by R W Sowrider
“What are you proposing?”
“As for the concubines, imperial staff, and myself, we will happy to be buried at your side. Our tombs can be constructed right next to yours and when we pass – of natural causes – we can be laid to rest at your service.”
“I suppose that would do. But for the army?”
“Just like you want a replica of the Forbidden City, we can build replicas of thousands of soldiers. A terracotta army of ceramic statues each individually crafted based on individual soldiers. And not just soldiers, we can construct ceramic horses and chariots, too. A full and fierce army to stand guard for you for eternity.”
“A terracotta army?”
“Yes. Each infused with the soul of its model to protect you and your empire in the afterlife.”
Frank nodded in assent. “This does indeed sound promising. The protection of thousands. But we must ensure secrecy or they will come to destroy me. And we must ensure that the city and all its treasures are defended by live munitions that when triggered will strike whether in this world or the next. And once I have been laid to rest, surrounded by my treasure, the gates must be lowered and the city must be hidden underneath a great mountain such that no one shall ever become suspicious. Meanwhile, lurking underneath, shall by the greatest emperor the world has ever seen. Ruling for eternity! We must make it happen! You hear me, Rowen?! It is the only way! We must make it happen!!!”
“Oh boy,” Rowen muttered to himself. “This is not gonna improve the tax situation.”
***
Having hastily laid the groundwork for what would take nearly a million men over two decades to construct, Rowen swiftly made his way to the Garden of Dispossessed Favorites.
There, he encountered a scene that shattered his jaded heart. Seated on a bench staring wistfully at a magnificent sunset was his sweet Xera, who was now more forlorn than sweet.
She had failed the emperor by bearing him three daughters and zero sons. As such, Frank had deemed copulation with her to be a waste of time and severed ties.
However, since women who have laid with the Son of Heaven were prohibited from laying with anyone else, she was to idle the remainder of her days away here with the other concubines who were past their prime.
Hearing footsteps, Xera turned to see who was approaching and at the precise moment that her eyes met Rowen’s, Aphrodite pierced her heart.
“Rowen, how wonderful to see you,” she said, her eyes lighting up. “Come and have a seat. We’ve never really talked. Let’s talk.”
Rowen sat down next to her and was struck by the crow’s feet encroaching the corners of her eyes, the strands of gray hair, and her suddenly twitchy manner.
Nonetheless, he still felt that ball of nerves in the pit of his stomach that had for all these years made speaking to her a near impossibility.
“So here we are,” Xera said. “Quite a pair. An outcast and a eunuch.”
Rowen smiled, sympathetically .
“I always had nightmares about winding up here,” she continued, eyes darting all over the place. “Left alone in this ironically verdant garden. My youth and beauty gone. Replaced by wrinkles and gray hair.”
Rowen’s nerves subsided as he felt an overwhelming urge to comfort her. “Do not say such things, lovely Xera. You are still as beautiful today as you were the first day that I laid eyes on you.”
Xera burst out laughing. “Oh, what a prankster you are, Rowen. Teasing a haggard old woman long past her prime. Or is it flattery? But a eunuch has no need to flatter a woman.”
“As you say,” Rowen replied, resolutely. “I have no need to flatter women. I never have. And as you must know, I have never flattered nor lied to a concubine.”
The lack of ulterior motives had afforded Rowen the ability to develop intimate relationships with concubines on a level that your ordinary, fully-endowed man could not even imagine. But that ball of nerves in Rowen’s stomach had always prevented him from developing one with Xera.
“I suppose this is true. I have heard many of them speak highly of you.” Xera closed her eyes tightly while rubbing her forehead. “So what is your intent then? It is to torture me, yes?”
“No. What you said is simply not true. Yes, you have aged. We all have. But when I look at you now, I don’t see your age. I see the vibrant beauty who took my breath away the first time I laid eyes on you.”
Xera smiled, knowingly. “Oh. You must be speaking of your first duty as a scrivener after the Emperor’s 15th birthday, yes?”
