The Demi-Monde: Summer (15 page)

Fresh Bloom Dong E scuttled through the vast and ornate corridors of the Forbidding City, or rather she scuttled whilst doing her very best not to
appear
to be scuttling. Haste and anxiety were frowned upon in the Forbidding City: here in the private realm of Her Celestial Majesty Empress Wu, all had to be peace and tranquillity, nothing was allowed to disturb the
wu wei
that pervaded this, the Centre of the World. But though outwardly Dong E displayed the bland, emotionless expression demanded of all Fresh Blooms, inwardly her mind was a whirl of possibilities and fears.

Fears
.

Fears that this might be the moment when she was to be told that she was no longer a particularly
fresh
Fresh Bloom, that at the age of nineteen she would have to yield to another nuFemme – a
younger
nuFemme – that this was the time when she would join her ancestors, the brief moment when she had brought beauty to the Forbidding City and pleasure to Empress Wu over. Fears that it might be the time that she would be Plucked.

But not only was this a chilling possibility, it was also a depressingly likely one. She was, after all, the oldest of all the Fresh Blooms.

She pushed this fear brusquely to one side. She was still the most accomplished dancer of them all and just two days ago the Empress had complimented her on her rendition of ‘The Solitary Orchid’ which she had played so wonderfully on the
guquin
. And it didn’t do to forget that only the previous night she had been chosen to come to the Empress’s bedchamber to perform the Ritual of the Entwining Ivy. Concubines who had so recently received
chong
– sexual favour – from the Empress and who had performed so skilfully – and enthusiastically – to assist her in keeping her Yin and Yang essences in balance were not candidates for Plucking. And despite her advancing years
she was still the most beautiful of all the Fresh Blooms … and the cleverest.

Anyway, Fresh Blooms were not Plucked by the Empress; that was the role of the Guardian of the Imperial Bedchamber, the much hated NoN Mao, and as the audience she had been summoned to was to be graced by the Empress, the NoN would not be performing a duty as prosaic as a Plucking in her presence. The Empress would never soil her hands or her soul with something so
masculine
as a Plucking.

So there must be another reason why she had been summoned to attend the Empress. And it had been a very urgent summons; she had not even been given sufficient time to have her face enlivened by a wash of lavender water or to enquire of the iChing which colour of kimono would be most auspicious for the trials ahead. It was most perplexing. What, she enquired of herself, could be so urgent as to warrant such a violation of Li?

She almost laughed. The reality was that the inhabitants of the City – especially the younger ones – took delight in flouting the soul-sapping rules and regulations propounded by Li. Of course, the penalties levied on those found to be perpetrating such violations were severe, but this only added a flavouring of excitement to proceedings. As a result, the City was – under its stiff and unbending surface – a hotbed of illicit assignations, illegal love affairs, clandestine intimacies and forbidden intrigues.

As she neared the Great Gates that guarded the entrance to the Hall of Supreme Harmony, Dong E gradually eased her pace, taking deep breaths, slowing her body clock and allowing
wu wei
to infuse her Solidified Astral Ether. The securing of
wu wei
was the goal of all good Confusionists …

Silently Dong E rebuked herself. There were no Confusionists any more; they had all been swept aside by the tide of the
Femme Liberation Movement, by the Yin Revolution. Now all Femmes were HerEticals, and though the thought processes of Confusionism still pervaded the Forbidding City, it was not wise to mention them. Fresh Blooms were not even supposed to be aware of the teachings of Confusionism – especially not of
TooZian
-inclined Confusionism. But when you were as clever as Dong E, it was remarkable what could be gleaned simply by standing silent during audiences and listening. And then, of course, there were the banned books she had read in the Gallery of Literary Profundity and the lessons she learnt during her illicit meetings with PhilosopherNoN Xi Kang.

She came to the Great Gates, protected as always by two implacable GuardNoNs. She bowed. ‘Fresh Bloom Dong E comes to attend the Most Precious and Revered Great Empress Wu, FemmeDated by ABBA to be the Ruler of all the Demi-Monde.’

