Love in the Time of Poison

The empress dowager gives the maid an order: bring the emperor out of his vow of abstinence, or be put to death for failing. The maid is an actress, a well-known one, who has been dropped out of her own era into this palace and put among a small group of attendants kept for exactly this job. The emperor has sworn off the world. He lives as an ascetic, takes no woman to his bed, and has handed the running of the state to his uncle, a prince who took power for himself by treason. The withdrawal is an act. The emperor is keeping out of his uncle's way while he gathers the strength for a move against him, and the dowager is working with the uncle. The maid's efforts at seduction get no reaction from him. With nothing left to lose she drops all pretence of palace manners, and it is this that starts to unsettle him. Her presence also draws the jealousy of another woman at court, who arranges to have her poisoned. The emperor gets to her in time. Between the poison and her recovery something begins between the two of them, and the arrangement that had kept the emperor, his uncle and the dowager in balance starts to shift.