that my mother's standing fell short of a house like theirs, all the more so as a widow.

But the lord thought a woman of exactly her position suited him. Easy to control. He already had a trueborn son and daughter and had no need of other children.

And so, under the watching eyes of the whole imperial capital hungry for a show, my mother married the lord.

I was forced to change my name.

After she married the lord, my mother changed.

Everyone watched her every move, the lord included. They were terrified she would grind down her stepchildren.

The lord's first wife had been dead three years. He was buried in official business and neglected their discipline, and my little brother and sister had grown up crooked.

As the second wife, there was nothing my mother could do that was right.

Discipline them strictly, teach the brother and sister how to conduct themselves, and the old dowager who doted on her grandchildren would summon my mother to a scolding: a stepmother was a stepmother after all, grinding down the first wife's children before the woman was even cold in the ground. Let them run wild instead, and everyone said my mother was praising the stepchildren to ruin, clearing the road for her own child.

She thought on it a long time, and at last she hit upon a way to make a brutal example of one to cow the rest.

She couldn't punish someone else's children. But surely she could punish her own.

So when the sister and brother did wrong, I took the punishment, and they watched.

That way they understood exactly where they had gone wrong, and no real harm ever came to them.

It worked beautifully. The brother and sister began to heed my mother, and the old dowager and the lord alike praised her, satisfied, as a virtuous wife.

And the wounds on my body never healed for a single day.

"Mother, look! I told you she was never honest!"

The shrine doors were kicked open, and Peaches was thrown inside.

My mother swept in with her servants behind her.

Peaches was hurt all over, and still she shook her head at me.

I knew what she meant. Don't do anything rash. But she was the only one in this house who had ever been good to me. How could I stand there and watch them hurt her?

My brother, Ulysses Henson, threw me a sneering glance and cupped his hands toward our mother.

"If I hadn't kept an eye on the back gate, this maid would've slipped right out."

"Look at her. Like she was off to beg someone for help."

Our mother laid her hand over Nanny Griggs's, asked nothing, and let one cold word fall.

"Beat her to death."

Ice closed over me. I crawled on my knees to her feet.

"Mother, I was the one who sent her out. It was my fault. Punish me, I beg you, but let Peaches go."

I knocked my forehead against the floor, hard, and only got a few blows in before she stopped me.

Gently, she pressed a handkerchief to the cut on my brow.

Hope rose in my chest.

The next instant it shattered.

"How is she to marry Blake Sparks with a ruined face?"

Hands seized me and held me still.

They dropped Peaches onto a bench and brought the barbed cudgel down across her waist.

"Aah!"

The scream tore straight through the long dead of night.

And even then, she kept begging for my life.

"Mistress, don't send the young miss to the Sparks estate. She'll die there, she'll die!"

I looked to Alma Henson and Ulysses Henson, pleading.

They only watched it all, cold-faced.

Peaches's voice was fading, thinner and thinner.

"Mother!"

I screamed it.

From somewhere I found the strength to wrench free, and I threw myself over Peaches and took the next blow for her.

Just one. And my whole waist stopped feeling like mine.

"You marry Blake Sparks, then. Just let Peaches go!"

Nothing moved in my mother's face. She only had them drag me off.

"You're no child of this house, but the house has fed and kept you all these years. You ought to be good for something."

"Marry the way you're told, and your maid wouldn't die. When you get down to it, you're the one who's killed her."

Alma said, a touch anxious,

"Mother, will the prince really not have anything to say about it?"

She hung a gentle smile on her face and stroked Alma's hair.

"There's nothing to this wretch but a pretty face. And the prince only said he wanted a daughter of this house. Isn't your sister a daughter of this house?"

Ulysses looked Peaches over with real interest.

"Loretta's just one woman, and it's past curfew. Who could she even go to? Not some stray man from outside?"

Peaches held on to her last breath.

"Mistress, Blake Sparks is not the only power in this world. I beg you, think again!"

With that, she brought up a mouthful of blood and stopped breathing.

"Peaches! Peaches! Peaches!"

Tears poured down my face, and under the shock of it I went straight out, into nothing.

Alma's color changed.

"Mother, the prince loves virgins above all. If Loretta's been touched and she angers him, won't he turn on this whole house?"

My mother stared at where I lay senseless and had a bucket of ice water hauled up and thrown over me to wake me.

