Sweet Romance13 min read
A Lady Who Lived for Taste—and the Tiger Tally
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"I don't want to be empress."
"I already know that," he said without looking up from the papers. "Who sent you a gift this time? My palace kitchen has every delicacy in the world and still it's not enough?"
"It's different!" I ran across the room, skirts swishing behind me. "This time Lady Sofia sent snowfish from the far north. They cost a fortune to bring alive—kept in ice chests the whole way. By the time they reached the capital there were only two left. With fresh bamboo shoots and mushrooms and two pieces of soft tofu, simmered slowly until the broth turns white—it's the kind of soup that makes eyebrows fall off. How can I resist?"
Isaac Atkins rolled his eyes so thoroughly I thought they might get stuck.
"Two fish and you think you'll sway me? Emerald, you are ambitious."
"I don't care! People who feed me have rights. Issue the edict now to make me free!"
Isaac laughed, then took the imperial seal from my hand when I tried to sign my own pardon with a blank decree.
"All right. I'll have servants bring more from the north and keep them in the palace icehouse. If you want to cook it later, go catch them."
My eyes lit up. "That would be nice... but I want it now."
He shrugged. "Cloud Lady bribed the Empress. She will spend a month in reflection, and the Empress will handle the spoil."
"Yay!" I shouted, spun, and ran out of the study. The fish were waiting on my stove; I could not waste them.
My name is Emerald Lane. My father is General Boyd James. I have three brothers and I was the baby, so people call me "末儿"—last. My father is broad-shouldered and blunt, a soldier through and through. My mother is soft and patient. I love food. I always have.
"Who keeps track of the city's best stalls?" people ask. I do. I could name every vendor on Old Spring Street by taste and voice. I could tell you which teahouse puts too little sugar into their buns, which roast duck uses plumwood, which stall makes the noodles stout and chewy. My world has simple pleasures.
I met Isaac when I was five. I followed a smell and found him at a fair, roasting a leg of lamb. He cut me a piece with his pocket knife.
"Who are you?" he asked later, after he'd held me while I listed every snack stall on the way home.
"I got lost," I said.
"Where do you live?"
"I don't know the address, but I can find my way by food."
He laughed, took me to General Boyd James's house—the big gate with our plaque—and returned me. My father bowed, the men assumed he must be a prince; Isaac said, "A gift suits return." He had the gall to bring street snacks as courtly presents, and somehow that mattered.
"I'll be your brother," he said.
And so, for years, we were friends. He came to taste, I came to laugh. He liked things orderly. I liked to eat.
When he asked me to marry him—he did it clumsily, as if offering a toothsome roast—I accepted because of the roast. The court was scandalized. The crown prince taking a general's youngest daughter was... unexpected. But I did not care. "I like lamb," I told the whispered nobles. "So does he."
We married. Isaac said he took me to satisfy the throne. I said I would keep living my way. He promised to not force anything on me. He kept that promise, mostly.
"One more thing," the Empress said the day I was summoned. "A crown prince's consort has duties. Morning and night meetings. You must learn ceremonies and behavior."
"Yes, Your Majesty," I said, dozing through her lecture while clutching the plate of palace pastries she gave me when I left.
"Remember, child, you must bear heirs," one of the attendants said kindly.
"He can just have a seat in our house," I said quietly. "I'll have my mother bring special food."
I didn't enjoy the constant pressure to bear a child. It felt like another recipe people were forcing me to follow, not a hunger I understood. When my mother gave me jars of red dates and herbs, I felt like a cook getting stoves shoved at me. I loved Isaac, if not with burning political passion, then certainly with the steady affection of someone who has shared much roast lamb.
One night, Isaac told me he was tormented by the court's choice of wives for him—dull or odd-looking ones that would make him appear smaller by their side. He joked "Marry me," and I said "Okay." I meant okay as an "okay, fine" to end his misery; he meant okay enough to take me to my father with a roast lamb.
"Do you know what you said?" he asked, amused. He brought me roasted lamb the next day and an honest proposal. I listened, I laughed, I accepted—mostly for the food, truth be told. The people gossiped. The Empress fussed. Isaac took to pampering me.
We had three side consorts. There was Sofia Dumont, a sharp, accomplished woman who knew court, made a point of sending me rare foods, and wanted my place. There was a fierce general's daughter who kept to herself. There was a mild cousin who barely made a mark. Sofia smiled too much for me. Her offerings were too polished. I was blunt and loud and loved the street stalls. We found each other disagreeable.
Isaac promised not to interfere with my tastes. He would bring me new snacks from the city. He would sleep where I wished. We had arguments, often about food. He would tease. I would hit him lightly. He would smile and press a lamb leg into my hands.