Although they recognised her, as Li demanded, the NoNs pretended that she was a stranger, eyeing her very suspiciously before returning the bow. Finally though – after the passage of the requisite amount of time required by Li – the CaptainNoN made a careful scrutiny of the List of Honoured Attendees and then made to open the Gate, but before he could turn the handle, Dong E stepped forward and placed a tiny hand on the eunuch’s arm. ‘A moment, Most Honourable CaptainNoN,’ and with that she turned towards one of the enormous mirrors that decorated the corridor. The urgency of the summons she had received, Dong E knew, would be no excuse for a slovenly appearance. That she would appear before the Empress without make-up – subtle, almost invisible make-up to be sure, but vital when a Fresh Bloom had reached the venerable age of nineteen – was one thing, but it would be a gross violation of Li if she should be in any other way careless in her dress or her demeanour. It might even hasten the day when she would be Plucked.

The girl who peered back at her from the mirror was perfect. She was tiny, delicate and ineffably beautiful – as all Fresh Blooms were required to be – her skin flawless and unblemished, her eyes bright and sparkling – she would keep them downcast during the audience in order that the Empress did not become disturbed by the intelligence they signalled – and her mouth small, with well-formed lips. It was a mouth she would keep as tightly closed as she was able during the audience; Imperial NoN Mao had commented just the previous week that her mouth – pretty though it was – housed a too-sharp tongue. The weals from the beating he had inflicted on her arse when she had made the quip about NoNs being able to go about their duties unseen but not unsmelt still smarted.

She lifted a perfectly manicured hand, the pearlescent varnish on her long fingernails twinkling in the light of the gas lamps that lined the corridor, and made a minute – and totally unnecessary – adjustment to the neck of her kimono. This done, she turned to the three OracleNoNs who had accompanied her and examined them in an equally diligent fashion. Each of them carried a wooden box – heavily inlaid with renderings of Epigrams taken from the iChing – and inside each box was one of the three Celestial Coins used by the Imperial TongJi, the shaFemme responsible for the casting of the iChing. That Dong E had been ordered to bring the Celestial Coins to the audience was also an oddity and a violation of Li. Usually the Celestial Coins were only used when the iChing was being consulted during a Rite of 4Telling.

Her critical eye confirmed that each of the OracleNoNs’ appearance was all that it should be, so she nodded to the CaptainNoN, who pushed open the gates to give her entrance to the Hall of Supreme Harmony beyond.

*

Even with her eyes downcast as she tripped lightly towards the line embossed across the floor of the magnificent room, Dong E could see enough to realise that this would be no ordinary audience. The Empress Wu, seated on the Dragon Throne at the very end of the Hall, was attended by the Imperial Secretary, Mao ZeDong …

Stinking pig-dog that he was and the way he was eyeing her showed that his pernicious heterosexual tendencies hadn’t been
totally
extinguished by his gelding. Mao, she was sure, desired her.

… who was both Guardian of the Imperial Bedchamber and the most powerful of all the NoNs charged with administering the Coven. Mao’s attendance signalled that something very important and very serious was to take place, and that she had not been summoned just to entertain and arouse the Empress.

She took a surreptitious glance around the Hall. She saw, standing in front of the dais upon which the Dragon Throne sat, that hideous creature the Imperial TongJi, swathed as always in her black leather robes with her face obscured by a mask concocted from intertwined leather strips and filigree silver. From the brief experiences Dong E had of observing the 4Teller at work she knew the creature was as horrible on the inside as she looked on the outside. She was a Femme who revelled in inflicting pain, as Dong E had learnt to her cost when she had once been gifted to the TongJi for a night by the Empress.

