Mei hesitated, then decided on the nickname her mother often used for her. “My name’s Mimi.”
“I’m Princess Zali. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mimi. How long have you been at the palace?”
“Since today. To be honest....” Mei glanced at the door. “There’s been a mix-up, you see. I’m not supposed to be here. I’ve been hired as one of the...the new bookkeepers for the palace.”
“You take care of finances and money?” The princess looked skeptical. “That’s what a bookkeeper does.”
“No, I mean books keeper,” Mei hurriedly said. “Of the place where they store all the books and stories, and records of past crimes and such.”
“You mean the Imperial Library?”
“That’s the one.”
Princess Zali looked intrigued. “I didn’t know they were hiring new...books keepers. You’re very lucky. The library is splendid, but very few people are given access to it. It has records of almost everything that has happened in China and beyond, since the dawn of time.”
“Do you go there often?” asked Mei.
“Yes, when I can. Even I have to be given permission by the emperor or empress. But I love it there.”
“What’s it like? How is it organized?”
Mei quickly realized she had gone too far with the questions. Princess Zali was staring at her with a calculating look. The room was silent for a few seconds before the princess said quietly, “Surely the newly hired books keeper would know all this?”
“Right, sorry, it’s only my first day and I haven’t even been there yet.” Mei laughed nervously and quickly changed the subject to the first thought that came to her. “Speaking of books and stories, have you heard the one of the City of Ashes?”
The princess raised an eyebrow. She opened her mouth to speak, but at that moment, Miss Sha returned humming with the gold spool. Miss Sha told the girls in great detail how much she loved the color gold (“It’s the color of sunshine and happiness”), but how she liked blue just a teensy bit more (“And silver, too, but not as much as gold”).
“All set,” Miss Sha finally warbled. She brushed the princess’s sleeves adoringly. Mei didn’t see any difference from before. “You look lovely, Your Highness. It is time to go down to the banquet hall. Let me go fetch the carriers.”
The maid disappeared a second time, leaving Mei alone with the princess once again. Princess Zali motioned for Mei to come closer.
“I have read about the City of Ashes, as a matter of fact,” she said. “Legend says the place burned down after a poet’s family was killed.”
“Just her husband,” Mei corrected.
“Oh?” said Princess Zali.
Encouraged by the princess’s apparent interest, Mei explained that Lotus’s husband had been framed by someone called the Noble General, and went into great detail about how the city had been cursed afterward. By the time she finished, Princess Zali’s gaze was fixed so forcefully upon her that Mei suddenly felt rooted to the floor. “I heard about all this secondhand, of course,” Mei quickly added.
“What’s your name again?”
“Mei—Mimi,” Mei said quickly, hoping her fierce blush didn’t give her away. “Sorry, I-I should go. Don’t want them to fire me on my first day. Off to the library I go!”
“And just how do you propose to do that?” the princess asked. “I’m curious because, as you’d surely know, the doors are sealed with an enchantment. As I said, most people are not permitted to enter without special permission. Even books keepers, who do most of their recordkeeping in an antechamber anyway.”
“The library doors are enchanted?” Mei blurted before she thought better of it.
Princess Zali stared hard at Mei. “I think it is wise, Mimi, that you stay my personal maid for a while. Where I can keep an eye on you.”
The princess’s voice was suddenly dangerous. Mei stood still. Her eyes darted to the deadly chopstick wedged in the princess’s hair.
“Y-Yes, Your Highness.” Mei felt like kicking herself. Clearly she was a worse liar than she’d thought.
Two servants entered the room carrying a sedan chair. They lifted the princess from her bed and placed her on the seat.
“Until we meet again, then,” the princess said, giving Mei a final measuring look. As they passed through the doorway, she snatched the chopstick in the wall and expertly placed it in her bun in one fluid movement.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
十四
Two’s Company, Three’s a Crowd
Princess Zali had been right. The palace was enormous, with servants and workers bustling to and fro between the different buildings. It was a city in and of itself, with thousands of people—officials, servants, generals, and royal members of the family. The twins did not see each other that night, though unbeknownst to them, they often walked through the same place within moments of each other at the evening’s dinner banquet.
