Sweet Romance14 min read
My Mother, My Emperor, and the Blue-Robed Man
ButterPicks11 views
I am Tatiana Girard. I am a princess. For two days I have almost not eaten.
"Princess," my maid Sophia Abbott would whisper every mealtime, "you must try."
"I can't," I would answer, lowering my chopsticks for the hundredth time. "Father comes at meal times."
"Your father?" she would ask, frowning. "Again?"
"Always," I said. "He asks the same thing every time."
"He asks you where the Empress is?" Sophia's voice was soft, like cloth sliding.
"Yes." I set the bowl down. "Again and again."
"Tell him," she urged.
"I can't." I looked at her. "Mother told me not to say."
Sophia rolled her eyes in that way older maids do, half pity, half mischief. "Has she told you where she is?"
"She told me to lie."
"That's an order?" Sophia's tone sharpened.
"It is," I said. "And I obey."
"Why?" she said.
"Because she's my mother," I answered.
"That's all the reason you need," she said, and she scraped the rice into my bowl as if I were a child who refused to be fed.
When Father arrives at meal, he asks like this: "My daughter, tell me where she is."
And when I said, "My mother is not with me," he would answer with a small, rueful smile, and then he would say, "Who said I come to find her? Can't I come to check on you?"
"Is that so?" I would reply. "Mother?"
"Why are you here?" he asks, and always turns his head as if expecting her to be behind me. When there is no one, he commands me to copy the texts of filial remorse a hundred times, as if a stack of inked sheets could fix what has been spoken between him and the Empress.
My mother's name is Giulia Gonzales. My father's name is Ibrahim Deng. If my mother had only been stubborn once, nobody would have noticed. But she was not once but many times.
"She thinks the Bo-Yi tribe slighted us," I told Sophia when I could not sleep. "They sent tribute. They sent... people."
"People?" Sophia looked alarmed. "People as tribute?"
"Yes," I said. "They sent women as tribute. Mom says it's an insult."
"She has reason to be offended," Sophia muttered.
When the Emperor heard the word 'good', he said it once—an indifferent 'good'—and the Empress flounced away with a wrapped bundle and a vow.
"Little Tatiana," she told me before she left, voice sharp and theatrical, "you behave. I will leave and never return."
"Don't tell Father where you go," she said, repeating it until I had it memorized like a prayer.
"Promise me," she said.
"I promise," I answered, and I kept the secret. I wouldn't speak, even to the Emperor. I could go hungry rather than break that promise.
Sophia finally grew angry enough to say what I suspected. "Princess, maybe your mother wants you to hint to the Emperor. Maybe she wants him to come to Hadlee's household to look for her."
"Hadlee?" I asked. "Aunt Hadlee?"
"Yes. The one they call Hadlee Elliott," Sophia said. "The one who used to be favored."
Something like a bell rang in my head at that—curiosity pulling at my sleeves, a child's hands reaching for something forbidden. I could not sleep. I tiptoed through corridors and found my brother, Seth Robinson, in the outer hall.
"Seth," I said, tugging at his sleeve. "Can I go?"
"You?" He looked down at me with his usual polite smile. "Where to?"
"To Aunt Hadlee's," I said. "To find Mother."
"You want to go alone?" His brow crinkled.
"No," I lied. "I will be brave."
Seth took my hand. "Come. I'll take you."
Aunt Hadlee's house smelled like sweet perfume and paint. It was everything Mother said—she and Aunt Martina Pohl had become like two halves of a single thing: cruelty and tenderness braided together.
"You!" Aunt Hadlee snapped when she saw my mother's face. "Do you have any shame, acting as though you were a queen?"
"My dear," Mother answered, unbothered, as if the word 'queen' were something she wore with a shrug. "I've learned from you. How to scold, how to act. Aren't we both talented?"
Aunt Hadlee slapped her hand away like it was a fly. "Stop. You dragged me into that staged amour with Lieutenant Li, remember? And you expected what?"
"You expected a little fun," Mother said, sitting with her legs over the bench like a content cat. "I expected loyalty."
