Imperial Woman (11 page)

On the third day before the end of her son’s first moon month Yehonala went to Sakota’s palace. She wore a new robe of imperial-yellow satin embroidered in small flowers of pomegranate red, and on her head a headdress of black satin beaded with pearls. Her face was first washed with melted mutton fat and then with perfumed water, and afterward powdered and painted. Her fine eyebrows were drawn with a brush dipped in oiled ink. Her mouth, always lovely, was painted a smooth red, and this mouth betrayed her warm heart for it was full and tender. Upon her hands she wore jeweled rings and one thumb ring of solid jade, and to guard her long polished nails she wore shields of thin beaten gold set with small gems. From her ears hung earrings of jade and pearls. Her high-soled shoes and headdress made her seem taller than she was. When she was attired even her ladies clapped their hands to see her beauty.

She took her son in her arms then, he in scarlet satin from head to foot, embroidered with small dragons of gold, and with him she sat in her palanquin and they were borne, mother and son, to the Consort’s palace, the eunuchs walking ahead to announce the arrival and the ladies following. When they came to their destination, Yehonala came down from the palanquin and stepped over the threshold. There in the reception hall she saw Sakota. Pale and yellow Sakota always was, and now more than ever for she had not recovered from the birth of her daughter. Her skin was withered and her little hands were shrunken into such that an invalid child might own.

Before this small timid creature, Yehonala stood strong and handsome as a young cedar tree.

“I come to you, Cousin,” she said, after greeting. “I come on behalf of our son. True, I gave him birth, but your duty, Cousin, is even greater to him than my own, for is not his father the Son of Heaven, who is your lord before he is mine? I ask your protection for our son.”

Sakota rose from her chair and she stood half bowed, clinging to its arms. “Sit down, Cousin,” she said in her plaintive voice. “It is the first time you have walked outside your own courts for a month. Sit down and rest.”

“I will not rest until I have your promise for our son,” Yehonala said.

She continued to stand as she spoke and she looked steadfastly at Sakota, while she made her black eyes blacker still, their pupils swelling and glowing.

Sakota sank back into the chair. “But—but why?” she stammered. “Why do you speak to me so? Are we not kin? Is not the Emperor our mutual lord?”

“It is for our son that I ask your favor,” Yehonala said, “and never for myself. I have no need of anyone. Yet I must be sure that you are for our son and not against him.”

Each lady knew what the other meant. In the division of continuing intrigue among the princes and the eunuchs, Yehonala was saying, she must be certain that Sakota would not accept the leadership of those who might plot to destroy the Heir and set another upon the Dragon Throne. By her silence Sakota announced that there was such intrigue and that she did not wish to give her promise.

Yehonala stepped forward while she gave her son to a lady to hold for her. “Give me your hands, Cousin.” Her voice was smooth and resolute. “Promise me that none can divide us. We must live out our lives together here within these walls. Let us be friends and not enemies.”

She waited while Sakota hesitated and did not put out her hands. Then suddenly, her great eyes furious, Yehonala leaned down and grasped those two small soft hands and crushed them so fiercely that the tears rushed to Sakota’s eyes. So Yehonala had used to do when they were children. Whenever Sakota had pouted and rebelled, Yehonala had crushed her hands until they ached.

“I—I promise,” Sakota said in a broken voice.

“And I promise,” Yehonala said firmly.

She put the two small hands on Sakota’s satin lap again, and she saw what all the ladies saw, that the thin gold shields of her nails had cut red stripes into the tender flesh and Sakota put her hands together and let the tears of pain run down her cheeks.

But Yehonala said no word of sorrow for what she had done. She bowed, she waved aside the bowl of tea that a lady offered her.

“I will not stay, Cousin,” she said in her usual lovely voice. “I came for this promise and now I have it. It is mine, so long as my life lasts and so long as my son’s life lasts. Nor will I forget that I, too, have given my own promise.”

With surpassing pride, this proud woman let her eyes circle from one face to another. Then she turned and sweeping her golden robes about her she took back her son and went away.

That night when she had seen her child fed and sleeping in the arms of his nurse she sent for Li Lien-ying. He was never far off from where she was and now when he had come, she commanded him to bring to her the Chief Eunuch, An Teh-hai.

