Plummet

Spectator

The Princess' tutor was a fascinating man, and the only man I knew her to trust and respect. Impressed as he was with me, I felt it would be good if I began by cementing my position in his esteem.

That was easy, all I had to do was artfully (almost) collide with him in the hallway. That struck up a conversation out which I extracted the following things:
1) Princess Hue's sourness stemmed from the lack of parents in her life.
2) She was of the honest opinion that most men were scumbags.
3) She knew that any man being overly friendly with her had an eye on the throne she would sit on, and not her.

I couldn't feel any of them wrong, the second one was debatable but even I held the opinion that most men were scumbags. And after what I was planning to do to her, it seemed like I was one of them.

Next, all I had to do was find Hue's most common companions. From Anh, I knew these weren't too many. But I hadn't expected her to tell me, straight up, the one name that she did.

"Not Bia!" I had exclaimed at once, flabbergasted. I couldn't see her now - she knew I was in the Palace, as the Princess' tutor in the same post she had urged me to take up. I couldn't step up to her now. I couldn't possibly tell her that she had to help me win the Princess' heart - it was unthinkable. Anh had tried to make me understand that this was much bigger than Bia's feelings alone and that if need be, they had to be twisted.

Little did she know that I didn't fear wrenching Bia's feelings. I feared her retribution.

And turns out, I needn't have bothered going up to her. Anh and I were passing through one of the corridors of the Palace, still bickering about her. I was getting increasingly irritated at her inability to understand the circumstances under which I had left Bia.

"She will not help me Anh, because if Bia has even a single grain of self-respect within her, she'd want me nothing but dead!" I exclaimed, frustrated. Anh fell silent for a second, and then another female voice rose.

"Why, Pham Nam Minh, I certainly don't want you dead."

I froze, the voice striking me in the guiltiest corner of my heart. The sudden pain I experienced for Bia made me realize how much Anh - and the pursuit of Princess Hue - had changed me. Had I remained where I was, my list of victims would have increased. It was pleasure to me, but a lifetime of trauma and worse - isolation - for them. Bia was lucky, no one but Princess Hue and now Anh, knew of our past. Many of the other girls hadn't been this fortunate. The person I was now wasn't the best I could be, I wouldn't ask anybody for forgiveness for what I had done. But I would certainly never repeat it, and at the very least, not lie to myself that what I did had been right.

"Lady Ly-"

"Is it not Bia anymore?" she asked, lips trembling, eyes filming over. "I waited two months! Ever since you set foot into the Palace I've been waiting for you to remember me - to at least think of me once. Was it too much to ask for, Minh!?"

I took a stepped forward, disgust for myself forming in the pit of my stomach, "Bia no, trust me, if I met you they'd call you-"

"Since when did you care!?" she almost screamed, then she registered Anh for the first time. "Lady Anh." she stated, unsurprised, but still loud. "I see that you have raised your standards, Minh. Common weed like me don't excite your fantasies anymore. It's the rose that you want."

Anh shook her head, she pushed me aside with surprising strength and rushed up to Bia, "It's not me that he loves-" she began and Bia laughed humorlessly.

"Oh I know- you're not the rose, Lady Anh, pretty though you may be. It's the Princess he seeks. You're after all, a guest in the Palace."

Did the Princess' attendants have so much power as to be this frank and insulting with her cousin? And was Bia even sane anymore, because to me, she looked very unstable. The reformed portion of me nagged at my heart, constantly reminding me that this was my fault. But the real Minh - the one with a mission - all he could see was that Bia was of no use now.

And that portion of me, was wrong. When Bia looked at me next, it was with fiery abandon that she spoke, "You shall never have the Princess, Minh-" she began, but Anh cut her across.

"He doesn't want the Princess, you rascal!" Anh hissed, through gritted teeth.

But Bia was too focused on me to listen, she continued as if Anh hadn't spoken. "And now - now you can regret falling in love with her. I never wanted to be the villian, Minh, but if you find her dead, tell them I did it."

A sweep of fancy dress trail and sweet smelling hair later, Bia was gone. Anh looked thoroughly disgusted. "Why would the woman come speak to you if she wants nothing to do with you."

"She wants revenge... isn't that reason enough?" I ask, a little stumped at Bia's words. "She'll try her best to harm Princess Hue now."

Anh looked at me, "You really believe her?" she asked, laughing. "She's as mad as they get. Empty threats."

But deep down, I knew. I was only a spectator now, to whatever Bia might do.

+ + +

What can a boy of nine, living in the finest luxuries one day, say, when he brought to the streets the very next?

I watch my mother, beautiful, but now in cheap cotton of the working women. It's been a week of cooking on stoves like this, the very first time, she had cried her eyes out. Because of either the smoke or the humiliation. Today she coughs, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hands, there's only one thing I see in her now - resignation. To a life full of labor and drudgery, until we've paid back all the money my father had borrowed. We had been rich, loans had been easy. Even in the worst cases, the most we had to do was to sell one ornament to repay the entire amount.

It was all gone now. Into the Lord's treasury. Apparently my father had been corrupt. But are you not corrupt too, when you take away the right to education from me? Are you not corrupt too when you threaten my mother each day with death and worse, if she doesn't repay you what her dead husband borrowed?

But the stove burns and so does my heart. A lava of vengeance flows - slow, soft - I'll repay each one of you back in kind.