Chapter 21 The Warning Spear
The Eastern Consort watched for a long time before she smiled.
"Your Majesty, a woman is nothing but clothing. Since the Great King likes Yin Xiu, why not grant her to him?"
The Herchi King stayed silent.
He could not do without Yin Xiu, and Herchi could not do without Herdanba’s fighting strength.
I seized the moment, knelt, and wept.
"If Your Majesty does this, our Consort will not survive.
Ever since the Great King returned in anger, he has pestered her constantly.
She dared not tell you. He even threatened her with the custom that women and horses pass to the son when the father dies.
She could only endure..."
The moment I spoke the words “father dies, son inherits,” I saw the veins on the Herchi King’s forehead bulge.
Herdanba was not his true son.
The fact that the man could still run and jump yet already wanted his father’s young wife made any man furious.
The Herchi King snatched a guard’s halberd and thrust it at Herdanba.
The Eastern Consort said nothing more.
After all, the one Herdanba secretly wished dead was her own son.
No woman could remain generous at a time like this.
The halberd grazed Herdanba’s cheek.
The warning was clear, yet face was preserved.
I knew a harder battle would come that night.
I quickly dressed Yin Xiu in thin pink gauze.
She lifted her skirts and hurried after the Herchi King.
Although she offered plenty of service that night and kept her position and life, she still fell from favor.
The Eastern Consort seized the chance to show her power and sent me, the head maid, to the military camp to serve as a camp prostitute.
Only then did I realize how important I had become.
Even a Consort of the realm understood that without me, Yin Xiu could not keep the Herchi King trapped in her tent.
I carried a blood-written letter full of Yin Xiu’s tender feelings.
Herdanba naturally intervened.
Even though the troops belonged to the Eastern Consort’s family, the commander did not force me to serve the lowest soldiers.
It was then that my sister, who had been taken away, finally appeared.
She was now the wife of a wealthy Northern fur merchant.
If the army wanted to import furs, they needed to stay on good terms with her husband.
She strode into the camp carrying a chest of gold ingots.
The commander dared neither accept the bribe nor release me.
In the end I was assigned back to the kitchen to cook once more.
After circling so far, I had returned to my original work.
I turned over the poison my sister had slipped me before she left and quietly waited for news from Su Chengyu.
Herchi was already showing signs of falling into internal chaos.
Once war with our nation began, I would personally send them on their final journey.