1 Reborn To Live Without You

When I awoke that morning before the rising sun in the east, I had a sudden realisation; today was the day I would meet my future husband.  Only in this life, he would remain little more to me than my prince and my Emperor.  I had decided long ago, after I had found myself reborn in the same life, that I would not follow the path that lead to my untimely death, that I would live this life for myself.  Even if that meant leaving the side of the man I loved.

Don't get me wrong, it was a one sided love.  My prince would have never loved a man, would never have married a man nor bed a man were it not for the clever schemes of my stepmother and older sister.  But even they were not to blame for me falling so hopelessly in love with him.

In our Empire, a prince had a series of consorts and even more concubines, but just one princess wife.  And that wife would be my sister, Lin An, born of the main wife of my father, who was the Prime Minister of the Right. Lin An who was the only legitimate child in residence.  She happened to be born just a year before me, my older sister.

But a bride was expected to bring in dowry consort, who would act as both servants and bedwarmers to their husband.  Should a dowry consort fall pregnant, she could even expect to be placed amongst the concubines, thus families often sent in cousins and concubine daughters to strengthen the position of the legal wife or consort. 

Our family had concubine daughters and they were very beautiful, but Mother feared that they would detract from the loveliness that was her daughter and that they might rise beyond their position and capture the prince's heart.  She need not have worried so, my sister fell pregnant with the prince's son on her wedding night, securing her position in his household.  Whether that child became the crown prince or one of the consorts sons' took the position, I would never know as I died the night before my husband Prince would become my husband Emperor.

It mattered not now.  Not anymore.  I planned to take my own fate in my own hands and not leave it to my family due to some filial piety or duty.

Not that I was being filial really, in my last life.  I was not a very bright child, drifting without aim or purpose as the fourth son and waste child and was 'guided' into the marriage without understanding of what it all meant. It could not really be helped. 

I was born of a maid, not even a concubine.  I was probably only accepted into my father's house as I was Male.  For all my Stepmother's scheming, she herself could not birth a second child so had to watch as the concubines gave Father sons and daughters.  My own mother died in childbirth and I was born weak and sickly.  I'm certain my fate would have died along with her had it not been for Mother claiming me, wishing to raise me.  Another pawn upon her chess board.

A pity things refused to workout the way she planned.

The tutors she lavished upon me were impatient men, brilliant in their fields, yet with lack of understanding when it came to a small child whose intelligence was not even average.  They dismissed me as waste without giving me a chance to learn anything.  Because I could not hold a brush well, I must be unable to ever write?  Because it took me time to recognise the words before me, I could never read?

And so Mother gave up and I became useless to her.  I was looked down upon with scorn, not only by my siblings and their concubine mothers, but by the servants as well.  Father simply ignored me as did Mother for the most part.  I was pretty much left to my own devices.

Drifting through life didn't feel so bad to me, it was as if life was a hazy dream, both the good and the bad and I had little attachment to it. But did have a fondness for nature and would disappear for long walks whenever the guards backs were turned, which for me, was often.  The house would be unlikely to ever bother look for me should I disappear forever.  Unfortunately for them, I always managed to wander back.

I would not be doing so this time, though, I thought with a slight smile on my lips as I dressed myself within my tiny room, readying myself for my final outing.

On this day, in my last life I met him, my future husband and I planned to do so in this life as well.  Because on this day, my beloved Prince almost lost his life.

To be honest, even if he had not met me, I believe he would have pulled through.  All I had managed to do, that last time, was to drag him from the sudden downpour that descended from the heavens after I found him, into an old abandoned house in the woods.  I knew of this place well; I had used it as my shelter through rain and the unlit night more than once.  If it was not so close to my ancestral home, I would likely have just moved here once reborn, despite my small size and away from Mother's reach.  But I could not risk them finding me and I still felt I owed my Prince this one last thing.

I loved the woods; the air was fresh and filled with scents that could not be found within a bottle or burned as incense.  And they changed with every season.  In spring, the floral scent of blossoms and fresh leaves and grass permeated the air and in the summer, those scents were crushed beneath the heavy scent of the hot sun beaming on rotting logs or animal waste.  Dusty, hazy. And the autumn brought a fresher scent of decay and rich soil as leaves tumbled down from the branches onto earth that had finally seen rain.  And in the winter, the smells were as crisp as the biting cold air.

