My earliest memory is of my mother.

She was a beautiful woman, and from what I’ve been told, she had the favor of the court due to her grace and poise. Old letters and poems that I later found among her things compared her to the full moon, the starry skies, even the blazing sun as it glimmered across the ocean; beautiful words that described nothing more than the empty impression of someone graced by the Heavens with a pretty face. I don’t remember a beautiful princess of the palace; I only remember a warm embrace, my mother’s silk robes scented by a heady incense. Her eyes were reddened by tears and grief as she hugged me farewell, wrapping me in the lengths of her brocade sleeves. And then she pulled away with a sob and fled to the ox-drawn cart where my father was waiting, leaving me standing in the morning snow, Grandmother’s hand heavy on my shoulder as the cart creaked and rolled away slowly down the road.

I think I cried – any child would have – but I can’t remember my own tears, only my mother’s.