"Do you think you can say that later?" Aunt Hadlee's voice turned ice. "Say it now."
"Say it now?" Mother repeated. She cocked her head. "All right then. I will."
Before she could finish, a gong sounded through the courtyard—formal summons. "Empress, Madam Yanxi," called the steward. "The Crown Prince has come."
Seth walked in like someone who was used to rooms listening to him. He bowed to Hadlee and Martina. "Mother," he said to Giulia Gonzales, "I have come to escort you back to the palace."
"Oh, Jin," Mother laughed, using his childhood nickname as if to smooth fear. "Is that you? How are you?"
"Well enough." Seth said simply. "The Empress cannot run about. She must return."
"It wasn't so grand," Mother said, pretending to be wounded. "I only left to make a point."
"You left to make a point and now you shall come back," Seth said, the hint of a smile that never reached his eyes. "Come. I will take you."
Aunt Hadlee and Aunt Martina watched him with a softness I had not expected. Martina touched Mother's arm and said quietly, "There's no need to be proud. He is kind."
Mother leaned into Martina's touch like a woman who hadn't had a warm hug for years. "You always know how to hold me," she said.
Seth turned to me. "Tatiana, come with us."
"Are we returning?" I asked, holding my breath.
"Yes," he said. "For now."
We walked through the courtyard and reached a house where a man in blue stood by the window. He was Bear Guerrero—whom everyone called the Ninth Uncle because he had been taken away and kept—prisoned once, almost never seen. He wore blue instead of his usual white and was not the pale shadow I remembered. He looked better than I expected.
"Seth," he said, bowing to the prince. "You honor me by coming."
"Seth." He turned his head and smiled at me with a slow, almost startled look. "Who is this?"
"This is Tatiana," Seth said. "Princess Springhua."
Bear's eyes lingered on me, and he said softly, "She looks like her mother."
I approached him. "Ninth Uncle," I said, and he patted my head and gave me a cloud cake even though I did not like cloud cake. I liked his paintings better—the pictures on the wall were of a woman holding a jade pendant. I pressed to the frame. "Who is she?" I asked.
Bear's fingers brushed my shoulder. "Someone I once wronged," he said.
I wanted more, but the talk turned to guards and borders and Bo-Yi troubles. Seth reminded Bear that he had been secluded for many years and asked whether he wished to reclaim some part of his old strength, to atone. Bear only laughed, and his laughter sounded like an old bell.
Later, Mother and I returned to the palace. The days that followed were full of whispers.
"Empress has lost favor," the corridors said. "The Emperor has taken concubines from the Bo-Yi tribe."
"Your life will change," Sophia told me, worrying at the edge of my sleeve. "They say ministers who asked the Emperor to accept Bo-Yi women are very powerful now."
"Are they dangerous?" I asked.
"Power settles on a man's face like light," she said.
It was true. Men who had been quiet suddenly walked into rooms with their heads high. Two of them, Coen Barber and Boyd Forsberg, smiled like knives. They began to come to the palace more frequently, and wherever they went, the talk shifted from the welfare of the realm to the removal of the Empress.
One evening I tried to make a peace offering like a very small general. "I'll deliver father his favorite tea," I whispered.
"Don't," Mother said, sharp as glass. "We will not be tricked."
"Then what do we do?" I asked.
"Wait and gather," she told me. "Let those who are proud swell until they burst."
"But what will Father do?"
"He will do what he must," she said. "And we will do what we must not to ruin him."
After that, things grew worse. Stomachs ran empty in our household. Servants dwindled. Ministers smiled and turned away as if we were a disease. The prince moved out to a separate residence. "For your safety," Seth said, pressing his palm to my head and telling me not to cry. He told Mother to be cautious. She told him not to worry.
I learned to cook. I burned the potatoes and felt proud. Mother pretended not to nibble at a roasted drumstick every night and to tell me she only wanted to comfort me. I did not trust that she had the liberty to feel comfort.
