Imperial Woman (21 page)

“Very grave,” Prince Yi agreed in a high little voice.

“So grave,” Prince Kung said, “that we must ponder the question of whether this Elgin, having seized the city of Canton and there entrenched himself, may demand that he be received here at the Imperial Court.”

Tzu Hsi struck one hand upon the other. “Never!”

“Venerable,” Prince Kung said sadly, “I venture to suggest that we cannot refuse so strong an enemy.”

“We must use cunning,” she retorted. “We must still promise and delay.”

“We cannot prevail,” Prince Kung declared.

But the Grand Councilor Su Shun now came forward. “We did prevail two years ago when the Englishman Seymour broke into the city of Canton. You will remember, Prince, that he was driven out again. At that time a bounty of thirty silver pieces was offered for every English head, and when such heads were presented to the Viceroy he ordered that they be carried through the streets of the city. He commanded also that the foreign warehouses be burned down. Upon this the English withdrew.”

“They did, indeed,” Prince Yi agreed.

Still Prince Kung refused to agree. He stood tall and handsome and strong, too young to speak so boldly as he did before these men. Nevertheless he spoke. “The English withdrew only to send for more armies. Now those armies have come. Moreover, this time the French, desiring to seize our possession, Indo-China, have promised to aid the English against us and once more they have used the excuse of a French priest tortured and killed in Kwangsi. Moreover, again, it is said that this Lord Elgin has received instructions from his ruler, the Queen of England, to demand residence here in our capital for a minister from her court whenever she shall so wish.”

Tzu Hsi was unchanged in her will but such was her respect for Prince Kung and her desire to keep his loyalty that she spoke courteously.

“I do not doubt that you are right, and yet I wonder if you are. Surely my sister-queen of the west does not know what this lord demands in her name. Else why is it that all this did not happen to us before when we drove them away?”

Prince Kung explained, still patiently. “The delay, Empress, has been caused only by the Indian mutiny of which I told you some months ago. You remember that the whole of India is now conquered by England and when rebellion rose there recently and many Englishmen and women were killed, the English armies put it down with frightful force. Now they come here for further conquest. I fear—I fear—it is their intent one day to possess our country as they do India. Who knows how far their greed will reach? An island people is always greedy, for when they multiply they have nowhere to spread. If we fall, the whole of our world will fall with us. This we must prevent at any cost.”

“We must, indeed,” Tzu Hsi agreed.

She was still unbelieving. Her voice was not grave nor her manner concerned as she went on. “Yet the distances are great, our walls are strong, and I think disaster cannot happen soon or easily. Moreover, the Son of Heaven is too ill to be disturbed. Soon we must leave the city for the summer. Let action be postponed until the hot season is past and we have returned from the Summer Palace. Send word to the Viceroy to promise the English to memorialize the Throne and present their demands. When we receive the memorial we will send word that the Son of Heaven is ill and we must wait until the cold weather comes before he is well enough to make decisions.”

“Wisdom,” the Grand Councilor cried.

“Wisdom, indeed,” Prince Tsai now said, and Prince Yi nodded his head up and down. Prince Kung kept silent, except for the heavy sighs he drew up from his bosom.

But Tzu Hsi would not heed these sighs and she put an end to the audience. From the Imperial Library she went to the palace where her son lived with his nurses and his eunuchs and she stayed with him for hours, watching him while he slept and holding him upon her knees when he woke, and then when he wished to walk, she let him cling to her hand. In him was the source of her strength and resolution, and when she felt afraid she came here and renewed her courage. He was her tiny god, her jewel in the lotus, and she adored him with all her heart and being. Her heart was soft with love and she caught the child to her and held him close to her and longed that she could keep him as safe as once he had been in her own body.

From these hours with the child Tzu Hsi returned to her own palaces refreshed and she set herself to her continuous task, to study all letters and memorials which came before the Throne and to decide what the Emperor must command in reply.

In these months before the summer she arranged for the marriage of her sister to the Seventh Prince, whose name was Ch’un, his personal name I-huan. She had private audience with this Prince, that she might observe him herself on her sister’s behalf, and though he had an ugly face and a head too large for his body, she found him to be honest and simple, a man without ambition for himself and grateful to her for the alliance with her sister. The marriage was made before the departure of the Court for Yüan Ming Yüan, but there was no feasting, in respect for the illness of the Emperor, and Tzu Hsi herself only knew that on the appointed day her sister went with proper ceremony to Prince Ch’un’s palace, which was outside the walls of the Forbidden City.

