Clockwork Samurai (3 page)

The physicians' court received a constant flow of spices, tribute teas and herbs from the provinces as well as a few rare remedies from the merchant ships. The more valuable shipments were usually snatched up by the head eunuchs and either kept for the Emperor's private use or distributed to members of the Grand Council in exchange for goodwill.

I was left to sort out the more common remedies. One of the crates was marked with an unusual seal. I didn't recognize the trading house, and when I searched through the manifest, the contents were listed as tea. There was no record of purchase. This had been sent as a gift.

Inside was a sack filled with dried flowers. When I pulled out a handful of the blossoms for a closer inspection, a rain of tiny black seeds scattered over the table.
Yingsu
poppies, the same flower that yielded opium.

I ran my fingers over the petals, and a few flaked off. The curious thing was we had plenty of
yingsu
in our drawers. The plant had long been used for medicinal purposes. The flower and seeds, and even parts of the stalk, could be boiled down into a soup to dull pain or aid digestion.

But somewhere along the way, it was discovered that the resin extracted from the seed pods was a hundred times more potent. And when the substance was smoked rather than swallowed, its darker, more addictive nature emerged.

Why had this crate been sent when we had a steady supply of it? It wasn't until I lifted the sack that I saw the woodcut engraving on the bottom of the crate. It was an ocean junk, triple-masted with battened red sails to catch the wind.

I knew this ship. I had spent several weeks on board over a year ago. Apparently its captain hadn't forgotten.

I emptied out the rest of the sack and inspected every board and nail on the crate, searching for a message. There was none—Yang Hanzhu wouldn't be so heavy-handed. He was wanted for treason. Any communication between us could put me in danger, yet he'd still managed to secretly smuggle a shipment into the Forbidden City.

Yang had been a chemist in the Ministry of Science under my father. Everyone who knew him thought he was brilliant. He was also a bit of a scoundrel. Once he'd been loyal to my father, but now he was loyal to no one.

The poppies lay in a pile on the worktable.
They
were the message. Opium came from a plant we had known and used for over a thousand years. It had been transformed into the black poison that now infected our country. And somehow, for reasons we didn't yet understand, it had been transformed again.

Yang was still searching for the answer to opium, to the addiction, and to the strange sickness we'd seen evidence of firsthand. The afflicted fell first into a deep sleep from which they couldn't be roused. But if they did awaken, they became like wild animals. Pure instinct, unadulterated rage.

When I'd first been installed in the palace, I'd written petitions to the Ministry of Science, to the trade commission. I sent accounts from Changsha about the opium sickness, for which I received no answer.

I shuddered as I thought of how many doses of opium were being set to pipes at this very moment. How many addicts lounged inside opium dens scattered throughout the capital? Whorehouses, teahouses. The imperial palace itself. They all craved the black poison, breathing the smoke into their lungs. Inviting the demon inside.

I had come to the capital hoping to make a difference, but I'd done nothing. Nothing at all.

That evening, I was awoken by another messenger. The Emperor suffered from a headache and needed my services. I brewed the herbal potion and sent it on before crawling back into bed.

For the rest of the night, I tossed and turned in my bed, waiting. I expected the Emperor's servant to return with an imperial decree that I was not allowed to refuse.

The decree never came, but I was convinced one day it would. Not because I was particularly pretty or charming or clever. It would come because Yizhu was Emperor and I was a conquest. One that he could win.

In the Forbidden City, there is always the danger of being swallowed whole. Of being buried deep and forgotten.

That was how I felt when I sent a petition for an audience with the internal office of security the very next morning. When there was no reply, I sent another request the following day. And another the day after.

It was like shouting from the bottom of a deep and narrow well.

At one point, I even considered writing to Chen Chang-wei. Certainly he would listen to my situation. He would help me.

In the end, I tore up the letter.

A week passed before I received the summons from the head of security. The moment I had the letter in hand, I headed to the imperial guard headquarters. There I presented the document to the stone-faced guards out front, half expecting to be turned away. Without a word, they stepped aside.

There were guardhouses stationed throughout the palace, but the central office handled the bureaucracy of managing the thousands of bannermen in the service of protecting the Emperor.

The headquarter building was fashioned of dark wood, unpainted and lacking the gilt and ornamentation of the audience halls. When I was led into the headman's office, however, it was more akin to a scholar's study than a soldier's hideout. A carved cherrywood desk anchored the room, and the walls were bare except for a map of the inner palace that spanned the far wall. Various sections were marked with colored flags.