Rumors hardened into a petition. Coen Barber and Boyd Forsberg pushed forward a paper that called the Empress "improper" and requested she be stripped of her title. "The court grows thin," they said in their smooth, oily way. "For the safety of the realm, and the decorum of the palace, we must reconsider."
"What?" I asked when I overheard them in the hall.
"The princess will be spared," one of them said, as if my fate were an ornament. "But the Empress must go."
"They propose exile," Boyd added, tapping a cane that did not need tapping. "Or worse."
I went to my mother at night. "They will take you," I said.
"They already think they have," she replied, humming like someone who had seen worse. "Let them."
"Let them?" I echoed, small and incredulous.
"Yes," she said, and she looked at me with the cold comfort of a woman who had chosen a plan long before. "The bigger they feel, the more they will fall."
The moment came on a day bright as a drum. The court gathered, and men wore their best faces. The Emperor sat in his place, calm as a river. Coen Barber and Boyd Forsberg had their allies—all smiling, all sharp. The Empress walked in, pale but composed. I stood behind her, clinging to the sleeve of my grey robe.
"Empress," said Coen Barber loudly, "for the good of the realm, the ministers propose a new arrangement."
"On what grounds?" Mother asked, voice steady.
"On decorum," Boyd replied. "On the people's voice."
"Seth," the Emperor said suddenly, addressing my brother who stood to one side, "what say you?"
Seth bowed and said, "The court's loyalty must be preserved."
"How convenient," Mother muttered.
Then the Emperor rose. He spoke not like a man moved by rumor but like a man who had planned the moments of a high tide. "There are many who have come with accusations this morning," he said. "There are names, petitions. There will be a hearing."
"Will so many come to judge my mother?" I whispered.
"Watch," Seth said.
They filed the papers. Coen Barber and Boyd Forsberg puffed with triumph. The crowd—a sea of courtiers and soldiers and servants—leaned closer. Eyes glinted with expectation. The Emperor called for silence.
"These petitions," he said, "were put forth this morning by men who felt offended. They allege improprieties, insinuations, and disloyalty. But the court will not judge on the mutterings of hungry mouths. We will judge on proof."
"Proof?" Coen scoffed.
"Proof," the Emperor repeated. He turned to one of the guards and said, "Bring forward the envoys from the border."
The envoys came—no, not the Bo-Yi envoys. The Emperor had them brought in under guard. He presented them to the court, then to another table where papers lay: letters caught in secret, orders rewritten, tokens exchanged. The Emperor's voice was quiet. "These men took money," he said. "They accepted boons, they promised positions, and they used tribal honor as bait."
Coen's smile faltered. He did not realize then that the Emperor had stacks of ledgers, testimonies, and a sealed statement from Bear Guerrero—my Ninth Uncle—who had, in exile, drawn lines across the names of those involved.
"Your Grace!" Coen protested. "This is sedition."
"Is it?" the Emperor said. "Or is it corruption laid bare?"
"Objection!" Boyd cried. "This is a trap! Your Grace, you cannot—"
The Emperor raised a hand. "Bring forward the witnesses."
One by one, guards pushed men forward—men who had been courtiers and who now, under oath and under fear, told the tale. They told of gifts, of nights where ministers met with foreign princes, of who had arranged the Bo-Yi tribute to be accepted into hearts. The crowd listened like a field drinking up rain.
Coen's face burned first. He tried to deny, to laugh. "They're lies!" he blurted. "Fabricated lies!"
"Speak," the Emperor said. "Not to me, but to the people here."
"You're ruining us," Boyd said, his voice high. "You will drag the realm into civil chaos."
"Or," the Emperor answered slowly, "we will drag corruption into the light."
"Is it true?" Mother asked, quiet and steady like a blade.
"Yes," the Emperor said. "And for that, these men will be punished."
They stood like men whose armor had been removed. The court murmured. Then—then the worst and most public part.
"Coen Barber," the Emperor said, "you used the name of my court to build an empire of graft. You accepted the Bo-Yi tribute and turned it into a market for influence. For that, by the law, you will be stripped of rank and publicly humiliated."