Rowen winced at the memory. “No. It was long before that. Back when I first arrived at court.”
“Ahhh, yes. I remember those days. You were a scrawny little scamp always up to no-good.” Xera laughed as she grabbed hold of Rowen’s hands. “And now here you are. A pot-bellied eunuch flirting with a has-been concubine.”
Rowen let out a chuckle as his face flushed red. “I must go, but may I visit you again?”
Xera’s eyes lit up and her head cocked to one side. “Oh, yes! You may come at any time. What a wonderful thing that I’ve been banished here. Why I feel like the most popular girl in the empire. We are gonna have quite an affair, you and I.”
Xera’s words struck Rowen as both sarcastic and sincere. While he couldn’t quite get a handle on her, he was ecstatic that they had finally sown the seeds of a relationship.
From that day on, whenever he had any free time, Rowen would visit Xera in the Garden of Dispossessed Favorites where their meandering discussions would last for hours. They bonded over their brief childhoods in the countryside, their lives within the gates of the Forbidden City, and the gradual mental decay of Emperor Frank.
“To be honest, I thought he lost it when he executed his brothers,” Xera said one day, sticking her tongue out and tugging on an imaginary noose.
“Oh no,” Rowen replied in defense of Frank. “He was still fine back then. That was more of a healthy paranoia. Without question, their father had dreams of establishing a dynasty and it was six of one, half dozen of the other for the Dowager, so Frank was right to get rid of them. Probably could have just banished them to the Land of Wa, though.”
“This is true. Being banished is way better than being dead. You get to spend all your time thinking about the approaching blackness. It’s a wonderful life.”
“Oh, but it’s not all bad, is it? I’m eternally grateful for all the time I’ve gotten to spend with you.”
“Ah, yes. The silver lining. I really do cherish my time with you, too. I just wish things had been different. That we had met under different circumstances. Could you imagine if we had never been brought to the Forbidden City?”
Rowen smiled.
Xera gazed off at the horizon. “Could you imagine a normal life where you and I lived out in the countryside? Where we worked the land during the day. And where we dined on goose and wine at night. And where you had a penis.”
As Rowen smiled wryly, Xera leapt on him and planted a wet kiss on his lips.
“What are you doing?!” Rowen cried, pushing her off. “You know we can’t.”
“It’s just a kiss. What’s more, a kiss with a eunuch. It’s no big deal. Come on, give me some sugar!”
As Xera once again attacked Rowen, a shrill voice cried out from the other side of the garden. “Help! Someone Please Help! He’s Trying To Rape Me!”
“Oh my God,” Xera gasped. “Help her.”
Once a source of wicked delight, Rowen’s ability to throw his voice had this time allowed him to escape the garden without further damage.
“I’m going to need you to refrain from any further monkey business,” Rowen commanded the next time he visited.
“But how can I restrain myself around the man who invented paper?” Xera countered, referring to Rowen’s recent accomplishment
“You heard about that?”
“Of course, it’s all that us discarded concubines can talk about.”
As usual, Rowen was unsure of whether she was being sarca
stic or sincere.
“It’ll change everything,” she continued. “Such an ingenious invention.”
“Now it is you who is full of flattery. I simply switched up some ingredients.”
“Don’t be so modest. Going from bamboo and silk to bark and hemp will save the empire a fortune and will likely allow even peasants to learn to read and write. It’s quite an achievement.”
“Oh, come on, you’re being ridiculous. It will save the state funds when preparing official documents and that’s about it. There won’t ever be a time when commoners can read. There’s no need for it.”
“I’ll bet the emperor is again showering you with riches,” Xera said, eyes sparkling with mischief. “It’s enough to drive a girl mad.”
“Don’t do it,” Rowen warned, inching away from her.
Xera let out an unhinged giggle before grabbing Rowen’s hand and forcing it on her breast.
“Stop it,” Rowen persisted as Xera massaged her breast with his hand while moaning gratuitously.