“Tell him I have a trouble that I brood upon,” she said.

So Li Lien-ying went and in an hour or two he brought the Chief Eunuch, who said, after greeting, “Forgive me, Venerable, for delay. I was busy in the Emperor’s bedchamber and under his command.”

“You are forgiven,” Yehonala said. She pointed her forefinger at a chair upon which he was to sit, and she sat down in her own thronelike chair by the long carved table set against the inner wall of the room. Her ladies she had dismissed and only Li Lien-ying and her woman remained with her.

Li Lien-ying now made pretense also to withdraw, but Yehonala bade him stay.

“What I have to say is for both of you, for I must count you two as my left hand and my right.”

She went on then to inquire of the intrigues which her ladies had whispered into her ears. “Is this true?” she asked of the Chief Eunuch. “Are there those who plot to seize the Throne from my son, if—” She paused, for none who spoke of the Emperor could say the word “death.”

“Lady, all is true.” The Chief Eunuch nodded his handsome heavy head.

“Say on,” she commanded.

“Venerable, you must know,” he said, obeying, “that no one among the mighty clans believed that the Emperor could beget a sound son. When the Consort gave birth to a sickly girl, certain of the princes took heart and they plotted how, the moment that the Emperor departed for the Yellow Springs, they would steal the imperial seal. Alas—alas—” again he shook his head, “we may not expect a long reign. The Emperor is young in years, but the Dowager Mother loved him too well. He fed on sweets when he was a child, and when he had pains in his belly she ordered opium for him. Before he was twelve years of age he was debauched by eunuchs and by sixteen he was exhausted by women. Let me speak the truth.”

Here the Chief Eunuch put his large smooth hands on his knees and he made his voice so low that Li Lien-ying had to lean to hear it.

“In wisdom,” the Chief Eunuch said, his wide face solemn, “we must now count our friends and enemies.”

Yehonala sat without moving while he spoke. It was her grace that she could sit for hours motionless and at ease, an upright imperial figure. She looked at him now without a sign of fear.

“Who are our enemies?” she asked.

“First, the Grand Councilor, Su Shun,” the Chief Eunuch whispered.

“He!” she exclaimed. “And I have taken his daughter as my court lady and my favorite!”

“Even he,” the Chief Eunuch said gravely, “and with him the Emperor’s own nephew, Prince Yi, and after him Prince Cheng. These three, Venerable, are your first enemies, because you have given us an heir.”

She bowed her head. The danger was as great as she had imagined. These were mighty princes, related by blood and clan to the Emperor himself. And she was but a woman.

She lifted her head proudly. “And who are my friends?”

The Chief Eunuch cleared his throat. “Above all others, Venerable, Prince Kung, the younger brother of the Son of Heaven.”

“Is he indeed my friend?” she exclaimed. “Then he is worth all the rest.” She was still so young that any hope was hope enough and the red blood ran to her cheeks.

“When Prince Kung saw you,” the Chief Eunuch declared, “he said to a clansman standing near, who told me, that you were a woman so clever and so beautiful that either you would bring good fortune to the realm or you would destroy the Dragon Throne.”

These words Yehonala received into her thoughtful mind. She pondered them and for a space of time she sat entirely silent. Then she drew her breath in a long sigh.

“If I am to bring good fortune, I must have my weapons,” she said.

“True, Venerable,” the Chief Eunuch replied and waited.

“My first weapon,” she continued, “must be the power of rank.”

“True, Venerable,” the Chief Eunuch said again and waited.

“Return to the Emperor,” Yehonala commanded. “Put into his mind that the Heir is in danger. Put into his mind that only I can protect our child. Put into his mind that he must raise my rank to equal that of the Consort, so that she cannot have power over the Heir, or be used by those who crave such power.”

The Chief Eunuch smiled at such cleverness, and Li Lien-ying laughed, cracking his finger joints one after the other to show his pleasure.

“Lady,” the Chief Eunuch said, “I will put it in the Emperor’s mind that he so reward you on the Heir’s first moon birthday. What day could be more auspicious?”

“None,” she agreed.

She looked into his small black eyes set deep beneath his high smooth forehead and suddenly her own face dimpled and smiled and her great eyes shone with mischief, mirth and triumph.

