My child, your mother is now the lifelong house slave of the Emperor of Great Zhou.
Sixteen years ago the emperor had an imperial decree that decided the fate of mom for the rest of her life.
After all these years, he had never forgotten his hatred, and had devised a number of very complicated and well-thought-out and horrible methods to torment a fallen woman who had been deposed from her throne.
You already know, of course, that mom was king of Naland sixteen years ago.
It’s a very distant, warm, year-round-flowering country. It is perhaps three thousand miles from here all the way south. It would probably take six months on foot without horseback or boat, and Mama has traveled more than that on bare feet and all over her body, with these chains on her.
In all these years mom has almost traveled all over the land of Great Zhou, using her naked body to show his people the greatness of his civil and military achievements, according to the emperor’s wishes.
Mom wasn’t a weak and incompetent person, but Great Zhou was too powerful, even though it had been a state for three hundred years, the nobles had all turned into fops, and its emperors had been born in palace intrigues and died in codified killings from generation to generation, and the furthest place they had ever traveled from the palace in their lives was nothing more than the royal hunting grounds. But the small southern state of Nalan, with only a few hundred thousand people, still can’t stand up to the Great Zhou.
Between the rebellious Shankoba and the huge Great Zhou, Nalan had never been able to do more than carefully commiserate.
Seventeen years ago, the Emperor of the Great Zhou may have simply listened to the encouragement of his courtier-servants that Nalan was a vassal of Ba. They had never succeeded in conquering Ba and needed a morale boost from a victory as easy as Nalan’s.
Your mother was eighteen that year, and mom accepted your grandfather’s abdication at the age of fifteen, becoming the twenty-first king of Nalan.
In contrast to the ritually constrained Great Zhou, Nalan in the south is a land that can be passed down to both princes and princesses.
Mom was a princess for fourteen years, a king for four years, and a slave for sixteen years.
Mom wasn’t afraid to die, but she was willing to surrender after the Great Zhou’s army entered Nalan’s borders, it was the only way to save my people.
But Great Zhou is too arrogant, they started to burn and loot without limit from the first town they occupied in Naland, and we could only resist.
Thanks to Mama’s intelligence and tenacity, Nat Tun’s army lasted longer than Mama expected.
In that battle at Green Grass Valley on Mount Qubi, Mama had only two thousand warriors with her, and a third of them were Mama’s female guards.
Mom led them in blocking both ends of the valley with boulder logs and setting fire to the 30,000 armored soldiers of the Great Zhou, that also included the sixth prince of the Emperor of the Great Zhou, who had been appointed by his father to be the grand marshal of the crusade against Nalan, just intending to add a little bit of experience in actual conquest.
This only added to the anger of the Emperor of the Great Zhou, whose next army amounted to 100,000 men.
Mother sent your elderly grandparents and young uncles and aunts to the territory of Ba, and herself retreated to the city of Yuling, Kyoto, with only a thousand warriors left, and the people of Yuling, who had no way to escape.
Overnight, the outside of Yuling City was densely surrounded by the tents of the Great Zhou Army.
I sent my ministers out of the city to beg for peace, not that I had hoped it would come to anything. But the new commander of the Great Zhou army, General Luo Wenjun, who had won great fame in the wars on the northern border of the Great Zhou, bravely followed my envoys into Yuling.
I met with General Luo Wenjun in my plain study. Surprisingly, General Loc, though a legendary warrior, was a small, urbane man. He did not wear a sword, and in the hot southern climate, his tight brocade robe oozed a little sweat.
Compared to him, Mom, who was eighteen at the time, was just a long white silk dress that hung down to her ankles, with her long hair coiled up on top of her head.
He was an envoy of the Great Zhou and a general about to win a victory, and the young mother did not ask him to kneel to advance.
“Your Majesty,” he said, “Great Zhou will accept Natun’s plea for peace. But the hatred of a bereaved son is terrible.”
Mom reclined on the soft couch in the corner of the room, silently staring at the sprigs of Burmese laurel in the large vase on the bar.
“The emperor of my subjects desires to bloodily wash the Yuengling for vengeance, but he desires you even more, with your body, your majesty.”
