Nor was she any nearer the solution
of the desired secret.
That night she tossed upon a bed sleepless though heaped with
down, and her mind raged like a fire up and down all possible
answers to the riddle, but none would serve. Then, at the dawn,
raising herself on one august elbow she called to her venerable
nurse and foster mother, the Lady Ma, wise and resourceful in the
affairs and difficulties of women, and, repeating the
circumstances, demanded her counsel.
The Lady Ma considering the matter long and deeply, slowly
replied:
"This is a great riddle and dangerous, for to intermeddle with
the divine secrets is the high road to the Yellow Springs
(death). But the child of my breasts and my exalted Mistress
shall never ask in vain, for a thwarted curiosity is dangerous as
a suppressed fever. I will conceal myself nightly in the Dragon
Bedchamber and this will certainly unveil the truth. And if I
perish I perish."
It is impossible to describe how the Empress heaped Lady Ma with
costly jewels and silken brocades and taels of silver beyond
measuring - how she placed on her breast the amulet of jade that
had guarded herself from all evil influences, how she called the
ancestral spirits to witness that she would provide for the Lady
Ma's remotest descendants if she lost her life in this sublime
devotion to duty.
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