Chapter 24 Twins and the Edict
Two infants cried. Sweat covered me. I leaned, exhausted, against the soft pillow.
The screen was drawn aside. Xiao Yan lay rigid on the floor.
White foam edged his mouth. His eyes rolled, and he stared at me as if he could not believe it.
"You want to know how you were poisoned when you never drank that wine, is that it?"
I walked up and crouched before him. His eyes were full of red veins. Blurred curses spilled from his mouth.
Lightly, I tapped his lips.
His face went gray-white fast. His fingers twisted into a strange shape, caught my robe, then slid off with no strength.
Word spread that grief and joy had hit the Forbidden City together.
I heard that on the day the Empress bore twins, The Emperor grew too excited, suffered a stroke, and fell.
Now he was paralyzed. He could not speak and could not move. Only his hand could still write.
Before the sickbed he wrote an edict, naming the Empress's son Crown Prince.
But the Crown Prince was young, so the Empress was to hold court in his place.
In the throne hall, the ministers watched me carry the Crown Prince in and attend court. They looked at one another.
I touched the arm of the dragon throne and listened to my father argue on and on with that pack of old hardheads.
Censor Yan shook until his beard trembled. He cursed me as a hen crowing at dawn, a monstrous woman on the throne, and said that unless he saw Your Majesty's face he would never believe that edict was real.
He wanted to see him. Then let him see.
Xiao Yan was wheeled out.
The ministers' eyes went wide. The Emperor who had been young and martial was truly a paralytic who could not move.
His head tilted, stiff. The moment he saw me, his hand would not stop shaking, and his mouth muttered, blurred and unclear.
I let tears run down my face. I wept and held his hand. "Your Majesty, write it. Whatever you want to say, write it."
Xiao Yan's mouth twitched. He glared at me hard.
A eunuch set paper and brush by his hand. His hand shook, and he wrote, trembling, "Kill the venomous woman."
The imperial brush was set before the ministers.
The old men craned their necks and looked. "Those who disobey shall be beheaded."
The small regular script was neat and graceful. It was Xiao Yan's hand.
The whole hall fell silent.
My father looked smug. He praised the sovereign as wise, counted out how virtuous I was, and said Xiao Yan had even issued an empire-wide amnesty for me.
The Emperor and Duke of Zhenguo both stood behind me in public. No one still spoke against it.
The ministers knelt one after another and cried long life to the Empress. Xiao Yan's face flushed red. He could barely draw breath.
He could only sit in the wheelchair and be pushed away.