“Therefore the conditions of Great Zhou are: open the city tomorrow and surrender, you and your officials, nobles, and warriors in the army will be prisoners at the disposal of Great Zhou, but we will forgive ordinary citizens.”
“If the gates are not opened, or, if His Majesty heroically kills himself, and if His Majesty does not stand in front of that tent of the commander-in-chief of the army of the Great Zhou by the hour of noon on the morrow, there will not be a single man left alive in Yuling.”
After saying this he stopped talking and we sat in silence for a long time in each other.
Mom lifted her face and smiled weakly, “What can we do to be sure that Big Week will fulfill its promise of not harming the citizens?”
“There is nothing you can do about it, Your Majesty, but Locke Manjun will do his best.”
My eighteen-year-old mother, still in her white dress, unarmed, but with her hair loose, sat in the middle of the carriage next to my personal maid, twenty-year-old Ring.
She wore my Lanrui sword and her red clothes were like fire. From the outside no one could tell that she was actually a valiant warrior. The brutal war taught the young girl to kill, and everything changed.
The gates of the city of Yuling opened in front of our horses, and we were greeted by the strict and neatly formed cavalry of the Great Zhou army.
The flags of the Great Zhou fluttered, the tips of their spears gleamed in the sun, and at the head of the entire army stood the armored, expressionless general Luo Wenjun, who would be the first to enter the surrendered, but hostile, city on his chestnut-colored horse. Mom and Xiao Huan galloped through the middle of his army, their faces unchanged.
We stopped a hundred feet away from the huge, ornately decorated tent of the Great Zhou’s central army, and the guards, as stolid and motionless as terracotta figurines, stood in two rows stretching forward from us, their halberds standing straight in their hands.
Mom already knew by then that the one who would accept Queen Nalan’s surrender would be Zheng Xi, the eunuch favored by the Emperor of the Great Zhou, who was burdened with the responsibility of overseeing the army on behalf of the Emperor in the expedition.
Mom walked smoothly and calmly forward towards the end of the Naran Kingdom, a hundred feet away. Xiao Huan even sheathed her sword and removed Mama’s sword, holding it up to her chest with her flat hands as Auntie Xiao Huan followed closely behind her young mother, step by step.
Gradually we got a clearer look at the fine-browed, white-faced, beardless man seated on the big chair with gold and jade under the door of the tent.
Mom and Auntie Xiao Huan finally fell to their knees where the two halberds were crossed and blocked, bent down and touched their foreheads to the ground: “Supervisor Zheng, I, Anada, the king of Nalan, surrender to the Emperor of Great Zhou the sword with which she orders her military ministers. I ask the Emperor to punish the unforgivable Ananda, the twenty-first king of Nalan, by his will.”
“But forgive the people of Naran!”
He raised a finger, and the purple-clad squire took the sword in Auntie Ring’s hand.
“Is it Xiao Huan? Is the girl in the red shirt Xiao Huan? Is that girl holding up the Lanrui sword in her soft white fingers Xiao Huan?”
The fire-like Xiao Huan Ying Ying bowed again: “Slave girl is Xing Xiao Huan of Nalan.”
“Xing Xiaohuan, stand up and take off those red shoes, the ones embroidered with silver silk laurel branches.”
“Oh, is it these white feet that are as light and thin as morning mist? Is it these two clusters of foot tips that are as shy as green lotus seeds containing water when they kicked a white wolf out of its pack off a cliff while serving the king on his hunting patrol at Tiger and Leopard Ridge?”
“Yes, Supervisor Zheng, the slave girl can kick a leopard to death.”
“You can’t later, I’m going to cut her off today. Ring, take off your dress shirt.”
Ringlet’s hands traced the side of her high breasts, undoing, one by one, the coiled buttons on the sloping lapel.
Her waist twisted as lightly as if she had drawn up a bow, as if she had wielded a sword, and the tumbling red clouds circled upward toward her green and loose head, from which she swung her bodice and skirts, and let them spill out into the wild chrysanthemum bushes three feet away.