Headman Aguda adhered to the old Manchurian custom of retaining a single given name. He stood from his desk as I entered.

“Miss Jin Soling,” he greeted.

His height made his bow appear awkward, though he moved with a measured, almost stately grace. When I first met him, he'd held the rank of inspector and was part of the crown prince's inner circle. A member of the Manchurian elite. Aguda was the one who had sought me out, looking to recover my father's secrets.

That last mission had given the empire a formula for gunpowder fuel, one that was currently used to power its engines. In return, Emperor Yizhu had officially cleared my father's name, allowing our return to the capital. And Aguda was promoted to head of the imperial guard.

So I wasn't completely without allies within the Forbidden City. I wouldn't call the headman a friend, but we had history.

I wasn't accustomed to seeing him in the robes of a ranking official. His embroidered square showed a tiger with claws bared, and his cap was set with an ostrich feather.

“Do you realize that a petition within the inner palace typically takes weeks, if not months, to be processed?” he asked
me, eyebrow raised.

Aguda's lips twitched as he tapped a hand against a stack of papers. I recognized my writing on the petitions. Whatever it was I had expected from this meeting, it wasn't humor.

“What is so urgent, Miss Jin, that you had to come see this humble servant?”

“I came to express my sincere gratitude, Headman Aguda, for my current appointment. And to ask humbly if I may be reassigned.”

He arched a thick eyebrow. “Reassigned? That hardly sounds like gratitude.”

“I know, sir. And I apologize, but the current position no longer seems . . . appropriate.”

It was impossible to say what I was truly afraid of aloud. Yizhu was Emperor, and we all served him, but I didn't want to become a diversion, something to be used for the Emperor's pleasure and then discarded.

“I owe you a debt of gratitude,” he began quietly. “It is because of your valiant efforts that the Emperor saw fit to promote me. For that reason, I saw fit to help you in any way I could. A position within the inner palace, in close contact with the Emperor and the imperial court. Is that not a great honor?”

“In close contact with the Emperor's concubines,” I corrected.

His eyes gleamed. “Don't underestimate the importance of your work. Those women comprise the secret court in the palace, Miss Jin.”

“It is a very important position, sir. But . . .”

I could see the way Yizhu had looked at me, more with cold determination than interest. And how the imperial harem and palace eunuchs looked at me differently as a result of the emperor's regard. I had become a player in their game.

“This is not the fight I came here to fight,” I told Aguda boldly.

“I thought your temperament would be well suited toward this assignment. You're observant, levelheaded. Not quick to become involved in any disputes. It was only a matter of time before people came to trust you, and yet you yourself trust no one.”

How had I not seen this before? “You wanted an informant in the inner palace.”

His gaze pierced into me. “Nothing as insidious as you make it sound. It's good to have eyes and ears everywhere. For security purposes.”

“But—” My mind was spinning. “You never discussed any such plans with me. How would I ever know to report to you?”

His lips twitched. “Are you not here now? Tell me, is there any truth to the rumors about the Emperor's indulgences? His appetites in the bedchamber?”

I stiffened. “I know nothing of it.”

“Nonsense, Miss Jin. You know everything.” He rose from the desk and stretched to his full height. I had to tilt my head upward to meet his gaze.

“I know nothing.”

His eyes bore into me. For a moment, we were locked as if in combat. Inside, my heart beat so hard I thought I would faint, but outwardly I remained calm. A skill I had learned from my time within the palace.

“Very good.” I thought I saw a smile crack through the hard line of his mouth. “It would be a serious offense to find an appointment I had secured was passing gossip.”

The headman relaxed, but I couldn't.

“I don't wish for you to be a spy, Miss Jin,” he said, coming to stand before me. “There is no effort needed on your part. It would be just like Canton.”

Just like Canton
. In Canton, Aguda had set me out as bait.

My stomach knotted. I had the distinct feeling of being a frog in a well, able to see only the waters around me. “You deliberately assigned me to the harem to catch the Emperor's eye?” I asked slowly.

“As a favor. A young woman of marriageable age would find it a great opportunity. And our Emperor has shown himself to have a wandering eye. Granted, you are slightly older than most of the chosen concubines, but I figured it was only a matter of time.”

I felt sick. Aguda had been trying to play matchmaker in some twisted fashion. “Please have me reassigned, Headman Aguda.”

“And where do you suggest?” he replied coolly. “The physician's position in the harem may not be to your liking at the moment, but some of your other pursuits have cost great men their reputations—and their lives.”