The summer passed sadly even at Yüan Ming Yüan, for while the Emperor was ill no music could be made, no theatricals allowed, no merrymaking enjoyed. The glorious days followed one upon another, but Tzu Hsi, mindful of her dignity, did not so much as command a boating party on the Lotus Lake and she lived much alone. Nor did she dare to recognize still further her kinsman, Jung Lu, for gossip had sprung up after the birthday feast like smoke in a dry forest and it was everywhere known that to him she had once been betrothed. Until her power was beyond assail, she could not do more for Jung Lu, lest what she did be used against her to the Emperor, or if he died, against her son. Young though she was and passionate, she was mistress of herself, and when she wished she could be strong in patience.

The Court returned early in the autumn of that year to the Forbidden City, the harvest feasts were observed quietly, and as the peaceful months passed by Tzu Hsi believed that she had decided wisely not to allow a war to be made against the foreigners. For the Viceroy Yeh sent up better news. He reported that the Englishmen, though angry at delays, were helpless, and that their leader, Lord Elgin, “passed the days at Hong Kong stamping his feet and sighing.”

“Proof,” Tzu Hsi declared in triumph, “that the Queen of the West is my ally.”

Only the Emperor’s ill health made Tzu Hsi sad. She did not pretend even in her own heart to love the motionless pallid figure that lay all but speechless upon his yellow satin cushions, but she feared his death because of the turmoil of the succession. The Heir was still so young that were the Dragon Throne to fall to him now, there would be mighty quarrels over who should be Regent. She, and she alone, must be the Regent, but was she able yet to seize the Throne and hold it for her son? Strong men in Manchu clans would come forward to assert their claims. The Heir might even be set aside and a new ruler take his place. Ah, there were plots everywhere. She knew it, for Li Lien-ying brought her news that Su Shun was plotting and persuading Prince Yi to plot with him and Prince Cheng made an evil third. There were lesser plots and weaker plotters. Who could know them all? Her fortune was that her advisor, Prince Kung, was honorable and made no plots, and that the Chief Eunuch, An Teh-hai, with all his command in the palaces and over the other eunuchs, was loyal to her, because she was the beloved of his master, the Emperor. From habit first and then because he had fared well under his master, the Chief Eunuch loved this frail ruler and he stayed always near the vast carved bed upon which he lay, unmoving and seldom speaking. It was the Chief Eunuch who heard when the Emperor whispered and he who leaned over him to hear what was wanted. Sometimes in the night when others slept, the Chief Eunuch went alone to fetch Tzu Hsi, to tell her that the Emperor was afraid and that he craved the touch of her hand and the sight of her face. Then, wrapped in dark robes, she followed the Chief Eunuch along the silent passageways and she entered the dim chamber where the candles always burned. She took her seat beside the great bed, and she held the Emperor’s hands, so chill and lifeless, between hers, and she let him gaze at her and made her eyes tender toward him, to comfort him. Thus she sat until he slept and she could steal away again. The Chief Eunuch, watching from a distance, perceived her perfect patience and her steadfast courtesy and careful kindness, and he began from that day to fix upon her the same devotion and loyalty that he had given the Emperor since first he came into the gates, a child of twelve, castrated by his own father that he might serve inside the imperial city. He was a thief sometimes, this eunuch, he took what he liked for himself from the vast stores belonging to his master, and all knew that he had heaped great treasures for himself. He could be cruel, too, and men died by rope and knife when he held his thumb downward to make the sign of death. But in that lonely heart of his, hidden beneath the layers of his increasing flesh and fat, he loved his sovereign, and him only, and when he saw the Emperor daily nearer death, he transferred that strange and steadfast devotion, hour by hour, to the woman, young and beautiful and strong, whom the Emperor loved above all others and would so love until he ceased to breathe.

None were prepared, therefore, for the hideous news which reached the palace gates one day at twilight, in the early winter of that year. It was a day like others, a gray day, chill and threatening snow. The city had been quiet, some business done, but without liveliness. Within the palace there had been little coming to and fro, no audience, for matters of importance had come before Prince Kung on the Emperor’s behalf, and decisions were postponed.