“Have such magnolia petal-like arms ever killed a man? The moment you raised your hand over the top I saw pale golden pilums glistening in your armpits, have they ever leaked human blood?”
“When I was sixteen years old, I killed the Marquis of Nalan, Musang Tso, who had actually injected into the pineapple nectar fruit that he paid tribute to the newly crowned King of Nalan, the poisonous juice of oleander leaves that had been soaked for seventy-seven and forty-nine days; and when I was eighteen years old, I killed the brother and sister of the Pan Eagle and Pan Magpie of the Hailong Walled City, who occupied Shuji Ling, claiming that they had acted for the sake of Heaven, but had only robbed the people. The slave girl followed the queen’s order to kill them.”
The little ring straightened her long body, bare her shoulders and arms, her waist and belly, her bamboo-like legs, and frosty feet. Under her armpits was a tightly fitted bustier, and below her navel was a pure white, short undershirt that slightly hid the base of her legs.
She raised her voice, and her cadence was like glittering gold rings clashing with each other: “Since the Great Zhou marched into Nalan, the slave girl has killed 18 named lieutenants. As for the nameless pawns, it’s hard to count them.”
“Oh…” Eunuch Zheng Xi sighed long and hard, his eyes crossing over Xiao Huan’s head to the diaphanous mountains behind us.
“You will remember this number for many years to come.” He finally spoke, “For from your silky wrists, your right arm will be sawed off in small, very short segments, the ninth course on your narrow, beautiful shoulder. The same with your left arm. You will always remember the pain of cracking flesh and breaking bones eighteen times, and you will not be able to draw your bow and swing your sword again.”
“Undo that last reddish covering over your breasts, the pattern of gold threads on them, the two-headed phoenix? Bare the breasts of the maiden you have never nursed. After today, men and women who stand beside you will see hovering over your breasts two vipers, the tattoos I have chosen for you. Whether it is summer or winter, whether you are on your knees or on your back – and I am afraid those are the only two positions you will be permitted to assume in the future – everyone will see the snakes, and your naked breasts, for from this day forward there will never again be a single strand of brocade or piece of cloth covering your jade-soft, creamy-white skin.”
“Now take the ribbon of your blasphemy at your waist, and draw back the knot of her lovesickness, and let her fall like the broken wing of a butterfly–oh, tender girl, I smell the early blossoms of early spring, and the scent of the dew–the untrodden lawn streams of the virgin earth. It was the same scent when I accompanied the Prince of the Great Zhou as he rode his horse into the Green Grass Valley, the deep, curving, unending entrance to Mount Qubi–and then there were the fires, and the thick, heavy logs, which blazed the velvety blades of grass on the hillside, and cut off the streams. Do you remember Grass Valley after that tragic battle? The way she charred and crumbled, the way she spilled blood and flesh?”
“Little Ring, little ring of the brave girl of Natun, behind the tent of our army have been sharpened knives, axes, forks, and hacksaws sharper than the tusks of wolves and leopards. The oil prepared to cleanse your bloodstained limbs has also boiled and billowed smoke, and filling the wounds with boiling oil will keep you from dying easily from bloodshed.”
“First, of course, will be those veterans of the Great Week who have survived the Valley of Green Grass–who have sworn to walk through your valley. Now, little ring of naked girls, come forward and toward my side, and I will take you by the hand and lead you among them–“
“So, Mama Anada, is Auntie Ring dead?”
Mom doesn’t know it now, but she didn’t die that day.
They even took mom to see her many years later, and I think how she would have liked to have died that first day!
Anada, the slave girl, who had fallen silent, wrapped herself in the whole of the uncut white brocade that had been draped from her shoulders, and the shadows of the firelight leapt across the face of the teenager beside her.
“Go on, child, mama has a long, long story to tell. Perhaps, on the seventh day of the next month, mama will have another chance to see you–listen to Uncle Wenjun and read very hard.”
“General Wenjun,” looking at the back of the young man who kowtowed, got up, and wordlessly exited the warm pavilion, the slave girl, Anada, said to the general who had been sitting silently in plain clothes in the dark shadows, “The slave must also take his leave.”