Other pursuits? I was close enough to his desk now that I could see two stacks of papers arranged neatly on it. One contained my requests to come see him, but the other stack was also in my handwriting. It contained petitions I'd written nearly a year ago. Ones I assumed had been discarded.

“Opium is an unfavorable endeavor,” he said gravely. “We all know what happened to Commissioner Lin when he tried to eradicate the drug in Canton.”

The commissioner seized over twenty thousand chests of foreign opium and proceeded to burn it. And he'd started a war.

Lin had later died in exile.

As I glanced over my petition to warn the public of the tainted opium shipments, I noticed the character for
epidemic
had been blotted out with black ink.

“An unfavorable endeavor,” Aguda echoed beneath his breath. “The harem is at least a harmless assignment.”

“It's not harmless.”

If we didn't have history, I wouldn't have dared to turn my back on him then. I had to leave before I let my temper get the best of me.

When I returned to Peking, I vowed I would not be bent to anyone's purposes. If living within the palace walls required
that one live in a web of intrigue, then I'd rather seek employment as a washerwoman along the riverbank.

“You should reconsider, Miss Jin,” Aguda called after me. “Most would find it an honor to serve the Emperor. A consort enjoys much more privilege than a humble acupuncturist.”

More privilege, but certainly not more freedom. Not in the way I saw it.

“The Emperor has selected many suitable consorts for his harem,” I replied. “I can serve him best elsewhere.”

I was a subject of the empire, but I belonged to myself, mind and body. I had earned that much. I had earned it.

On nights of the new or round moon, the inhabitants of the palace flocked to the temples of Jingshan Park. I took advantage of the full moon to venture outside the walls to the grass-covered expanse to the north.

A weight lifted from my shoulders the moment I was free of the Forbidden City. Of the iron cage and the legion of guards. Every breath felt easier, cleaner. I needed the sky above. I needed time to think.

Carrying a lantern with me, I followed a steep trail to the northern peak. The rocky hill was man-made, as was the rest of the park. The imperial engineering corps had used earth dug up from the surrounding moat and transformed it into a mountain. A small-scale mountain, at least, dotted with shrines.

A viewing pavilion rested at the peak of the slope. I climbed to the top and was happy to find it waiting, empty. From inside, I could see just beyond the palace to catch glimpses of surrounding Peking. The walls of the Summer Palace rose at the edge of the city borders. One palace wasn't enough for our Emperors. This was another fortress. Another show of splendor.

An airship rose lazily above the palace grounds, just edging above the horizon. Its belly must have been laden with cargo that slowed its ascent. I watched the sails billowing as they caught the wind.

The vessel resembled one of the great treasure ships that had sailed the oceans during the reign of the Ming Emperors. Perhaps that was done deliberately to evoke the same sense of grandeur and conquest. Only a few generations ago, our empire had ruled the seas.

Unfortunately, the
Yangguizi
weren't as mindful of history or traditions.

“One would think you were eager to leave, Soling, the way you watch them go.”

I turned to see Chang-wei clearing the top step. The twilight sky beyond framed him in shadow, but I would recognize him anywhere from his silhouette alone. From his lean frame and strong shoulders to the tilt of his head. Chang-wei always held himself with such thoughtful poise.

He settled down beside me on the bench, and for a while we just watched the airship rise up into the clouds. The silence between us was easy, comfortable, like a warm blanket. For a moment, it was like it had been when we were traveling the southern province together. I hadn't realized how much I'd missed this.

“It's been a year since we landed in that airfield,” I remarked.

“Hard to imagine.”

We used to watch the ships take off from the airfield together, speaking about the wide world outside of Peking, but lately there had been little opportunity. Chang-wei's duties kept him busy, and I was being drawn deeper into the complexities of the inner palace.

“Peking has changed so much, I barely recognize it,” I went on.

“Every Emperor adds glory to his name by building,” Chang-wei remarked. “At the end of his reign, the Daoguang
Emperor threw his efforts into fortifying the city.”

“And our Xianfeng Emperor builds war machines,” I finished for him, referring to Yizhu's reigning name.

For the last ten years, the factories of the south had churned out weapons and ships, powered by coal and iron from the mines. If we'd remained in our village, my brother would have likely been conscripted into the factories. The frantic push to produce had put a strain on the population, which had, in turn, pushed more peasants and laborers into the rebellion.

