The Consort Thought Me Mute, But I Practiced Silent Meditation

I could speak three days after I was born.

The Old Sage said that prodigies were prone to short lives, that too much early cleverness invited an early death.

If I spoke before the age of five, heaven itself would grow jealous of me, and the only escape was to keep a vow of silence.

Only my father the Emperor and the Old Sage knew this secret.

Everyone else believed I was simply born mute.

My mother died bearing me, a hemorrhage in a hard labor.

The empress's seat had stayed empty ever since.

Letitia Chavez asked, of her own accord, to look after me, and she did it with the most tireless care.

Everyone praised her as gentle and virtuous.

But when the two of us were alone, she showed the wolf underneath, bare and plain.

"You little wretch. Every kindness I've shown you was only to buy people's hearts."

"The day I become mother to the realm will be the day you die."

My father was fooled by her performance.

He promised to name her empress on the first day of autumn.

The wicked consort thought she had finally gotten everything she wanted.

But there was one thing she did not know.

The day of her investiture happened to be my fifth birthday.

The vow of silence would be complete.

I would be able to speak.

...

I was my father's only daughter.

I was named Princess Rosalind.

I had three older brothers.

For as long as I could remember, I had been the jewel in my father's hand.

After my mother died, the empress's seat stayed empty.

The women of the harem were sharp.

They all knew that to take the central palace and become mother to the realm,

it was not enough to win my father's favor.

They also had to win mine.

So from the day I was born, the three palaces, six courtyards, and seventy-two concubines

came streaming to me one after another, like figures on a spinning lantern.

Each one fought to be the one who raised me.

There was one time.

Consort Li and Consort De quarreled over who would feed me the first spoonful of broth,

and it came to blows right there.

Hairpins scattered across the floor, and they clawed each other's faces bloody.

When my father found out, he was so angry he smashed a teacup.

"This is a disgrace."

That same day he issued a decree.

I would be raised in the Dowager's Palace with the Empress Dowager.

Every other concubine was forbidden to come near.

I lived in the Dowager's Palace for two years.

The days were quiet and steady.

Until the year I turned three.

A fever would not break, and the imperial physicians only shook their heads.

My father's brow was knotted with worry, and the Empress Dowager wept until her face was streaked with tears.

Just when everyone had given up hope,

Letitia Chavez went to the shrine and prayed for me with all her heart.

For three days and three nights she took neither food nor water.

She pricked her fingertip with a silver needle,

and with her own blood copied out an entire scroll of the Heart Sutra.

She swore a fierce vow as well.

"I would give ten years of my own life for Princess Rosalind's safety."

And strange to say,

no sooner had she finished the blood-written sutra than my fever broke.

My father, his eyes red, took her hand.

"Your sincerity has moved heaven itself, my love."

The Empress Dowager wiped her eyes and praised her again and again.

"You are a good child. You are a woman of true virtue."

Letitia seized the moment to speak.

"The Empress Dowager is getting on in years, and her strength is not what it was."

"I would be willing to raise Princess Rosalind, and spare her the burden."

My father agreed without a second thought.

From that day on,

I moved into Letitia's Serenity Palace.

The care she gave me was tireless, and nothing short of it.

In winter, afraid I would be cold,

she not only sewed my padded coat with her own hands but warmed my quilt with her own body.

In summer, afraid I would be hot,

and impatient with the clumsy hands of the palace maids,

she fanned me herself, and did not stop until I had fallen asleep.

Clothing, food, shelter, every small thing, she saw to it herself.

Everyone in the palace said,

"Letitia loves that girl more than her own mother would."

The summer I was four,

I was playing at the edge of the Palace Lake.

My foot slipped, and I fell in.

Letitia was three months pregnant at the time.

But she did not stop to think. She threw herself in after me.

She pushed me to the bank with everything she had,

and swallowed water herself, and the shock disturbed the child.

The baby was lost.

When she woke,

her face was white as paper.

The first words out of her mouth were not for her own child.

She gripped my father's hand and asked, faint and weak,

"Is Rosalind... is the princess all right?"

