Blood and Ink Read online

  Cover

  Title Page

  Code Page

  Hystorian File

  Blood and Ink

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright

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  Hystorian File #0664039116

  The seventh century marked the beginning of a golden age for China. Under the rule of the Tang Dynasty, China became more powerful than ever. As China’s influence grew, so did respect for Chinese art and scholarship. Poetry and painting reached new heights of brilliance.

  But it was a time of great superstition, as well. In 664, rumors spread that the emperor of China had made a terrible mistake: He had married a witch. Empress Wu was said to be cruel, terrifying, and powerful. And she was about to cast her dark shadow upon a young girl and her entire family.

  SHANGGUAN WAN’ER was only a baby when her family was destroyed by Empress Wu.

  She didn’t remember the events of that fateful night, not really. But she had heard the tale so often that she almost felt that she did remember it, somewhere in the very darkest regions of her mind. She had been there, after all. She had witnessed everything.

  It began in the middle of the night with the sounds of her father and grandfather arguing.

  “You old fool,” her father said. “Now the whole family is in danger.”

  “What was I to do?” her grandfather replied. “He is the emperor! He asked for my counsel! You don’t refuse the emperor, my boy.”

  “What exactly did you say to him?” her father asked his own father.

  “I simply agreed with him. Everything he said, whatever he said, I agreed with him,” the old man assured the younger one.

  “But what did he say?”

  Maybe it was the volume of her father’s voice, or maybe it was the anger in it, but she began to cry then. The sound of it made the men stop fighting.

  “Go back to sleep, my little Swan,” the old man said to his baby granddaughter, placing the back of his hand to her forehead. “I shall keep you safe forever, my girl.”

  “I will rock her back to sleep,” Swan’s mother said. But she herself had little hope of getting any sleep that night as the men debated what to do.

  Empress Wu was the emperor’s second wife. His first had been cast out of the palace for witchcraft . . . an accusation that had come from Wu herself. Wu had claimed that the first empress’s spirit walked the halls at night and had strangled Wu’s infant daughter to death. It was rumored, though, that Wu had strangled her own daughter and framed the emperor’s wife for the evil deed, so desperate was she to become empress herself. There was no evidence as to who was really responsible, but the emperor had sided with Wu.

  It seemed to the people of China that if there was a witch in the palace, it was Wu herself. Wu was not pretty. In fact, people said she was ugly. And yet the emperor had believed her over his first wife, despite her pleas.

  Ever since Wu had become empress, people worried about the wicked woman’s influence over the emperor. Now it seemed that the emperor was finally beginning to fear her himself. He had recently become forgetful, and he would sometimes wake up outside of his room with no memory of how he got there. He suspected that his wife was using dark magic on him.

  “Emperor Gaozong plans to rid the palace of Empress Wu,” Swan’s grandfather said, but the news did not make her father happy. He put his head in his hands and cried.

  “I thought you would be pleased,” the old man said. “Empress Wu will finally be gone.”

  “And if she finds out you agreed to her banishment? If she really is a witch, I bet she’ll find out.”

  In the early morning hours, there was a pounding at the door. Swan’s mother answered and was pushed aside by guards. She ran to her daughter and cradled Swan in her arms as the guards ransacked their home. Then the guards forced them all into the back of a wagon filled with pigs and garbage.

  Swan’s mother held her close. In his own arms, her grandfather held a pile of scrolls, each tied with a purple ribbon.

  The four of them were taken straight to the emperor, but when they arrived, Empress Wu was beside him. She was fearsome. Her eyebrows sat high on her face, her cheekbones looked as sharp as blades, and her lips were wide and bloodred as she attempted to hide a grin.

  Empress Wu barely looked at Swan. She went straight to the girl’s grandfather, reaching for the bundle of scrolls in his arms. He reluctantly handed them to her.

  “Shangguan Yi, my husband admires your poetry as much as he respects your counsel,” Empress Wu said, putting the scrolls on a table behind her. “I, too, am an admirer of your poems. But I am not so impressed with the advice you gave him yesterday.”

  “I offered no advice,” the old man told the empress.

  “The emperor told me otherwise,” she said, circling the family with slow, heavy steps. “He claims this was your idea.” She took a scroll of paper from the sash at her waist. Not a poem like the others, but an edict declaring that the empress was to be banished.

  Suddenly, the empress bit the scroll and tore it violently with her mouth like a wild animal. It was a shockingly unladylike action — especially from a woman dressed in lavish silks and gold jewelry. Empress Wu spat a pulpy wad of paper to the floor and tore the remainder of the scroll apart in rough strips.

  The emperor looked ashamed. He wouldn’t make eye contact with Swan’s grandfather.

  “Kill them all!” the empress said to the guards.