One winter night, something happened that proved him more than a tease.
"Try this," Sofia said once, pressing a steaming bowl toward me in the twilight of Isaac's private study.
It smelled of herbs and sea and spices I didn't know. For a moment I hesitated. The court watched. Sofia's smile was faint but fierce.
"No," I said. "This is for the prince alone."
"Emerald," Sofia snapped, "it is a courtesy."
"What courtesy requires poisoning?" Isaac's voice cut through the air like cold metal. "Sofia—"
"Prince," Sofia replied, voice smooth, "I only wish to show you my devotion."
Isaac spoke with a voice that had iron in it I had not heard before. "If a gift is not fit to be shared among us, then it is not a gift. You will take your leave."
Sofia's face changed when Isaac ordered her out. She left like a defeated general. Later, that night, I realized the bowl had been laced.
"Did you know?" I asked Isaac as I sat on the stone steps.
"I did not," he said. "But I could not allow such a thing in our halls."
Sofia's plot was uncovered. She was dragged before the household, howling and defiant.
"You will not take my reputation!" she cried.
"Then do not throw it away on treachery," Isaac said. "You thought to force a heart. You failed."
They sent her away to reflect. I watched her go with curiosity and a sharp feeling of unease. She muttered threats. I ignored them. I ate the roasted lamb leg Isaac had found me when we were young, and for a while the palace felt small in the right way.
Then the drums came.
There were riders on the border, then the dispatches slowed down, then a single rider arrived breathless: Prince and General trapped at Banlong Ridge. An army at the gates. A noble who betrayed his sovereign and teamed with foreign iron cavalry. The capital—our capital—on the edge of disaster.
I dropped the needles and thread I was sewing with. My hand shook as the messenger spoke.
"How can this be?" I said. "Who led them?"
"Ning family," the man said. "Old General Eldridge Martinez with them. The allied prince... the traitor among the inner court..."
I did not cry. I strapped on my riding gear. My father, Boyd James, said one thing only: "Keep your wits. Fight."
I rode toward the palace. I stood before the Emperor, Ming Adams, in full armor and offered myself.
"You want to lead troops?" the Emperor scoffed first. "A woman with a appetite and a laugh?"
"I want to save my husband and my father," I said. "Give me the tiger tally."
He studied my stubborn face.
"Are you sure?" he asked.
"Yes," I said.
He banged his palm on the table, astonished by my audacity maybe, touched by it. "Very well. I'll grant you our forces. Lead them—or perish trying."
He handed me the tiger tally, the symbol of his command.
The tiger tally felt heavy. I had carried roast lambs heavier. I felt smaller in the corridors of power, but I had a sword to lift.
"You'll need armor," Boyd said. "We'll cut and fit."
"Make it bright," I said. "And give me the scarf Isaac likes."
We set up defenses. Lorenzo Crosby, leader of the dark guard, answered me without question; he had worked for Isaac for years and trusted my grit. We threw up catapults, rolled boulders, and the ground shook with the weight of men and machines. The enemy's number was great. We were fewer. We had to be clever.
"Open the eastern gate," Eldridge Martinez bellowed from below. "A child will not hold steel."
"Better a child with steel than traitors with hearts of rust," I said aloud to the men.
We fought day and night. I learned to command with a voice firm as iron. I kept the men fed. I found the best way to use the few supplies we had. I burned incense so soldiers could sleep, I adjusted catapult ropes, I listened hard to Lorenzo's quiet counsel. Isaac and my father were cut off—so I fought for them like a mother for her brood.
On the seventh day, the wall shook. Eldridge's men battered the gates. Our stones flew, our archers sang death from above. For a time I thought the city could hold by will alone. Then the breach creaked like a bone.
"Hold!" I shouted. I thought my throat would split. "Hold for one breath!" We hurled boulders and rolling logs. Men fell. The enemy crawled forward like hungry ants.
Then thunder and clamor changed into a cry of hope. A column I recognized—Isaac, blood smeared on his face, charging with reinforcements. He had slipped through a secret path, like our old storybook heroes. He embraced me in the dust and smoke.
"You came back," I sobbed. "You came back late—"
"I promised," he said. "I promised I would return."
We stood in each other's arms while the men cheered. The tide turned. The field was messy and red and raw. Eldridge's plan collapsed like a rotten thing.
After the battle, the court demanded reckoning. The traitors were brought forth. The first scene was Sofia's humiliation—she had conspired in smaller ways to displace me, to win Isaac's favor. The bigger fish, though, was Eldridge Martinez, who had raised arms against the Emperor.
