Imperial Woman (33 page)

“Whose robe was uppermost?” the Empress Mother asked.

“His,” the Chief Eunuch replied and gave a snort of laughter. “He, Majesty, will rule in his own house.”

“Well I know it,” she said. “He has been stubborn from his birth. Proceed!”

“Then,” the Chief Eunuch went on, “the two drank wine from two bowls wrapped in red satin, and they exchanged bowls and drank again and they ate rice cakes together in the same proper fashion. After that was held the wedding feast.”

“Was it a great feast?” the Empress Mother asked.

“A proper feast,” the Chief Eunuch said carefully, “neither too much nor too little.”

“And it ended, doubtless,” she said, “with dough strings in chicken broth.”

“Signifying long life,” the Chief Eunuch said.

He paused, waiting for the last question, the one most weighty, that must be asked the next morning after every wedding night throughout the nation. After long pause the question came.

“Was the marriage—consummated?” Her voice was small and strange.

“It was,” the Chief Eunuch said. “I stayed the night and at dawn the bride’s serving woman came to tell me. The Commander lifted the lady’s bridal veil at midnight, using the fulcrum of a weight scale in ritual fashion. The serving woman then withdrew until the hour before dawn, when she was summoned. The elder cousins gave her the stained cloth. The bride was virgin.”

The Empress Mother sat silent now, until the Chief Eunuch, hearing no dismissal, coughed to show he was still there. She started as though she had forgot him.

“Go,” she said, “you have done well. I send reward tomorrow.”

“Majesty, you are too kind,” he said and went away.

She sat on then, watching the sunlight fall upon the brilliant flowers. A late butterfly hung quivering upon a crimson blossom, a creature of imperial yellow. An omen? She must remember to inquire of the Board of Astrologers to know what such an omen meant, a lucky sign surely, appearing at this instant when her heart was breaking. But she would not let it break. Hers was the hand that dealt the wound and hers the heart.

She rose and closed the book, and followed at a distance by her ugly, faithful eunuch, she returned to her own palace.

From this day on the Empress Mother changed the center of her life and fastened it upon her son. He was the cause of all she did, the reason for all she had done, and around his being she wound her concern and her constant thought. He was her healing and her consolation. In the many nights she could not sleep, when imagination presented scenes she could not share, in loneliness she rose and went to find her little boy. While he slept she sat beside him, holding his warm hand, and if he stirred she made it the excuse to lift him into her arms and let him sleep against her breast.

He was strong and beautiful, so fair-skinned her ladies said it was a pity that he was not a girl. Yet he was more than beautiful, for he had a mind which already the Empress knew was brilliant and most able. When he was four years old she had chosen tutors for him, and at five he could read not only his native Manchu, but Chinese books as well. His hand by instinct held the brush as an artist does, and she recognized in the still-childish writing a boldness and a firmness which would one day make him a calligrapher of strength and style. His memory was prodigious, he had but to hear a page read to him a time or two and he knew it. But she would not allow his tutors to spoil him with praise. She scolded them when she heard one exclaim his excellence.

“You must not compare him to any other child,” she said. “You shall only compare what he does with what he can do. Say to him that his Ancestor Ch’ien Lung did far better than he, at five years of age.”

While she thus commanded his tutors, she herself instilled into the child a pride as strong as her own. Not even his teachers might sit before him save only she, who was his mother. Did he dislike a tutor for some manner or for a trick of look or garb, then that one was dismissed, nor would she allow the least question or complaint.

“It is the Emperor’s will,” she said.

Had his been a smaller nature, surely he would have been changed and ruined by power given him so young, but the genius of this child was that he could not be spoiled. His place he took for granted as he accepted sun and rain, and he was tenderhearted, too, so that if a eunuch were whipped for some fault the little Emperor flew to rescue him. The Empress Mother could not so much as pull her woman’s ears for clumsiness, for if she did, the little Emperor burst into tears.

