Imperial Woman (59 page)

He began to read, and all could hear what he had written. It was a decree of war against the foreigners, to be signed, if she approved, by the Empress and sealed with the imperial seal. He read to the end, while all listened, the silence so deep that his one voice echoed to the roof. When he had finished he waited for her will and all waited with him.

“It is excellent,” the Empress said in a calm cold voice. “Let it be sent forth as a decree from the Throne.”

All cried approval, not loudly but in low solemn tones, and Ch’i Hsiu folded the paper and put it again in his velvet boot and making obeisance he stepped back to his place.

It was now dawn, the usual hour appointed for general audience, to which this was preliminary, and Li Lien-ying came forward and held out his arm and the Empress put her right hand upon his forearm and stepped down from the throne and into her sedan which waited on the terrace. From here she was carried to her own palace to drink tea and eat a few sweetmeats, but without long delay she entered her sedan again and was borne this time to the Hall of Diligent Government. There the Emperor waited for her in his own palanquin, and when she arrived he came down first to receive her, kneeling as she stepped from her sedan.

He gave greeting. “Benevolent Mother!”

She nodded slightly but did not answer him and at the entrance to the Hall she walked slowly, supported on her right by Li Lien-ying and on her left by a second eunuch, her hands resting on their forearms. At this entrance knelt the chiefs of her clan, the princes, the Grand Councilors except Jung Lu, the Presidents of the Six Boards and the Nine Ministries, the twenty-four Lieutenant-generals of the twenty-four Banner Divisions, and the Comptrollers of the Household.

Behind the Empress the young Emperor followed slowly, his face was wax pale, his large eyes downcast and his pallid hands folded on his belt. The Empress sat upon the Dragon Throne and he took the lower throne at her right.

When all courtesies and dignities had been performed, and each group of officials stood in proper place, the Empress began to speak. At first her voice was weaker than she wished, but as she considered what her enemies had done, anger lent strength to her voice and brilliance to her sleepless eyes.

“Our will is set,” she declared, “our mind is firm. We can no longer tolerate, in decency and pride, the outrageous demands of the foreigners. It was our intention indeed to suppress if possible the Chinese Boxers. Now it is no longer possible. They have heard the threats of our enemies, which extend even to my own person, for yesterday they sent their envoys to declare that I must withdraw from the Throne and allow my nephew to rule—and this, though all know how lamentably he has failed as a ruler! And why do they wish me to withdraw? It is because they fear me. They know I am not to be changed, whereas if my nephew sat in my place they could shape him like wax to their fingers. The insolence of these foreigners is exemplified in the French Consul at Tientsin who demanded the Taku forts as part of the price for the death of a mere priest.”

She paused and looked regally about the great Hall. The light of flaring torches fell upon the grave and troubled faces turned toward her and upon the drooping head of the Emperor at her side.

“Will you not speak?” she demanded of him.

The Emperor did not lift his head. He wet his lips and clasped and unclasped again his long thin hands. For a time it seemed he could not speak. She waited, her great eyes unwavering upon him, and at last she heard his mild trembling voice.

“Holy Mother,” he said, wetting his lips between every two words. “I can only say—perhaps it is not for me to say, but since you ask me—it seems to me that what Jung Lu said is wise. That is to say—in order to avoid bloodshed—that is, and since it is impossible for us to fight the world—we having no ships of war or Western weapons—it is better to allow the foreign ministers and their families to leave the city peacefully. But it is not I—of course not I—who can make such decision. It must be as my Benign Mother wills.”

Immediately a member of the Council spoke to the Empress. “I beg you, Majesty, proceed with your own plan,” he said loudly. “Let every foreigner be killed and their kind exterminated. When this is done the Throne will have time and strength next to crush the Chinese rebels who foment the south again.”

The Empress welcomed this approval and she said, “I have heard Jung Lu’s advice and it need not be repeated to me. Let the edict be prepared declaring war.”