But strange though the TongJi was, this afternoon there was someone even stranger kneeling in the centre of the room, but fear of tripping up – what a violation of Li
that
would be – meant that Dong E was unable to study this person in any detail. All she could see was that this someone was a small, slim
gaijin
Femme clad in green
jiangs
. The peculiar thing was
that she had never heard of a
gaijin
being allowed entry to the Forbidding City.

How odd
.

She reached the line embossed across the centre of the Hall, kowtowed, knocking her head nine times on the ebony floor as the Ritual of Supplication demanded, and then intoned, ‘Fresh Bloom Dong E salutes the True Empress Wu and humbly beseeches ABBA to grant her Nine Thousand Years of Peace and Contentment.’

‘You may rise and approach the Great Empress Wu,’ Mao commanded in his piping voice. ‘Have the OracleNoNs place the Celestial Coins in the drums.’

There was going to be a reading!

Hiding her excitement behind a mask of inscrutability, Dong E swayed back up to her feet and signalled to the OracleNoNs that they should place the Coins in the three drums set in front of the throne. Spinning the Coins in the drums was a vital part of any reading of the iChing, this allowing them time to interact with the Qi that suffused the Kosmos and for ABBA to work Her will on the outcome of the 4Telling.

Once the coins had been placed in the drums, Mao squeaked a brusque ‘You may depart the Imperial Presence, Fresh Bloom Dong E.’

But just as she was retreating backwards towards the Kowtow Line, the Empress spoke. ‘No, Imperial NoN Mao, we wish the Fresh Bloom to remain.’ The Empress gimleted Dong E with a fearsome look. ‘Fresh Bloom Dong E, we understand that your Anglo is that of a native speaker. Is this the truth?’

Dong E bowed. ‘Yes, Your Majesty. I have been blessed by ABBA with a great facility in that tongue.’

‘Blessed?’ sneered Mao. ‘To be able to converse in the pig language of the
gaijin
is not a blessing, Dong E, it is a curse. Anglo and all the other pagan tongues should not be uttered
in the Forbidding City and most certainly not when we are gathered to contemplate the auguries of the iChing.’

‘The Daemon does not speak or comprehend Chinese,’ observed the Empress.

Daemon?
Was the Empress suggesting that this small and unremarkable nuFemme kneeling before the throne was a Daemon? Dong E decided to pay closer attention to the creature: relating its idiosyncrasies would make her the centre of attention when she returned to the Pavilion of Delicious Delights. The other Fresh Blooms would be
so
jealous.

‘If we are to interrogate her, we must either use Anglo or we must have an interpreter. As Dong E is the most accomplished of all the Fresh Blooms in this regard, her assistance in this matter will be invaluable.’

Dong E sensed Mao’s unhappiness. Whilst the Empress and Mao were fluent in all the languages of the Demi-Monde, the other courtiers and advisers gathered in the Hall were not. It was a dilemma for the NoN: if he insisted –
tried
to insist – on her quitting the Hall of Supreme Harmony then the majority of the Court wouldn’t understand a word that was spoken to or by the Empress’s ‘guest’.

‘This is a most profound transgression of Li, Your Majesty,’ bridled Mao. ‘Ritual has it that only those who have attained the Ninth Level of Celestial Competence may be permitted to attend a Rite of 4Telling and, if my memory serves me correctly, Fresh Bloom Dong E is only of the third level.’

The Empress waved the NoN’s objections away. ‘This Rite is itself a transgression of Li, as is the presence of a Daemon in the Forbidding City. Come, Fresh Bloom Dong E, and stand beside us.’

Amazing
, thought Dong E as she trotted forward and up the nine steps that led to the Dragon Throne. Only when she had been summoned to her bedchamber to provide physical
comforts had she been as close as this to the Empress. It was an unbelievable sign of preference and, as she could see from the expression on Mao’s face, it was not one of which the NoN was particularly enamoured.

This matter concluded, the Empress addressed the Daemon with Dong E providing the interpretation. ‘You are a very
small
Daemon, Norma Williams,’ she said with a perfectly pitched element of disdain in her voice. ‘We are
most
disappointed.’