Yun, whose arms were covered in burn marks and what looked like bird pecks, helped some of the chefs carry the dishes into the hall. As he aided Chef Fan with a particularly large pot of soup, Mei stood on the opposite end of the room with a stack of enameled bowls, ready to set the tables with the other maids.
The banquet, which was held in honor of a high official’s birthday, was extravagant. The twins had never seen so much food in one place, not even during the Mid-Autumn Festival. Platters of dishes piled high kept coming from the kitchen, one after the other: soups, yellow and white noodles, steamed meats, pastries in all shapes and sizes. The rolls dripped with oil and gleamed like gold. At one point, a whole roast pig was carried out on an enormous plate.
There were at least eight courses and counting. The royal family members sat at long, elegant tables that could fit thirty each, surrounded by important officials and nobles and military leaders. Baba had once told Mei and Yun that the Imperial City comprised the most powerful people in all of China, and that sometimes conversations were extremely tricky, because you never wanted to offend the wrong person. The twins tried to imagine having a dinner conversation like that. It must be exhausting to be on guard all the time.
Yun was carrying out a plate of roast duck when he saw the familiar boy from before. Fu-Fu, Yun noticed, was sitting several tables away from the emperor’s, which had bigger plates and larger portions than the rest. The boy kept looking glumly at the emperor’s table, where several other kids sat. Yun recognized the look; he’d worn that same expression himself whenever the other village boys excluded him from their games.
Meanwhile, as Mei refilled soup bowls at table sixteen, she noticed Princess Zali often glanced around with a bored—and impatient—expression, nodding absentmindedly when her companions talked but clearly not listening to their words. The princess’s mind was adventuring thousands of miles away. Mei wanted to go over and tell the princess she knew exactly how she felt, but decided it was best to lie low for now.
After the banquet, the twins were again herded in separate locations. That night, they were apart for the first time in their lives.
Yun crouched in his bunk bed in the servants’ quarters. Above him, Chef Fan’s loud snores shook the small room. Several other servants were on opposite bunks. Wisps of purple smoke rose above their heads.
Yun slowly tiptoed out of bed, then looked outside the window where the full moon shone in the sky.
“Where are you, Jade Rabbit?” he whispered.
There was no answer except Chef Fan’s snores.
On the opposite side of the palace, Mei got up from her floor mat and sneaked past the other sleeping women in the maids’ quarters, then looked outside the window at the same moon.
“What are we supposed to do now?” she asked the moon quietly.
Both siblings, though they didn’t like to admit it, were afraid that night. When you’ve spent your entire life with someone, and then that person disappears, you feel as if you’re all alone in the world. Everything seems stranger and darker than it was before.
Making matters worse, the siblings could not find a way to communicate, much less locate each other in the gigantic city. During breaks before meal preparations began, Yun would wait at the place where they’d first arrived, hoping to spot Mei. But he kept drawing the attention of nosy servants (particularly the crane-like man, whose eyes were as sharp as the animal’s). For her part, Mei left cryptic notes in random trees and behind statues, hoping her brother would find them, but the palace gardeners scrubbed the place so carefully that the notes were often found and discarded within minutes.
Over the next three days, the twins continued blending in as best as they could. Separated or not, they were resourceful children and knew the clock was ticking on their quest to clear Lotus’s husband’s name.
Yun didn’t mind the blending part too much. He had always wanted to see life in the Imperial City, after listening to the stories Baba told. The palace chefs prepared hundreds of meals each day for all the members of the royal family. In the constant commotion, Yun’s presence was easily overlooked, and he helped fetch the chefs’ supplies and wheel in fresh vegetables from the city entrance. He learned tricks of the trade, like the fact that the broken, unlit hearth in the kitchen corner was actually a front for a tunnel that continued deep into the wall, leading to a hidden passageway to the marketplace outside. The pathway was used regularly by chefs who needed to fetch illegal and expensive delicacies after hours.
