Imperial Woman (13 page)

They moved in silence, the woman silent because she was weary, and Tzu Hsi silent because her mind was filled with somber thoughts. The times grew more grave. Only yesterday in private audience Prince Kung had said to her, “The people of any nation do not care who their rulers are, if there be peace and order in the realm and if they can laugh and attend plays. But if there be no peace and order is disturbed, then the people blame their rulers. It is our misfortune to rule in these times. Alas that my imperial brother is so feeble! Today neither white man nor Chinese rebel fears the Throne.”

“If these white-skinned foreigners had not come from across the seas,” Tzu Hsi said, “we could quell the Chinese rebels.”

To this he agreed sadly and thoughtfully. “Yet what shall we do?” he inquired. “They are here. It is the fault of our dynasty that our ancestors did not understand a hundred years ago that Western foreigners are different men from all others. Our ancestors at first were charmed with their cunning and their clever toys and clocks, and, thinking no evil, they allowed them to visit us, expecting that in courtesy they would then leave our shores. We know now that we should have pushed them all into the sea, from the very first man, for where one comes a hundred follow, and none goes away.”

“It is strange indeed,” Tzu Hsi observed, “that the Venerable Ancestor Ch’ien Lung, so great and so wise and ruling so many decades, did not perceive the nature of the men from the West.”

Prince Kung, shaking his head, went mournfully on. “Ch’ien Lung was deceived by his power and by his own good heart. It did not come to his mind that any could be his enemy. Indeed, he even likened himself to the American George Washington, then living, and he was fond of saying that he here, and Washington in America, were brothers, though they had never met face to face. It is true their reigns were contemporary.”

Such was the stuff of her talk with Prince Kung, and he took pains to teach her often, nowadays. Listening to him and lifting her eyes to that thin handsome face, though sad and weary it was for a man so young, she thought how far better it would have been if this Prince could have been the elder brother and so the Emperor, instead of her own weak lord, Hsien Feng.

“You are ready, Venerable,” her woman now said, “and I do wish you would eat a little hot food before you go to sit behind the Dragon Screen. A bowl of hot millet soup—”

“I will eat when I return,” Tzu Hsi replied. “I must be empty and my mind clear.”

She rose and walked toward the door, her pace measured, her body erect. Her ladies should be with her but she who could be stern and harsh enough when she willed was always mild to her obedient ladies, and she did not require that they rise early. It was enough that her woman rise and that Li Lien-ying, her eunuch, be waiting at the door. Yet one lady often rose, and it was the Lady Mei, the young daughter of Su Shun, prince and Grand Councilor. This morning when her woman opened the door for Tzu Hsi to pass, Lady Mei stood there already, somewhat pale from rising so early, but fresh as a white gardenia flower. She was at this time only eighteen years of age, small of stature and exquisitely shaped, a tender creature so loving in her ways and so yielding that Tzu Hsi loved her much in return, even though she knew that Su Shun was her secret enemy. It was a grace that Tzu Hsi was large of mind and exceedingly just and therefore she did not lay the blame of the cruel father upon the tender daughter.

She smiled now at the young girl. “Are you not early?”

“Venerable, I was so cold I could not sleep,” Lady Mei confessed.

“One of these days I must get you a husband to warm your bed,” Tzu Hsi said, still smiling.

She spoke these words with careless kindness, not knowing why she said them, but when they had fallen from her lips she knew instantly that they had come from an instinct which she would not recognize. Ah yes, ah yes, the gossip of the women in the courts, where there was little to do except to gossip, had fluttered from mouth to ear, ever since the first moon feast of the Imperial Heir, and she had caught the rumor that Lady Mei had been seen to look more than once at Jung Lu, the handsome Chief of the Imperial Guard and kinsman of the Fortunate Mother. Tzu Hsi heard this as she heard everything, her mind always aware, her eyes seeing, her ears hearing whether she woke or slept. Who could guess all that she knew, who made no confidante?

“Venerable, please, I want no husband,” Lady Mei now murmured, her cheeks suddenly pink.

Tzu Hsi pinched the pretty cheek. “No husband?”

“Let me stay with you always, Venerable,” the lady pleaded.

“Why not?” Tzu Hsi replied. “This is not to say you shall not have a husband.”