The guard seized Coen. He had been so sure, so puffed up—his chest red. He tried to struggle. "Your Majesty!"
"You heard the testimony," the Emperor said. "You used your station to place foreign favorites at the center of our court. For that crime, you will stand in the city square at midday, in the robes of a mocking puppet, and the people will spit upon the orders you issued, shred them, and throw them before your feet. You will repent where we all can see."
Coen went pale and then furious. "You will not—"
"Boyd Forsberg," the Emperor continued, not even glancing at him, "you conspired with him. You will be stripped of office, humiliated before your peers, and banished to the border—no salary, no retainers, to live among the watchmen you betrayed."
Boyd staggered as if struck. He tried to laugh, tried to cajole, and then his face changed through stages—bluster, then shock, then denial, then fear. "You can't send me," he mouthed. "I am of the court."
"You are of the court no longer," the Emperor said.
"Don't do this!" Coen shouted, and in his voice the crowd heard an animal cry.
"What will the people see?" someone murmured. "Will the Emperor turn his back?"
"No," Seth said, voice calm. "We will make right what was wrong."
The punishment day came like a cold festival. At midday, the town square was full. People stood on steps, on roofs, and in lines, because wrongs performed under the sun teach the most lasting lessons.
Coen was brought out in tattered ceremonial robes. They had shaved some of his embellishments, replaced them with satirical ribbons. The officials read aloud a list of his offenses—names, dates, bribes. He stood on a raised platform, and people spat and hurled rotten fruit. He tried to laugh like a man trying to hide his fear, but when a farmer—an ordinary man with a face seamed by sun—stepped forward and held up one of Coen's forged decrees and read it aloud, everyone heard the truth: Coen had made laws for his friends.
"Look at him," someone cried. "He turned our taxes into coins for his table."
Coen's face shifted—first red with anger, then drained white, then contorted with shame as the reality of being exposed in public hit. He shouted for mercy, for the Emperor's clemency. "Sire, I beg—"
"Beg here," the Emperor said. "Beg before those you wronged."
Boyd cowered in another corner. He had been paraded before guilds and soldiers. A craftsman pointed at the papers Boyd had sold. "You took our supplies and gave them to the Bo-Yi merchants," he said. "You starved our sons."
"And you?" a woman whose son had been drafted to the border cried, looking at Boyd. "Did you sell our sons for coin?"
Boyd's expression changed from outrage to desperate pleading, then to disbelief at the faces of the people he had treated as invisible. "I did what I had to," he whimpered.
"You did what you could to line your pockets," the Emperor corrected.
During the punishment, Coen's behavior followed a curve. He started furious, then tried to deny, then tried to plead, then began to break. He sought allies in the crowd and found none. Men who had once bowed to him turned their backs. Women spat. Soldiers took down his fine robe and replaced it with tatters. People laughed at his thrones of paper that the court had built.
At the height of the shaming, Coen sank to his knees. He pounded his fists on the wooden platform like a child denied a toy. "Please!" he howled. "I served the court! I served the Emperor! You cannot throw me away!"
"Then serve them now," the Emperor commanded. "Name the men who supported you. Hand over the ledgers. Restore what you took."
Coen's voice cracked. He named a few low men—he sold them like fish. The crowd jeered as he gave them up. Then he was led away, hands bound, to his exile. People spat as he was taken, and children threw pebbles.
Boyd's punishment was quieter but corrosive: he was dragged to the border gates and forced to live in the watch towers he had once cut budgets on. He felt the wind where once there had been warmth. He tasted cold bread where once wine had warmed his tongue. At night he banged on his door, seeking the power he had lost, but found only watchmen. He turned to the city to plead, but the city had learned its lesson; it ignored him.
That public humiliation changed things. Men who had thought to profit from gifts looked at their own names in the ledgers and paled. Women who had been courted found the courtiers who had asked for favors now shrunken and silent.
After the punishments, the Emperor returned to the palace. He came to the inner hall where we stood, his face solemn but not cruel.
"It was necessary," he said to Mother, and there was a softness in his voice I had not heard in some time. "Their acts endangered the realm."