She doubted at such times whether he were strong enough to be a ruler of a vast subject people, and yet at another time he could flash such heat and fury, he could be so imperious, that she was consoled. Indeed, she had once to intervene because her eunuch Li Lien-ying did not please His Majesty, who had commanded him to bring a music box from the foreign shop in the city. As was his duty, the eunuch had first inquired of the Empress Mother whether he should obey the little Emperor, and hearing what the son wished to have she forbade it in these words:

“Surely he shall have no foreign toy. Yet we must not refuse his will. Go to the marketplace and bring him back toy tigers and other beasts to amuse him. He will forget the music box.”

Li Lien-ying obeyed, and he returned to the little Emperor with a basket of such toys, saying that he could not find the foreign shop but on the way he had found these clever creatures made of wood and ivory and with eyes of gems.

The little Emperor saw himself deceived and he turned into a baby tyrant. He pushed aside the toys, he rose from his small throne and strode about his nursery, his arms crossed upon his breast and his eyes, big like his mother’s and as black, glittering with rage.

“Throw them away!” he cried. “Am I an infant that I play with toy animals? How dare you, Li Lien-ying, defy your sovereign? I will have you sliced for this! Send me here my guardsmen!”

And he gave command that the eunuch was indeed to be sliced, the flesh stripped from his bones for insubordination to the Throne. None dared to disobey. The guardsmen came and stood hesitating, reluctant, until a eunuch went in haste to find the Empress Mother, who came at once, her robes flying.

“My son,” she cried, “my son, you may not put a man to death—not yet, my son!”

“Mother,” her child said, very stately, “your eunuch has disobeyed not me but the Emperor of China.”

She was so struck with this distinction between himself and his destiny that she was speechless for a moment, nor would she assert her own power.

“My son,” she said, coaxingly, “think what you do! This eunuch is Li Lien-ying, who serves you in a hundred ways. Have you forgot?”

The little monarch stood his ground, he would have the eunuch sliced, until the Empress Mother summarily forbade it.

Nevertheless, this small matter forced her to see for herself that the boy needed a true man to take the place of the father that he never had.

Upon this she sent resolutely for Jung Lu, now Grand Councilor by her own decree. She had not seen him face to face since his marriage, and to shield her own heart from his penetration, she put on robes of state and sat in her private throne room surrounded by her ladies. True, the ladies stood apart, but there they were, their brilliant garments bright as hovering butterflies.

Jung Lu came in, no longer wearing his commander’s uniform, but gowned as a councilor, his robe of gold brocaded satin reaching to his velvet boots, about his neck a chain of jewels hanging to his waist. Upon his head he wore a hat set with a button of red jade. She had known him always kingly in his looks but at this sight of him her heart quivered like a bird in hand. All the more then must she control her heart, who alone knew its secret. She let him kneel before her and she did not bid him rise. When she spoke it was half carelessly, her eyes imperious and weary.

“My son is old enough to ride a horse and draw a bow,” she said, after greetings. “I remember that you sit a horse well and that you have the trick of being its master. As for the bow, it seems I once did hear that you are a hunter better than the best. I command you then to begin a new duty. Teach my son, the Emperor, to shoot an arrow straight to its target.”

“Majesty, I will,” he said, and did not lift his eyes.

How proud and cold he is, she thought, and now I see his revenge. Love or hate, he will never let me know what is between him and his wife—oh, me, desolate!

But her look did not change. “Begin tomorrow,” she commanded. “Let there be no delay. Take him with you to the archery fields. Each month hereafter I will see for myself what progress he has made and judge how able you are as a teacher.”

“Majesty,” he said, still kneeling, “I obey.”

From that day on, after his morning with his tutors, the little Emperor spent his afternoon with Jung Lu. With tender pains the tall strong man instructed the boy, anxious when the bold boy beat his black Arabian to a gallop and yet he would not cry out his fear because he knew this child must never be afraid. And he was proud to find in this same princely child a true eye upon the arrow and a firm hand upon the bow. When each month the Empress Mother walked along the archery field, surrounded by her ladies, with what confidence did he display the child!

And she, seeing man and boy growing daily nearer to each other, spoke only a few words of cool praise. “My son does well, but so he should,” she said.