Lady Mei went pale and red and then pale again. Unlucky, unlucky to talk of marriage! The Empress of the Western Palace had only to command her marriage to a man and she must obey, whereas her whole heart was—

The gaunt shape of Li Lien-ying appeared before them, large and hideous, the light from the lantern in his hand flickering upward against his coarse features.

“The hour grows late, Venerable,” he said in his high eunuch’s voice.

Tzu Hsi recalled herself, “Ah, yes, and I must see my son.”

For it was her habit every morning to see her son before she went to audience, and she entered her sedan, the curtains fell, and the six bearers lifted the poles to their shoulders and marched forward in swift rhythm until they came to the palace of the Heir, her lady following in a small sedan.

At the entrance to the Heir’s private palace, the bearers set down their burden poles by habit and Tzu Hsi descended, her lady waiting while she hastened to her son. Eunuchs stood on guard, and they bowed as she passed to the royal bedchamber. There thick red candles of cow’s fat in gold candlesticks stood on a table, and by the. guttering light she saw her child. He was sleeping with his wetnurse and she lingered by his bed of quilts laid upon the platform of heated brick. He was pillowed on his nurse’s arm, his cheek against her naked breast. Some time in the night he must have wakened and cried and the woman had suckled him and they had both fallen asleep.

Tzu Hsi gazed down upon them with strange and painful longing. She it should have been who heard him weeping in the night and she it should have been who suckled him and then lay sleeping in deep peace. Ah, when she chose her destiny she did not think of such a price!

She forced her heart down again. The moment of choice was gone. By his very birth her son now confirmed her destiny. She was mother not to a child but to the Heir of the Empire, and to that day when he would be Emperor of four hundred million subjects she must give her whole mind. Upon her alone rested the burden of the Manchu dynasty. Hsien Feng was weak but her son must be strong. She would make him strong. To this end her whole life was directed. Even the long and pleasant hours of study in the palace libraries were fewer now, and few, too, the painting lessons with Lady Miao. Some day it might be that she would have time to brush the pictures which her teacher Lady Miao had never let her make, but not yet.

She was soon in her sedan again, the curtains drawn against the winds rising before dawn, the sight of her sleeping baby warm in her heart. She had been ambitious, once, to make herself an empress. How mighty was her ambition now, who must hold an empire for her son!

Through the shifting curtains of the sedan she could see the light of the eunuch’s lantern flickering upon the cobbles of the road, and by alleyway and courtyards she was carried until the Throne Hall was reached, and there by a side gate her sedan set down and the curtain lifted. Prince Kung stood waiting to receive her.

“Venerable, you are late,” he exclaimed.

“I lingered too long with my son,” she confessed.

He looked his reproach. “I hope, Venerable, that you do not wake the Heir. It is necessary indeed that he grow strong and full of health. His reign will be most arduous.”

“I did not wake him,” she said with dignity. No words passed more than these. Prince Kung bowed and led the way by an inner passage to the space behind the Dragon Throne. Here, shielded by the immense screen carved deep with that bold design of dragons, their scales and five-toed claws gilded and gleaming in the light of the great lanterns that hung from far up in the lofty painted beams, Tzu Hsi took her seat. On her right stood Lady Mei, and on her left the eunuch Li Lien-ying.

Through the interstices of the screen she saw now that the wide terrace in front of the Audience Hall, vast in shadows, was already filled with princes and ministers who had come before midnight in their springless fur-lined carts to bring petitions and memorials to the Emperor himself. While they waited in the courtyard for his arrival they separated themselves according to their rank and stood in groups together, each group beneath its own banner of bright silk and dark velvet. The darkness was still intense around and above, but the terrace was lit by the flaming lanterns in the lower courtyard. There at the four corners stood bronze elephants filled with oil, and this oil fed the torches which the elephants held in their uplifted trunks, and the fire, leaping toward the sky, cast a fierce and restless light upon the scene.

In the Audience Hall itself a hundred eunuchs moved to and fro, mending the huge horn lanterns, arranging their vivid and jeweled robes, whispering now and then as they waited. No voice spoke aloud. A strange silence brooded over all, and as the hour, fixed by the Board of Astrologers according to the stars, drew near, this silence deepened into something like a trance. None moved, all faces stiff and grave, all eyes gazing straight ahead. In the last moment before dawn broke, a courier blew his brass trumpet loudly and this was a sign. The Emperor had left his palace and his imperial procession was on its way, moving slowly through the broad lower throne halls, passing through one great entrance and another into the higher halls to arrive at the exact hour of dawn.

