The Wedding (8)
The sudden three cheers of "Long live!" that erupted from the street told me exactly why the civil and military officials had whipped up this atmosphere. The plan, evidently, was for every citizen who had come out to the roadside to end up praising this procession as though it were the most natural thing in the world. Whether the cheering had truly sprung from the people themselves or from agitators someone had planted in the crowd, I couldn't say. But the people of Luoyang were shouting themselves hoarse right now—wasn't that what mattered?
"Hm. So they do have some sense after all."
Pleased by how quickly the mood had turned, the Empress nodded.
"Had this ceremony taken some strange turn, We would not have sat idly by..."
"..."
"But this much, We can let pass."
Those were some distinctly murderous words. Then again, who wouldn't sour if the one wedding of their lifetime got ruined by the people around them?
"Your Majesty."
"Hm? What is it?"
The Empress answered my call in a placid voice.
"Crossing your legs like that is bad for your health."
I finally put into words the thing that had been nagging at me for a while now.
"...?"
At my abrupt remark, the Empress blinked.
"I have been watching for some time, and it seems that posture has become a habit. Your Majesty's precious body must be tended by Your Majesty's own hands."
I let out a sigh. The Eastern Han imperial bloodline was infamous enough for dying young as it was—why invite further trouble?
Sitting with your legs crossed twists the pelvis; a twisted pelvis leaves your legs uneven in length; and uneven legs ruin the way you walk. In the words of the Divine Physician Hua Tuo, she would no doubt diagnose it as the body's equilibrium collapsing outright.
"...Is that so."
"It is."
I answered without a shred of hesitation, and the Empress murmured under her breath.
"So that was why you kept staring holes through Our legs..."
"Your Majesty?"
"It's nothing."
Like a woman quietly wounded by an oblivious lover, the Empress put on a faintly sulky look. Could it be that she had, in her own way, been trying to flaunt her charms at me? The bare legs that had kept catching my eye every time she crossed them certainly possessed a allure that seized the gaze.
...Still, she really shouldn't cross her legs every single time I'm sitting in front of her.That is genuinely bad for your health.
Having caught on to why she was sulking, I spoke in my usual manner.
"Please don't worry. Even without such poses, Your Majesty is beautiful in every moment."
"...Nnh."
At my hopelessly corny line, the Empress flushed red.
"I-Is that truly so?"
"It is."
"...Specifically, which part is beautiful?"
Huh? We're going there with that question? Which meant now was the moment to deploy the technique Cao Cao had drilled into me.
"My own talent for description is meager, so I cannot offer verses worthy of Your Majesty's admiration... but this much, I can say with full confidence."
"..."
"There is not a single flaw in Your Majesty's appearance."
Eyes, nose, lips, ears—not one part of the face people call one's features held anything less than lovely.
"......Hnn."
At my answers, the Empress let out a long, unreadable breath.
"My... We do begin to wonder whether We can hold out until nightfall."
"...Your Majesty?"
"Shh. Quiet, now."
When I raised my voice in alarm, the Empress lifted an index finger to her lips and smiled slyly.
"You would rather not consummate the marriage inside the palanquin, would you?"
"..."
"If that is your taste, by all means, keep talking."
Stunned by those words, I had no choice but to fall silent.
The Empress went on.
"The aftermath... can be thought about when it arrives, can it not?"
Some switch had seemingly been flipped; heated breaths escaped her, one after another. Feeling for all the world like a man with a starving beast breathing down his neck, I clamped my mouth shut and eased myself away.
Outside, the street still rang with the people's cheers.
After that, neither of us spoke. The Empress, having accepted my advice and sat up straight, simply went on watching me in silence, while I froze rigid in my seat like the traveler in Aesop's fable who played dead before the bear. It felt like walking on thin ice—in an entirely different sense than usual—and it was surely no trick of my imagination. One misstep there, and I might genuinely be devoured.
And if it came to that, how exactly would everyone around me look at me afterward? The mere imagining was terrifying.
"You have arrived, Your Maje—ty?"
The high official who had been waiting for us before the imperial palace voiced his puzzlement at the odd air between us.
The Empress replied in a voice giddy with good humor.
"Is something troubling you?"
"...Forgive the impertinent question, but might we ask why Your Majesty's dragon robe has come to be in such a state?"
"Ah, this?"
At the dignitary's question, the Empress held up the hem of her somewhat begrimed robe. The black dragon robe that had once appealed to my dark sensibilities had already lost a measure of its majesty to dust and grime.