  As they closed in upon the family, her grandfather cried out to the woman. “Wait,” he said. “The child!” He pointed to Swan. “Spare her, please, Your Majesty. She has done nothing wrong. Her talents have yet to reveal themselves, and they may prove to be great.” Empress Wu looked over the baby. “That is why I brought you my scrolls. Every poem I have ever written. I wish to trade them for my granddaughter’s life!”

  But the empress already had Shangguan’s scrolls in her possession. The old man had nothing more to offer.

  “Fine,” Empress Wu said, turning her back on the family. “The girl can live. And her mother shall be put to work.”

  Swan’s mother cried as her husband and his father were taken away. She collapsed to the ground, cradling the baby to her chest. She wasn’t sure how long she lay there. But when she looked up again, she and Swan were alone with the empress and a few guards. The woman stared at them for a long time before she spoke.

  “No more crying,” Empress Wu demanded. “Raise your girl here. Raise her to work hard. We’ll see what talents reveal themselves.”

  And that is how Swan came to grow up in China’s inner palace. Not as a princess, but as a slave.

  As soon as she was old enough to walk, Swan was put to work, alongside her mother and the other slave women. Swan was the youngest by far, and as she grew, so, too, did her duties.

  She brushed the tiled floors of Empress Wu’s dressing room and changed the sheets of the royal bed. She helped in the kitchen in the morning and in the halls all day. She longed for the sunlight, for she was always inside, polishing the walls or doorknobs or drawer handles instead of playing in the hills and bamboo groves as other children did.

 
Swan barely saw the empress herself. When she did, Empress Wu would scowl at her. “Talents? I haven’t seen any talent yet,” she would say. “I want excellence out of you, like I was promised!”

  The girl hated the empress in every way, and listened with a smile when the women she worked with gossiped about their mistress. They laughed at how ugly she was and wailed at tales of her cruelty and her dark magic.

  “The sun hid on the day she was born!” the eldest of the washerwomen said, her voice shaking. “I saw it go dark. We all did!”

  In her rare glimpses of the sun, Swan found it difficult to imagine anything could dim its magnificence.

  The women spoke of her grandfather, too. They remembered him as a kind and generous man of eloquent words. He had been a chancellor and a friend to the emperor, so he had spent time in the palace. He likely never imagined that the beautiful building would be his granddaughter’s home, and her prison.

  One day, Swan and two women were told to dust the scrolls in the crown prince’s library. Swan did as she was told, but her mind was not on her task. She was searching the shelves all around her as she worked. They all started to look the same. But Swan knew what to look for: ribbons the color of a plum flower. In her retellings of that awful day, Swan’s mother always included that detail.

  Swan finally found a set of scrolls, all tied with purple ribbons. She held her breath as she untied one, not wanting the women to see. She unrolled the scroll, and her heart filled as she saw the poem written there. She had found her grandfather’s scrolls!

  Her joy at the discovery was short-lived, for she soon realized that they were all but useless to her. She didn’t know how to read. And even if she could, she would have to leave them behind, locked away in the prince’s library. Nonetheless, she was happy they were safe.

  That night, when they were alone, Swan asked her mother if she would teach her how to read. Swan’s mother told her yes, but that they would have to conduct their lessons in secret. The woman took her daughter’s palm in her hand and traced a simple character on it with her finger. The girl didn’t yet know what the character meant, but she understood the need for secrecy. From that night on, Swan’s mother slowly taught her to read the only way she could, by spelling words out invisibly on the girl’s skin.

  She was a smart girl, as talented as her grandfather had believed she would be. Swan learned words quickly, and soon could write back to her mother at night, tracing out words on her mother’s own palm.

  Good night, she would spell with her small finger. And her mother would kiss her forehead. Swan began to dream of the day she’d again clean the library, and of stealing the scrolls back from the empress, hiding them under her simple dress.

  Awake, she knew she could never do such a thing, so she let herself enjoy the dreams in which she read her grandfather’s poetry. She believed that if she read his words she would grow to understand the man himself. And she liked the thought that her family might leave behind a legacy other than dusted shelves and polished floors.

  One day, Swan noticed the door to the prince’s library was open. As she passed, she looked inside and saw three slave women dusting the shelves. Swan had waited for so long for it to be time again to clean the library. It hadn’t occurred to her that others would be given the task. She realized now that it was possible she would never find herself inside the room again. She might never read the poems.

  Swan was sad and angry that day, scrubbing the hallway floor, when Empress Wu came down the hallway in a graceless rush. The klomp-klomp, klomp-klomp sound she made reminded Swan of a horse galloping. She had the prince with her, holding him by the arm as she rushed past Swan. This time, when Empress Wu scowled at her, Swan scowled back.

  “That’s not talent either,” the empress said to Swan.

  As soon as Empress Wu wasn’t looking, Swan stuck her tongue out at the mean old woman. The prince saw, though, and when he did, he smiled at Swan. She had seen the boy many times, but had never seen him smile. He looked handsome smiling, and Swan wondered if he would be emperor someday, and if that was what it would take for her to be rid of the empress and set free.