He also bonded in the kitchen with Chef Fan, who told him stories about his little girl.
“She used to get into all sorts of trouble,” he chuckled as he sharpened his knife. “Sneaking around the premises with that bird of hers. She even managed to sneak into the royal family’s quarters, believe it or not.”
“How?”
“Maids and servants are the only people who can go anywhere without arousing suspicion. We’re overlooked, like crickets on the sidewalk!”
Yun thought of something Grandpa had often told him. A cricket can be smashed by a single footstep, yet its voice keeps up hundreds of folks at night. Even the smallest, most fragile among us have power, Yun.
“So the servants are all treated badly here?” he asked, wondering how someone as boisterous as Chef Fan could be overlooked.
“Eh, just by a few really spoiled brats in the royal families,” said Chef Fan with a shrug. “Not all of them are like that. There’s one princess who always compliments me on my dishes, every single time. My daughter liked that girl a lot. Told me that princess had an arsenal of creative inventions up her sleeve. Could kill a grown man in her sleep.”
“She sounds smart.”
“Aye, they both were.”
The crane man appeared. “I have a special order from one of the masters,” he interrupted sternly. “He wants a hard-boiled egg that’s runny on the inside, and a bowl of rice with every third grain salted and every fourth grain seasoned with sugar.”
“Ridiculous!” cried Chef Fan.
“He has asked ‘the skinny twelve-year-old chef’ to prepare it.” The crane-like man eyed Yun. “That means you. Get on it.”
Yun groaned. “I bet it’s that brat Fu-Fu.” The day before, Fu-Fu had ordered Yun to serve him a bunch of grapes with the skins peeled. They had taken Yun an hour to prepare.
“Don’t worry,” said Chef Fan, whacking him on the back. “If you get started early, you might finish before sundown, you hear?”
Yun thought for a moment. “There’s a faster way to do this than to count each individual rice grain,” he said. “Watch this.”
He rolled up his sleeves and divided up a bowl of rice into thirds. He salted one section.
“This is the same as dividing the bowl into twelve sections and salting four of them, or 4/12,” Yun explained to a puzzled Chef Fan. He carefully divided the sections as such.
“Okay, so what about the sugared grains?” asked the chef.
“Every fourth grain sugared means one-fourth of the bowl, or 3/12,” said Yun, and he sprinkled sugar over a quarter of the bowl as such.
Finally, he mixed all the rice in the bowl together—sugared, salted, and plain. “There,” he said triumphantly. “Every third grain salted, every fourth grain sugared.”
“Bravo,” said the chef, impressed.
Yun smiled. He had beaten that brat at his own game.
Mei had imagined that royal life meant ample free time. But it turned out even the royal family had a strict regimen, especially the children—from daily lessons on writing and history to mandatory teatimes. Mei was kept busy in Princess Zali’s quarters. She could tell the princess still distrusted her, yet, miraculously, she hadn’t been arrested. She did her best to stay on Princess Zali’s good side.
Fortunately, it wasn’t hard. Princess Zali, as Mei found out, shared a lot of things in common with her.
“We have thousands and thousands of books here at the palace, not just in the library,” the princess said as she concentrated on the scrolls on her writing desk. She was practicing her calligraphy while Mei dusted the room. “My favorite is Journey to the West. It’s a story of the Monkey King’s travels to obtain sacred texts, and the adventures he has along the way.”
“I love the Monkey King!” said Mei, looking up from the figurine she was dusting. There were no books in her village, she explained, but she and her brother had heard countless adventures of the famous character from their parents and grandfather. Mei couldn’t help but think once more that under different circumstances, she and the princess really could have been friends. She also had a gut feeling that was why the princess kept her around instead of having her arrested. As far as Mei knew, the princess hadn’t even attempted to confirm Mei’s story that she was hired as a bookkeeper.
