It happens to everyone, we tell the Emperor. We’re lying, but he’s no fun when he mopes. We pile over him in the bed like pillows, rub his muscles with oil from night blooming flowers, offer to do that thing with our thumbs that he loves. It's useless; he insists he’s not stupid, asks if everyone thinks he’s stupid? Suddenly boyish. We purr, of course not, you silly duck. He knew he was naked, he moans, only hoped he'd, like, start a new ‘thing,’ that the palace has grown stiff, not stiff, it’s … He trails off his thought, admiring his biceps. Staid? Stodgy? we offer. He doesn’t like it when we use big words. He frowns. Stiff is perfect, we agree. We help him grow stiff, whisper yesterday wasn’t  so bad. No one will remember. He struggles free, angry, saying he wants those tailors who tricked him hanged. We say we’ll carry the message. We won’t, though. The tailors are our best clients. They’re funny. They’re brave. They listen to us. We apply our thumbs to the Emperor and he melts into the sheets.

*

What’s that idiot talking about out there? Raul the cobbler says, sinking his sharp chin in my shoulder, trying to peek through a slat in the closet door and into the Emperor’s bedchamber. We shush Raul. Someone’s got their foot wedged in my ass, all of us squeezed like puzzle pieces into this closet and merging to form one man with a single, pulsing heartbeat, the temperature rising and baking us in garlic breath and a cacophony of colognes. Why don’t they get rid of him? squeaks little An, who sews buttons. I could swear his chirping makes the Emperor start but the silk women tackle the fool, roll around the bed like lion cubs wrestling. Now he’s surely forgotten. Who’s got the poison? I ask, tell me you remembered the poison. Someone whose face is wedged so deep in my back I feel them more than I hear them says, me! It’s in my pocket. Yesterday, the Emperor’s adversaries watched their chance slip by, parade by, the idiot as vulnerable as an infant. All our hard work for nothing.

*

The Emperor, spent, demands we bring him his gold mirrors. He sluffs off the sheets and stands, naked and posing, raises his fist, shouts the hell with it, he’s Emperor, ten times the man as any. By God,  he’ll try it again. We cheer. We massage his ego with honey from aquatic bees. We slick his vanity back with combs chiseled from jaguar bone. Go get’em your highness, we say, hiding our smiles behind peacock feathers. He strides out of the bedchamber flexing his dimpled ass. We fill his wine cups. He’ll be thirsty after running the palace halls. When we’re certain he’s gone, we signal the tailors to come tumbling in.