Yet today, this day in spring, tainting the flower tinted air was the scent of blood. 

I never knew how he came to be there, I didn't even know originally that he was the prince, let alone that he would become my master and husband.  All I knew was that he was a wounded man, there was blood staining his side and it had begun to rain. It was safe to assume he was ambushed or met bandits on the road, for the wound seemed to be made by a blade of sorts, I thought now.

As I was ignored by the house, my meals tended to be plain and not very filling, I was quite a weak child.  How I managed to move a grown man to that abandoned house, I could not say.  In this life, I was a little stronger, having filled by belly with the harvest of the woods, storing chestnuts and wild onions in a chest beside my bed to help supplement my poor diet though the winter and consuming herbs that I grew surreptitiously over the years to improve my health.  But dragging him to that house remained a chore.

As I knew what would happen, I had already stored away blankets and medicines in that house, waiting for this day.  The day I would repay my Prince for his kindness.  In that last life, the shelter was all I offered as I could not even start a fire, so useless had I become.  He suffered a fever, which I did not know how to break, a bloody wound that I did not know how to wrap.  All I could do was bring a blanket and cloth from the main house to keep him warm and wash away the dirt and blood.  And when I went to get food on the fourth day after meeting him, he disappeared from the house and I would not meet him again for two years. Until the day of the wedding. This time, with the knowledge gained in the palace from the last life, I could treat him better, before our paths split for good, never to again diverge. Never to marry.

Marrying into the palace did not frighten me, I was naive, I thought I was just to be a confident and servant to my sister until she secured her place.  I never expected that three months after the wedding, after it was confirmed that my sister carried his child, that he would stumble drunk into my room and force himself onto me.

I cried and begged him to stop, it hurt so much, but he didn't.  I didn't understand what was happening or why he would do this.  He told me to shut up, that I was his by right of my sister's marriage to him and continued with his business on top of me.  I fainted half way through, unable to cope with it any longer.  I found out from a maid that I had suffered from an extensive fever in the aftermath and that he had sent for doctors to see to my health.  This act of kindness made his servants see me in a slightly different light, even though my sister's servants still treated me with scorn.  It was probably this act of kindness as well that paved the way for my heart to fall.

That seems foolish does it not, that I would eventually fall in love with the man that forced himself on me, stealing away my virginity in such a brutal manner.  But as a doctor had not been called for me by my ancestral family since the time that I had failed to live up to Mother's expectations, is it any wonder that I felt the stirrings of forgiveness?

Of course, it did not stop me from shaking with fear when he entered my room a couple of months later for the second time.  He was not drunk this time and he did not apologise with words for his actions that last time.  In fact he did not say anything at all as he stilled my trembling body with gentle touches, how he taught me to react to his fingers, how he made me learn that marital relations could indeed be pleasurable.  In hindsight, I wonder now if this was his way of apologising to me, teaching me that he was not truly a monster.  Either way, it forged another bond between us, in my heart at least.

He left my room as I slept, exhausted and I did not see him again for a week.  Our next meeting would be an accidental encounter in the gardens.

I could no longer disappear into the woods.  That had been stolen from me by this marriage and I was locked inside the inner palace, no worse, I was locked inside my sister's palace for even were I a dowry consort, I was still a man.  Interacting with the concubines was something forbidden for me.  So my only solace became the gardens of the princess consort palace.  They were generous, though, but they were too tame for my liking and I was quickly becoming restless.

But there was nothing for me to spend my frustrations upon.  I could not play an instrument, nor could I practice calligraphy.  My reading ability was so poor only commoners could compare.  My weak body meant that martial arts were completely out of the question. The only thing I apparently could do at that time was to curl into a ball and cry.

Perhaps my Prince was feeling benevolent that day, for when he passed through the gardens to see how his princess was feeling as her morning sickness had yet to pass, he knelt beside me and asked me what was wrong.

"I want to go home," I wailed pitifully, still too innocent and naive to truly understand clearly by situation.  As I mentioned before, I was not very bright at all.  "I want to walk through the woods and play in the river.  But the guards won't let me leave here!"