Now the couriers cried out together, “Behold the Lord of Ten Thousand Years!”

At this cry the imperial procession appeared at the entrance to the lower courtyard. Banners of gold waved in the morning wind as the couriers marched onward. Behind them came the Imperial Guard in tunics of red and gold, and at their head Jung Lu walked alone. Behind them bearers in yellow uniform, one hundred in number, carried the Emperor’s palanquin of heavy gold, and it in turn was followed by the Bannermen.

Every man and every eunuch fell down upon his knees and shouted the sacred greeting, “Ten Thousand Years—Ten Thousand Years!” Each bowed his face upon his folded hands as he knelt, and thus remained while the bearers carried the imperial sedan up the marble steps to the Dragon Terrace before the Audience Hall. There the Emperor descended, wrapped in his robes of gold embroidered with dragons, and passing between the red and gold pillars he walked slowly to the dais. He mounted its few steps and seated himself upon the Dragon Throne, his thin hands outspread upon his knees, his eyes fixed ahead.

Silence fell again. The kneeling multitude, their heads bowed upon their hands, did not move while Prince Kung took his place on the right of the Throne and standing he read aloud the names of princes and ministers in the order of their rank and the time at which each should appear. The audience had begun.

Tzu Hsi, behind the screen, leaned forward that she might not lose one word of what was said. Thus leaning she saw only the head and shoulders of the Emperor above the low back of the throne upon which he sat. This man, whose front appearance was so pale and haughty, was now betrayed. Beneath the imperial tasseled hat his nape showed thin and yellow, the neck of a sickly youth and not of a man, and this neck sat between two lean and narrow shoulders, stooping beneath the rich robes. Tzu Hsi saw him with mixed pity and repulsion, her mind’s eye following those thin shoulders to the thin and sickly body. And how could she keep her swift eyes from reaching beyond the Throne? There Jung Lu stood in the full strength of his youth and manhood. Yet they were as separate, she from him, as north is from the south. Ah, but the hour had not yet come when she could raise him up! Nor could he so much as put out his hand to her. Hers must be the hand to move, but when would be the instant and the chance? Not, and this she knew, until she was strong enough in power to make all men fear her. She must first be so high that none would dare accuse her or soil her name. And suddenly, guided by some instinct she would not acknowledge, her eyes slid sidewise toward Lady Mei. There the girl stood, her face pressed upon the screen, staring at—

“Stand back!” She seized Lady Mei by the wrist and pulled her, twisting her wrist suddenly and cruelly before she loosed it.

The lady turned her head in fright, and her eyes met those eyes, great and black and fierce with anger.

Tzu Hsi did not speak again but she let her eyes burn on until the girl could not bear it. Her head drooped, and the tears ran down her cheeks and only then did Tzu Hsi turn her eyes away. But her will rose hard within her against herself. She would not let her heart beguile her mind. This was the hour of learning how to rule. She would not yearn for love.

At this same moment Yeh, the Viceroy of the Kwang provinces, was before the Throne. He had come by boat and by horseback from the south, where he was the appointed governor of those provinces. Now kneeling, he read aloud from a scroll which he held in both hands. He had a high level voice, not strong but piercing, and since he was a famous scholar, he had written his words in rhythms of four, in the ancient classic style. Only the learned could understand what he said and Tzu Hsi herself, listening with close care, could not have comprehended except that she had so diligently spent her time in studying ancient books. Her intelligence enlightened the words and she guessed what she did not know.

Here was the purport. The traders from the West were pressing again in the south, led by the white Englishmen, who were angry and over so small an affair that he, the Viceroy, was ashamed to mention it now before the Dragon Throne. Yet from such small matters in the past wars had been fought and lost, and he, appointed by the Son of Heaven, could not risk the danger of yet another war. Whenever the white men did not get their way, he said, immediately they threatened battle. There was no reasoning with them, for they were barbarians and uncivilized. Yet the trouble was over nothing more than a flag.