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A Road of a Thousand Years. Part Three. Chapter Three
On the day it all began, the garden was particularly quiet. The air hung motionless, and even the birds seemed warier than usual.
Yeon-ju, walking along the alley, accidentally brushed against a branch of a flowering plum with her sleeve. The branch broke almost soundlessly, and several white petals fell onto her shoulder and into her hair. She stopped, looked at the broken shoot, but made no attempt to pick it up. The maids watching from afar exchanged glances: in their world, such signs did not go unnoticed.
“It is a bad omen,” whispered one of the senior maids, adjusting the folds of her dark robe.
“Last year, when the old concubine died, a branch broke too,” replied another, young, with a face that knew no wrinkles yet.
“Everything returns,” added a eunuch passing by, and his voice was almost inaudible.
That same evening, the Emperor felt a weakness. His face grew paler, his movements slower. Physicians came one after another, bringing boxes of powders and bundles of herbs. The chambers smelled of burnt incense and bitter infusions. The Emperor lay on a jade bed, covered with a quilt embroidered with blue dragons. His breathing became heavy, and his gaze unfocused.
The Empress sat at the head of the bed, her expression unchanged. She was dressed in a dark blue robe with golden threads, her hair arranged in an intricate coiffure adorned with silver pins. Servants moved about the hall almost soundlessly, lowering their heads and avoiding eye contact.
Twilight reigned in the palace corridors. Scrolls depicting mountains and cranes hung on the walls; porcelain vases with fading flowers stood in the corners. Eunuchs and maids whispered, trying not to catch the eyes of their seniors.
“The Emperor is ill,” they said, hiding their faces behind their sleeves.
“The Empress does not leave his side for a step.”
“And the concubine is not allowed in,” sighed a young maid. “She is like a shadow now.”
“Such is the order,” replied the senior eunuch. “Order is more important than feelings.”
Silence reigned in Yeon-ju’s chambers. Her maids whispered by the doors, occasionally casting anxious glances at their mistress. She sat by the window, in a white dress, looking at the garden where the broken plum branch lay on the ground. Her hands were folded on her lap, her movements slow and precise, like those of a zaju actor.
When the Emperor died, the palace plunged into an even deeper silence. Eunuchs and guards stood by the doors, motionless. The Empress gave a brief order without raising her voice. The maids dressed Yeon-ju in white, as custom dictates, and led her out of her chambers. She did not resist, did not cry; only once did her gaze linger on the garden, where plums no longer bloomed.
“The Empress ordered her to be buried with the Emperor,” whispers echoed in the shadows of the columns.
“It always happens so,” replied a eunuch indifferently. “There should be no heirs from other women.”
“And if it had been a boy?”
“All the more so if it were a boy.”
The procession moved slowly along the stone-paved paths, past ponds and pavilions. On that day, there was neither wind nor sun. Only the rustle of silk, only the dull thud of the palanquin against the slabs, only the indifferent faces of servants and eunuchs.
In the evening, when the gates of the tomb were closed, no one wept. Everything was carried out as order dictates. The following year, when new plums bloomed once again in the palace, no one remembered her name.