She rose as though to end the audience but immediately there was an outcry of dissension. While some upheld and approved what she had decreed, others besought her to hear them and she could only sit down again and hear one after the other, this one declaring that a war would be the end of the dynasty, for China would certainly be defeated, in which case the Chinese would seize the throne. The Minister of the Foreign Office even said that he had found the foreigners entirely reasonable in their dealings and for his part he did not believe that they had sent a document demanding her withdrawal from the Throne. Had not the foreign ladies praised her? Indeed, he had himself noticed that the foreign ministers were milder and more courteous since she had received their ladies.

At this Prince Tuan rose up in anger, and the Empress bade the minister withdraw in order to avoid a quarrel. Then Duke Lan, protector of the Boxers, rose up in his turn to say that he had had a dream the night before, wherein he had seen Yu Huang, the Jade Emperor god, surrounded by a vast horde of Boxers in their patriotic exercises and the god approved.

To this dream the Empress listened with all her heart and she smiled her lovely smile and said mildly that she remembered from her books that so the Jade Emperor had appeared to an Empress in ancient times. “It is a good omen,” she concluded, “and it means that the gods are for us and against the barbarian enemies.” But still she did not promise to use the magic of the Boxers. Who knew it to be true or false?

She dismissed them then and returned to her own palace and not once did she speak to the Emperor again or seem to see him present. Now that her will was done her fears lessened and she was weary and longed for sleep.

“I will sleep this whole day,” she told her ladies while they prepared her for bed. “Let no one wake me.”

It was an hour after noon, at the Hour of Sheep, when she was waked suddenly by the voice of Li Lien-ying outside her door.

“Majesty,” he called, “Prince Ch’ing waits and with him is Kang Yi.”

The Empress could not evade such summons and so, once more robed and in her proper headdress, she went out and there in her antechamber she found the two in much impatience.

“Majesty,” Kang Yi exclaimed when he had made obeisance, “war has begun already. En Hai, a Manchu sergeant, this morning killed two foreigners, one the German minister who rode through the city in his sedan—coming, it was said, to beg you for a special audience. En Hai killed them both, and hastened to Prince Ch’ing to get reward.”

The Empress felt fear clutch her heart dry.

“But how could our edict reach the people so quickly?” she demanded. “Be sure the sergeant should not be rewarded if he killed without command.”

Prince Ch’ing hesitated and cleared his throat. “Majesty,” he said, “since this is crisis, Prince Tuan and Ch’i Hsui issued orders immediately after audience today that all foreigners were to be killed wherever seen.”

The two men looked at each other.

“Majesty,” Kang Yi urged, “indeed, our enemies have wrought their own destruction. The sergeant says that the white guards fired first and killed three Chinese.”

“Oh, horror!” the Empress cried. Her fear became distress and she wrung her hands together. “Where is Jung Lu?” she cried, distracted. “Make haste—fetch him here—the war begins too soon—we are not ready.” So saying she turned and fled into her own chamber again. There refusing food or comfort she waited for Jung Lu and in two hours he came, looking gloomy and too grave for her beseeching eyes.

“Leave me,” she told her ladies. “And do not let another enter,” she told her eunuch.

When all were gone, she looked up at Jung Lu and he looked down at her.

“Speak,” she said faintly. “Tell me what to do.”

“I had the guards ready to escort the foreigners to the coast,” he said in his deep sad voice. “Why did you not obey me?”

She turned away her head and wiped the corners of her eyes with the kerchief hanging on her jade button.

“Now having disobeyed me,” he went on, “you ask me what to do.”

She sobbed softly.

“Where will you find the monies to pay these Boxers?” he demanded. “Do you think they work for nothing?”

She turned her head again to look up at him to beg him to advise her, help her, save her once more, and lifting up her eyes to his face she saw him suddenly turn ashen gray and clutch his left side and then before her eyes sink to the floor.

She ran to him and lifted his hands but they were listless and cold. The lids of his eyes fell halfway down, the pupils of his eyes were fixed and staring, and he drew his breath in great gasps.

“Oh alas, alas!” she cried in a loud voice, and at the cry her ladies came running into the hall and seeing the Empress kneeling beside the tall form of the Grand Councilor they screamed in turn so that eunuchs hastened in.

“Lift him up,” the Empress commanded. “Put him upon the opium couch.”