He chuckled, actually laughed at me, not angry at all by my stupidity and careless words.  He pulled me to my feet and wiped away my tears.  "Silly boy," he said.  "Do you not understand how much of an honour it is to serve me as my bedwarmer?"

"No," I replied, stupidly.  But he just laughed some more.

"Go to your room," he instructed.  "Wait for me there."

After he visited my sister, he came to me and made me cry for completely different reasons.

He came to understand that I was bored and though he did not have to deal with the pitiful me, he assigned a eunuch to become a tutor to me, to teach me to read and to write.  That eunuch was an older man and had much patience for the useless me, allowing me the time I needed to absorb his lessons and slowly, the sixteen year old me finally learned how to read, learned how to write and as if a key had been turned a lock within my head, my thirst for knowledge became insatiable. 

There were several times over the next few years that he would come to my bed, please himself with my body then listen to me as I spoke of books I had read, of poems that had moved me and of things that I had learned.

And then the Emperor fell ill.

A crown prince had not been assigned to either of his two sons.  My Prince was actually the younger of the only two Princes born this generation.  There were ministers who favoured the first born Prince as heir and there were ministers who favoured the second born Prince as heir. 

I had met the First Prince when he visited his brother to meet my Prince's newest son, born of my sister.  As my sister's attendant, I happened to be close by, lingering in the shadows with the other servants.  I can't say what I thought of him then, as my education was still too shallow at that time.  But if memory serves well, he came across arrogant, but his barbs were shallow and not eloquently hidden.  My sister was much more glib, he could not once sense the poison in her words.  I am sure she impressed our husband that day.

Regardless of how clever or witty he was or was not, I cannot deny that there was much fervour during the Emperor's final days, the race for the throne harsh and evident.  But I was a mere bedwarmer, I could do nothing for my Prince but lie beneath him when he wished to take his frustrations out on me.  I had no true backing and I was a man, I would not break if his actions became too forceful or too brutal.  I could satisfy and relieve him in a way that his fair consorts could not.  I can not say that it didn't hurt sometimes, I cannot say that all my tears were shed in pleasure, but I loved him so much by that time and just wanted to be useful for him.

In the end, my sacrifice and his worries were all for nought.

The royal family had had trouble with fertility for centuries and so the Emperor's harem was always large, hoping to find women able to carry their seed to term and produce healthy sons.  The first Prince was the first son born to an Emperor's princess consort for generations, thus securing her as the Empress and so everyone assumed this heaven sent Prince was fated to become the Emperor.  And why not, the Prince had such a prominent background, being the grandchild of a former prime minister of the left and the nephew of the current one.

My prince's background was not any less impressive, his grandfather was a great and powerful general and had been in charge of the armies of the north for most of his life.  It wasn't certain if his first son would take the reigns, though that man's sons were all serving in the military, but his second daughter had wed the son of the former general of the armies of the west.  My Prince's military background was just this amazing.  However, even if this was so, the generals of the east and south were leaning towards favouring the First Prince.

But the First Prince revealed a flaw that could not really be overlooked in the end.

The duty of the harem was to produce sons in order to secure the imperial line.  But while my Prince's wives had faithfully produced five sons between them and three were in perfect health, the first Prince's harem had produced only five daughters.  And then the sixth one was born.

In the end, with my Prince revealing more wit and intelligence than his older brother, more metal and cruelty, more prudence and patience and most definitely more sons, there was little contest in the end.  My Prince was declared the Crown Prince and would formally succeed his father on the one hundredth day of his death.

But I would not see his crowning, I died on the ninety-ninth day.

My sister was the princess consort and had produced a son and a daughter.  This should have paved her way for the position of Empress, but she remained ever filled with doubts.  As she declared while she had tea served for us in the courtyard of her palace, there was competition from a secondary consort, who had born the Prince's first son and from a favoured concubine who had given birth to two sons, though one of the boys was a little sickly.  I listened to her complaints as I drank my tea.

"And then," she added as she stirred the tea in her cup, "it was not unknown in ages past for an Emperor to crown a man his Empress."

"But sister," I said, still so trusting and naive, "there are no formal Male concubines in the prince's harem."  Indeed I was still just a dowry consort, just a bedwarmer and attendant of the princess consort.  I still lived in her palace.  As they say, keep your friends close, but your enemies closer, I suppose...