Tzu Hsi had spent the day in painting. Lady Miao, her teacher, stayed by her side, no longer instructing or forbidding, but watching while her imperial pupil brushed a picture of the branches of a peach tree in bloom. It was no easy task to please her teacher and Tzu Hsi took pains and worked in silence. First she must ink her brush in such a way that at one stroke she could give the branch its outline and also its shading, and this she did, with care and perfectly.

Lady Miao commended her. “Well done, Venerable.”

“I am not finished,” Tzu Hsi replied.

With equal care she drew another branch, intertwining with the first. To this Lady Miao remained silent. Tzu Hsi gathered her eyebrows into a frown.

“You do not like what I have done?”

“It is not what I like or do not like, Venerable,” the lady said. “The question you must ask yourself is whether the master painters of peach blossoms would so have intertwined two branches in this fashion.”

“Why would they not?” Tzu Hsi demanded.

“Instinct, not reason, rules where art is concerned,” the lady said. “Simply, they would not.”

Tzu Hsi made her eyes big and pressed her red lips together, and prepared contention, but Lady Miao refused to contend.

“If you, Venerable, wish to intertwine the branches thus, then do so,” she said mildly. “The time has come when you paint as you wish.”

She paused and then said thoughtfully, her delicate head lifted to gaze at her pupil, “You are an amateur, Venerable, and it is not needful that you should be professional, as I must be, for I am an artist, and all my family have been artists. Yet were you free to be an artist, bearing no burdens of nation and state, you, Venerable, would have been among the greatest of all artists. I see power and precision in your brush, and this is genius, which needs only use to be complete. Alas, your life has not time enough for this greatness to be added to all the others you possess.”

She could not finish. While Tzu Hsi listened, her great eyes fixed upon her teacher’s face, the Chief Eunuch burst into the pavilion where the ladies sat. Both turned to him, amazed and startled, and indeed he was a fearful sight. He had run all the way from somewhere, his eyes were rolling and ready to burst, his breath coming out of him in gasps that tore his breast, his bulk of flesh pale and wet with sweat. Two streams were running down his jellied cheeks, in spite of cold.

“Venerable,” he bawled, “Venerable—prepare yourself—”

Tzu Hsi rose instantly to hear the news of death—whose death?

“Venerable,” the Chief Eunuch roared, “a messenger from Canton—the city’s lost—the foreigners have seized it—the Viceroy is taken! He was climbing down the city wall to escape—”

She sat down again. It was disaster but not death.

“Collect your wits,” she said sternly to the trembling eunuch. “I thought from your looks that the enemy was inside the palace gates.”

Nevertheless she put down her brushes, and Lady Miao withdrew silently. The Chief Eunuch waited, wiping his sweat away with his sleeves.

“Invite Prince Kung to join me here,” Tzu Hsi commanded. “Then do you return and take your place with the Emperor.”

“Yes, Venerable,” the Chief Eunuch said humbly, and made haste away.

In a few minutes Prince Kung came alone, bringing no councilor or other prince. He knew the worst, for he himself had received from the exhausted courier the memorial written in an unknown hand, but bearing the Viceroy’s own seal, and he brought it with him.

“Read it to me,” Tzu Hsi said, when she had acknowledged his obeisance.

He read it slowly and she listened, sitting upon her little throne in her own library, her eyes thoughtful upon the pot of yellow orchids on the table. She heard all that the courier had told the Chief Eunuch, and much more. Six thousand Western warriors had landed and they had marched to the gates of Canton and there had attacked. The imperial forces had made a show of noise and bravery and then had fled and the Chinese rebels hiding inside the city had opened the gates and let the foreign enemy come in. The Viceroy, hearing the evil news, had run from his palace to a parquet on the city wall and then his officers had let him down by a rope. But halfway down the Chinese had seen him dangling and they shouted to the enemy, who swarmed up the wall and cut him down and took him prisoner. All high officials were taken prisoners, and the Viceroy was deported to Calcutta in distant India. Then the Western men, arrogant and honoring no one, set up a new government, all Chinese, and thus defied the Manchu dynasty. Still worse, the memorial continued, the Englishmen declared that they had new demands from their own Queen Empress but they would not say what these were. Instead, they insisted that they would appear before the Emperor in Peking and tell him what they would have.