They lifted Jung Lu up and laid him upon a double opium couch at the far end of the hall, and they put a hard pillow under his head, and while they did this the Empress sent a small eunuch flying for the Court physicians, who came instantly when they heard the news. And in all this Jung Lu did not move or cease his labored breathing.

“Majesty,” the chief physician said. “The Grand Councilor rose from a sickbed to come to you.”

The Empress turned on Li Lien-ying with terrible eyes. “Why was I not told?”

“Most High,” Li Lien-ying said, “the Grand Councilor forbade it.”

What could she say ? She was confounded by the steadfast love of this man, who had given up all he was or could be for her sake. She controlled the turmoil of her heart, her love and fear equally to be hidden, and she made her voice calm. “Let him be carried to his own palace, and do you, imperial physicians, stay by him night and day. And send me news of his health every hour, day and night. As for me, I shall go to the temple to pray.”

The eunuchs stepped forward to obey and the physicians after obeisance followed, and when all were gone the Empress rose and without speaking to her ladies, who circled behind her, she walked to her private temple. It was now the Hour of the Dog, after day and before night, and twilight filled the courts. The air was sad and still, the sun’s heat still lingering and the night winds delayed. She walked slowly as though she bore an infinite burden and when she came to the temple she went to her beloved goddess, the Kuan Yin. Lifting three sticks of sandalwood incense, she lit them at the flickering candle and thrust them into the ashes of the jade urn upon the altar. Then she took up the rosary of jade beads which lay upon the altar waiting always for her hand and as she counted the beads she prayed in her heart the prayer of a lonely woman.

“You who are also lonely,” she prayed silently to the goddess, “hear the prayer of Your younger sister. Deliver me from my enemies, who would take this glorious land which is my inheritance, and cut it into pieces like a melon to be eaten. Deliver me—deliver me of my enemies! This is still my first prayer. And next I pray for the nameless one whom I love. He fell before me today. It may be this is his hour to die. Sustain me! But intercede, I pray You, Elder Sister, before the Old Man in Heaven and let the hour be postponed. I am Your younger sister! If the hour cannot be postponed, then dwell in me that I may in every circumstance, even in loneliness and in defeat, bear myself proudly. You, Elder Sister, look down upon all mankind with unchanging face, Your beauty untouched, Your grace unmoved. Give me the strength so to do.”

She told the beads one after the other until her very prayers were drained away and only the last bead remained. And now she felt her last prayer was answered. Though her enemies prevail, though her love die, she would not let her face be changed nor her beauty fade nor her grace be moved. She would be strong.

Alone now the Empress lived through the days, while war raged about her, each day a month in length and weight, and into her awful loneliness few voices penetrated. She heard the voice of Prince Tuan.

“Majesty,” he implored her, “these Boxers have a secret talisman, a circle of yellow paper which each carries on his person when he goes to battle. On this paper there is a creature painted in red, a creature not man nor devil. It has feet but no head, and its face is pointed and surrounded by four halos. The eyes and eyebrows are exceedingly black and burning. Up and down its strange body are written these magic words, ‘I am Buddha of the Cold Cloud. Before me the black God of Fire leads my way. Behind me Lao Tzu himself supports me.’ In the upper left hand corner of this paper are these words: ‘Invoke first the Guardian of Heaven’ and on the lower right hand corner are written these words: ‘Invoke secondly the Black Gods of Pestilence.’ Whoever learns these mystic words destroys by each incantation a foreign life somewhere in our country. Surely, Majesty, it does no harm to learn the magic words.”

“It does no harm,” the Empress agreed, and she learned the mystic words and repeated them seventy times a day and Li Lien-ying praised her for each time, while he counted how many foreign devils were gone. And he told her that wherever the sword of a Boxer touched, whether on flesh or on wood, flame burst out, and he told her that whenever an enemy was captured alive the Boxers sought the will of Heaven by this means, that they rolled a ball of yellow paper and set it afire, and if the ashes went upward, the enemy was to be killed but if the ash fell to the earth, he was not killed. Many such stories this eunuch told the Empress and she doubted them yet was so hard pressed that she half believed them, too, wanting much to believe that somewhere help could be found.