The Empress Dowager pressed her palms together and thanked heaven.

"Heaven took pity on Rosalind, motherless from the start, and sent Letitia down to care for her."

My father issued a decree on the spot.

"Elevate Lady Chavez to Noble Consort, to help oversee the six palaces."

He even had the Ministry of Rites write up her deeds

and add them to the Lessons for Women and the Lives of Virtuous Women,

so that women across the land might learn from her and follow her example.

Everyone said Letitia was the most virtuous woman under heaven.

I thought so too.

I even decided, in secret, that when the vow of silence was complete,

my first word would be to call her "Mother."

To give her a surprise.

But it was only when that day came

that I learned what it means to say you can paint a tiger's skin but not its bones, that you can know a face and never the heart behind it.

She said she would take me to the Empress's Palace.

To fetch some of my late mother's old things.

When we reached the Empress's Palace,

she sent every maid and eunuch away.

I was crouched on the floor, going through my mother's jewelry box.

Then a sharp pain shot through my arm.

I looked up.

She held a thin silver needle between her fingers.

She had driven it hard into the soft inside of my arm.

The pain set my whole body shaking.

My mouth fell open, but no sound came out.

She crouched down.

Close to my ear, her voice soft and full of poison.

"You little wretch. The sight of you makes me sick."

"Day after day I've played the loving mother. I gave up a child."

"All of it for the empress's throne."

"Once I am empress,"

"the first thing I'll do is send you down to keep my dead baby company in the grave."

I stared at her.

There were no tears in my eyes.

In that moment I understood.

This woman was no good.

But I still could not speak.

I would endure.

From that day on.

Her cruelty grew worse by the day.

On the surface.

She treated me better than ever.

She rose before dawn every morning.

Cooking broth and pastries for me with her own hands.

Something new each day, more delicate than anything from the Imperial Kitchen.

A few times she cut her hand while chopping.

And still she fed me with the cloth wrapped around it.

When His Majesty heard of it, he rewarded her on the spot with twelve jade scepters.

She sewed my clothes herself too.

Every inch embroidered with twining lotus.

Dressing me up until I looked lovely.

And to everyone she met she would say.

Princess Rosalind is my own daughter!

Seeing her all dressed up makes me happier than being decked out in finery myself!

But behind closed doors.

The methods she dreamed up grew more vicious one after another.

She wrapped me tight in a thick quilt.

So I couldn't move a hand or foot.

Then she snatched up a broad plank of solid wood.

And beat it down onto the bedding, blow after brutal blow.

Go on, cry. Cry out loud and I'll spare you!

The pain bored deep beneath my skin.

Yet not a single red mark showed on the outside.

She took wet sackcloth.

And clamped it hard over my mouth and nose.

Then held my head down and poured water over me from above.

This was the so-called first of the Ministry of Justice's ten great tortures, the water torture.

The cold cloth drank its fill of water.

Then forced it through every gap into my mouth and nose.

I choked until my chest burned like fire.

Unable to draw a single breath.

In that moment I truly knew the despair of dying.

She watched me suffocate and smiled coldly.

Heh. A child with no mother is like a weed!

You deserve to be trampled by me!

Hahaha, so being a monster feels this good!

She destroyed my mother's things too.

The white jade hairpin Mother had left behind.

She picked it up, and with a sharp crack she smashed it.

The sight of that dead woman's things disgusts me!

Then she ran to His Majesty.

Knelt down with false tears and wailed.

Your Majesty, Princess Rosalind broke the Late Empress's jade hairpin by accident!

It was my fault for not watching over her. I beg Your Majesty to punish me.

Please, do not blame Princess Rosalind!

How could His Majesty bear to punish her?

He praised her kindness instead.

She's only a child, she doesn't know any better. You've gone to such trouble.

I stood off to the side.

Watching her perform in silence.

Not only did Letitia Chavez not know I was cultivating the Vow of Silence.

She had no idea the Vow of Silence was a deep and profound inner art.

Those needle jabs, plank beatings, water tortures.

Every time the torment came.