I looked at her, lost, the tears falling before anything else could.

"Nanny Griggs, inspect her."

My mother led her people out of the shrine.

Peaches had meant to give her something to fear. She had never guessed they cared more about whether I was untouched.

The shrine doors swung shut in front of me.

My mother was gone, but Ulysses did not leave.

Nanny Griggs had four of the coarse-work servants pin my hands and feet, and stripped my underclothes off.

I couldn't break loose.

Ulysses crouched down and watched, avid.

I fought with everything I had.

"Don't touch me! Get away! Get out!"

Despair and revulsion broke me apart completely.

I screamed my throat raw, and the shrine doors never opened.

Only when Nanny Griggs was satisfied did they let me go.

I huddled in the corner, clothes in disarray, shaking.

Nanny Griggs said I was untouched, and only then did my mother let out her breath.

"For Loretta to have ties outside, that low creature Peaches can't be clear of it. Better she's dead. It sets the house right."

"In all the imperial capital, how many can match the prince for power? Even if some stray man does come knocking, we just beat him to death."

Ulysses lifted the handkerchief he'd taken off me to his nose, breathed it in, and smiled a sickening smile.

"Sister, don't worry. A prize like her is sure to please the prince."

"Only a shame. We're one beautiful concubine short."

I stared at my mother, unable to believe it.

She looked at Ulysses, all tenderness.

"I'd meant, in a while, to give Loretta to you as a concubine. I've trained her up well. She'd have put you first in everything."

"But now, with this trouble, we have to save Alma first. Once the matter of Blake Sparks is settled, I'll pick out a good one for you."

Mother seemed unable to bear the smell of blood in the family shrine, and her brow creased.

Nanny Griggs understood at once.

"Take her to the pauper's burial ground already. Don't foul my lady's sight."

I watched them wrap Peaches in a straw mat and carry her out.

I said nothing.

There was not a single person here who would help me.

The only one who had ever helped me when I was punished, Peaches, was dead too.

A grief I couldn't put into words made me deaf to everything.

"A long night breeds bad dreams. Just carry her to the Sparks estate at dawn. Say she'd long admired the Prince and couldn't wait for an auspicious day."

Mother meant to hand me over to Blake Sparks right away.

Dazed, I was dressed in the wedding clothes and let them paint and arrange me however they liked.

Seeing me look like a woman whose heart had turned to ash, Mother came over herself, holding a small vial.

She pried my mouth open and poured a sweet-tasting liquid down my throat.

She sneered.

"You can be as chaste and unyielding as you like. Drink this, and you'll be begging a man for it."

I had so many things I wanted to ask her.

Did she hate me this much, hate me enough to send me to my death?

But the answers no longer mattered.

"Mother, you're going to regret this."

Someone will avenge me.

They helped me up into the bridal sedan.

The drug I'd swallowed was working, a heat spreading up from my belly.

I took out a bronze mirror. The woman in it had a flush across her face, red enough to frighten.

Good thing this drug was so strong.

"Cough."

I coughed up a mouthful of blood, and the mirror slipped from my hand and fell to the floor.

A body riddled with wounds could never withstand a drug this fierce, and with the injuries on top of it, I was already at my last breath.

"Mother..."

If she knew it was her own drug that had taken my life, what would her face look like?

It's all right. I've left her a gift.

I hope she can still smile when the time comes.

Slowly I closed my eyes, each breath fainter than the last.

Before long, the breathing stopped.

Father, Peaches, I'm coming to find you.

...

Sitting upright in the noble house, Mother felt a sharp pain shoot through her heart, as if something important had vanished.

She pressed a hand to her chest.

"It must be that wretched girl who's angered me so. Another day I'll go to the temple and have a master drive off the ill luck."

Theodore Henson patted her hand.

"You've worked hard, my dear. Alma, hurry and thank your mother."

Alma Henson cooed and fawned at Mother, Ulysses teasing from the side, the whole scene warm and merry.

"My lord! My lady! Someone's come from the palace!"

A servant rushed in, flustered, to report.

A eunuch had brought a decree.

"By the grace of Heaven, the Emperor decrees: there is a daughter of the house, peerless in beauty, rich in talent and virtue... She is hereby named Noble Consort, to enter the palace on a chosen day."

The eunuch tucked the imperial decree away with a smiling face.

"Now, which of you is Miss Henson? Loretta Fox?"