The punishment had to be public. The people had watched the city tremble; they wanted to see justice.
I insisted I would be present. The crowd pressed in as we led the traitors to the grand plaza under the palace eaves. Torches burned. The air smelled of smoke, roasted meat, and old iron.
"Bring forth Sofia," Isaac commanded.
She stepped out with her face a mask of pride at first. The crowd hissed. I saw her search for a friendly face and find none.
"Why did you do it?" I asked her, my voice small yet steady on a platform high above the square.
"You don't understand," she said. "He should have noticed me."
"This is not notice," Isaac replied coldly. "This is treachery."
Sofia's face shifted. She had been sure she'd gain sympathy, then shock flashed in her eyes as people took their cue—this was her fall. Her expression—the proud tilt—dropped like a broken thread.
"Do you admit poisoning him? Do you admit trying to sedate the prince and set him to your will?" I asked.
"I—no," she spat. "No. I only wanted to save him from—"
"You wanted to save him by turning him into a puppet," Isaac said. "You hoped to subvert him into submission with drugs and flattery."
The crowd murmured. The magistrate read the charges aloud. Sofia's voice at first was thick and defiant, then thinner. She tried to laugh. She tried to spit blame.
"She is a hungry woman who could not earn love," Sofia declared loudly. "He prefers a simpler palate! Is that my only crime?"
"Then you selected the wrong way to teach him," I said. "You thought gifts could buy the heart. Gifts are only favors; they must be given with truth."
Her composure shattered. She tried to stare down the crowd. They stared back, cold and truthful. A servant placed a small chest on the ground. Inside was the bowl—the bowl we'd found. The poisoned herbs were still there, dull and clumped.
"Treachery of the table," someone cried. "Shame on the one who betrays a table."
Sofia's lips trembled. Her face moved from anger to calculation to panic. The first change—she realized that the court had turned like a blade. The second change—she began to plead.
"Prince," she cried, "I loved you! I did all for you. I only—"
"Do you recall the girls you trampled?" Isaac asked. "Do you recall those you hurt with scheming? Do you recall how you sought to humiliate the true consort by these tricks?"
Sofia's mouth opened and closed. The crowd hissed and shouted her name like a verdict. Men stepped forward, spat on the stones. Women scowled and snapped fingers. A child in the crowd held up a roasted chestnut and bit into it, angling the smoke between us like a witness. Cameras—pardon, scribes—scribbled.
Sofia's pleas turned frantic. "I never meant—"
"You meant to take a place," I said quietly. "You meant to take what is not freely given."
She lunged for a final word. "You'll fall! Your husband will fail—"
"Silence!" Isaac said. He stepped forward and stared down at her. The change in his face was the one that made her small. Pride and cruelty are alike in their love of size; when a prince strips away that padding, a schemer is left raw.
They stripped Sofia of her title in public. They cut the silk from her sleeves and bound her hands with them, as peasants bind clay. The crowd's reaction was instantaneous—some booed, many clapped. A circle of women started to chant a rhyme about honesty and simple food. One old vendor shouted, "You can't bribe a hungry heart!" Someone else threw a peacock feather into the chest where her gifts lay.
The procession began. They led Sofia through the markets so the traders she once courted with delicacies could spit into her path. Some did. A few held their noses. The city saw her disgrace. She went from composure to anger to denial to open pleading. The final change was collapse: she dropped to her knees near the fishmonger, hands splayed, and begged the crowd.
"Remember me!" she cried. "I loved him! I only loved him!"
A woman near me spat once in the dust. "Love doesn't excuse poison."
Sofia's reaction shifted at each step—the flash of surprise when Isaac refused to kill her, the arrogance when she thought she could bluff the crowd, the fall into frantic denial, the final fragility as she faced a city's contempt. People recorded her on tablets and tied strips of cloth to poles to mark their displeasure. Children laughed. Some older women wept that court could be so cruel and so just.
That was the first punishment. It was public and long. It played out in silks and stone, in meditative faces and ugly crowds. It served to foil other would-be schemers. But the larger judgment lay with Eldridge Martinez.
They brought him in shackles. He walked like iron, then like someone who had miscalculated how much iron would hold him. His eyes scanned the plaza and found no friend. His men stood silent, face ashen, for fate had no more patience.
"General Eldridge Martinez," the magistrate announced. "You are charged with treason, with collusion with foreign forces, with striking against the throne and the people."
Eldridge's expression went from hard to incredulous. "I did what was needed for strength," he said. "You have an emperor with weak blood—"
"You call the people weak," I said, stepping forward. "You call our lives currency for your ambition."