A warm current would rise on its own in my core and circle through my meridians.

The pain all turned into vital essence that nourished those channels.

Tempered day by day, settling deeper with each step.

When the five years were up and the art was complete.

I would be remade, bone and flesh, immune to every poison.

The more she tormented me.

The more perfectly my Vow of Silence took shape.

There was one time.

She was in the middle of beating me with the plank.

When Lola Finch, the Empress Dowager's attendant, suddenly burst in.

One look at the scene and her face went white with fear.

Consort Chavez, what are you

Letitia Chavez didn't so much as change color or skip a beat.

She set down the plank and said with a smile.

You've misunderstood, Lola. I'm only playing with the princess.

Lola Finch left, half believing her, half not.

And that very night, word came out.

Lola Finch had "lost her footing" and drowned in a well.

Letitia Chavez even ran to His Majesty and cried thief to hide her own crime.

Your Majesty, Lola Finch was abusing the princess.

I caught her at it, and when I meant to report her, she took her own life out of guilt.

His Majesty believed it.

And rewarded her with a great many things again.

I clenched my small fist.

My nails dug into my palm.

Just you wait, you wretch.

When my fifth birthday comes.

I will make you wish you were dead.

I had three brothers, and all of them were good to me.

My eldest brother was the Crown Prince.

Gentle and generous, he had won the hearts of the whole court.

Every time he came to the palace, he brought me some clever little trinket from the streets outside to make me smile.

My second brother was gifted in both letters and arms.

In riding and archery, he stood first among all the princes.

He had been made grand general.

My third brother was the handsomest of the three.

Music, chess, calligraphy, paintingthere was nothing he had not mastered.

He was the man that countless daughters of noble houses dreamed of.

All three of my brothers had been fooled by Letitia's acting too.

Each of them praised her without end.

My eldest brother said, "Lady Chavez treats Rosalind so kindly. She's a truly virtuous woman!"

My second brother said, "With Lady Chavez managing the harem, Father has so much less to worry about."

My third brother spoke with real feeling. "Mother can rest easy now, even in the world beyond"

How could they have known?

This "virtuous woman" they spoke of.

Was busy plotting exactly how to kill each of them off!

Letitia's ambition grew larger by the day.

She struck at my eldest brother first.

She bribed Rodney Lambert, the head eunuch of the Eastern Palace.

And had him secretly slip a dragon robe.

Into my eldest brother's study.

Then she sent Rodney to report it.

Claiming the Crown Prince, resentful that ten years as heir had not yet put him on the throne, meant to rebel.

Father flew into a rage.

On the spot he stripped my eldest brother of his position as Crown Prince.

And locked him away in the Court of the Imperial Clan.

Next came my second brother.

Gifted in both letters and arms, he was Father's favorite.

She sent someone into his palace.

To bury a witchcraft effigy.

Marked with Father's birth date and hour.

The same old trick.

She bribed one of my second brother's servants to come forward and accuse him.

Father shook with fury.

He would have had my second brother put to death then and there.

It was only the Empress Dowager's desperate pleading.

That changed the sentence to exile, three thousand miles away.

Never to return to the capital.

Last of all was my third brother.

Lost in his painting and calligraphy, he had no guard against schemers.

Letitia invited him to her palace to admire the flowers.

And while his attention was elsewhere.

She tore her own robe.

Then she started screaming and wailing as if her heart were being ripped out.

"Third Prince, no! Please!"

"I am your father's woman!"

"To force yourself on me like thisyou spit on every bond of decency!"

"My honor is ruined. Better I just dash my head and die clean!"

That woman was ruthless enough for it.

To frame my third brother, she used her own body as the bait.

She threw herself headlong at a stone pillar in the hall.

Until her whole face ran with blood.

When Father learned of it, he was livid.

"You animal! With no regard for rank or the ties of blood!"

"You dared lay hands on your own father's consort? This is beyond forgiveness!"

My third brother had no way to defend himself.

He was stripped of his princely rank and cast down to a commoner.

Three brothers, all brought down in half a year.

The harem was no more peaceful.