She rose from the edge of the bed and let the body of white silk slide down over her breasts, which blossomed crimsonly all over her breasts and breasts in dots of five-petaled, plum-like branding, while the whole of her naked back from shoulder to hip was a dense interweaving of leathery whip wounds, the blood not yet congealed.
Naked again, she went to the door and lifted the cotton curtain that kept out the wind and snow, and the heavy shackles clanked on the ground.
The ground rattles.
The snow had stopped, and under the clear, cold stars, the cold currents, like the silky fingers of a dancing whore, seeped curvingly through the lapels of the general’s leather robe, groping his whole body like sharp, stabbing needles.
There was a foot of snow in the silent courtyard, and the woman crossed her bare arms over her own breasts, her bare feet stomping on the snow in clear toe and palm prints, and smeared by the chains that had followed up after her.
Ahead of them lay the dark shadow of a tall, solid gate, and the stable steward and two herdsmen slaves still waited in the lighted gatehouse. They had been waiting there, ready to cross the entire town creek dam in a blizzard and lead the slave girl, Anada, back to the ranch where she was serving her sentence.
First day of the month, seventh day of the month.
To the east, west, south, and north of the small town of Xiaoheba was an endless frozen wasteland, where the Great Zhou’s heavily armored corps, the Tiger Driving Army, was permanently stationed to guard the dynasty’s northern border.
On the long northern border of the Great Zhou, those colorful people with high noses and deep eyes could travel a hundred miles a day on their horses, looting property and people and then fleeing away as fast as they could.
In the long history, the various nomadic tribes that have been fighting each other for a long time would suddenly form an alliance, and under the command of a certain primus inter pares leader, they swung their spears to the south and drank their horses from the Yellow River, causing half of the rivers and mountains of the Central Plains to fall into a blaze of blood.
Thanks to the stationing of the commanding general of the Tiger Driving Army, the northern town of Little River Dam showed a little bit of the festivities of the New Year’s Eve, even under the snow and ice. Lanterns hung from large log houses, and a heavy nylon-covered sedan occasionally clattered by on the black dirt road cleared of snow, its hooves stomping.
The ladies of the senior officers’ entourage huddled among them with their arms around their warmers and gazed out, and Anada, the slave girl, who showed a little bit of the tip of her nose through a gap in the curtains and walked slowly down the road with her head bowed, did not attract their particular attention.
Even in the knife-piercing north wind, Anada was still naked as usual, not a stitch of clothing on her naked body. She was dragging the heavy iron shackles tied around her wrists and ankles, and her bare feet, which had been frozen blue and purple, were stepping in the snow that was deeper than her insteps. Behind the slave girl was the steward who carried the horse whip, and two herd slaves tightly wrapped in coarse cotton coats, who held up lanterns with the two black words “Imperial Horse” written on them.
Passersby, cowering in their woolen cloaks or cotton coats, scanned the naked Anada indifferently, then hurried past her.
As a shepherd slave of the Northern Imperial Horse Ranch of the Great Zhou, Anada had lived naked and shackled on the horse ranch outside the creek dam for many years and, by the will of the Great Zhou Emperor, was required to do so for the rest of her life. The permitted exception was when the river froze over on those days each winter when she was allowed to drape herself in a blanket. And, of course, never shoes.
There could be no felting even on this day, and for two days out of every month Anada had to be completely naked, even if that was in the middle of a January ice field with goose feather-like snow dancing all over the place.
Sixteen years ago, on the seventh day of the month, the prince of the Great Zhou died in the Valley of Green Grass in the Nalanqubi Mountains; and for sixteen years since then, the slave girl, Anada, has been subjected to the 108 whippings and 36 brandings on the seventh day of the month, an everlasting reminder to the Emperor of the Great Zhou of his sixth son.
She had just received these under the supervision of General Luo Wenjun, the commander of the garrison, and Eunuch Gao, the supervisor of the army.
That other day was the day when the capital city of Yuling was opened for the Great Week, the twenty-fifth day of every month, and on that day it was Anada’s duty to soothe the Emperor’s pegasus and hounds with her naked body in public in front of the assembled men and women of the whole city.