“Stop! Thief!” A high-pitched voice suddenly cried out from the other side of the garden. “He’s Getting Away With My Purse!”
While maintaining hand to hand to breast contact, Xera flashed Rowen a devious smile. “We have an old saying where I’m from,” she said. “Fool me once, shame on you. “Fool me … can’t get fooled again!”
Xera redoubled her effort and it took all of Rowen’s strength to stand up and put some distance between them.
“Cut it out, Xera. You know that it is forbidden for anyone to lay with a former concubine.”
“Lay with?! Who said anything about laying with me?! All I’m proposing is a cheeky kiss or two every once in a while, that’s all. And maybe some breast-rubbing here and there. Just a kiss and some breast-rubbing, that’s all. And maybe on special occasions, a finger bang. Just a kiss, some breast-rubbing, and a finger bang, that’s all. I’m not talking about anyone laying with me!”
“I’m serious,” Rowen persisted. “This won’t stand. If we want to continue seeing each other, we can’t have any monkey business. ”
Xera frowned and dropped her head. “You’re no fun.”
“Xera, you must know how much you mean to me. How much I treasure our time together. Every spare second I have, I want to spend with you. But there are lines that cannot be crossed.”
Xera clicked her tongue.
“Don’t you want me to visit you?”
“Obviously.”
“Then please stop the shenanigans. Let us continue our discussions. Let us talk of the past and all that we’ve been through. And of what we as individuals and we as an empire are currently going through. And let us even indulge in fantasies of what could have been. Like if you and I lived the simple life along the Yangtze River. Where I spent my days fishing. And where you cooked delicious meals. And where our children would swim and laugh and play from dawn till dusk.”
Xera smiled wistfully. “Or if we lived up high in the mountains. Where you would tend to our goats. And where I would turn their milk into cheese. And where you had a penis.”
***
As Rowen and Xera continued their bittersweet trysts, growing closer and closer together, the empire grew closer and closer to self-destruction.
Many factors were at play, but it mainly boiled down to the heavy burden borne by the people as Frank continued to construct the most elaborate tomb ever built on Earth.
“He’s really lost it,” Rowen said to Xera one day.
“Still not letting anyone into his private quarters?” Xera asked.
“Yeah, he hasn’t allowed a chambermaid in there in months. So when he was passed out after another opium binge, I took the opportunity to enter his sleeping quarters and was shocked.”
Xera squinted her eyes and wagered a guess. “Wall to wall jars of urine?”
“How did you know?”
Xera simply nodded.
“And he’s got his fingernails and toenails preserved in alcohol. He’s either analyzing everything for traces of poison or he’s planning to take everything with him to the next world.”
“Probably both. He’s been executing people weekly on suspicion of treason, so he’s probably studying that stuff for proof. And as far as bringing it to the next life, you really never can have too much.”
“Well, the way things are going, that trip isn’t too far off. His degeneration has really accelerated.”
“But the plus side to that is that I’d be freed from this garden and you and I could actually live out one of our fantasies.”
“I can’t root for my best friend and our dear leader to kick the bucket, but living out our remaining days together somewhere far far away would be a dream come true.”
“Oh, I can see it now,” Xera said, staring off at the horizon as usual. “It’ll be perfect. A little hut on a remote beach off the East Sea. Where we spend each morning admiring the sunrise coming out over the ocean. And where we spend our days drinking coconut milk on the soft sand. And where I spend our nights wishing that you had a penis.”
***
As predicted, it wasn’t long before their dream of living out their remaining days on a beach was on the cusp of becoming a reality.
According to the emperor’s doctor, Frank died of natural causes .
More accurately, he died of dehydration, malnutrition, and self-neglect.
But even more accurately, he died because Yahweh, who had never gotten over the haiku slight, inflicted a slow and painful death upon him.
Yahweh, watching Frank exhale his last breath while surrounded by jars of urine, was pleased.
However, as soon as Frank’s body was carried off to the mostly completed Secret Forbidden City, word spread of his demise.
