The Last Concubine

dears?”

Chapter 12

    J IANG sat down at the general’s breakfast table and poured himself a cup of tea, intending to waylay him. The glutinous rice and fruit appeared particularly tasty this morning, but perhaps that was only because he was so relishing the opportunity to tease Hüi Wei about his new acquisition.
    His commander, Captain Wen, had reported on Hüi Wei’s visit to Princess Lan’xiu the previous night, perhaps not realizing it had been a clandestine assignation. Hüi had not had her lantern lit, so perhaps he had not gone to feast on her body. Perhaps she had confessed to him some plot.
    When Hüi failed to show up to break his fast, Jiang knew his friend was most definitely still avoiding him and decided he would have to confront him in a place where Hüi could not retreat from him.
    He knew just where to start looking and ordered his horse to be saddled. Once he was outside the border of the city, he was able to spy Hüi in the distance atop his favorite hill. Evidently, he was not hurt, but he was pacing in a way that spoke of deep confusion.
    Because a warrior like Hüi would be difficult to surprise, Jiang did not even try. He made the obvious frontal approach up the hill and greeted his friend. “Good morning, Hüi.”
    “Jiang. You should not have come here,” Hüi snapped.
    “If not I, then who?” Jiang dismounted and tied the reins of his horse to the nearest tree. “Come, Hüi. You look as if you had been tortured last night instead of enjoying the charms of the most beautiful creature you own.”
    “My horse is indeed comely,” Hüi said, patting the horse’s neck, perhaps as an excuse to turn his face away.
    “I did not mean your horse,” Jiang said sternly. “I would have expected you to be happy, content, triumphant, or excited after bedding the princess. Instead you steal to her side in secret, and now you are alone on top of this hill, moping. What went wrong?”
    “Nothing at all.” Hüi began to pace nervously.
    “Did the princess deny you?”
    “She could not,” Hüi said. “She is a concubine. It is her lot to obey.”
    “Was the princess not pure when you first took her?”
    “Untouched,” Hüi answered tersely.
    “Then what happened? Is Lan’xiu stupid or deformed or disgusting or venal—”
    “He is none of those!” Hüi roared and then stopped, his face shocked and dismayed that he had betrayed himself so easily. “I mean ‘she’.”
    “You meant ‘he’,” Jiang said calmly.
    “Do not let me believe that you knew—you knew —this princess is a… a….”
    “Male. Yes, I suspected, from the first.”
    Hüi sat down hard upon the ground. In a wounded voice he asked, “Why did you not tell me? You are my friend, why did you not warn me?”
    Jiang sat beside him. “I could not. What if I were wrong? You might have killed that unfortunate girl, if she had been a girl, and all for a mere guess? I could not do it.”
    Hüi shook his head. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand anything. Why should I, after all the women I have tumbled, why should I feel attraction to one of my own sex now?”
    “Why not?” Jiang shrugged.
    “Just that easy?”
    “Just that easy. He is very beautiful. I’ve never seen anyone to compare. He would tempt anyone.”
    Again, Hüi was angry. “Did you come to taunt me that I have had a male foisted upon me to play the part of a concubine?”
    “I came because I know you are troubled and I want to help you.” Jiang paused, regarding the angry lines etched in the mask of Hüi’s face. “Because you are my friend.”
    “And what, precisely, do you think troubles me?” Hüi demanded with a sneer.
    “How to guard his secret. You want to keep Lan’xiu, but you do not want any gossip about you and your affairs.”
    Hüi seemed to slump as the anger drained from him once again. Jiang knew the signs.
    “The worst was trying to think how to keep this from you. We have always shared everything.” He noticed a look of embarrassed regret upon Jiang’s face. “We have, have we not?”
    Jiang averted his face. “It is my shame to admit to you now that there is one thing I have kept from you. Why do you not ask how I knew that the Princess Lan’xiu isn’t what she seems?”
    “How did you know? She is perfection: in form, in face, in manner, in carriage! She has Mei Ju believing she is a woman, and that is not easy—” Hüi paused when a realization suddenly struck him. “You are—that