TVisTV Book 4: Chapter 28 (RAW) (Patreon)

*Written 1 Chinese period drama later * (for research purposes)

Chapter 28 - Shopping Around

“One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.”

- Oscar Wilde.

The Emperor raised one hand. It was a small gesture, almost languid, yet the entire court stilled. The rustle of sleeves ceased, the murmurs disappearing into the silence.

“Lady Seraphina de Sariens,” Emperor Hantien Erdian exclaimed from the Jade Dragon Throne, his voice carrying through the hall. “You have come a long way from Aranthia. The road, I am told, has been eventful.”

Seraphina remained bowed for the proper beat before rising to the correct height, eyes lowered, hands placed precisely as Lianor Vey had taught her. A gesture respectful enough that no man in the hall could accuse her of poor manners or lack of proper decorum. 

Besides and behind her, Desdemona mirrored her, a silent anchor of support.

“Your Imperial Majesty honors me with his concern,” she replied in careful, lilting Imperial. “The road was most educational.”

A faint ripple moved through the ministers, a hint of laughter

“So I hear,” the Emperor said. “My capital finds itself full of rumors from the old stories before you had even properly entered my court. You bring with you interesting times.”

“One tries to live life as interestingly as possible, Imperial Majesty.”

This time, there was a little more reaction. A few lowered eyes, a few careful coughs, and someone behind a court tablet failed to hide the smallest of sneers.

The Emperor’s own mouth curved. “I have also been informed of the purpose of your visit.”

The young girl kept her eyes lowered as the situation dictated she did.

“To speak plainly,” he continued, “you have come to use my Empire as a marriage market.”

The court reacted with weak laughter, the nervous sort of men unsure if that was proper. It fluttered briefly in the air before dying quickly.

Seraphina did not move, did not so much as twitch an eyelid in response. The Emperor Erdian was testing her.

“A market requires goods,” the Emperor went on, leaning slightly against one arm of the throne. So tell me, Lady Seraphina, what exactly are you selling?”

From a cruder man, the question would have seemed vulgar, but from the authority of the throne it sounded like a teacher giving a lesson in simple truths. The young girl could have sworn she heard her friend snigger.

Seraphina de Sariens allowed the silence to settle around her before she answered. “Gold does not shout that it is gold, Your Imperial Majesty. Silk does exclaim its own softness, nor does a flower explain its fragrance to those who pass near enough to breathe. Some things need not speak too loudly of their worth. Their value is apparent to the eye.”

For one heartbeat, there was nothing. Then the Emperor laughed, stroking his chin. The laugh itself was short, deep, and unexpectedly warm, though whether from amusement or appreciation Seraphina could not yet decide.

“You speak somehow with humility and pride,” he mused, clearly amused. “An interesting thing. Refreshing, too, after so many years of men so eager to be obedient that one suspects they would agree the moon was made of pork if I said it was.”

The laughter was stronger now, though still nervous at the edges. Ministers smiled as men did when their own lives depended upon understanding the whims of their ruler.

The Emperor turned his head slightly. “First Minister of the Right,” he barked.

The man addressed stood near the front of the ranks, an elderly official in dark green robes embroidered with silver cranes. His hat had stiff wings that extended from either side, and his court tablet was held so perfectly before him that it might have been part of him.

“Your Imperial Majesty,” the First Minister of the Right replied, bowing.

“What of marriage to the First Prince?”

The court stilled, a freezing of thought as well as motion, and from the corner of her lowered gaze, Seraphina saw Hantien Huan become very interested in a point somewhere to the left of his father’s throne. Studiously interested.

The First Minister of the Right swallowed. “Your Imperial Majesty,” he began, each word selected as if from a table of knives, “the First Prince is already promised. Furthermore, a match at such a level, with a foreign noblewoman of Lady Seraphina’s standing and… circumstances, would be complicated.”

“Complicated,” the Emperor repeated, and the word did not sound improved coming from his mouth.

“Yes, Your Imperial Majesty.”

The Emperor’s eyes narrowed slightly beneath the bead curtain of his crown. “A Kirin drew her carriage through Tianhua. The people exclaim the word auspicious until the word has lost nearly all meaning. Surely such a match would be auspicious enough to choke every astrologer in the capital.”

The First Minister bowed lower. “Undeniably, Your Imperial Majesty.”

“It would also give my heir legitimacy beyond doubt,” the Emperor continued, his tone still mild enough to be dangerous. “There are those who remember, with such touching devotion to genealogy, that Huan was born of a concubine and not Lady Mingyue. There are those who enjoy pretending this matters more than my will on the subject. Indeed, a marriage to this girl who can ride a Kirin might put such quarrels to rest. It might even decide once and for all the tedious little squabble between their factions.”

“Second Prince Hantien Liang has sworn his sword’s loyalty to the First Prince,” the First Minister said carefully. “I doubt, as do many within the court, that His Highness would ever seek the throne for himself.”

The Emperor sighed, and it was a weary sound, made heavier by disbelief. “First Minister,” he retorted, “you are too old to speak of human nature so hopefully.”

No one laughed that time, and Seraphina remained perfectly still, her expression fixed to careful neutrality.

How fascinating, she thought. So this was the true shape of the wound at the Empire’s heart.

In the game, the First Prince had the ability, but the Second Prince had the cleaner maternal line, and the court had spent years pretending this did not matter while carefully arranging itself around the fact that it did. But in the here and now, the matter possessed a certain texture that menus and character profiles had never quite carried.

The Emperor’s gaze returned to her. “You are in a tricky position, Lady Seraphina.”

“So I have been told, Your Imperial Majesty,” she replied, the picture of polite perfection.