"Yes," she answered, and I saw by then that she had been right—she had known how to let them grow proud and then crush their pride. "They were big enough to explode."
"They are small now," he said.
He turned and took Mother's hand. He squeezed. For a moment, the palace felt like a household again. Seth smiled at us both like a man who had seen a plan take shape and worked to make it gentle.
We returned to our rooms. Mother pulled me into her arms. "Little one," she whispered, "do you see?"
"I saw," I said, tired and trembling.
"Do you understand why I left?" she asked.
"Not entirely," I answered.
She brushed my hair back and whispered, "Because sometimes you must be a spectacle for the sake of the safe. Because when men think you are nothing, they show their hands."
"Will they never try again?" I asked.
"Maybe they will." She smiled, but the smile trembled. "But they will know the cost."
Seth came in later and pressed a small wooden frame into my hands. Inside was one of Bear Guerrero's paintings: a woman holding a jade pendant. "Nine-uncle painted this," he said. "He says it is a reminder."
"I like it," I told him.
"You will keep it," he said. "In case you forget what to wear when you have to be brave."
Days passed that felt softer than before. Servants returned. The Empress could travel once more, though inside the palace we all spoke less loudly, as if the corridors had learned caution. Bear Guerrero returned to his room and sometimes, at night, he came to look at the painting and thumb the pendant in his memory as if it were a secret he'd owe and now repay.
I learned then that power had many shapes—some that slap and shout, some that wait with a smile. I learned how to burn a potato and to lie well when duty required. I learned that my mother could be theatrical and yet fierce, and that my father could be both remote and just.
Weeks later, in a quiet corner, Bear took my hand and said, "Tatiana, will you sit with me?"
"Why?" I asked, surprised. "To see your paintings?"
"Yes." He set out a new canvas and painted a woman who looked like my mother holding a pendant. Then he looked at me and said, "She forgave me once."
"Who?" I asked.
"The one in the painting," he said. "I wronged her once, long ago. I thought silence would hide it. It did not. She forgave, and I kept painting her as penance."
"Do you think she forgave because she was noble?"
"Maybe. Or because she knew how to make men fall into their own trap." He smiled, small and secret. "Either way, she taught me to wait."
I touched the edge of the painting. The woman in it smiled like someone who had been forgiven a long time ago.
The last light fell across the picture. I put the frame on my bedside table. Before I slept, I held the jade pendant in my palm—a toy Bear gave me. It was warm, smooth, and oddly comforting.
"Tomorrow," I told the pendant, "we will eat better."
"Promise?" Sophia whispered in the doorway, but it sounded like a conversation between conspirators.
"Promise," I said.
My family—strange, awkward, stubborn, fierce—sat together under the same roof again. The palace had been bruised and the court chastened. Coen Barber went away like a wilting banner; Boyd Forsberg lived where once he had dictated budgets. The people had watched. They had seen a spectacle of justice, and that spectacle was its own deterrent.
At night I would look at the painting of the woman with the jade pendant and think of the blue robe Bear had worn that day. I would think of the way the Emperor's voice had been quiet when it needed to be thunder, and how my mother had been a storm wrapped in silk.
One evening, when the moon hung low and the palace slept, Father came to my chamber. He stood in the doorway, the lamplight cutting his silhouette.
"Ibrahim," Mother said from behind him, and I heard the soft rustle of her silk.
"Come in," he said to the room, and he came closer and held my hand clumsily like fathers who are not used to tenderness.
"You were brave," he told Mother.
"So were you," she said.
He knelt on one knee as if the palace were a little girl with scraped knees. "I will not let them harm you again," he promised.
I pressed the jade pendant into my palm and felt like a child with a secret charm.
We laughed softly, and the echo was a small, private thing under the heavy eaves of the palace. In the morning the painting would still hang. The jade would still be warm. The blue robe would still be remembered.
And in that small room, with the painting smiling down and the pendant warm in my hand, I slept for the first time in many nights as if I could trust the morning.
The End
— Thank you for reading —