The Last Concubine

secret.
    He ran down the stairs with no thought for his own dignity and tore out the front door, barreling into the broad frame of Hüi Wei and bouncing back off his solid form.
    “Ning, what’s amiss?” Hüi asked in alarm.
    “My Lord Qiang,” Ning said, giving a hasty bow. “Lan’xiu is ill but I dare not fetch a doctor to her. Moreover, she says that Sixth Wife Alute has been poisoned. She needs a doctor immediately! I will return to Lan’xiu, and you go to fetch aid for Alute! Be smart about it! Hurry!” Barely realizing that he, a lowly eunuch who served the lowliest of concubines had just hurled an order at their lord and master, Ning didn’t wait to see what Hüi would do. He bolted back into the house and flew up the stairs to return to Lan’xiu.
    When he unlocked the door, he could hear the sounds of her misery. She was being ill again, and the moans that tore from her throat made him cringe in sympathy. He went to her and held her up from the floor where she could still retch uselessly over the bowl. Placing a cool wet cloth on the back of her neck, he began to sing to her, the lullaby she’d loved as a little girl. It seemed to calm her for after a while she became quiet, a dead weight in his arms.
    “Please don’t die, Lan’xiu, please don’t die. We’ve come so far; it’s not your time. Your soul is here. The general came to you. Please don’t die.”
    Ning never even noticed the footsteps behind him, but he started when a strange male voice said, “What’s amiss with her?”
    He jerked around to find Lord Jiang, looking down at them with concern. “It is noth-nothing. She-she must have eaten something that disagreed with her,” he stammered.
    “People usually do not die from a touch of indigestion,” Jiang said sternly.
    “She was poisoned,” Ning said baldly, his tears starting to flow.
    Jiang pushed Ning aside and took Lan’xiu’s limp form from him. “Princess Lan’xiu, can you hear me?”
    Ning saw Lan’xiu’s eyes flutter, and she nodded her head almost imperceptibly.
    “I know your secret, Lan’xiu. You have nothing to fear from me,” Jiang said gently.
    A shudder went through Lan’xiu’s body before she went limp again, whispering hoarsely, “My Lord—”
    “Hüi has confided in me,” Jiang said. “The main thing now is to get you well. I’m no doctor, but I have some field experience. Ning said you were poisoned. How and when?”
    “And who?” Ning muttered.
    “Ci’an… brought… the wine… was bitter…,” Lan’xiu struggled to say. “I had barely… a sip. Alute… she took much more….”
    “Hüi Wei has gone to fetch the doctor to Alute. Don’t worry about her now.” Jiang turned to Ning. “Run to the kitchen. Get your housekeeper to mix up some mustard water. I will also need the whites of several raw eggs. Be quick about it!”
    “Yes, sir!” Ning flew down the stairs and flurried Jia into fulfilling his demands.
    “What is amiss with the mistress, Ning-xiānsheng. Is she losing the baby?” Jia cried.
    “What baby?” Ning asked, too distracted to realize what he was saying.
    “It is known that the princess is with child, but she is a delicate girl. I heard that she-devil Ci’an gave her a dangerous liquor to drink and now she is having a miscarriage!” Jia wept and flung her shawl over her head, rocking back and forth, wailing.
    Later Ning would wonder how such a baseless rumor came to be accepted as common knowledge, but now he seized upon it, knowing he could not explain a poisoning he did not understand, and that news of a miscarriage would not only garner Lan’xiu much sympathy but would also serve to defend her secret even better. “Let us hope that the doctor arrives in time,” he said. Then he ran back upstairs with the elixir. “Call for Captain Wen.”
    Jiang lifted Lan’xiu against his shoulder and ruthlessly tilted the emetic down her throat.
    Instantly she became sick once again, this time bringing up blood. When her heaving had diminished, Jiang administered the raw egg whites. Ning made a face as he watched her swallow the slimy mess, but it appeared to help.
    “I only pray to the gods that I have done right by her,” Jiang muttered. “Heaven grant the gods let her live.”
    “She must live,” Ning said intensely.
    Jiang glanced at him shrewdly. “She is one who inspires love deeply. I want her to live, not just for her sake and yours. I fear for Hüi Wei if she were to die.”
    Ning wasn’t as