The Last Concubine

his ear upon it to listen.
    He almost dropped his sword when he heard Hüi Wei’s voice! He could not make out the words, but surely the tone was that of a man speaking endearments to one beloved of him, rather than the anger of a man bent on wreaking justice and death.
    Ning placed his sword on the floor and bent to look through the keyhole. He could not see much but what he did see made him fall to his knees with a thud, he was so surprised. Luckily, his room also boasted a carpet that muffled the sound. After listening for any reaction from the next room, he concluded that the combatants were too occupied with each other to notice outside distractions.
    Cautiously, he approached the keyhole on his knees, peering through it. He glimpsed a pile of clothing on the floor beside the bed, and the bed itself seemed to be moving or shaking.
    Soft murmurs, rustling sounds, and a cry from the princess that could have been pain but sounded suspiciously more like ecstasy left Ning completely confused.
    He pressed his ear to the door again. Hüi Wei raised his voice in a triumphant shout that mingled with breathy moans in the princess’s familiar voice. It did not sound much to Ning as if she was in dire need of rescue.
    But perhaps he was not interpreting what he heard correctly. Perhaps Hüi Wei was torturing her as a prelude to killing her. The general might simply have stripped her to verify his guess as to her gender, resulting in the clothing left on the floor. If so, it was clearly his duty to come to her rescue. Now it sounded a bit like she was crying. Ning felt for his sword in the dark but froze when he heard her laugh.
    Hüi Wei’s voice again, sounding rather threatening this time. Lan’xiu’s voice raised enough for Ning to make out that she was agreeing to obey some order.
    Should he go in? Should he not? If he were wrong, Lan’xiu would be angry with him and that would be bad. If she were angry, how much angrier might Hüi Wei be, perhaps angry enough to have him killed! That would be bad too. Then Lan’xiu would be left all alone here in a strange land, perhaps to die alone, which would be much worse. Ning had always meant to beg that she be killed first so that at least she would have his friendly face to look upon when she died. But it sounded like she might actually be enjoying whatever was happening within.
    The unmistakable squeak of the wooden bed frame under stress stopped Ning’s ruminations and he grinned in the dark. Lan’xiu was right; he would have been an excellent lawyer. Here he was, sitting in the dark, arguing all around the issue while in the meantime, she and her new master seemed to be entertaining each other very well.
    Ning sat with his back to the door and leaned his head against it to enjoy a silent laugh. Whether Hüi Wei had ever enjoyed the company of a man in his bed before this, clearly Lan’xiu’s beauty was enough to seduce the most committed lover of females into testing strange waters.
    Without a thought to the fact that he was intruding upon their privacy, Ning stayed where he was, enjoying the sounds of a passion he would never know. Even if Hüi Wei decided in the morning that his pride had been so compromised that he could not allow the princess and her servant to live, at least Lan’xiu’s last night on this earth might give her a taste of the kind of love she had dreamed of. For her sake, Ning was happy this had come to pass.
    “Sheathing his sword indeed.” Ning smiled and closed his eyes, filled with contentment, at least for the moment.
     
     
    T HE sound of the bed squeaking again jerked Ning from a sound sleep. He made a mental note to mend the frame for the princess. At the rate they were going, it sounded like her bed would be getting quite a workout, at least if Hüi Wei decided to permit them to live.
    The sky was still dark, but the dawn was approaching. Ning could hear the song of a few birds outside. Apparently the general was an early riser—Ning covered his mouth and giggled at his inadvertent pun—and had decided to put in a little exercise before breakfast.
    This time the murmurs and cries sounded soft and sleepy, and quite soon silence had fallen again within the room next door. Ning stretched his stiff neck from side to side, making another mental note to refrain from sleeping while leaning against a door in the future. If he had a future. He gazed out the window, and when a line of pale yellow stole across the horizon beyond the houses