The Empress smiled at the official.
"What do you think? It suits Us rather well, does it not?"
"...It does indeed, Your Majesty."
It was a question that conveniently omitted what, exactly, suited what—but the official, blessed with exceptional instincts, answered without missing a beat.
"Then there is no problem at all."
Thankfully, he seemed to have picked the correct answer; the Empress led me along in the same high spirits as before.
"..."
The venerable old official could only wear the look of a grandfather helplessly watching his tomboyish granddaughter at play.
Inside the palace, familiar faces were already standing at their posts. Lu Zhi, Zigan. Huangfu Song, Yizhen. Zhu Jun, Gongwei—the standard-bearers who had held up the crumbling Han imperial house until the very end of the Eastern Han. If there was one peculiarity among them, it was that Lu Zhi, who by the original history ought to have departed this world long ago, still drew breath.
True, he more often worked from his residence these days for reasons of health, but on appearance alone he remained hale and vigorous. Seeing him like this, I could guess just how greatly Dong Zhuo had wrung his heart in the original history. At an age when looking after his own body should have taken all his strength, he had whiled away the years in nothing but worry and grief—how could anyone live long like that?
"Hm? So you all came as well."
"On so auspicious a day, how could we possibly be absent?"
Scarcely had the Empress opened her mouth before the veteran generals, each bearing his own weathered countenance, broke into ear-to-ear grins. No matter how I looked at them, it was the picture of grandparents utterly smitten with their grandchild. Well, they had watched over the Empress since her earliest years, so perhaps it was only natural.
Lu Zhi, towering at a full eight chi and two cun—roughly 194 centimeters—came up to me and spoke.
"I beg of you—take good care of Her Majesty."
"I will."
Every time I looked at Lu Zhi, the stories I had heard from Liu Bei came flooding back—how, whenever his disciples strayed from the path, he had set them right personally, with that hand the size of a pot lid. Even Liu Bei, so composed nowadays, had apparently been quite the handful in her youth, and she would look back on him as a teacher strict to the point of mercilessness.
"Now that the General-in-Chief is at her side, there is no longer any cause for worry."
...To think that a grandfather wearing such a kindly face would turn into a demon the moment he took up teaching someone. Truly a marvel of nature.
"What are you dawdling for? Come along, now."
"Ah—yes."
Led along by the Empress, I planted myself in the center of the sumptuously decorated palace hall and stood there blankly, wondering what exactly I was supposed to do next.
"The preparations are complete. All that remains is to hold the wedding rites."
A figure stepped into view as she spoke.
"Xun Yu?"
When I turned to her with faintly startled eyes, she only smiled, calm as ever.
"Ordinarily, a union of this station would call for grand ceremonies such as the Jia Rites or the full Six Rites... However, as Your Majesty insisted most emphatically that no such pomp was necessary, we shall proceed with only the most essential rite."
Wait—seriously? With things unfolding exactly as Diaochan had foreseen, I could not hide my bewilderment. But regardless of my reaction, Xun Yu carried on.
"Kindly proceed into the bridal chamber."
"..."
The bridal chamber. The room where bride and groom spend their first night together. Hearing the word, my mind began to churn. Spelled out plainly, the current situation was this: the moment I entered the palace, I had been shunted into a room I could not leave without immediately going ahead and doing that.
I checked, one more time, that the sun still hung at its zenith, then turned my head back to Xun Yu.
"Your subject will take her leave, then."
Hardly had the words left me before Xun Yu, smile still in place, withdrew from the chamber.
"Is such aggressive initiative simply the fashion these days?"
"Spare us the idle quips. Out you go, at once."
Lu Zhi and the rest of the dignitaries likewise filed from the hall and vanished from sight.
"..."
Seo Yeo and Lü Bu were keeping watch just outside the room, which meant the only souls left within it now were the Empress and me.
"Hmhm... Perhaps We ought to bestow a reward."
Murmuring something I couldn't quite parse, the Empress turned to me with a smile.
"In any case—it is only the two of us now."
"...Your Majesty."
"Shall we do it here? Or in the bridal chamber?"
As she spoke those words and gazed at me, a single desire burned in the Empress's eyes.
...And where, exactly, did the concept of a wedding night go?Oughtn't we to be calling this the wedding-day-noon instead?
With events vaulting clean over every expectation I had, I could not gather my wits at all.