“The walls and the towers, I can understand.” I had glimpsed the Western merchant fleet docked in Canton and Shanghai. The iron monsters lined our shores, fitted with their cannons and steam engines. The memory left me cold with dread.

“I had always thought of the palace itself as a grand and beautiful place,” I said. “A place where great things happened.”

“You're inside now. Everything looks different from inside.”

“Sometimes I fear—” I looked to the horizon, past the walls and towers and fortifications. We were so enclosed inside the Forbidden City. “Sometimes I fear I'll forget the things we've seen outside of the palace if I stay inside there too long.”

I thought about telling him of my petition to be transferred from the harem. Would he consider me ungrateful? Or worse, disloyal?

“It has been a while, hasn't it?” Chang-wei asked quietly.

“One becomes isolated in the Forbidden City.”

“But not forgotten.”

Chang-wei was an anchoring presence beside me. When he leaned close, I could smell sandalwood on his robe. It was the scent of books and libraries and ancient scrolls kept in locked cases.

There was something I needed to know. “You left so quickly the other day.”

Chang-wei averted his eyes and pretended to watch the airship. “There are always eyes watching in the palace.”

“What did you not want them to see?”

My heart stood still as he glanced back at me. Chang-wei's composure was a thing of legend, but his confounded look at that moment was almost endearing.

Gently, he reached to brush back a strand of my hair tugged loose by the evening breeze. His fingertips just grazed the shell of my ear. Each movement seemed drawn out and deliberate. At least time seemed to have slowed for me.

“There are things that have happened between us,” he began. “Things that make me irrational at times.”

Was now one of those times? The first and only time we kissed had been a situation like this. We were atop the citadel in the city of Changsha during the rebel siege. We had been alone up there before Chang-wei rode out with a garrison to defend the city.

He'd kissed me. And I'd kissed him back, forgetting all the chaos that swirled around us.

We were alone again now.

I turned on the bench to face him, fighting to keep my breath steady. But Chang-wei remained where he was.

He gazed at me thoughtfully. “I overstepped my bounds in the Inner Court the other day. When I saw you, I reacted
out of emotion.”

“And how else can one be expected to react?”

He went on, unfazed. “The Emperor is our sovereign. If he had . . . he can have anyone he wants . . .”

“It's not like that.”

Why was I blushing? I hadn't encouraged the Emperor. And truly he hadn't shown any interest aside from a few simple requests. Treatments for headaches. For sleeplessness. When considered in bright daylight, there was nothing unreasonable about his demands.

Yet there were stories told by the eunuchs. Our Emperor was young, virile. The stories claimed he had a taste for the forbidden: dancers, servants, perhaps even the daughter of a disgraced official?

His exploits were hardly for me to judge. I knew of another Yizhu. One who had studied diligently under my father. One who woke at first daylight to attend to the empire's affairs and stayed awake late into the night fretting about uprisings and foreign devils and rebels who were tunneling under city walls and beheading Manchurian officials.

Yizhu was my Emperor, and his purpose was my purpose. But he was also a man pulled in too many directions. Perhaps he couldn't be blamed for drowning himself in pleasure for the few moments that were his own. But I was determined not to become one of those conquests.

Overhead, the airship turned southward, trailing a faint plume of gunpowder smoke. It passed to the east, avoiding the grounds of the Forbidden City. The low rumbling of the engine split the air like thunder.

“Where do you think this one is going?” I asked as the roar of the engine faded. I didn't want to talk about the palace anymore.

“Perhaps it's being sent to supply troops along the Yellow River. Or to reinforce the fleet in Changsha,” Chang-wei surmised. “The imperial army has started using the walled city as a base for further attacks against the rebels.”

“Yang Hanzhu escaped from Peking on the Ministry's old airship,” I remarked, not knowing exactly why I thought of the chemist at that moment. “He escaped the purge along with several others.”

Chang-wei's mood darkened at the mention of his former colleague. “Yang has always been resourceful.”

“Would you have gone with them?”

“It doesn't matter. It wasn't possible.”

Chang-wei had been captured at the battle of Wusong and imprisoned on a ship captained by the
Yangguizi
. After my father took the blame for the empire's loss, his corps of engineers and scientists had been scattered, but Chang-wei alone returned to the Emperor's service.

“I tried to continue Yang's opium experiments,” I confessed. “But the head physician wouldn't allow it.”

In the evenings, I wrote down all I could remember of the experiments I had conducted on Hanzhu's ship as we'd analyzed different opium samples. Yang Hanzhu had been convinced opium was at the heart of the empire's decay. I couldn't argue with him on that. Even if the
Yangguizi
were chased out, and the rebels defeated, our empire would still be infected.