“Yes, the story of the Monkey King is well-known folklore,” said Princess Zali. “Other tales are not as memorable and fall through the cracks of history. It’s interesting what stories are kept for centuries and what stories disappear over time.”
“The Imperial Library has all of them, right?” piped up Mei nonchalantly. “I’d love to see it sometime, Your Highness. Oh, right, but there’s the enchantment....”
Princess Zali gave Mei a knowing look. Before she could say anything, the door opened. Mei felt her heart sink.
Fu-Fu stood at the door.
He wielded his sharp stick and watched Mei with a smirk while the princess tried to concentrate on her calligraphy. For the last few days, the boy had popped up wherever Mei was, lurking in the courtyard or the gardens as she tended Princess Zali. He’d dangle the twins’ bags in his hands tauntingly, as if to say, Come and get it if you dare.
There was a tense silence. Neither Fu-Fu nor Princess Zali greeted one another.
“You’re not supposed to be here, Cousin Fu-Fu,” Princess Zali finally said, looking up from her work. “How’d you get past the guards this time?”
“There are all sorts of secret passageways if you know where to look,” said Fu-Fu with a yawn. “Besides, they can’t stop me. I can walk anywhere I want, unlike some people.” He started to dance about, swinging his sharp stick.
Princess Zali’s face hardened. “Get out.”
“How nice it must be to have people waiting on Your Royal Highness, to be carried everywhere. And to get brand-new clothes all the time. Isn’t life lovely for little Princess Zali?”
“If you’re worried because you’re wearing one of your cousins’ hand-me-downs, I assure you nobody cares,” the princess replied calmly.
“You obviously care, since you noticed,” shot back Fu-Fu, his face suddenly red. He glanced at Mei again. “Who’s this, your new maid? You know she’s not really a—”
“The princess said to get out,” Mei said loudly before the boy could reveal anything else. She shoved Fu-Fu out the door.
“You’re a fraud,” Fu-Fu whispered, but he left with a sneer. The door swung shut behind him.
“Sorry about that, Your Highness,” Mei said nervously. She wasn’t sure why Fu-Fu hadn’t report
ed her already. Whatever the reason was, it couldn’t be good.
Neither of them spoke for a moment.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said the other day,” the princess said. “The story of the City of Ashes, and the official who was responsible for the tragedy. I’ve read about him.”
“Who, the Noble General?”
“Yes. I’ve thought a lot about what you told me. I’ve had my own suspicions about his role in the City of Ashes. Did you know he used to live there until its downfall, and then for the rest of his life back in the palace, he could only speak in riddles?”
Mei gave the princess a startled look. “He only spoke in riddles when he came back?” she repeated.
The princess paused, studying Mei’s face. “Speaking of riddles, try to help me solve one right now. Very few people alive today know of the Noble General. I had to find information about him through archived palace memos. So, Mimi, I am curious how you knew of him. I’m curious how you know a lot of things, about Lotus and the City of Ashes.”
Mei shrugged uncomfortably. Admitting that she got the information directly from the source seemed unwise. “Just rumors and such,” she squeaked.
“Hmm. I do wonder about you, Mimi. You are not a bookkeeper. You aren’t an assassin, either, because you have yet to kill me.” Princess Zali dipped her brush in the tiny ink bottle. “Of course, you can’t, because I’d kill you before you could make a move,” she added conversationally.
“Yes, Your Highness, I know,” Mei said. “With your hair chopsticks.”
“Not necessarily. I could just as easily dispatch you with this.” The princess pointed to the dark liquid inside the ink bottle. “Ink is quite versatile. Depending on the ink’s ingredients, it can be good for a variety of things. To make ink, you bake burnt soot, glue, and tree bark together until they’re dried.” She let the brush drip over the scroll. “I made this one myself. It has some added toxins from the venom of a snake....One drop of this on your skin is enough to give you a second-degree burn. A big enough spatter would cause irrevocable poisoning. You’d be immobilized instantly.”
The Dreamweavers Page 10
