Chapter 22 Wet Market
WET MARKET
My whole body was still aching by the time they marched me to the main hall for my trial. There was already an examination table set up by the dais. Two Azalea guards shoved a cloth in my mouth before pushing me onto the cold wood.
The room was already crowded with spectators, almost as many as there had been on Selection Day.
I could read their banners now, peeking out from between the pillars.
There was a literomancer named Bi Xuan and a city official from Dusu.
There were merchants of the Nian Clan, in glimmering silver, and sailors of the Qi Clan swathed in blue ribbons.
The prince’s half brothers were all present, scattered throughout the room with their allies. 路/Lu. 果/Guo. 風/Feng.
The emperor was absent. Empress Sun stood on the dais with her son Ruyi in her arms, but the throne of blades and flowers sat empty.
Terren was standing alone by a shadowed wall. His expression was unreadable.
“On behalf of my husband the emperor,” declared the empress, “I call upon Imperial Doctor Wu.” A man in flowing black robes stepped forward from the crowd.
He was not the same doctor who had taught us about pressure points earlier.
“He will determine whether Lady Yin—chosen wife of Prince Guan Terren, the Winter Dragon—has committed treason of the highest degree: falsifying the childmaking act.”
Hundreds of eyes fell on me then. Some of the men wore malevolent smiles, as if hoping I would be found guilty.
Perhaps if I were not so afraid and in pain, I might have realized it was because they wanted Terren deposed, but lying splayed there for everyone to stare at, with my heart pounding in my ears, I could only interpret those smiles as them wishing me dead.
The guards strapped me to the table, and it took all the self-control I had not to thrash and fight back. I squeezed my eyes shut. I tried not to be aware of the rough way they tore off my clothes. Of the feel of their hands on my body, the coldness of their instruments prying me open.
In Guishan I had seen a pig once. A whole pig. It had lain on the table at the wet market, crammed between the sugar cane vendor and stacked cages of live chickens, on display for whoever chanced to pass by. Flies as big as mulberries buzzed in the air, vying for places to land on its pink flesh.
Every so often, a customer would stop at the table and haggle with the butcher behind it. After some arguing back and forth, the butcher would saw off a piece of it, wrap it in brown paper, and exchange it for a bundle of old coins.
“She is bleeding,” the doctor said. “There are many recent tears and ruptures, and damage to her internals. When was the last time she visited the prince?”
I was six or seven then, and had never seen an animal so big.
I had no idea there could even be so many pieces inside it, twisting and bulging and reeking.
I tried to touch the pig—to wake it and ask it what it was doing, sleeping in the market with so many people around—but before I could, the man behind the table yelled at me and slapped my hand away.
“Just last night, Doctor Wu.” Hesin’s voice, far away. “I was the one who let her in. I swear it by the Ancestors.”
“It must have been a rough night,” the doctor said matter-of-factly. “And there is a cut on her throat.”
Several of the men in the audience snorted. “It makes sense that the prince would enjoy those kinds of games,” someone near the front whispered, “given what his magic is.”
The empress and the doctor were the only ones who did not laugh.
The doctor continued his examination, scraping me in a way that should have hurt even worse than the bamboo stick.
I should have felt the pain, except I was pretending I was not in the Azalea House.
I was pretending that I was back in Guishan that windy afternoon, by the pig, being yelled at by the butcher.
The yelling had gone on for so long that all the customers around us had stopped their business to stare.
By the time Ba finally came to fetch me, I was already in tears.
When the butcher saw Ba, he stopped yelling at me and started yelling at him instead. You should have raised your daughter better. You should have taught her respect. How can you let a girl run wanton like this, without anyone to keep her in line?
I felt awful for getting Ba in trouble, but he hardly seemed bothered at all. He only put a gentle hand on my shoulder as he led me away. Don’t worry, he said. Let’s go home.
Someone far away said, “Lady Yin passes the test. We have determined her to be dutiful.”
Later, my scribe barged into my basin-room while I was still washing myself. “I told you,” he said venomously. “I told you.”
I threw my hands over my breasts and sank further into the bathwater. I was too tired and too hurt to argue with him.
“I told you it was a mistake not to punish Jin Veris. Because you did not, the other concubines have grown bold. Because you did not, your enemies have learned they can hurt you without consequence. And now look, they try even baser tactics in an attempt to kill you. You have only yourself to blame. You and nobody else…” He went on and on.
If I had punished Jin Veris, I would have never known about the rumors in the first place. But Ciyi could not know that.
I let him yell at me, pretending Ba had one strong hand on my shoulder. Don’t worry. Let’s go home. After Ciyi left, I kept washing myself. I kept scrubbing and scrubbing at any place the doctor touched me, but it wasn’t working, I still felt dirty.