Yang theorized that something had made the substance more addictive. That it had been altered in some way.

“I proposed such a study to the Ministry of Science as well,” Chang-wei admitted. “But Minister Kuo rejected the notion. There's no glory in such experiments. He prefers to sponsor building projects on a grand scale so the court can shower him with praise.”

“While opium is an unfavorable endeavor,” I murmured.

The drug was a black mark upon the empire. It left everyone's hands unclean.

After being apart for so long, I was afraid we would be strangers again, but here we were, falling into our old patterns: Chang-wei discussing his dreams for the empire; me listening intently, wondering if this is what our lives would have been like if fate had been different.

When I'd returned to Peking, I thought we would continue as we had before. Chang-wei and I fighting for the empire. Together.

The airship had become a smudge against the clouds, fading quickly into the evening sky.

“Will you be watching when my airship takes flight?” Chang-wei asked.

I turned to him, startled. “Where are you going?”

“To see our neighbors on the island empire of Japan.”

My eyes grew wide. “The Emperor decided in your favor after all.”

“Several days ago, Chief Engineer Kuo changed his stance and argued on my behalf. Nothing like an adversary's support to make one doubt oneself.”

It was the first time Chang-wei had called Kuo Lishen a rival. “You think the chief engineer has some other purpose in mind?”

Chang-wei shrugged. “Perhaps he merely wants me out of sight for a while.”

Despite his loyalty to the empire, Chang-wei still struggled for acceptance. There was a time when I had doubted him as well. Even though I considered him a friend, there was so much I didn't know about him. What had happened during his time among the
Yangguizi
? And why did he continue to maintain contact with Westerners in the treaty ports?

But all those questions faded away as the realization of what he'd just told me sank in. “How long will you be gone?”

“It's uncertain. A few weeks, perhaps a month.”

I hugged my arms to myself, suddenly feeling cold. “That . . . that isn't too long, I suppose. Hopefully it will be an uneventful journey. Are airships as tossed by storms as the ones in the sea?”

I was unable to focus my thoughts. Chang-wei watched me with a look that was part kindness, part confusion, and I wanted to swallow my own tongue to keep it from babbling.

He was my only friend in the capital. I was feeling more trapped inside the inner palace every day, and now Chang-wei would be leaving as well.

“Do you truly believe an alliance with Japan will help us?” I asked.

His expression became thoughtful. “The Ministry used to exchange ideas with scientists in Japan, but not since your father left and Kuo took his place. Their studies took a different direction than ours. The study of firearms.”

“From the
Yangguizi.
” Just the mention of the foreign devils left a bitter taste in my mouth.

“Not everything from the West is evil, Soling.”

I didn't respond. The war against the
Yangguizi
had cost my father his life. I would never trust them.

“Japanese knowledge with our factories to produce the weapons,” Chang-wei went on. “I'm not a strategist or a general, but it seems logical to me. Combine the efforts of our two nations against a common adversary. The Westerners haven't attacked Japan, but it's only a matter of time.”

“The Japanese won't think kindly of you if you go bearing that message,” I warned.

Chang-wei always forgot about politics and human pride. In his head, the world was a logical place where people would be compelled to make the right decisions if allowed to see them.

In truth, people had the right decisions in front of them all the time and still chose wrong.

“Airships and war vessels won't solve all of our problems. Chief Engineer Kuo has risen through the ranks by feeding the court's hatred and fear of the
Yingguoren.
His solution is to build higher walls around the ports,” Chang-wei said, agitated. “A dome around the inner palace to prevent attack. A greater army. Everything is focused within, like a tortoise retreating into its shell. It can't be the only way. We have to look outward.”

“I hope you're right,” I murmured. “I really hope you are.”

When I had returned to Peking, it was upon one of the Emperor's dragon ships. For the first time in eight years, I had looked upon the city of my birth with hope. Chang-wei had given that to me.

“The Emperor refuses to consider an alliance with a nation that is beneath him. And Chief Engineer Kuo won't abide by any ideas but his own.”

“Yet they are allowing you to go.”

He smiled faintly. “Chen Chang-wei on another one of his mad schemes.”

A wave of loneliness hit me. I wanted very much to be a part of his mad schemes. I had come to the capital to be a part of the fight, but now Chang-wei would continue with his battle, while I remained tucked away, hiding like a tortoise in its shell.