Jinshi
had a headache.
"What if something were to happen to His Majesty?"
The officials were asking what sounded like a question but was really a probe.
What answer they were looking for depended on where they stood.
Those who wanted Jinshi named crown prince, those who didn't, and those who couldn't yet tell which camp to join.
Lunchtime arrived, and at last things quieted down.
"Do something about it!"
"I can't do anything about it."
From behind the folding screen came a voice of refusal. As always,
Ma Liang
was doing his work while avoiding people's eyes. Among the officials who came and went, none of them expected Ma Liang to be behind the screen. Thanks to that, he alone could sit and quietly finish his paperwork regardless of who showed up.
"I'd like to hide myself too."
Wearing the same exasperated expression as Jinshi was
Ma Shan.
Serving as both adjutant and bodyguard to Jinshi, he was not gifted at playing political games. But Jinshi thought that as long as Ma Shan refrained from punching people, that was good enough. The mere fact that Ma Shan was glaring went a long way toward discouraging nosy officials from prying further. Conversely, it meant Jinshi himself was seen as easy to push around.
Perhaps it was because he had spent years pretending to be a eunuch. Or perhaps he simply needed to look more intimidating.
"I may need to find someone else too."
Jinshi traced the scar on his right cheek with a finger.
"You're not scheming anything unpleasant, are you?"
Jinshi flinched and looked at the speaker. It was
Amei,
who had been preparing the midday meal. Today, all three of the Ma siblings were present.
Amei set a simple, easy-to-eat meal on the table. In the past, Jinshi had sometimes skipped lunch altogether, but there was no winning against this big-sisterly handmaiden. No matter how busy he was, she would force him to eat.
Jinshi
was eating a flower roll stuffed with braised pork.
It was hardly refined dining, but with only his foster brothers present, no one was going to hold it against him. More than anything, the fact that Amei had told him to at least keep mealtimes relaxed made a big difference. His two younger brothers never dared defy their older sister.
"Would you mind listening while we eat?"
"..."
Jinshi nodded silently. Amei was a woman. Being a woman meant there were certain tasks only she could be asked to handle.
"Of the four currently vacant seats for secondary consorts, two appear likely to be filled."
Ma Liang and Ma Shan, being men, had difficulty confirming the inner workings of the rear palace.
Jinshi had, at the very least, managed the rear palace at one point. Over two years had passed since he stepped down from that role, yet he still knew its inner workings better than most low-ranking officials.
"As Lord Moon suggested, we plan to place daughters of the Empress Dowager's faction and the Empress's faction into the seats of Noble Consort and Virtuous Consort, respectively."
Jinshi reviewed the documents handed to him and furrowed his brow, because names he hadn't anticipated were listed.
"Naturally, working with two-year-old records, there are bound to be gaps in the candidate selection. Which one concerns you?"
Jinshi washed down the flower roll in his mouth with tea. Amei promptly offered a hand towel, so he wiped his hands before picking up the documents.
"So it's the one from the Empress Dowager's faction. Age seventeen, entered the palace last year."
The Empress Dowager's brother—
Hao—
was listed as this person's great-uncle. The Empress Dowager herself was also this person's great-aunt.
"Hao was supposed to have only one older sister and one younger sister."
"Yes. She is the granddaughter of the Empress Dowager's older sister."
"The Empress Dowager's older sister..."
Jinshi recalled the family tree in his head. If he remembered correctly, the Empress Dowager,
Lady An's
older sister had originally entered the palace as a mid-ranking consort. However, the one who actually became the late Emperor's personal consort was An, who had been serving as her attendant at the time.
The deeply sinful nature of the late Emperor's choice of consort brought to mind the rebellion connected to a former consort's clan.
If there was a difference, it was that once Lady An's pregnancy was discovered, her family immediately had her older sister removed from the rear palace.
"No, no, no—"
"This is no time for 'no, no.' There's no better candidate than her."
"That's absurdly inauspicious."
"Yes. That's precisely why I won't make her Virtuous Consort—I'll make her Noble Consort instead."
Mame wore an expression reminiscent of a bird of prey. The previous Virtuous Consort had been—
Rouran.
—a daughter of Rifa's clan who had also been one of the rebellion's leaders.
"Was there really no one else suitable?"
"Lord
Gou
had no direct-line relatives who could enter the inner palace. There were some distant relatives who had entered, but above all, it seems his older sister was brimming with the determination to redeem herself."
"Oh my."
Jinshi wasn't the only one—Baryou and Basen both let out exasperated voices as well.
For the Emperor, that consort was the daughter of his cousin. To prevent illness from inbreeding, unless there were no other candidates, they tried to choose consorts from as distant a bloodline as possible. The reason why, among the Four Wives, the Emperor's relative
Rifa
had been made Worthy Consort was for this same reason. Though all four held equal rank as Senior Consorts, the Worthy Consort was the lowest in precedence.
Even Gou himself would never have imagined this was the reason behind the selection.
"She was apparently so persistent that His Majesty shared her bed just once."
"......"
Jinshi narrowed his eyes as he took a bite of his sushi roll.
Having handled that sort of thing himself during his days as a eunuch, Jinshi felt a peculiar sense of awkwardness. Basen wasn't well-versed in the affairs of the rear palace, but he seemed to sense the discomfort, looking down with a slightly sheepish expression.
Which faction's consort the Emperor slept with, and how many times—it was a world where the balance of power could shift dramatically based on such things.
"Around the same time, a girl from the Empress's faction entered the inner palace and was appointed as a Mid-Rank Consort."
Jinshi already knew what Mame was going to say next.
He had already been keeping this matter of the selection in mind.
Gyokuei
Her foster daughter had ended up becoming a lady-in-waiting for Consort Gyokuyou, so it would give a poor impression if she didn't send some blood relative into the palace. Therefore, she selected someone from among the children of Gyokuei's other siblings to enter the inner court.
Daikai
She had her eye on the daughter of Gyokuen's third son as a suitable candidate.
The girl had no say in the matter. He believed that one couldn't conduct politics by worrying about a girl's feelings, yet at the same time he knew he was doing something cruel.
At times, Jinshi painfully realized that he was a terrible coward.
"That girl's room has also been visited by His Majesty."
The Emperor was truly an inscrutable person, Jinshi thought. He had been considering what his poor health might bring about in the future. So the Emperor had probably been thinking about how to bring things to a close where, even if it wasn't smooth, some sort of resolution could be reached.
"Lady Tsukino was also anticipating that, wasn't she? Which is why she pushed for the selection of a senior consort?"
Jinshi swallowed the food in his mouth with a gulp once more.
"Yes. But I just thought the thorough seed-planting showed she wasn't one to miss a thing."
The seed-planting had two meanings.
A mid-ranking consort whom the Emperor frequented would be promoted to senior consort. Those outside the rear palace would likely suspect the consort was with child.
He wasn't sure about the Empress's faction, but Gou, who headed the Empress Dowager's faction, was a relatively easy man to handle. If he jumped to conclusions and suspected a pregnancy, that would be fine. Once more pieces joined their side, their thinking would shift.
"You don't know whether a boy or a girl will be born."
"There are people in this world who believe the sex of a child is determined by the condition of the mother's womb. Furthermore, Lord Gou apparently once remarked at a drinking gathering that the reason all his children and grandchildren were born male was because the pregnant women had eaten nothing but sour foods."
"Is that actually true?"
That said, if it changed their thinking, all the better.
"It won't necessarily go well, but..."
Jinshi thought it was far better than doing nothing.
As for the Emperor's illness, there was nothing Jinshi could do. All he could do was prepare the environment so that treatment could proceed more smoothly.