“You must choose a worthy husband,” he cautioned, “but not one too powerful. If he is too small, he is unworthy of you. If he is too great, my ministers will fear your children might one day look upon the Jade Dragon Throne and wonder whether it would suit them.”

The young girl laughed, but it was not loud, nor careless. It was merely enough innocence to be the flower that hid her blade. “I have no designs upon the throne of the Empire, Your Imperial Majesty,” she returned. “My focus remains my own kingdom.”

“The Crown Prince of Aranthia was once your betrothed, was he not?” confirmed the man atop the throne of Jade.

Ah, Seraphina thought. Here it comes.

The Emperor leaned back slightly upon the throne. “It was you who broke off the engagement with Crown Prince Velens, yes?”

The young noblewoman kept her eyes down. “It was.”

“I have heard many versions of why,” he continued. “I would hear yours.”

Seraphina raised her eyes only a fraction, not enough to be insolent, but enough that she could not be taken for being meek. “I ended the engagement because Crown Prince Velens flaunted another woman before me,” she explained succintly, clear and unashamed. “A commoner, no less. I could forgive many things in a future king, even poor taste, if kept private. But public insult is a different matter. You, of all people, would understand that.”

The Emperor stared at her for a breath, then he slapped his thigh and laughed. And this time, the sound filled the hall, and several ministers joined him, though unevenly, as men did when laughter became a political duty. 

“Ha! Such fire! Were I twenty years younger, no ten, I would send the engagement gifts to your parents myself!” declared perhaps the most powerful man on the continent.

Huan did not laugh; his mouth had tightened in a manner Seraphina found deeply satisfying. Desdemona looked at him with narrowed, suspicious eyes.

“First Minister of the Left,” the Emperor said, still smiling. “Your opinion?”

The First Minister of the Left was taller than his counterpart, narrower too, with a long white beard and robes of dark red bordered in green. He bowed with the immaculate caution of a man determined not to step into a pit.

“Lady Seraphina speaks with the honor expected of her station,” the olderman offered. “Aranthian marriage customs differ from ours, but no noble house of dignity would welcome public slight. Her decision, while forceful, is not entirely without reason.”

It was the perfect answer, yet Seraphina’s memories of a past life in an Asian culture left her keenly aware of what was left unspoken and implied.

The Emperor steepled his fingers before him. “Forceful. Yes. You are like many Aranthians, Lady Seraphina. Strong-willed. Very strong-willed. I wonder how many men in my Empire would be willing to deal with such a spirit. They would not be getting a wife, I think, so much as a husband in silk.”

There were smiles then, and murmurs, and a few carefully hidden glances toward her.

Seraphina kept her face placid, but inside, something cold and ugly uncoiled. Cornelia stirred between her breasts, troubled in the dreams of her torpor.

The Emperor watched her with the mild interest of a man tapping a thin ice to hear whether it would crack. “And then there are your conditions,” he added. “One in particular has caused much discussion. Your husband is to take no concubines.”

“That is correct,” she replied flatly.

“Odd, by our customs. Concubines preserve bloodlines. They protect families from the misfortune of barrenness, illness, death, and the frailties of depending upon a single womb. I have never entirely understood the Aranthian method of placing a lineage upon one woman and calling the gamble virtue.”

Seraphina did not so much as blink. Near her, she could almost feel de Savant radiate annoyance.

The Emperor’s gaze sharpened by the smallest degree. “Your own mother, if I am not mistaken, has given your father only one daughter. That is not a criticism, of course. Merely a matter that would concern many houses.”

Seraphina chose her answer with the utmost directed care. “I am more than enough woman for my husband, Your Imperial Majesty,” she responded frankly.

A hiss of indrawn breath moved among the officials, but she plowed on uncaring. “If a man desires only a simpering lady of the court, soft words, lowered eyes, and a nursery full of rival mothers plotting against each other, then I am certain he may find one without difficulty. If he desires a partner who can support him, strengthen his interests, open doors, bear his heirs, and stand beside him when fortune turns cruel, then he may look to me,” was her declaration to the court and the Empire in general.

The Emperor’s mouth curved again. “Support often becomes guidance,” he said. “Guidance becomes influence. Influence, in time, may become command.”

“Only over men too weak to know their own minds,” Seraphina replied.

The court went very quiet at that until the Emperor laughed under his breath. “How sharp it seems the tongues of the west are.”

Huan looked at her then, if only for a moment, but look he did. And, the Emperor was too schooled in the game of life not to notice.

“There is another condition,” he added. “Equally interesting. Only your firstborn son is to bear your husband’s name. Any further children would belong, in name and inheritance, to your house. Most unusual. You would preserve House Sariens through marriage.”

She raised her eyes slightly to look at his lips. “I would preserve what is mine, and the dignity of my blood.”

“And do you truly think a man would be willing to sacrifice such a portion of his pride for that condition?” asked Erdian.

“Your Imperial Majesty,” she explained, “Thanks to my grandmother’s insistence, I already possess a long list of nobles and notables of the Empire perfectly willing to do so.”

The words settled across the hall with the soft grace of falling silk. Silk that hid knives.

“Such,” Seraphina continued, “is the value of marriage to me.”

For the first time since she had entered the Imperial Jade Court, the ministers truly looked at her now, realizing the crux of fate upon which they stood. 

And upon the Jade Dragon Throne, Emperor Hantien Erdian smiled. “Very well, Lady Seraphina de Sariens, you are given leave to see what sort of man the Empire can provide you. Some say you will bring peace, others more complications. Unlike some, I cannot see the future, nor do I believe in the ramblings of the Temple of River God about prophecy. So, it seems, we must await Fate’s grand design, no?”