Of her own yearning heart she showed not a glimpse. She let it burn inside her breast with pain and joy to see these two, whom she loved, as close as son and father.

“Majesty,” Prince Kung said on a certain day thereafter, “I have summoned to the capital our two great generals, Tseng Kuo-fan and Li Hung-chang.”

The Empress Mother, about to walk to the archery fields as was her habit each day, paused upon the threshold of her private throne room. Her ladies immediately surrounded her in their bright-hued semicircle. Prince Kung was the only man with whom she spoke face to face and by law he was her kinsman, the brother of the late Emperor, and she violated no custom in thus speaking to him, still young and handsome though he was. Nevertheless she was annoyed. He had come today when she had not summoned him, and this was an offense. None should so presume.

She stood, quelling the sudden anger in her breast. Then with her usual dignity and grace she turned and walked to the small throne in the middle of the hall. There she seated herself and she assumed the usual pose of Empress, her hands clasped lightly on her lap, her wide sleeves falling over them. She waited for the Prince to stand before her and was not pleased when, having made his obeisance, he sat down uninvited on a chair to the right of the low dais upon which her throne stood. To show her displeasure she said not a word, but she fastened upon him the piercing gaze of her great black eyes, not meeting his eyes, which would have been unseemly, but fixing her look upon the green jade button which fastened his robe at the throat.

But he did not wait for her to speak first. Instead, he began in his direct fashion to say why he had come.

“Majesty, I have purposely not troubled you with such affairs of state as were small enough for me to attend to for you. Thus I have received day by day the couriers from the south who bring the news of the continual war being waged by the Imperial Armies against the rebels.”

“I am aware of that war,” she said. Her voice was cold. “Did I not a month ago command this same Tseng Kuo-fan to attack the rebels on all sides?”

“He did,” Prince Kung replied, not seeing her anger, “and the rebels drove him back. Fifteen days ago they announced their attack on Shanghai itself. This has stirred up the rich merchants in that city, not only the Chinese but also the white traders, and they are forming their own army, fearing that our soldiers will not be able to defend their city. I therefore sent for our two generals in order that I might know their strategy.”

“You take too much upon yourself,” she said with displeasure.

Prince Kung was amazed at this reproof. Until now the Empress Mother had been usually gracious and ready to approve what he did, and in his zeal to serve the Throne it was true that he had gradually assumed great responsibility. She was, moreover, a woman in spite of all, and he believed that no woman could master the affairs of state and the conduct of a ferocious war such as was now being waged, which did indeed shake the very foundations of the nation. These rebels had spread still further over the southern provinces, destroying city and town and burning villages and harvests, and the people were running everywhere in confusion. Millions had been killed, and in spite of years of fighting, the imperial soldiers were not able to end the rebellion, which now broke out everywhere like a forest fire. He had heard that the small army of Shanghai volunteers, which had been led by a white man surnamed Ward, was to be strengthened and improved by a new leader, one Gordon, an Englishman, for Ward had been shot in battle. This was clear and good enough, except that yet another white man, an American surnamed Bourgevine, was jealous of Gordon and wished to take the leadership for himself and in this he was supported by his fellow Americans. But the rumor was that Bourgevine was an adventurer and a scoundrel whereas Gordon was a good man and a proved soldier. Nevertheless if Gordon were successful in quelling the rebels, would not the English cry out that they had won the victory and must be rewarded? It was not a matter of simple war. Harried and beset, Prince Kung had sent for the two imperial generals, Tseng Kuo-fan and Li Hung-chang, and only when they arrived did he bethink himself of what he had done and that it might not please the proud Empress Mother. Nor would be acknowledge that he was jealous in his heart because he had heard that the Empress Mother sought the advice of Jung Lu now above all. He had heard the rumor, and he dared not inquire of the Chief Eunuch, for all knew that An Teh-hai was the ally of the Empress Mother, and whatever she did was right in his eyes.

“Majesty,” he said, striving to be humble, “if I have overreached myself I ask your pardon and I excuse myself because what I did I have done for your sake.”