Any concubine or palace maid who fell pregnant.

Was certain to miscarry within three months.

Some had safflower slipped into their pregnancy tonic.

Some found the floor smeared with cooking oil, and lost the child in a single fall.

It was all Letitia's doing.

And her acting was flawless.

Every time someone was struck down.

She was the first to rush over with soft words and warm concern.

Bringing tonics, shedding tears.

Inside the palace and out.

From Father and the Empress Dowager down to the maids and eunuchs.

No one suspected she was the hand behind it all.

She did not only abuse me.

She used me as a tool to fight for the emperor's favor.

Every day, under the pretext that "Rosalind misses her father, let me take the princess to see him."

She pressed her way in front of Father.

And found every means to share his bed.

At last, she was with child again.

The Old Sage had retired to his home village a year before.

The new holy man, Grant James, was a priest.

Grant James took one look at her belly.

Stroked his beard, and said.

"This child carries the mandate of the true dragon. One day he will be a wise and enlightened ruler."

Father was overjoyed.

And agreed on the spot.

On the first day of autumn.

She would be formally invested as empress.

When the news reached the Serenity Palace.

She called me alone into the inner hall.

Stroking her belly, smiling with utter triumph.

"Once I'm empress."

"My child will be the crown prince!"

"You and your three brothersI'll kill every last one of you!"

"Pull the whole thing out by the roots!"

I looked at her with no expression at all.

She did not know.

The first day of autumn.

Was also my fifth birthday.

On the first day of autumn.

The palace was decked out in lanterns and streamers.

Red silk hung all the way from the Meridian Gate to the Grand Hall.

The coronation was to be held there, in the Grand Hall.

Every official of the court, civil and military, had gathered.

Envoys from every neighboring realm had come as well.

Letitia Chavez wore the empress's ceremonial robes, embroidered with the twelve imperial emblems.

On her head sat the nine-jewel, four-phoenix crown.

Step by step, she climbed the stairs, slow and stately.

Her father, her brothers, her uncles.

Every one of them had been raised in rank and title.

They stood at the very front of the assembled officials.

Chins high, puffed up, insufferably pleased with themselves.

The whole Chavez family, glorious and riding high.

The Emperor sat on the throne, smiling from ear to ear.

The head eunuch held the decree of investiture in his hands.

He cleared his reedy throat and read it out in a ringing voice.

"Lady Chavez is virtuous and gracious, gentle and reverent in all things."

"Kind and loving to her kin, tender and true in conduct."

"She has raised the Princess and treats her as her own."

"She is hereby installed as Empress. So it is decreed!"

The decree finished.

Letitia Chavez knelt on the floor.

She refused it, all false modesty.

"Your servant has neither talent nor virtue, and dares not stand beside the Late Empress."

"Still less am I fit to hold the empress's place"

The Emperor praised her with a smile.

"My beloved consort is humble and virtuous. It gladdens My heart."

"There is no need to refuse!"

"Who but you could be mistress of this palace?"

The Empress Dowager joined in the praise.

"Lady Chavez truly is fit to be mother of the nation!"

The officials chimed in one after another.

"Lady Chavez is virtuous and gracious. The empress's place belongs to none but her!"

"Indeed. Her Ladyship treats the little Princess as her own."

"And now she carries a dragon son. Truly a blessing upon the realm!"

Letitia Chavez could not keep the corners of her mouth down.

She even made a show of walking over to me.

She crouched down and took my hand.

And before the whole court, she spoke in a soft, gentle voice.

"Now that I am Empress."

"I will still treat Princess Rosalind as my own."

"For her, there is no such thing as good enough, only better and better!"

She finished speaking.

Then, all false tenderness, she stroked my head.

The whole hall was full of praise.

It was then.

I lifted my head and looked at her.

And for the first time, I opened my mouth to speak.

My voice rang clear, carrying through the whole Grand Hall.

"Letitia Chavez, you're right about one thing."

"You are false and hollow, with a heart like a viper's."

"You framed the heir. You harmed the royal children!"

"You truly are unfit to be mother of the nation!"