  After the door was closed behind Empress Wu and the prince, Swan heard the woman screaming, “How dare you defy me, Li Xian! Do you want me to tattoo the word criminal across your face, like the others?”

  Swan knew the word well. She had seen the men Empress Wu was talking about, with the character tattooed on their foreheads in thick black ink. It seemed cruel to Swan, to mark a man’s face with such a vicious word. Who could ever fully trust a person with that word staring back at you?

  That’s what would happen to her, if Swan were to steal her grandfather’s scrolls, and she knew it.

  From that day forward, Swan tried to forget about the library altogether. When she got dressed in the morning, she no longer let herself wonder what beautiful sights her grandfather described in his poems. Brushing her hair, she no longer wished to be assigned another day in the library. She thought about daylight instead, and hoped if she were mopping the floors it would at least be near the windows. She wished for the women she worked with to tell good stories about the lives they had before they were taken by the guards. And she read any words she came across. Addresses on letters, instructions, ingredients, names. If she had a secret desire, it would be to write words down in ink, instead of only in the dust with her finger before wiping them away with a rag.

  But Swan would find herself in the library again.

  It happened on an otherwise ordinary day. Swan was carrying bathwater out of the empress’s quarters, so focused on avoiding a spill that she nearly ran right into Emperor Gaozong himself.

  She looked up at him, startled, but the emperor regarded her kindly.

  “Shangguan,” he called her. “You are the girl who came here as a baby, are you not?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” Swan said to the emperor, lowering her eyes.

  “Seeing you reminds me of my old friend. It makes me want to read those poems of his,” he said, a smile on his face.

  “Oh, me, too!” Swan exclaimed, without thinking. The emperor seemed surprised by the outburst.

  “Have you read them?”

  “No, sir,” she admitted. “But I have always wanted to.”

  “Come with me, then,” he said.

  “But, sir —” she began.

  “If my wife gets angry, I’ll deal with her.”

  Swan had witnessed the emperor’s inability to confront the empress. His wife had a wicked control over him, and Swan knew she shouldn’t leave her task undone. She had to return with warm bathwater or she would be in trouble. Her curiosity won out, however. She set the pitcher on the floor and followed Emperor Gaozong to his son’s library.

  Swan’s eyes filled with tears as she finally stepped into the library again. She had to resist the urge to point out the scrolls. She didn’t want to reveal that she’d seen them before.

  Swan was thrilled when the emperor walked ahead, straight to them. He seemed to know exactly where they were.

  Emperor Gaozong untied the purple ribbon and opened the first of the scrolls. Swan stood just behind him, close enough to see her grandfather’s handwriting. The emperor started to read the first poem aloud to Swan, but she could easily read along on her own. She didn’t know if it would be wise to share that fact with him, so she thanked him and listened.

  Together, they read dozens of poems — poems that described cranes reflected in water, rainbow waterfalls, and tree blossoms in spring. They read poems that made Swan feel the warm sun on her skin.

  After a while, the emperor had to stop. His eyes were exhausted, he said, and Swan saw that they were red. She had been reading along, though, and her eyes weren’t tired at all.

  “I can read,” Swan admitted. “I will read for you if you would like me to.” Swan hoped that if she offered her services to
the emperor, he might not punish her for her secret.

  But he didn’t mind that she had learned how to read. In fact, it seemed to make him happy.

  “I’ll tell you what,” he said. He handed Swan the key to his son’s library. “I’ll get another key. This one is now yours. You have to promise to leave the scrolls in this room, and so long as you do you are welcome to come see them whenever you’d like.”

  “I promise!” the girl said, and she bowed as low as she could and thanked him in a solemn voice.

  “It’s the least I can do. The very least, after my failure to . . . well.” He blushed and then got very serious. “For now, I must insist you get back to your post. And let’s hope my wife hasn’t noticed you were missing.”

  When they returned, Empress Wu was waiting, and she scowled at both Swan and the emperor, though she didn’t say anything. She just raised an eyebrow as if suspicious, and then told Swan that she never wanted to catch her neglecting her chores again.

  That night, Swan hid the key in her room, intending to wait a few days before risking another visit to the library. But she tossed and turned in bed for hours, unable to sleep. Finally, she snuck out of her quarters, dressed as if for cleaning, and crept quietly to the library.

  She unlocked the door slowly, so as not to make a sound, and slipped into the library. It was dark, but not as dark as she was expecting — there was a candle burning dimly in the back of the room. Was there someone else in the library? Swan was suddenly afraid that this was all a trap, that Empress Wu was playing a cruel trick on her.

  Instead, she found the prince, reading by candlelight. When he saw her, he was startled.

  “I’m so sorry,” Swan explained. “I didn’t think anyone would be here.”

  “Of course they wouldn’t! This is my own private library!” the prince exclaimed. But Swan thought he seemed more embarrassed than angry.

  “Your father gave me a key,” she told him.