The people’s mob stormed the Forbidden City like wildfire torching a dry forest.
Rowen and Xera attempted to hide in the Garden of Benevolent Peace, but it was no use. They were found clinging to each other under a mulberry tree in the corner.
First, the mob ripped them apart from each other.
“Rowen!” Xera cried, reaching toward him with arms outstretched as they dragged her away.
“Xera!” Rowen shouted. “I love you!!!”
“I love you!!!”
Next, the mob ripped them apart literally.
“You fat, repulsive monster!” one of them roared as they pulled on all of his limbs at once.
The last thing that Rowen remembered before everything went black was the excruciating pain he felt as his arm was ripped clean out of its socket.
Verixion III
“Is the cock-less wonder finally back with us?” Delemor boomed as Rowen slowly came to on the floor of the familiar gold chamber.
“What happened?” Rowen asked, groggily.
“They tore you apart limb by limb,” Delemor replied. “It was electrifying.”
“And Xera?”
“The same. I must say, there is almost nothing as riveting as the release of the pent-up rage of the masses. And boy did you guys know how to build up that rage. As the old saying goes, ‘Oppression breeds entertainment.’”
“You lied ...”
Before Rowen could even finish his sentence, he felt the sting of the serpent’s fangs tearing through his calf.
“Owww!!! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
Delemor’s tail slowly drew back beneath the table.
“You … deceived me,” Rowen said, tentatively.
In a flash, the serpent was back out from underneath the table, swaying menacingly in Rowen’s face, fangs drawn, tongue flicking. “We would never deceive you,” it hissed. “Just the thought of it breaks my heart.”
Rowen was speechless, shocked not only by the sudden flare-up, but also by the fact that Delemor’s snake tail could talk. Not to mention the mixed signals it was sending.
“Why so ever would you even say such a thing?” Delemor asked.
“You said that I would be surrounded by beautiful women
.”
“You were.”
“Yeah but, … you didn’t tell me that …”
“You were warned. And I didn’t even have to go that far. I just happened to be in a generous mood that day.”
“That’s not fair. ”
Delemor let out a hearty laugh. “That’s not fair ,” he echoed in patronizingly high-pitched voice. “Who said anything about being fair?”
“That was torture. To be surrounded by gorgeous women my entire life, and then to be with the woman that I loved, and to not be able to ...”
“Yeah, that’s another feather in your cap. Watching you squirm with those beauties draped all over you. Absolutely priceless. Right up there with watching the masses pummel you with your own arms and legs as your heart beat its last beat.”
“Why did they do that?”
“They hated you.”
“Me? Really? Why? I always did my best to have their backs. To keep the tax burden as low as possible. To keep the number of people forced to build the wall and mausoleum to as few as possible.”
“And do you think you accomplished any of that?”
“Well … I don’t know … I tried.”
“Well even if you had been able to reduce their burden, they wouldn’t have known to give any credit to you. To them, you symbolized the wealth and power of the Forbidden City.”
“Really?! Despite being literally impotent, I symbolized power?”
“Yeah. Pretty rich, huh? … Oh, that and monstrosity. You symbolized power, wealth, and monstrosity. Surely, you knew that they thought of you man-girls as freaks of outlandish proportion.”
Rowen thought back on the events that led to the end of his life and could only shake his head.
“So how do you think you did?” Delemor asked. “Keep in mind that the people’s judgment has no bearing whatsoever here. Most often, it’s quite the contrary.”
“Well … I think I was a good and loyal friend and advisor to Frank. ”
“Fair enough. If that means something to you, anyway.”
“And I think I was a loyal and loving companion to Xera.”
“Loyal?” Delemor said, raising a reptilian eyebrow.
“You know what I mean. I feel like I was there for her. Through no fault of her own – through fate, really – she was forced into that deplorable situation. She was abandoned. Isolated. Anyone would lose it. And I’m just really glad that I was able to be there to comfort her. To make her feel loved. And to make her feel needed.”