The first month of her son’s life was completed. The moon had been full when he was born and it was full again. Certain dangers were passed, the danger of the ten-day madness, whereby infants the before ten days are spent; the danger of flux, whereby the bowels of an infant run out like water; the danger of continual vomiting; the danger of cough and cold and fever. At the end of this first month the Heir was fat and healthy, his will already imperious, and his hunger constant, so that his wetnurse must be ready day and night for his demand. This wetnurse Yehonala had chosen herself, a strong young country housewife, a Chinese, whose child was also a first son, and whose milk therefore was suited to the royal nursling. But Yehonala had not been content to have the Court physicians judge the woman sound and healthy. No, she must herself examine the woman’s body and taste the sweetness of her milk and smell her breath to discover any taint of sourness in it. And she herself prescribed the woman’s diet and saw to it that she was served only the best and richest foods. Upon such milk the princeling throve like any peasant’s child.

On this first moon birthday of his heir, then, the Emperor had decreed that feasts must be held throughout the nation. Here in the Forbidden City the day was to be given over entire to feasting and to music, and when he sent the Chief Eunuch to inquire of Yehonala what she would like for her own pleasure on this auspicious day she put her private craving into words.

“I do long to see a good play,” she told An Teh-hai. “Not since I came to live beneath these golden roofs have I seen a play. The Dowager Mother did not like actors, and I dared not ask while she lived, and in the months of mourning for her I could not ask. But now—will the Son of Heaven indulge me?”

An Teh-hai could not but smile at the sight of her face, flushed and ardent as a child’s, the great eyes hopeful.

“The Son of Heaven will refuse you nothing now, lady,” he told her, and he blinked and nodded his head many times to signify that she would indeed receive reward far larger than a play. Then forthwith he hastened off to do her bidding.

Thus it came about that on the day of feasting Yehonala had her lesser desire, too, while she waited for the greater, the pleasure of a play as well as her increase in rank. But first the gifts must be presented and received. For these rites the Emperor chose the throne room named the Palace of Surpassing Brightness. Here at dawn there waited men from all parts of the realm and among them eunuchs passed to and fro to tend the huge lanterns swinging from the beams, whereon were painted the imperial five-clawed dragons. These lanterns were made of horn and they gave forth such a light that, falling on the robes of eunuchs and of guests, it picked out the gold embroideries and the encrusted jewels of the throne. Every hue and color glowed at once, the crimson and the purple deep and strong, the scarlet and the bright blue accenting, and gold and silver glittering for sharpness.

In silence all waited for the coming of the Son of Heaven, and when dawn broke across the sky the imperial procession appeared, its banners streaming in the morning breeze and carried by the guardsmen in their scarlet tunics. Next came the princes, then the eunuchs, marching slowly two by two, in robes of purple belted with gold. In their mist twelve bearers bore the sacred yellow dragon palanquin in which sat the Son of Heaven himself. Within the Throne Hall all fell upon their knees and knocked their heads nine times upon the floor and shouted out their greeting, “Ten thousand years—ten thousand years—ten thousand years!”

The Emperor came down from his palanquin and with his right hand upon his brother’s arm and his left upon the arm of the Grand Councilor Su Shun, he mounted the golden throne. There, seated in precise dignity, his hands palms down upon his knees, he received in order the princes and the ministers who presented imperial gifts for the Heir. Their hands did not touch the gifts, for these were placed on trays and silver plates and brought by bearers, but Prince Kung read the lists of gifts and whence they came, from what provinces, what ports and cities, what country regions, and the Chief Eunuch, An Teh-hai, with brush and book, marked down the name of the giver and what the gift was and how much was its worth, and that he might set the value high, the givers had earlier bribed him with secret gifts of goods and money.

Now a screen stood behind the throne as usual, a mighty stretch of scented wood, most cunningly carved with five-clawed dragons, and behind it Yehonala and the Consort sat with their ladies. When all the gifts had been accepted, the Emperor summoned Yehonala to receive his own reward. The Chief Eunuch brought the summons and he led her from her place and she approached the Dragon Throne. She stood there for one instant, tall and straight, her head high, looking neither to the right nor left. Then slowly in obeisance she sank to her knees and laid her hands, one on the other, upon the tiled floor and put her forehead on her crossed hands.