I coughed up blood a few moments later and her maids came to my side.  Not to care for me, but just to ensure I did not puke red essence upon her floor.  In my dying moments I had an epiphany. I became bright enough to realise that I was poisoned and wise enough to know who was the culprit.  Indeed, she said it herself; "No, there are no formal Male concubines, but there is a man who has been considered amongst the harem as favoured by the Prince."

"I see," I replied as I shook my head and chuckled, closing my eyes as I accepted the inevitable.  I didn't understand why she worried about me, though.  I loved my Prince, but he did not love me.  No more than he loved any of the women in the harem.  We were his tools to use, we were not there to be loved.

I expected to die, to visit the yellow river and drink the waters of forgetfulness so that I could live a new.  Perhaps that life would be a little kinder than this one.

Only, that did not happen.  I woke to find myself in my eight year old body, a few months after I had been deemed unteachable.  As my memories clashed with those that I had forgotten, I came to understand that I had just awoken from a fever.  So was all I dreamed real?  Did I truly come to meet the Prince, my husband, to live and to learn in the palace?  I was muddled for a few days, until I overheard the maids gossiping about the betrothal secured for my sister by my father to the second Prince.

I had indeed returned to my old life.

Many would seek to change their lot in life, to seek revenge for their hurts and their grievances, but I knew that would not resolve anything.  My Prince would still need a princess consort, dowry consorts and sons.  Me changing the fate of my family by causing their downfall would not change this fact.  If anything, it would just bring my death forward.  And though I had knowledge now and could be the son Mother wished me to be, I also was wise enough to know that if I wanted freedom in this life, I could not allow my fate to be dictated by her.  It was enough that I had followed her bidding in the last life.  I did not feel I owed her anything in this one.

So, I quietly bided my time.  I reacquainted myself with the woods outside my ancestral home, I enjoyed my new found freedom away from the gilded cage of the palace.  And this time, I had my knowledge of the plants, the habitats of animals and bugs, of basic herbal medicines and remedies and I had the opportunity to gain more, stealing into my father's library while the house slept to absorb it all.

And that brought me back to the day, I met him once more.  The man I loved.

I cleaned and treated his wounds with deft hands, using a salve I had made myself.  I wiped clean the sweat of his body, burning every line of it to memory as after this day, that is all I would have left of him.  I boiled tea and let it cool to quench his first and made a nutritious soup to fill his belly as his fever raged.  The burning heat of his body broke much more easily this time around and I readied myself to leave him before he came around.

But before I left, I stole a last kiss from his slightly chapped lips.  "I'm sorry, my Prince," I whispered and hoped vainly that he would hear me within his dreams.  "I cannot be by your side in this life.  But I know you are a great man and I am sure you will be a great Emperor.  I love you.  You will ever remain my husband in my heart, if not in reality.  Goodbye."

That day past now eight years ago.  Eight long years since I escaped from my family to become a healer in this remote village.  My Prince will be crowned Emperor tomorrow and although I wished to see him, I thought it would be best if I stayed away.  That way, my resolve will not falter and I will not foolishly throw myself at the steps of the palace and beg him to take me back.  I'm sure he would be disgusted if I did so.

I heard that my sister is sickly, she never recovered from the birth of her second child, but then, I was not by her side as the doctor fed her medicine, so who knows what she consumed this time.  I fear her dreams of becoming Empress are at an end, however, for my Prince requires someone strong beside him, someone who can keep peace amongst his wives and produce more sons.  The consort that Lin An saw as her rival is the most likely candidate.

As for my family, well, their fate is their daughter's fate.  They cannot continue to preen as peacocks when their Phoenix cannot fly in the heavens.  They can only look on as another takes her place. So one could say that neither the prime minister of the right nor the prime minister of the left have the ear of the Emperor in this life.

My own life is peaceful, not quite as free as I would have liked as villager mothers see me as a potential husband for their daughters, but I do not wish for a bride nor children.  My heart is still with my husband.  I miss him and I always will.

Of course, no one knows what tomorrow will bring.  Not I for one, for today is the ninety ninth day since the death of the previous Emperor, the day I died in my last life.  So tomorrow, I will truly be reborn.