He laughed then, a brittle sound that snapped. He tried to swagger, to keep the dignity of a general. The first rightness—that he was a commander—fell from him in the face of his crimes. He started to deny, to talk himself into honor.
"Do you think you will be remembered as a great man? A martyr? Or as a butcher?" Isaac asked.
Eldridge's denial hardened into anger. "I will be remembered," he snarled. "The victor writes the history."
"Not tonight," I said.
They dragged out the evidence. The merchants showed ledgers of bribes. A captain testified in a voice that shook as he pointed at Eldridge's ledger. The crowd bent in close. Eldridge's expression changed again—anger to rage, rage to panic. He tried to bargain loudly for his family's safety. He cried to Isaac for mercy—an odd sound because Isaac had called to mind the lambs we once shared and the quiet boy who had grown up to command armies.
"Mercy," Eldridge begged, breaking the last mask. "I only did it for my son—"
"Your son will be safe if he turns himself in," Lorenzo said quietly.
Eldridge's composure collapsed into hysteria. "Then kill me!" he screamed. "Kill me now! I will take my fate!"
The crowd's reaction morphed from anger to a heavy, restrained silence. They had watched the city almost burn. They wanted justice, not a spectacle of bloodlust. Isaac raised his hand.
"You will not die in a panic," Isaac said. "You will face the law. Your family—those above thirteen—will be punished for rebellion. Those beneath will be spared exile. The magistrate will declare sentence."
"Sentence?" Eldridge's voice cracked. He staggered. "What sort of sentence? Execution? Exile?"
"In front of the city," Isaac said. "So that those who see betrayal know its price."
The magistrate read the sentence. Eldridge's eyes narrowed. He tried to plead, then denial, then bargain. He begged for a different time, a private hearing, a lesser fate. The crowd crowded in to hear his pleas. Laughter bubbled like a bad stream. Someone in the back pounded a pot in rhythm, then the rhythm turned into a chant of "Justice. Justice."
They executed the sentence. Eldridge's holdings were seized. Property taken. Men over thirteen were condemned to death in the formal tongue of the law. The city murmured both sorrow and relief.
Eldridge's reaction evolved in full view: the mask of honor first, then the irritation at being found out, then the anger of a man losing tools, then the bargaining, then the final collapse into terrified pleas. He was led away with the stoic face of a man who had used others but now learned his own cost. People turned their backs or took handfuls of dust to throw; others stood bowed, unaffected. Children called it a story. Scribes wrote feverish pages.
When it was done, the city exhaled like someone who had been holding their breath. Isaac placed a hand on my shoulder.
"You were fierce," he said softly.
"You were late," I lied, wiping the grime from my face with my sleeve. "But you came back."
We married the grief with work. Eldridge's men were scattered. The traitors were punished. Sofia's stance crumbled. The scenes of judgment had shown the court that no one could use food as a weapon against the state.
In the aftermath, Isaac ascended the throne. I became Empress. We kept the palace's doors open to laughter and to smoke from the courtyard where we hung a spit and roasted lamb on festival nights. He kept his promise: the harem was kept simple. He gave many of the girls their freedom. The palace smelled of cooking and oath and a strange peace.
My father Boyd James retired and began to travel. Isaac and I made small jokes about the emperor's old stew. The Empress Mother sometimes sent me packages of rare dishes. I laughed in the corridors where statecraft and soup mixed.
Once, years later, a boy came to visit. He called himself Jacob David. He was mine, a son who liked to laugh and to argue with cooks. He leaned on the rail of the palace and told me his plans.
"Mother," he said, "I will make my own path. I want to leave the palace one day."
"You will?" I asked, playful. "You will leave the lamb behind?"
"I will find my own lamb," he said. "And then I'll let you go travel when it's time."
He grew like a sapling into a man who loved the world and held our house's laughter in his hands. Isaac and I watched him, and once in a while we sat in the courtyard with a roast and told stories of battles and spices and the ways of wronged women and the stubbornness of fighters.
I kept a small thing in a drawer—the tiger tally. It was heavy and cold sometimes, and when I took it out I'd run my thumb along the carved stripes and think of the day I held it and made a city breathe again.
At night Isaac would make a lamb on the spit. I'd pull my shawl close and swing gently on the swing he had brought from the old courtyard. The years had taught me how dangerous the world could be and how sweet a life could be when you kept the people you loved close.
We kept watch. We feasted. We punished those who would break the law. We sang songs about honest food.
And sometimes when the palace quieted and the embers died on the courtyard stones, I would take out that little carved tiger, stroke its ridge, and remember how a woman who loved to eat had once held the fate of a city in her hands.
The End
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